This year CPB is celebrating 25 years as experts in IT industry sales and marketing activity, and we would like to share some of the knowledge and expertise gleaned along the way.
During May, CPB UK released a 4-part email series focusing on demand creation best practice activities and how these form the successful building blocks of multi-touch marketing. The series has covered topics such as:
Data intelligence and its impact on the effectiveness of outbound campaigns
The role of digital nurture and how it is vital for engaging prospects
Telemarketing and the influence of human-to-human communication, and
Multi-touch Marketing – the importance of integrating all elements into an end-to-end outbound marketing strategy
This blog covers all the content contained in the email series, with additional information to expand upon the benefits, challenges, and solutions currently faced in the world of IT sales and marketing.
1. How Effective Are Your Outbound Campaigns?
These days it is not enough to rely on guesswork or gut instinct when it comes to sales strategies and outbound pipeline growth campaigns. The use of data intelligence has become a game-changer, providing businesses with valuable insights, enabling them to make informed decisions and optimize targeted pipeline generation campaigns.
For successful outbound campaigns, accurate, clean, intelligent data is vital. It can be used to identify potential customers, understand their needs and preferences, and tailor messaging and communication channels accordingly to develop highly targeted campaigns that are more likely to resonate with their audience.
Targeting using stale, inaccurate data results in wasted time and effort. But how can you avoid stumbling into this trap? Effective planning and the defining of an audience is key. Databases such as ProspectaBase deliver best-in-class data intelligence. ProspectaBase’s IT end user data combined with vendor installation data provides insight which develops into lead opportunities, lead liaison and lead generation. Not only that but you can segment by target verticals, size of organisation, geography, and ideal buying persona, amongst other variables. You could do far worse than to choose the IT industry's best data provider as your partner for your next targeted pipeline growth campaign.
In short, data intelligence is the key foundation to any successful outbound campaign. By leveraging the power of data, you can gain a deeper understanding of your customers, develop more targeted campaigns, and optimise your sales and marketing strategies for maximum effectiveness.
2. Digital Nurture – A Must for Engaging with Prospects
Once you have chosen your data source, your focus should be on engaging your target audience and the crucial role of digital nurture in connecting with them and driving successful outcomes.
In today's competitive digital landscape, establishing meaningful connections is increasingly challenging, which is why implementing a robust, multi-touch, digital nurture strategy with compelling content is a must.
Raising brand awareness in a crowded marketplace is vital and digital marketing works. In fact, a recent survey of our customers has shown that they experienced a 50%+ increase in sales leads progressing through the sales cycle when qualified during multi-focused digital activity.
Varied sales and marketing services can support the achievement of digital nurturing aspirations using activities such as targeted eMarketing, broadcast marketing, advertising/syndication, social media and web analytics. CPB offers a range of digital marketing services, which are perfectly complemented by the broadcast marketing reach of TechKnow.Online, which is distributed to over 160,000 engaged IT buyers every fortnight.
Key reasons why digital nurturing is vital for engaging with prospects:
It can help build and foster relationships by delivering relevant and personalised content, establishing trust and credibility
Consistent communication helps prospects feel valued and engaged, increasing the likelihood of conversion
It enables delivery of tailored content that resonates with specific interests, challenges, and aspirations
Continuous engagement enables delivery of educational resources, expert insights, and relevant updates
It helps progress the buyer's journey; guiding prospects as they move closer to making a purchase decision
Data-driven insights track and analyse metrics such as email open rates, click-through rates, and website interactions, providing valuable feedback and enabling strategy and content optimisation
If your goal is to improve sales pipeline opportunities and growth you must acknowledge the benefits of digital nurturing. By investing in a digital nurture strategy, you will enhance prospects' experience, increase conversions, and ultimately drive business growth.
3. Lead Qualification – Let’s Talk Human 2 Human
Telemarketing plays a crucial role in qualifying sales opportunities and fostering strong relationships.
Whilst digital is ubiquitous, effective sales strategies require a personal touch that goes beyond digital communication channels. Email and social are undeniably important, however, they can lack the human connection that telemarketing provides and that B2B relationships require to be successful and profitable in the long term.
