WHITE PAPER
10+ PROVEN WAYS TO
MAXIMIZE YOUR MARKETING BUDGET
CONTENTS
2
WHITE PAPER 10 PROVEN WAYS TO MAXIMIZE YOUR MARKETING BUDGET
INTRODUCTION
4
DON’T SKIMP ON CONTENT
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TURN YOUR SPOKESPEOPLE INTO ASSETS
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NURTURE YOUR BRAND AMBASSADORS
10
ENGAGE WITH INFLUENCERS
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FIND YOUR RICH SEAM OF DATA
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ELIMINATE BAD EVENT HABITS
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MAXIMIZE YOUR REPORTING AND MONITORING INVESTMENTS
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ENSURE YOUR WEB SITE ISN’T ‘LEAKING’ LEADS
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GET SMART ABOUT SEO
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START A SOCIAL ADVERTISING PROGRAM
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MAKE YOUR GLOBAL MARKETING TRULY GLOBAL
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CONCLUSION
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3
INTRODUCTION
WHITE PAPER 10 PROVEN WAYS TO MAXIMIZE YOUR MARKETING BUDGET
Marketing teams are often faced with the challenge of how to achieve more with less. With increasing awareness of marketing’s contribution to the wider business objectives, it is no surprise that every dollar allocated towards marketing efforts needs to be attributed to direct results that impact the company’s bottom line.
As a marketer, if you are about to undertake your planning and budget exercise for the next year (or perhaps you are in the latter stages of finalizing your budget), be sure to consider these 10 proven approaches for getting maximum value from your marketing spend.
Today, marketing must clearly demonstrate return-on-investment by generating leads, cross-selling additional products and services to existing customers or improving the overall customer experience.
5
DON’T SKIMP ON CONTENT
WHITE PAPER 10 PROVEN WAYS TO MAXIMIZE YOUR MARKETING BUDGET
70%
of B2B marketers say they are creating more content than last year Content isn’t just a nice-to-have. It’s a basic requirement. An upfront investment in great content can deliver far-reaching benefits. A single piece of unique research, for example, can be turned into PR material, an email campaign, a landing page, a webinar, an infographic, an ongoing social media campaign and multiple blog posts. The impact of these content-rich messages will deliver greater benefit than than simply populating all of these channels with traditional promotional messages.
86%
of marketers say they plan to increase multichannel marketing spend in the coming year. Creating content for multiple channels at the same time can save time and money in the long run. Ensuring that every promotion, event, and product launch has a content plan will maximize opportunities for content creation. Make sure you have some budget built into all your campaigns for content. Better still, create a central content budget and create materials that can feed all your channels and programs.
7
TURN YOUR SPOKESPEOPLE INTO ASSETS
WHITE PAPER 10 PROVEN WAYS TO MAXIMIZE YOUR MARKETING BUDGET
There is a fundamental, and costly misperception about spokesperson training. 80% of the time is usually spent on coaching spokespeople how to avoid answering questions. The reality is, most spokespeople will never be in a confrontational media interview so their carefully constructed and highly expensive ‘armor’ will never pay its dues. Instead, most of the interviews your spokespeople do will be opportunities to deliver value. A good spokesperson knows what a reporter is looking for and concisely delivers it to ensure inclusion in the article. But more than that, a spokesperson that is an asset can spot other potential
opportunities and think on their feet to turn a so-so article into a great one. And, a really valuable spokesperson makes such a positive impression that they become a regular source of expertise for the reporter – and of ideas for you. Not all of this can be trained of course. So don’t waste precious budget on training large numbers of spokespeople simply because they have the right title or experience. But if you have someone with great spokesperson potential in your company, it’s worth investing in regular practical coaching to turn them into a valuable asset.
