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SEO and PPC are two of the most well-known strategies for driving traffic, leads and new business to grow B2B companies. It’s no secret that both paid (PPC) and organic (SEO) strategies are key to a successful marketing strategy but how and when to use them can sometimes be difficult to decide. In this article we'll outline the importance of investing in both SEO and PPC as part of your digital B2B Marketing strategy. Introduction to PPC and SEO Google Ads (PPC) Google Ads are effective because they display in the top three results, depending on a number of factors, including your keywords and location. Google has built a complex algorithm using millions of pieces of data every second to determine which ads should be displayed in the best positions. Using your own keyword phrases to bid on will increase your potential visibility and profitability. Google Organic (SEO) SEO is defined as the practice of optimizing websites so that they are highly valuable to search engine crawlers. This means that a website that has been optimized for search engines will be able to appear high in the rankings on a search engine result page (SERP). Things to consider before you start a PPC or SEO campaign There are a number of factors to consider when deciding whether SEO or PPC should be your #1 priority. Both SEO and PPC campaigns are highly effective in their own right but you can’t rely on one strategy over another because they both complement each other. Both SEO and PPC were mentioned in the same sentence by Google’s CEO, Eric Schmidt, who went on to say that “Both are very important”. The right keywords and phrases aren’t enough. It’s important that your ads are focused on the right audience and are as relevant as possible. This is where optimizing your website with the help of an SEO Agency can really help. 1. Target Audience Google AdWords allows you to target your ads to a highly specific audience, you can specify your target audience by: Location of the individual using Google when searching for your keywords (e.g. ‘Targeting people in Berlin’), interests of the individual (e.g. ‘Industry magazine subscribers’) and their relationship status (single, married etc.). 2. Cost per Click Cost per click is the amount you pay for every time you click on your ad. The higher you bid the more your ads appear in the display and purchasing options, so make sure to select the right option for your campaign. 3. Search Volume The amount of times a keyword is searched for per month. It’s important that you keep track of search volumes as they change every day, by comparing figures from previous months or years, which will allow you to adjust your strategy accordingly. Developing an efficient B2B PPC Strategy To be able to have your PPC campaigns running in the background whilst you work on SEO you need have a reliable and efficient PPC campaign that you know will drive a certain number of leads each month. Efficiency is the key word here. What we mean by that is spending the right amount for the leads generated and not having the more money more leads approach - which comes later. Why more ad spend doesn’t always mean more B2B leads One common misconception is that because PPC campaigns are all based around data and automation is that once you have a few leads come through you can simply invest more budget and see a larger return on investment. This may be the case when selling sneakers but for B2B companies this is often not the case, especially when you work in a niche market and you're trying to obtain higher value deals when search volumes are quite low. Actions to take the first 2-3 weeks of the campaign Step 1: Research your competitors - It's important that you find out as much as you can about your competitors, and the keywords they are investing on. You need to know if they're spending money on this particular keyword and see what their landing pages look like by checking organic search results. This will allow you to tailor your PPC campaigns to make sure that you're not being too aggressive on these keywords. Step 2: Define your target audience - Once you have researched your competitors, you will know what keywords they are targeting and therefore this is the first place to start when defining your target audience. You need to work out who your competitors are and then create lists of the different types of personas or buying center roles that might be looking for you via PPC. Step 3: Define your offer - You need to get really clear on what it is that you're actually selling. You probably don't want to be selling everything all at once but rather over a period of time. Decide how much you are willing to spend on your PPC campaign and what the maximum number of keywords that can target is for each campaign. These numbers will vary depending on the type of business you are running and what you're trying to achieve with your PPC campaign. Intent Based PPC Bidding Strategies Another big issue within B2B Marketing PPC campaigns is trying to optimize them when you have low conversion volumes and therefore limited data. Often clients will not immediately fill out a contact us form, this makes it hard to understand which areas of the accounts are driving higher quality users that have a higher potential to convert. One way we discovered to get over this issue is by using an intent based bidding structure where we assign values to different user behaviors that reflect different levels of user intent. You can use different actions on a website to be able to break down a customer journey before someone actually fills in a contact form on a website. In this scenario you should assign a fictional value to the different conversion actions to train Google to understand your business better. Investing in SEO in the meantime In order to build a strong foundation for your PPC campaigns, you need to focus on SEO right away - a fact we see is often neglected. This is because of the lag between the work done and then seeing results. Sometimes you’ll only start to see results from an SEO campaign 3-6 months after the investment has been made, so it’s important not to delay this. What SEO specialists do for you SEO specialists usually deal with three main areas: technical, links, and content.The technical aspects refer to the usability of your website, is it fast? Easy to use? Linking is a part of SEO and is mainly about finding reputable websites linking to your own website.These links are an important indicator of relevance. A link is like a vote of confidence from one website to another, and of course this helps Google determine how useful your website is. The bit you focus the most for B2B SEO is really quality content. Content is the fuel for a successful website and your long-term SEO campaign. The types of content that technical SEO is a one-off project a lot of the time and links often go hand-in-hand with content as that's what people link to. So how do you go about it? Content for SEO The biggest mistake we see a lot B2B Marketers do in their SEO efforts is writing content about what they think is useful rather than what their potential buyers and users actually look for. Google exists to answer users’ questions with the most relevant and accurate information. Thus, logic dictates here that if we can figure out what those questions are then we should be trying to answer them as good as we can. This is where using search data from keyword research & content research tools comes in handy. Summary: How to combine your PPC & SEO Strategy We’ve mentioned how you can run PPC and SEO campaigns for your B2B company and how the intent based approach works for each, but how do you find the balance and how does PPC affect SEO and visa versa? Running the intent based PPC campaign structure means that you put most of your budget into these high intent keywords further down the funnel. This is because it’s much harder to rank for these terms organically as they are the most competitive. They are also the most expensive when it comes down to cost per click. You eventually may want to get to a point where you rank #1 for the term organically but then bid on it too. You are then owning potentially 40/50% of the screen view. The ultimate goal every B2B Marketer is aiming for. In order to win high-value deals in a B2B company, you need to move to an intent-based SEO and PPC strategy. This means training the Google Ads algorithms by feeding it more data than it currently has and for SEO it means writing blog articles to answer the questions your buyers are asking online using keyword research. If you want to stay up to date on B2B Marketing please forward our weekly newsletter to likeminded people in the B2B Marketing & Sales arena.