Incorporating telemarketing into your sales approach can greatly impact your success by:
Improving personal engagement thorough real-time conversations; enabling a deeper understanding of specific needs, challenges, and pain points. By gaining this insight you can tailor solutions to meet unique requirements
Empowering sales teams to actively qualify opportunities; whilst gathering valuable information about organisations, decision-making processes, and timelines.
Focusing on relationships and building trust; creating genuine human-to-human connections, establishing a foundation of trust
Providing instant feedback; allowing any concerns or questions to be addressed promptly, ensuring that expectations are met and providing the highest level of customer service
Such human-to-human connection can also help accelerate the progress of lead in the sales funnel. Leads produced from digital marketing ‘warm up’ must be followed up for conversion as a priority. Telemarketing combined with a robust lead follow up strategy will ensure successful lead progression and more rapid sales conversion.
We believe telemarketing is a vital component of successful sales strategies. By combining the power of technology with the human touch, companies can better understand customer needs, qualify opportunities more effectively, and foster a strong and lasting partnership.
4. Multi-touch Marketing – The End-to-End Outbound Approach
To conclude, we are focusing on integrating all elements and creating a pipeline building, revenue generating, multi-touch marketing programme (MTM).
When a one-size-fits-all marketing strategy no longer suffices, an MTM strategy can significantly boost your pipeline and drive revenue growth for your business. Through engaging your target audience and maximising your marketing impact, an MTM approach combines various touchpoints and channels throughout the buying journey.
So, what exactly is a multi-touch approach? Simply put, it's a holistic strategy that incorporates multiple marketing touchpoints to create a seamless and personalised customer experience. By leveraging a combination of digital and traditional channels such as email, social media, content marketing, and events, you can nurture leads, build trust, and guide prospects towards making a purchase.
What are the benefits of adopting a multi-touch approach for building your pipeline and generating revenue?
Enhanced Lead Nurturing: With a multi-touch approach, you can engage your leads at different stages of the buying journey. By delivering relevant content and personalised messages across multiple channels, you will foster stronger relationships and increase the likelihood of conversion.
Increased Brand Visibility: Using a range of marketing touchpoints ensures your brand stays top-of-mind with your target audience. Consistent exposure through various channels helps reinforce your brand message, establishes credibility, and widens your reach, leading to improved brand awareness and recognition.
Improved Conversion Rates: By incorporating multiple touchpoints, you provide prospects with various opportunities to interact with your brand. Each touchpoint offers a chance to build trust, address challenges, and provide valuable information and solutions that helps move prospects closer to the point of purchase. This leads to higher conversion rates and improved ROI.
Data-Driven Optimisation: A multi-touch approach enables you to gather data and insights from numerous channels, allowing you to analyse customer behaviour, preferences, and engagement patterns. Armed with this information, you can continuously optimise your marketing efforts, refine your messaging, and improve your overall strategy.
Competitive Edge: Standing out from the competition is crucial. Implementing a multi-touch approach showcases your commitment to providing a comprehensive and personalised customer experience, setting you apart from competitors who rely on single-channel marketing.
CPB specialises in helping businesses like yours implement effective multi-touch marketing strategies. Our team of experts can collaborate with you to develop a tailored plan that aligns with your goals and target audience.
Our automated, customisable multi-touch campaigns enable you to act in a customer-centric way. With clever use of compelling and continuous communications you develop strong customer relationships. Furthermore, multi-touch enables you to nurture prospects based on preferences and previous behaviours, delivering personalised, relevant messaging for longer term customer relationships and pipeline generation.
MTM can bring incredible opportunities and CPB can help you leverage this powerful strategy to build a strong pipeline and drive revenue growth.
In conclusion, if you obtain the right data intelligence, actively nurture customers and prospects, work on methods of engagement via a range of marketing activities including digital and telemarketing and integrate all elements into an end-to-end outbound multi-touch marketing strategy you have the building blocks for a successful sales and marketing plan and will enjoy the benefits of the resulting ROI and pipeline growth.
And remember, we might be approaching summer but as our previous blog advised, summer is a time to consolidate and continue sales activities! Don’t rest on your laurels – beat the summertime slump and hit the phones – people are still working, planning, and purchasing. The Show Must Go On!
Good luck!