9
NURTURE YOUR BRAND AMBASSADORS
WHITE PAPER 10 PROVEN WAYS TO MAXIMIZE YOUR MARKETING BUDGET
Your brand ambassadors are comprised of your employees, your executive team, your customers, your partners, your vendors and any other individual that interacts with your company in a positive manner. Leverage the ambassadors you currently have and amplify them through content. Get them to write and speak about core company stories, customer stories, or other events and happenings about your company. For example, if you have a product team in your company, get them to create content for your corporate blog, or create videos of them discussing your newest product in a passionate way. Distribute this content across all your channels (and especially in social media channels like YouTube and Twitter). Unless these ambassadors are already social media savvy, you’ll need to allocate some budget to training them on social media governance matters so that employees are comfortable with the “do’s and don’ts” of interacting on social channels. This investment will pay off if you’re successful in getting ambassadors to contribute content. But getting them to do so frequently can be a challenge. Here are some easy tips to consider:
• Publish a list of topics or suggestions for content and ask for volunteers who feel comfortable creating content for each topic. If no volunteers come forth, recommend certain individuals based on their area of expertise. • Create an editorial calendar. Share it with each contributor, and assign on his or her Outlook calendars deadlines for when their content is due. Don’t try to do too much; keep the calendar simple: even getting a post a month from each individual is a win. • In some cases, have your marketing or PR team create outlines or story “shells” that your subject matter experts can then expand upon. That way you get the benefit of more contributors without putting excess burden of responsibility on them. • Stuck for content ideas? Search your social channels and your competitors’ channels and uncover topics and areas of concern your prospects and customers are experiencing in your industry. Assigning people to respond to questions in LinkedIn discussion groups, for example, is an easy way to generate relevant content.
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ENGAGE WITH INFLUENCERS
WHITE PAPER 10 PROVEN WAYS TO MAXIMIZE YOUR MARKETING BUDGET
In an increasingly crowded media landscape, influencers can cut through the noise and reach your key audience segment. Influencers - reporters, bloggers, analysts and think tanks – can support your marketing plan by touching your target at the key point of the buying cycle. Trying to implement an influencer relations program via low budget methods with junior resources will not work. Influencer relations requires an understanding of the issues, the ability to have a face-to-face conversation with people who really know their subject area, and an ability to convince others. Influencer relations requires long term thinking, and should be a key part of your marketing plan. Here’s how to leverage influencer relationships: • Define your audience and discover your influencers. Know your target customers and stakeholders and map how they discover, evaluate, decide and buy your product. Chances are, influencers are a big part of your customer’s decisionmaking process.
• Take action and engage. Start building a relationship with simple actions (follow online profiles, share relevant content and interact on social media channels) and seek introductions via existing contacts. • An influencer is influential because they have built an audience. Help them serve their audience. Ask yourself – how do I help them do their job better? Instead of pushing your news, create experiences for your influencers so they have something to react to and share. It’s vital that you tailor your approach based on the individual person and their interests and passions. • Provide high value and build trust. Plan initiatives that will allow you to collaborate with your influencer. Find opportunities for your organization to enrich their work. Invest in earning trust and sustaining connections and you will find that the value of your influencer relationship grows over time. • Measure your results. Keep track of the relationships you are building and how they translate into tangible results (visits, introductions, mentions, leads, invitations to take part in research or panel discussions). Learn and iterate.
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FIND YOUR RICH SEAM OF DATA
WHITE PAPER 10 PROVEN WAYS TO MAXIMIZE YOUR MARKETING BUDGET
All companies have data or research that is unique to them and that can be leveraged as a strategic “secret weapon” to unlock new opportunities. It is well worth investing time in examining your data assets. For example, a cloud computing company may possess a wealth of data on load volumes that it can then aggregate and extrapolate into unique talking points on customer adoption of the cloud. By publishing this data in a unique and compelling manner, they have just created content that they can then own and share that will generate greater return awareness for them. What’s more, as media outlets increase their focus on so-called “data journalism”, this is exactly the type of information that can form the foundations of an outstanding PR campaign. Because there is now greater access to this kind of data, survey-based research is starting to lose some of its appeal. Findings based on what people say they do in a survey are less credible than what they actually do. If you’re going to spend budget on research for PR and content marketing purposes, make sure you have identified a truly unique angle. Similarly, there are many other options today for conducting market research without having to default to expensive surveys or focus groups. Social media listening tools are a great place to start and are a fraction of the cost. If you have already built a sizable community, you can tap the expertise and
views within that group to get feedback on your products. Some suggestions for leveraging what you already have to gain valuable insight: • Talk to your finance and operations departments about the Key Performance Indicators your company uses already. The systems will already be in place to track this data and there may be some compelling trends hidden within them. For example, if you use downloads as a KPI, are there peak times of year or days of the week for downloads? If so – and assuming you can make some intelligent observations about these trends – you have a potentially valuable source of data for all forms of content marketing, not to mention some essential proof points for PR. • Identify the feedback mechanisms you have, including community forums, support desks, social channels, customer advisory boards and newsletter subscribers. Each of these is a potential source of insight and opinion that can be turned into compelling evidence for your marketing programs. For example, perhaps you’re a consumer electronics manufacturer and you spot an increase in set-up queries every year on the day after Black Friday. You might launch an integrated Set-Up Saturday campaign to attract more customers this year.