In business, we all want to see results for our efforts. In order to measure those results, we use metrics - a quantifiable measure of progress or accomplishment. When it comes to B2B marketing, there are a few vanity metrics that can lead us astray if we're not careful. There are so many vanity metrics out there, it's hard to know which ones you should pay attention to and which ones can be ignored. In this article, I'm going to share with you the vanity metrics that may be relevant in B2B marketing and how you can avoid them. Five Types of Vanity Metrics So what actually is a vanity metric? First, vanity metrics are generally those KPIs that measure an individual or organization's level of "success." There are five types of vanity metrics: self-imposed, external, scientific, positive, and negative. 1. Self-Imposed Vanity Metrics These metrics relate to a person's goals or an organization's goals. For example, Daniel is a sales person who wants to increase his sales every month by 10 percent. He sets up a chart to track his progress and creates a vanity metric called "Sales per month" that is calculated by taking the number of sales he has in this month and dividing it by the number of months in the year. Setting up this metric is Daniel's way to measure his success. If he hits his goal, he will view that as a good thing. If he misses it, it will be a bad thing. If he keeps hitting his goal, it will be seen as a good thing more than a bad thing. Self-Imposed vanity metrics are not going to be useful in measuring the true performance of your company or role in the company. Sales per month, for example, is very difficult to use as a real performance metric. You may have a customer who pays you on time every month, but they are not your typical customer and you don't expect them to stay with you every month. Using your sales metric to gauge sales performance is like having a car that goes 200 km/hour and only uses 30 litres of gas. In some cases, this kind of vanity metric gets out of hand, also in Marketing. We have seen Marketing managers who set goals to increase their number of page views on their website by 100,000 within a year. I don't know why they even care what their page views are, let alone if it's important enough to track. 2. External Vanity Metrics External metrics are what other people say about you. You can't control them or set them up like you do for self-imposed vanity metrics. The first one that comes to mind was the "Klout" score. In essence, Klout was a company that analyzed social media activity and then assigned you a number between 1 and 100 based on how influential they believe you were. I think external metrics can never be very useful to your company. If you had been using Klout scores as a metric, then you know probably know where Klout is today ("unheard of"). 3. Scientific Vanity Metrics Scientific metrics are useful for measuring where your money is going and for tracking sales. If you have a profit goal, then you may want to track how much money comes in compared to the amount of money that goes out to create income. The main thing to remember is that every business has a fixed cost. If you want to grow, you need to make more sales or/and make your current sales more profitable. 4. Positive Vanity Metrics We call these metrics "vanity" because it's hard to know what value they are when first starting out. I remember when the first company I worked for had a great quarter and my boss was asking me what my favorite vanity metric was. I said "metrics are vanity" and it wasn't very appreciated in the office I was working in. People forgot what I was trying to say. A typical positive vanity metric is when people are leaving positive feedback on Amazon or your Website. This could also be a negative vanity metric, because you have no idea if they actually backed up their comments with money. A positive vanity metric could also be when people are talking about your brand on Social Media and you can count how many likes or retweets you get. You may think that if your customers are getting excited about your product, then it must be a good product. It could be a great product, but you don't know that until you take the time to talk to your customers and evaluate the situation. Maybe there is an issue with one of your products that you need to fix or a problem with this particular customer. 5. Negative Vanity Metrics These metrics are some of the most dangerous things that can happen to a business since they don't show any results until it's too late. A negative vanity metric is a person's online review, their online reputation, or one of your competitors on Social Media. You don't see any immediate results because it's all about people talking about your business and sharing their thoughts about your company. You could only see the benefits of them talking about you one to two years later. For instance, a negative review on Google could harm your business in the short term but it could cause more damage when someone leaves a bad review on your Website or Bing. The only way to stop a bad review from spreading is to own the search results. You can't change what people think of you, but you can control how they find out about you. A negative vanity metric could also be when a person talks about your company and then tells their friends and family not to do business with you. If someone is not happy with your product, it might make sense for them to warn their friends and family about doing business with you. One of the main reasons they won't do business with you is because they don't trust you. You should have built enough trust with them that they don't feel the need to warn their friends and family. The Bottom Line is your Pitfall Cure I remember when we used to be the agency to do all sorts of things for our clients and we thought that was a good thing. We would be the last ones to say no to reviewing followers. We liked it when we our new clients were receiving lots of positive feedback and engagements. The only problem is that you don't know if people are not doing business with you because they don't like you or because they just don't have time to do business with you.The main thing to remember is that vanity metrics are nice and can be helpful to your company. The problem is that vanity metrics can internally become more relevant than actual performance KPIs. Conclusion on Vanity Metrics for B2B Vanity metrics can be deceiving and should not be the only factor when measuring success in a business. However, there are some specific vanity metrics that are relevant in B2B companies which we have outlined for you. By avoiding these measures of success, you will be able to focus on more important factors that will actually move your company forward. By subscribing to our newsletter, you’ll get access to more information about how to measure your B2B Marketing efforts effectively and avoid these traps. Thanks for reading!

