November 11, 2019

B2B Digital Marketing Spotlight Roundup: 7 November 2019

Our B2B Digital Marketing Spotlight last Thursday was a great chance for those working in the B2B sector to network and share ideas. Our five expert speakers from the industry talked about a variety of topics, including account-based marketing, social media, and translation. If you missed the event or just want to recap, read on and follow the links to the full presentations.

Maximising B2B Lead Generation – Quality Not Quantity

John Wilkes, Co-Founder at Somebody Digital, spoke about the prominence of online reviews and of customers seeking reviews before purchasing a product. This is the research economy. John stressed that focusing on traffic is just vanity because traffic is not the same as leads. The focus should be on the quality rather than the quantity of leads.

It’s essential to set up KPIs in a way that means the data you collect will show you how you’re performing. John discussed the non-linear, multi-touch funnel and how it can be used and presented statistics on people’s online behaviour. He outlined some examples of clients for whom Somebody Digital have cut the media cost while increasing the number of leads they got. Watch John’s presentation here.

 

Four Rules of Building an Account-Based Marketing (ABM) Plan

Salome Imedashvili, Marketing Director at Emarsys, outlined how to develop an account-based marketing plan, breaking it down into four main rules: keep data clean, build and use insights, see ABM as account-based sales and marketing, and be patient.

Salome demonstrated the importance of keeping data clean with an example of a Christmas campaign that was not as successful as Emarsys had hoped. She stressed that the sales team are interested in revenue numbers, not click-through rates and traffic, which means that reporting on the right metrics is essential.

Salome offered useful tips and advice on how to plan out your ABM strategy, emphasising the need for patience as it will take six to nine months to see results. Watch Salome’s presentation here.

 

Using Social Media Ads to Grow Your B2B Brand in 2020

Rhodri Williams, Head of Digital at WebBox, discussed the use of social media in B2B marketing and the things you need to think about when beginning a B2B social media strategy. He talked about how to understand your audience, see what their interests are, and how to develop a relationship with them.

Rhodri outlined different types of Facebook audiences: saved, custom, and lookalike. He explained what all these involve and how you can use them in your marketing strategy. Rhodri showed how to gain insight into what your competitors are doing on social media so you can check you’re keeping up. He focused on building trust with your prospects, making sure that you’re not too salesy while remaining professional. Watch Rhodri’s presentation here.

 

Content, Experience, Translation, the Opportunity and Challenge in Having a Truly Global Voice

Neil Campbell, Global Director, Sales and Marketing, at Lingo24, spoke about the advantages of effective translation in your brand’s content. He explained that most people prefer to buy online in their own language, meaning that offering other languages can improve sales. Neil showed how to find the right markets and languages for your brand and the benefits this offers you.

He walked through the potential problems with translation, such as it being too slow, too expensive, or too difficult to maintain the brand’s voice across different languages, and demonstrated how technology can help. Neil then presented examples of clients that have built strong brand followings and how they have translated their content. Watch Neil’s presentation here.

 

Building a Social Selling Strategy for Your Team

Jake Potter, Global Social Media Manager at Colt, talked to us about how to create a social selling strategy. This means using social media to develop relationships with people, encouraging them to trust your brand and advocate it. Jake explained that this is a useful technique as people are more likely to pay attention when other people promote a brand than when a brand promotes themselves. Sharing content also spreads awareness of the brand.

Jake emphasised the importance of having a strategy in place when you use social selling in order to ensure content is consistent with your brand and that you are able to track your results. He advised that social selling be performed by the marketing team and shared useful tips on exactly how it should be carried out, from start to finish. Watch Jake’s presentation here.