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ELIMINATE BAD EVENT HABITS
WHITE PAPER 10 PROVEN WAYS TO MAXIMIZE YOUR MARKETING BUDGET
If your company regularly participates in high profile events, conferences or seminars (or perhaps you are planning to create and host an event of your own,) including a budget for PR and social media activities at these events will help increase the success of your event. The key is to not be formulaic in your approach to events. There are more ways to generate visibility at an event than tchotchkes and press releases. Live social media engagement and monitoring, such as live tweeting, and streaming a Q&A with members of the media at the event, are often picked up and broadcast on a larger scale, increasing the reach of your event. Streaming apps, like Periscope and Meerkat are a simple, costeffective way of integrating offline with online to amplify reach and maximize opportunities to create a buzz around big events. However, as brands experiment with live streaming, it’s important to factor in legal restrictions in terms of copyright infringement, for instance at concerts or sporting events.
vendors during a conference. Social media provides that function now. Instead, they tend to focus on extrapolating one or two key themes so your goal should be to be included in some of those stories. Having some news to announce at the event will help, but be sure to get the information to your media contacts well in advance. Leverage videos, mobile apps, surveys and Twitter streams before, during and after the event to maximize effectiveness. Train your event attendees and prepare them to be ready to engage with journalists and attendees with key messages that tie-in to your overall promotion. After the event, amplify your content through eventspecific landing pages and Twitter streams that promote the announcements and videos captured during the event.
Don’t assume for every event that you will automatically secure a certain number of media briefings, or a guaranteed number of attendees. Few media outlets cover events per se anymore so it’s rare to see reporters churning out multiple news stories from
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MAXIMIZE YOUR REPORTING AND MONITORING INVESTMENTS
WHITE PAPER 10 PROVEN WAYS TO MAXIMIZE YOUR MARKETING BUDGET
More than half of marketers (51%) say measuring the effectiveness of their content is a challenge. Investing in media monitoring and reporting on results of media, PR and communications efforts are critical to demonstrating success and tracking new opportunities to inject your company’s message. An investment in proper social media monitoring and reporting tools will strengthen your overall social media investment while capturing progress against KPI’s and ensuring an effective ROI for continued social media investment. Tracking campaigns throughout the campaign cycle will allow you to identify what’s working and refine strategy and channel investment, improving on ROI. While there are several great tools out there that dive into very detailed analysis of your marketing efforts, a large investment in these tools is not always mandatory. Using what you already have in place in your organization or leveraging many free tools (such as Google Analytics) can help you uncover opportunities to inject content or interact with new audiences. Setting up Google Alerts can help identify relevant topics or opportunities to react to items that your competitors are currently engaging in. The key is having a plan in place and using what you do have so that you can capture an effective ROI on your marketing expenditures. Limit the number of metrics you actually track and focus on those metrics that effectively drive or impact your business. Companies often flood their reports by tracking unnecessary metrics that have