B2B sales & marketing is complex. When you're dealing with a lot of moving parts, it's important to create a simple overview so you can manage your time and stay on top of key deadlines. The post describes an approach for mapping out the B2B sales & marketing workflow . Using a workflow map we can better organize our sales & marketing teams and optimize the sales process from start to finish. You'll also be able to see whether or not you have enough resources and what tasks need more attention. For this post, we explain a simple framework most effective for companies selling software, hardware, or other services that have a relatively large number of customers. A workflow map helps you to see how each stakeholder is involved in your business model and which activities are most important for them. Why map your B2B Marketing Workflow? Creating a workflow map can help you think about all of the stakeholders that are involved in your B2B marketing & sales process by creating an overview where they can see how their work fits into the bigger picture. This framework will allow you to effectively manage your time and stay on top of key deadlines. Using a workflow map you can better organize our sales & marketing team and optimize the sales process from start to finish. You'll also be able to see whether or not your business has enough resources and what tasks need more attention. Creating a complete picture of your B2B marketing & sales process will also help you create a concrete list of tasks that are needed for each key activities, which in turn facilitates the planning process. What is a Workflow? An organizational workflow is the process of managing tasks in relation to each other within an organization or project plan. A workflow helps to maintain transparency, efficiency and economy of resources. The concept of workflow implies different processes and procedures among teams, departments or divisions that help in managing the performance. It is a function that involves the passing of documents or information from one department/division to another for further action. Workflows streamline operations, reduce delays, increase accountability and improve communication between business groups throughout an organization. Every organization has different needs, but every organization must have a method of managing the work that arises. If a company is not being managed properly and efficiently, it will not be able to meet its targets and goals. A workflow process is necessary for efficient management of tasks and time allocation. Types of Workflow Frameworks 1. Solo Workflow Solo Workflow is when one person works on a topic by themselves. Typically this would be for one person startups, such as building a game, a program or an application. The main benefit of working with a solo workflow is that it is the fastest way to get something done. If you are working on the initial design, writing code or documentation you don't have to worry about waiting for someone else. If you choose to create a documentation plan before starting your solo development, it will save you a lot of time and effort in the end. When I was working on my first book, I didn't have any experience with this particular workflow, so I had to make everything up as I went along. I ended up spending around 40 hours documenting the first part of the project, which doesn't seem like too much, but I could have been doing other important things with my time. The biggest problem with this workflow is that it doesn't offer much in terms of team collaboration or product management. If you are working solo on a project, you will need to pay a lot of attention to how things are going and make sure that your deliverables are of the highest quality. Even though you are working by yourself, you should definitely consider creating a documentation plan or at least maintaining documentation as you go through the development process. You can use the information in this article to help you create a documentation plan. Solo workflows are great for people working on their own projects but if you plan to work with other people, it might be harder to pull off. I would recommend this workflow if you are working on a side-project or if you decide that you don't want to manage a team. If you adhere to this workflow, there is no need for project management or version control software. 2. Partner Workflow Partner Workflow is when you work on a project with other people, such as your Sales team or an external customer. The main advantage to partnering on a project is that you can apply for budget approval with your client and also communicate about your progress with them as well as discuss any problems that might arise. This allows you to develop in sync with the client, which is vital to building relationships and getting projects off the ground. If you are working in-house I would recommend this workflow over the solo workflow. Another benefit to working in-house is that you will not need to document everything, as every developer has their own documentation. This also means that a lot of people are working on the same thing at the same time. You will only need to make sure that everyone is communicating with each other and setting up their projects properly. It is possible to do this workflow with the solo workflow, but using a partner workflow will make it easier for your team members because they will have someone to look up to for collaboration and project management. Putting it all together Using a flow chart to map out the key steps in your B2B sales process is one of the best ways to get organized, saving you time and energy. Creating this type of model will help you get an overview of your business model as well as show all of your stakeholders how their work fits into the bigger picture. This framework will allow you to effectively manage your time and stay on top of key deadlines. Business Process Models, sometimes called workflow diagrams, flowcharts, or swim lanes, are a great way to map out your processes and show all of your stakeholders how their work fits into the bigger picture. They can be used for project management as well as to help you get organized in other areas of your business. Tools for B2B Marketing Mapping Miro & Co. - SaaS platforms with a great toolset of features such as digital whiteboards, digital post-its & flowchart templates. Process Street - Process Street is one of the best tools on this list, it allows you to map out your entire process which will help you see where things might go wrong or not done at all. Wiki - A wiki is a website that is created to allow anybody and everybody to edit, add, flag or delete anything. IPAT - Technique to make sure that the business proceses and important information are up-to-date, accurate and captured before they are sent out to be recorded on other systems. Organizational Charts - One of the best ways to visually see what you will be doing in the future, who you need to contact with questions or to report up to. Summary on B2B Marketing Workflow Mapping Workflow mapping is an essential tool for understanding how work gets done in your B2B Sales process. By using the right approach and tools, you can gather the information you need to improve productivity and efficiency. If you want to learn more about B2B Marketing check out our other blog posts for more tips and tricks.

Inbound Marketing and Account Based Marketing are both B2B approaches for driving leads to your business. However, they have some key differences that should be considered when deciding which strategy to use. In this article, we'll outline the key differences between the two, and explain which strategy might be better for your business. What Is Inbound Marketing? Inbound marketing (or "content marketing") is a strategic approach that involves creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and retain customers. The goal is to get people who fit your ideal customer profile to find your business or website by doing some kind of action: reading an article, signing up for a webinar, visiting your store, or making a purchase. By attracting the right audience with the right message you can drive more leads to your business. Some refer to this approach with the metaphor "fishing with nets". Inbound Marketing is all about creating high-quality content to generate qualified leads and drive traffic to your website. The goal is that valuable content will attract the right audience members who you can then convert into customers. How does Inbound Marketing exactly work? A typical Inbound Marketing strategy includes the following steps: Create valuable content for your target audience. SEO will help you rank higher in search engines so more people can find your content. Social media will help you spread your message across a wider audience. Paid advertising can help you attract even more people to consume your content. You should be consistent with your messaging so people recognize and trust you as an authority on a particular topic. Encourage people to subscribe to your email list. In exchange for a valuable lead magnet, people will supply you with their contact information and permission (an "opt-in") to send them emails. It's also very important that you don't spam people who are already subscribed to your list. In the ideal scenario, your emails will trigger an action that causes a customer to make a purchase. You should be sending updates on product launches and new content when it's relevant to your audience. Set Up your Inbound Marketing Plan. Take some time to plan out your content calendar so you know when you'll be publishing updates and how you can distribute your message in the most effective way. Determining your target audience helps you determine exactly what types of content to create for them. Inbound Marketing is a good choice if your business values a genuine, authentic connection with customers over every other form of marketing. If you're confident you can create valuable content that is valuable to your audience, then Inbound Marketing can be the excellent way to drive leads to your business. What is Account Based Marketing? Account Based Marketing focuses on developing long-term relationships with decision makers at companies you want to do business with over the long term rather than generating more immediate sales opportunities. It is a long-term strategy with the goal to create value for both sides of the relationship by demonstrating that you're the best business partner to work with. It means focusing on building mutually beneficial relationships instead of looking for short-term opportunities. Some marketers refer to this strategy with the metaphor "fishing with spears". Account Based Marketing focuses more on building relationships with decision makers at companies you want to do business with over the long term. This can lead to higher quality leads and improved customer experience. How does Account Based Marketing work? A typical Account Based Marketing strategy includes a combination of the following steps: Prospecting. The first step in Account Based Marketing is prospecting. This involves searching for potential customers through channels like LinkedIn, Databases or other sources to find contacts with a potential business need. Engagement. A salesperson might then engage with that contact through e-mail or phone calls by introducing themselves and explaining how their product or service will help fulfill the contact's needs. At the same time the buying center awareness is created through different marketing activities. Qualify. Once the contact seems interested, they must qualify. This involves asking more questions to determine whether or not the contact is a good fit. Marketing assists with Remarketing campaigns and additional material for sales. Deepen relationships. If qualified, a salesperson might deepen their relationship with the contact through a series of meetings and calls until they have established enough trust to eventually close the deal. By focusing on creating long-term relationships with your customers, you can drive higher quality leads to your business. The key advantage of Account Based Marketing is that it's not as dependent on SEO, SEA as Inbound Marketing and thus is more stable over the long term. However, it's important to keep in mind that it takes much longer time to execute it properly. You need to set aside a lot of time to establish the right type of relationship with your customers and find a way to get in front of the right decision makers. Which strategy is better for my business? Inbound Marketing is a great option if you want to build positive relationships with potential customers. If you're creating valuable, relevant content that is not spammy or irrelevant then it's an excellent strategy. You will also need to spend some time and effort creating and distributing it the right way. Account Based Marketing is a great choice if you want to build intimate and long-term relationships with your customers. If it's not too much effort for you to focus on building up valuable content that is relevant to the people you want to do business with, then this strategy can be a win for your business. Either way, one of the most important things you can do as a B2B marketer is to make sure that both strategies are in place over the long term so that your business reaches new customers every day. Summary Although they may seem similar, Inbound Marketing and Account Based Marketing are two completely different strategies. Inbound Marketing focuses on creating valuable content that your customers will read and share. Account Based Marketing focuses on building a relationship with decision makers at companies your business wants to do business with over the long term.