little impact to business outcomes (for example, measuring how many new followers you have on your company’s Twitter or Facebook page may look impressive, but the true measurement of success is how those followers are actually engaging with your company.) A more effective approach is to try and simplify your reporting into areas that are meaningful. For example: • Am I effectively measuring and capturing new customers? • Do I know they are real customers (because they have actually purchased from me) or are they still prospects or simply passive visitors? • What else can I do to turn these visitors/ prospects to customers, and am I measuring the effectiveness of those activities? • Once they are customers, am I measuring how I am deepening our relationship? At the same time, am I monitoring and responding to any servicing issues that will ensure I do continue to deepen customer relationships? If your company utilizes marketing management tools such as Eloqua, Pardot or Marketo, it may be worthwhile to focus resources on improving the quality of the data that is entered into these tools as well as refining your campaign scoring models. Experimenting with A/B testing on different messages or developing a nurturing campaign for more valuable leads is an effective way to maximize and improve the opportunities you already have in your database. 19
ENSURE YOUR WEB SITE ISN’T ‘LEAKING’ LEADS
WHITE PAPER 10 PROVEN WAYS TO MAXIMIZE YOUR MARKETING BUDGET
You know the scenario: The current website has been around for several years. Pages are added frequently, many different authors contribute content and the whole experience is starting to creep slightly off-brand. It’s a common problem, as few companies ever budget to make periodic refreshes to their existing web properties. Having a budget item to audit and refresh your website can be extremely beneficial. A website audit will uncover areas where navigation and site links may be broken, where content is stale or off-brand or where there are current opportunities (such as links to new social channels) that are currently overlooked. Some of these challenges may be technical and may need to involve your IT team or any vendors that host your CMS or other systems. But it is worthwhile to periodically review your website to fix any technical issues. Plan on reviewing the content on your website and if there are gaps in content that are obvious, a budget should be set aside to create new content or opportunities to add content within the site structure. In many instances, even enhancing blog content can be an effective solution in updating your site if adding new page templates is cumbersome.
Some common website “tweaks” that are often over-looked, and yet could yield rich results in your lead generation efforts include: • Check your website is mobile-friendly by testing on different devices. With around half of all web traffic on mobile devices, it’s essential that your website works perfectly on mobile. • Simplify the number of fields a prospect has to enter in order to find out more information. All you really need is name, company, email and phone number – anything more may feel too intrusive and scare your prospects away. • Make sure your home page (and all key pages) has visible calls to action only oneclick away. Don’t make it difficult for your visitors to contact you at any point during their stay on your website. • Ensure your social channels are all fully connected and linked, and that buttons identifying them are clearly visible on your home page • Validate that your back-end tracking system is accurately capturing and tracking leads. Omniture, Google Analytics – whichever system you are using, periodically audit it to make sure leads are accurately tracked and data is effectively mined.
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GET SMART ABOUT SEO
WHITE PAPER 10 PROVEN WAYS TO MAXIMIZE YOUR MARKETING BUDGET
Studies have demonstrated that a majority of major purchases (especially in B2B procurement cycles) begin with an online search – in many cases, as high as 80% of
purchase decisions begin on a search engine. In addition, visitors tend to place
greater importance on “natural” search results versus paid search ads, based on the fact that Google, Yahoo and Bing are valuing companies enough to place them so high on the page one results for that search term. Yet many companies treat their organic search engine optimization efforts as an afterthought or assume search results will happen naturally without having to place dedicated resources or effort behind it. If your company is in such a predicament, planning for SEO can be one of the most effective marketing strategies you undertake. If you are currently utilizing SEO tactics as part of your marketing spend, it may be worthwhile to set aside additional budgets to: • Audit your website for broken links and fix on-page technical SEO issues. • Improve your overall SEO by integrating existing or new social channels and blogs into your SEO mix. • Updating your keyword list to ensure your site is optimized for any changes or trends within your industry.