Many B2B marketers are facing a battle when it comes to figuring out how they should be investing in paid social and paid search strategies. This is why we would like to cover some some best practices for implementing channel activities effectively. Being Effective & Efficient Most B2B marketers want their campaigns to be effective and efficient, but too often they do not reach the right audience and waste money on tools that might not be able to help them realize their goals. Thus, the question is, how can your B2B marketing team stand out in today’s digital world? Let’s first look at why we’re seeing an increased focus on paid social and paid search strategies, then we’ll take a closer look at how you can make these methods work for your organization. Switch to Paid Ads leads to Overcrowding in Marketing Landscape We saw this trend two years ago when we cited an infographic on paid ads in B2B marketing. The reports found that 91% of marketers in B2B thought that paid ads was where they should focus their efforts to generate sales leads. And since that time, more and more companies have put a big focus on building their online presence. Thus, the B2B marketing landscape is becoming more and more crowded. Manufacturers, Saas companies and other companies across the B2B sector are investing millions of Euros into paid social media marketing and paid search marketing. That also comes with a mind-boggling amount of paid options: Google, YouTube, LinkedIn etc. How to use Paid Social & Paid Search to drive results in B2B Marketing Colin Westwick, director of marketing at Context Global, says that when it comes to marketing channels, “it’s a case of value vs. bang for buck. What is the most important thing when it comes to paid social and paid search? The answer is: ‘How you use it’. It’s important to really understand how to connect your brand with a buyer’s aspiration and then apply the right tool to achieve this. Build awareness with Display Advertising Before someone can start to consider your services, they need to be aware of you. This is the first step in any business decision making process, finding the supplier in the first place. Utilizing a combination of Google’s Display Network and ad placements on industry publications you can start to build awareness of your company and its services. Here the goal is to increase the number of ‘impressions’ or the amount of times you advert is displayed on someone’s screen. It’s important to remember that this type of digital advertising campaign is not aimed at driving leads, a mistake many marketers make. Yet, it’s often hard to justify awareness campaigns to other business stakeholders if they can’t see direct results in terms of leads generated (at least not in the short-term). The aim of this campaign is to get your company's name in front of as many eyeballs as possible, and the right ones at that. There are a couple of ways to target your display ads, you can base it on keywords or audiences or a combination of both. We would usually recommend a combination of the two so that your targeting is not too broad or too narrow. Getting your Audience right is key There’s a whole art to audience building using custom lists, affinity audience, lookalike audiences etc that we won’t cover here but Google have some good information on the different types of audiences you can reach in their support articles too. This kind of advertising is usually a cheaper option as you don’t have to pay for each click, but it’s harder to track the results of this advertising method. In Google Analytics, you can start to monitor which campaigns have the highest number of impressions and which ones might need more focus. We will dive into this topic when it comes to LinkedIn in a separate Newsletter. Generate effective leads with PPC Ads The goal of PPC advertising is to generate sales leads, it’s not just about brand awareness. When using paid search, you are creating a link between a customer and your brand. Because it’s more effective to create more leads through PPC, this method can be the best alternative for companies without a lot of money to spend on advertising. You only pay for those customers that actually want to buy your product or service. Use PPC and your business could see a significant increase in leads or sales coming directly through your website. Building a Funnel with Paid Social Paid social is the other important channel for B2B companies, especially when it comes to acquiring potential clients. If you’re looking for new business, social platforms are the best suited place to start and reach out to people who might be interested in your products or services. So what social media platforms should you use? It depends on your strategy. We’ve seen that LinkedIn is most relevant for people looking for business-to-business services. So for B2B marketers we recommend to concentrate your efforts here. Use B2B Social Media Platforms such as LinkedIN LinkedIn can be an effective channel for B2B companies. Because they are able to target their customers and deliver targeted content, they can attract even more potential customers and make the right connections. It’s often the right channel to find professionals in your industry who want to buy your products or services. A strong social media presence is important for businesses these days. Not only is it a great way to connect with your customers, but it’s also an opportunity to reach out to new audiences, build your brand and communicate directly with your audience. Case Study: How BenQ utilized LinkedIN For example, BenQ decided to target this audience and deliver a focused campaign on LinkedIn by creating ‘value’ content such as infographics. For instance, one of their posts had a reach of 114,000 people and generated 274 click-throughs. That’s a pretty impressive ROI for a B2B company. BenQ saw that LinkedIn was the right channel for them for two reasons. 1) Firstly, their target audience was on the platform where they could find them and deliver specific content. And 2) it was effective because LinkedIn is specifically designed for connecting business professionals with each other. Conclusion Focusing on the objectives of your brand, you can be more confident about where and how to spend your advertising budget. This can help you get the most out of your campaigns and make sure that you’re getting a good return on investment. Paid advertising has the potential to be your best working strategy for B2B marketing. It’s a great way to connect with potential customers and attract them to your business.

LinkedIn is a powerful tool for B2B businesses of all kinds. For marketers in particular, LinkedIn can be a great way to reach new audiences and promote content. But reaching a large audience on LinkedIn can be difficult without paying for promoted posts. Fortunately, there are a few things you can do to boost the reach of your LinkedIn posts without breaking the bank. Here are five tips to get started that work great for us. The number of LinkedIn users in the DACH region is steadily increasing. According to Statista, around 17 million people from the DACH region were registered on LinkedIn at the end of January 2022. That's why LinkedIn has developed into an excellent marketing channel over the years, especially for B2B companies and for the search for new employees. In this blog article, we share our nine best tips for a successful LinkedIn post, so that your LinkedIn posts stand out from the crowd, and all without paid advertising. 9 Organic Ways that matter on LinkedIn 1. Define your Goals Be clear about what you want to use LinkedIn for: Are you aiming to build a real brand? Do you want to increase awareness of your company or find the best employees? Or would you like to acquire new B2B customers via LinkedIn? Of course, one does not exclude the other. Still, you should know what your ultimate goal is. This will help you tremendously when creating your LinkedIn posts. 2. Do your Research You now know what goal you want to achieve with LinkedIn. Now you should prepare a list of post ideas based on that. Make a list of topics that you want to cover and that are relevant to your target audience (applicants, clients, prospects, etc...). Let yourself be inspired by others in your industry. Find experts in your industry who are already active on LinkedIn and analyze their LinkedIn posts. In particular, look at the posts that get a lot of interaction and pay attention to the following things: - What posting format do these posts use? - What topic is the post about? - Which image is used? - How long is the text? - Are links used? If so, where do the links point to? 3. Use your Personal Profile – and that of your colleagues Traditionally, company-related posts are published on LinkedIn on the LinkedIn company profile. Sounds logical right? In principle, nothing speaks against this approach. But don't just limit your LinkedIn activities to your company profile, also use your personal profile and the profiles of your colleagues and employees. There are, among others, the following approaches: a. Publish the posts on your company profile and then ask your colleagues to interact with the post and comment on the post. This will show LinkedIn that the post is relevant and your post will get more organic reach. In addition, you and your colleagues can also share the post. This also ensures additional range. We recommend not simply sharing the posts without comment, but always adding your own personal opinion. b. Another possibility is that you define experts in your company for certain topics. These experts then publish the articles that are thematically related to their area of ​​expertise on your personal LinkedIn profile. The company is mentioned by tag in the post. In our experience, posts from individuals tend to get a much higher organic reach than posts from business profiles. Of course, you can also share the contribution of your colleagues on your company page. We at Kohldampf therefore use the second strategy and have noticed that our posts get more reach and interaction this way. 4. Use different content formats There are a variety of different content formats on LinkedIn that you should use for yourself. Do not just limit yourself to the classic “image-text” posts, but also use other formats. This brings variety and increases interest in your posts. “Text-only” Posts: The classic post with text and nothing else Image-text posts: Also a classic, an image and a text above it LinkedIn Articles: For longer content Videos: Videos uploaded directly to LinkedIn Polls: You ask a - preferably controversial - question and let LinkedIn users vote Carousel Posts: Perfect for telling a little story with pictures A very good overview of all LinkedIn post formats including the relevant specifications such as text length and image size can be found in LinkedIn itself. 5. Interact with other Users Even if we sometimes forget: As the name suggests, social media is primarily about the “social” aspect, i.e. about interacting with other people. LinkedIn rewards this behavior and is more likely to rate your posts as more relevant and show more users if you are an active LinkedIn user yourself. Connect with thought leaders who are active on similar topics as you on LinkedIn and interact with posts from others: comment, react to others' comments or share interesting LinkedIn posts and add your own thoughts to them. A nice side effect: You expand your network and users who are not yet following you will also become aware of you. 6. Use Keywords that are relevant to the Content of your Post If you want to achieve a large reach, it's important that your LinkedIn post is not just interesting but also keyword-relevant. And we're not just talking about specific keywords, as that would only lead to a low number of views. We're talking about keywords that are relevant to the content of your post, so that it's easy for people looking for topics like yours to find your post. If you do not use these "keyword anchors" as we call them, you will achieve a low reach. 7. Post on Weekday Mornings: Do not be shy about the weekend. Do not tell yourself that no one would want to read an article during the week because it is Saturday or Sunday. On the contrary, you will be surprised how many people are looking for information on LinkedIn on the weekend. Everyone has a mobile phone and it is easy to access LinkedIn when you have just finished your shopping or have time for lunch. Use this time to post an article that fits perfectly into this kind of "free time". If you do it, a lot of people will be interested in your content. 8. Use #Hashtags Unlike Facebook, LinkedIn does not use hashtags to index content. This means that you cannot get a keyword like #bloggers onto a global search on LinkedIn. But if your hashtag is in the headline of your post, it can help you achieve better visibility in the newsfeed of other users. 9. Include a link to your Website on the Bottom of your post now and then When you choose to include an image or video in your LinkedIn post, a promo code for your website can be inserted into the text for a link to your site. In this way, you will always have fresh content that is relevant and can be found easily from other users. Just make sure that the link is visible on the headline of the link at all times, otherwise it will not work. Conclusion LinkedIn can be a powerful tool for businesses and professionals of all kinds. For marketers, LinkedIn can be a great way to reach new audiences and promote content. But reaching a large audience on LinkedIn can be difficult without paying for promoted posts. Fortunately, there are a few things you can do to boost the reach of your LinkedIn posts without breaking the bank. With the right content and some time, you can reach a large number of B2B users with your LinkedIn posts without paid advertising. We hope our tips will help you.