If you can only focus on a limited amount of items, the simplest and fastest way to improve your SEO results should be: • Ensure your website is mobile-friendly. Google penalizes “unfriendly” websites, dropping them down in the search results. Upgrading your website may result in an instant lift. • Develop a keyword list of high-performing keywords relative to your business that you want to rank for. Incorporate these into your website structure and content in a natural way (never keyword stuff!). • Create content that is valuable to your audience and create and fix page titles, ensuring they are consistent. • Try to capture as many quality inbound links to your site as you can and ensure links are working correctly. • Fix your URL structure and make sure you are consistent with the URL structure across all your pages. • Publish content frequently. Keep your site fresh and keep it growing. If your site structure does not easily enable creating additional pages of content, then leverage your blog to its fullest extent. • Time – it is your greatest ally, and the longer your site has been around, the greater emphasis Google will place on it as a site of trust and authority.
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START A SOCIAL ADVERTISING PROGRAM
WHITE PAPER 10 PROVEN WAYS TO MAXIMIZE YOUR MARKETING BUDGET
There are more digital advertising options than just paid search ads on Google and Bing. For B2B clients, social channels are proving to be a profitable and un-tapped area to generate new leads. Given the conversational nature of B2B communications and the lengthy time it often takes to go from lead to closed sale, social media is the ideal platform to capture new clients. Social media marketing is a true extension of word of mouth advertising, and whether companies want to admit it or not, prospects and customers are likely talking about your company (and your competitors) on social channels. Social advertising can be an easy (and often necessary) way to drive traffic and a base of active followers on a social channel. Programmatic media buying, such as Real Time Bidding (RTB) means that it is also surprisingly affordable, letting you or your agency set the precise budget in real time. Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, Instagram and Facebook all offer advertising capabilities that, depending on who your target audience is, could become a prime source for new leads if executed effectively. Content syndication is another effective way to help fuel discovery of your social media content. Syndication can help boost traffic to your website or blog, get exposure to your company or product or even to generate new business leads. Outbrain, CNet, UBM, QuinStreet, TechTarget and CBS Interactive
are all channels that specialize in paid tech B2B content syndication. Using these channels effectively through publishing snippets of content, including video or graphical content, can increase awareness of your offering. Display ads were once denigrated as being no better than invasive “pop-up” ads, but the choices today for effective display advertising are quite diverse and effective. Many display ad networks allow for site and social retargeting – which provide for an even greater network of possible targets and a higher return-oninvestment. Display advertising and social advertising programs can also be extended onto your mobile platform, so that when prospects are utilizing mobile search or mobile social channels, serving a relative and insightful ad for your company at that time may yield successful results. Conquesting can also be an extremely effective method of capturing market share as well as reminding your existing customers why they should choose you again and again. By taking out ads next to editorial content about competitive companies, you seize the opportunity to remind prospects that they have other choices. To maximize your conquesting efforts, work with an agency partner who can recommend media channels with the technology support to identify and serve ads to users who have been to competitive locations in the past, as well as users identified by purchase history data indicating a competitive association. 25
MAKE YOUR GLOBAL MARKETING TRULY GLOBAL
WHITE PAPER 10 PROVEN WAYS TO MAXIMIZE YOUR MARKETING BUDGET
If your company has a global presence, make sure your marketing allocation for global efforts is really serving your needs. For instance, targeting “Europe� is not the same or as effective as targeting the specific countries within Europe you want to reach. A realistic approach that takes into account geographic and language nuances within each country is far more effective than blanket marketing campaigns that blast content that may not be relevant from country to country.
trying to manage multiple agencies in every individual market. By partnering with a single global agency, you get countryspecific expertise and content strategies that will resonate specific to those individual audiences. Some of the ways to ensure this approach is delivering efficiencies include: centralized reporting, coordination at strategy-setting stage and ensuring you have local spokespeople and materials before embarking on an international investment.
Experience also proves that having one global agency support you in your global marketing efforts is far more efficient than
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WHITE PAPER 10 PROVEN WAYS TO MAXIMIZE YOUR MARKETING BUDGET
CONCLUSION Planning your marketing spend can be a juggling act – especially today when the range of available tactics is so great. But, whatever your mix of tactics, certain elements need to be prioritized, such as strong PR and marketing content, a well-optimized web site and effective monitoring and measurement. These basics will form a foundation for all your other marketing programs, ensuring a higher return overall.
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WHITE PAPER 10 PROVEN WAYS TO MAXIMIZE YOUR MARKETING BUDGET
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