Many business owners are still yet to hear about marketing automation, but that doesn't mean they should be. As the digital world advances, so does the way businesses interact with their customers. Marketing automation is an easy and cost effective solution for B2B firms in particular, which can make all the difference from a customer perspective by providing them with better service and information. What is Marketing Automation? B2B marketing automation is an automated process which allows businesses to better manage their customer details and interactions in a digital medium. It is a marketing strategy for businesses that allows them to manage their data and online engagements in a more efficient way. It acts as an alternative to all of the old manual processes and enables businesses to become more responsive and adaptable, leading on from this you can build better relationships with your customers. This means that you can now automate many aspects of your digital communications which will help you to save time and eventually gain more customers. By deciding to implement Marketing Automation, B2B companies will be able to gain more customers as well as save time and money. Why Marketing Automation for your B2B company? Marketing Automation is crucial for your B2B company because it can benefit you greatly, especially when it comes to marketing tactics. It allows your business to send out messages to your customers based on previous information you have received, meaning you can improve the experience of your customer base. Marketing automation allows your business to monitor interactions you have with customers, thus making them more accountable. With Marketing Automation you will be able to target the correct individuals by segmenting customer database into groups, making it possible for sales to deliver relevant information at the best possible time, ensuring more efficient growth. What are the main benefits of Marketing Automation? Marketing automation has many advantages for businesses, especially for B2B firms. It is an easy to use system that helps businesses to better manage their data as well as target their customers more effectively. This can also benefit them by saving them time and money which they can use elsewhere, allowing them to focus on other aspects of their business such as the products and services they offer. There are many advantages that a business can expect to be able to gain by deciding to make use of Marketing Automation. Reduce Costs | The most obvious of these is the fact that it will help businesses to save time and money, meaning they can use their resources to focus on other aspects, such as their products and services. Target effectively | Another key benefit is the fact that it will help them to target their customers more effectively which will lead on from this increase customer retention levels. By this stage though, businesses will be able to target the right individuals through determining their customer profiles and interests. Access better data | Companies will also have access to better data and information about their customers, allowing them to collect a wealth of useful information from them as well as gaining new ones. This will help to improve the experience of their customer base and increase the number of sales they make. This means they can deliver more relevant messages at the right time which will further increase sales. By understanding the benefits of marketing automation, B2B companies can gain more customers as well as save money, allowing them to target their existing clients better and increase sales and profits. How to set up your B2B Marketing Automation? There is no way of Marketing Automation without the use a software program. Not only will you be able to process data and information faster but they will also gain access to this information which they can then use to gather a wealth of useful data and information. To set up your own set of Marketing Automation, you will need to take the following steps: Decide on the type of Customer Relationship Management tool. You can choose between many different options but there are certain software platforms that are more suitable for businesses. These platforms include: Hubspot, Pipedrive, Salesforce, Mailchimp etc. Upload your customer list into the CRM. This step is important because it will allow your messages to get delivered to the right people. Set Up an email campaign in your CRM. This step is crucial because it will allow you to outline exactly what you want to do with the campaign and how you want to use it. It will also allow you to set up marketing automation rules for when emails are sent out so that you can use these for targeting and segmenting your emails for people on your list. Create segments. With this step you will be able to create lists for segmenting your leads into different groups and sending out different emails to them. Build email templates. Now you will be able to use the same template for your email over and over again so that you don’t have to spend a long time creating a new email every time you send one out, especially when the content may stay the same most of the time. Leverage the insights. See how many people have opened your emails and how many people have clicked on your links. Measure the effectiveness of your campaign so that you can make adjustments as necessary. Send your emails. Determine when the best time to send them out will be. Marketing Automation does not happen over night. It can be a long process depending on the size of your company. It may seem overwhelming at first but it will be easier to complete when you have a step-by-step guide, such as this one, to help you set up your marketing automation campaign. You can go through the steps one at a time until you are comfortable with each one and then move on to the next step. Now it's all on your Marketing Automation Marketing Automation is a powerful approach that can help your business achieve its marketing and sales goals when used correctly. Automating your marketing processes allows you to target your customers more effectively, measure the results of your campaigns, and improve your bottom line. By using marketing automation, you can grow your business and reach new heights. Are you ready to take advantage of all that marketing automation has to offer? Subscribe to our weekly newsletter and learn more about how B2B Marketing benefits your business.

Account based marketing is quickly becoming the go-to strategy for sales teams. It drives higher revenue and saves a lot of time, energy, and headaches. But before you implement this new strategy, it's important that your team has the right tools in place. This blog post briefly discusses how account-based marketing can help your business, as well as what you should be doing to get started with ABM on your own website or elsewhere. Account-Based Marketing is a relatively new marketing strategy that is growing in popularity, especially as marketers seek more efficient ways to target consumers. In the past, traditional marketing was based on mass marketing towards large segments of the population. This approach was often ineffective because both the time and costs for targeting a specific audience were high. Account-based marketing can be used to increase sales, reduce costs and reach customers via online advertising. What is Account Based Marketing? Account based marketing originally started as a strategy aimed at creating individualized sales content based on specific target accounts. Over the past few years, the scope of the strategy expanded beyond marketing to include the entire sales and marketing team. It has become a primary channel through which sellers acquire leads, nurture and convert them into qualified candidates, and develop long-lasting relationships with customers. ABM is an excellent way to create increased awareness among audiences and then engage with them. Thus, Account-Based Marketing is all about making the right connections and doing the right work for your customers. This is best done by understanding who they are and what they need. Key to this approach is recognizing who your customers "actually" are, which can be much different than who they say they are. When you have a firm grasp on this knowledge, you can begin to work towards building a relationship with these accounts. Central Premise of Account Based Marketing The central premise of account based marketing is that your sales team should create a personalized relationship with potential clients on an individualized basis. It has become a key strategy when using CRM tools because it allows your team to respond to a client's unique needs while expanding the scope of influence beyond the account. As more and more companies are now using Salesforce, Hubsport & Co. , these companies have expanded so that sales reps can target prospects based on content already indexed for them in the CRM. In some cases, sales reps can even use the CRM to reach out to the prospect directly if they have identified a need that isn't being met by their current service provider. Why Should You Implement Account Based Marketing? Simply put, ABM is valuable because it allows you to scale your sales efforts in a way that was simply not possible before. This strategy allows you to focus on customers who are most likely to buy from you and present them with customized offerings that better meet their needs. When building on your sales or marketing strategy, it's also important to consider the growth of your business. We suggest that you implement ABM when: Your sales team has predictable buyer personas and high conversion rates. Your marketing channels are reaching their targeted audiences. Your company has access to the CRM accounts that allow for auto-populating the account profile pages In these cases, you will find that your sales reps can effectively target prospects in an individually-tailored manner through account based marketing. However, not every company has the means to implement such a tactic in-house or relies on third party CRM systems. That's not a problem. You can still find plenty of options to help you with ABM while still controlling the experience your customer has with your organization. Managing Account Based Marketing Campaigns Managing your account-based marketing campaign can be much more difficult than managing a generic sales or marketing campaign because you have a diverse range of resources that you are trying to present in an organized and informative manner. This can make it very difficult to track which leads are "hot" and which ones need more attention. The best way to solve this problem is with a dedicated CRM system that allows you to easily manage your customer accounts and know how they are using your services. This also allows you to keep track of your individualized customer profiles, allowing for easy reporting on how each account is progressing through the sales funnel. Typical ABM Tools Salesforce, Hubspot or Pipedrive for example allow your team to securely automate the sales process within the platform. These tools allow you to quickly and easily define who is a target account and which actions should be taken with prospects. The reps can then use this information to connect with accounts through email, personalized sales calls, and more. There are many other CRM and marketing tools, however, and it is important to keep your options open when choosing which tool to use for ABM. For example, for companies who don't have a CRM system in place or who don't have desktop access to the data within their accounts, there are some great third-party platforms that provide similar capabilities. Using Personalization & Account Based Marketing A common practice is to create a single, dedicated campaign that is focused on a single persona. However, we recommend adding a new "customer profile" for each company in the account so that you can connect the target accounts using more than just the basic data points. These profiles allow you to gain access to more information and maintain more stable relationships with your clients. When building your ABM strategy, consider creating a dedicated landing page for each client account. This will allow you to both personalize the experience for each account and provide different offers/content/deadlines based on their unique needs. Getting the Landing Page Topic right Consider adding a new landing page for each account within your system that includes the key information from their personal profile. You can always use the same "call to action" for each landing page, but we recommend personalizing the content and calls to action. The first landing page of your account-based marketing campaign can be very simple, giving a general summary for which features you offer and how you can contact them. However, as you continue to add pages to your campaign, use this page as a way to ensure that people who are unfamiliar with the system are able to find their way through. You should also consider automating the individual pages of each account with calls-to-action that direct visitors towards the targeted offers. Keep in mind that while these platforms are incredibly useful, they are ultimately just tools. Starting with the Account Profiles When building your ABM campaigns, it's useful to have a base profile for each target account with information about their demographics, contact information and other basic details. You can then add new "customer profile" entries for each account which include additional information such as: What you do, who you do it for, what they should expect from your company, who they will be working with and how they can reach you. You will want to regularly update the content on the page so that it always contains up-to-date details about you and your services. This will allow you to draw attention to specific features of service that are most applicable to that specific target account. ABM best suited for SaaS Companies SaaS companies are particularly hard hit by this problem because there are far fewer barriers between a company and their customer than ever before. Since the product is sold over HTTP, there is a substantial change that your prospects will encounter you online prior to the point at which they purchase your product or service. Because of this, many companies are turning to ABM. ABM allows companies to target specific accounts and create personalized campaigns that can be used to highlight their key advantages over their competition. What's next with Account Based Marketing? There are a number of business challenges that arise when implementing account-based marketing strategies with a small or medium organization. Most approaches, including ABM and predictive analytics, rely on data science approaches that require large numbers of consumers, prospects, and customers to generate valuable intelligence in order to make insights and predictions. For example, computer vision algorithms used for image recognition require thousands of examples in order to produce results at an acceptable level of accuracy; while the same can be said for facial recognition systems.