But what exactly does B2B mean in marketing and how does it shape your B2B marketing plan approach? 

Keep reading to build your knowledge and bolster your tool belt with marketing tactics for B2B marketing success. Here’s a quick look at what’s ahead:

• B2B Marketing Defined
• How is B2B Marketing Different from B2C Marketing?
• Building Your B2B Marketing Objectives
• B2B Marketing: Finding the Right Strategies for Your Brand
• B2B Content Marketing Ideas 

B2B Marketing, Defined

Several manufacturing, software, and marketing companies operate exclusively on B2B market models. This means that the company’s revenue is generated entirely from other business entities and organizations. 

Typically, their entire platform was built to service the needs of other businesses—solving pain points, creating efficiencies, and bolstering their operations. 

Here are a few B2B companies you might be familiar with:

• Datadog
• Atlassian
• WeWork
• General Electric
• Slack

If these are ringing a bell, it’s likely because you’ve used their product or service at your place of work, not because you’ve made a purchase from them directly. 

How is B2B Marketing Different from B2C Marketing?

The primary difference between B2B marketing and B2C marketing is the target audience of each. While B2B focuses its promotional efforts toward other businesses, B2C marketing targets the consumer, as suggested by the unabbreviated form of the term: business-to-consumer.

Another notable difference between the two is the length of the sales cycle. As a consumer shopping on Amazon Prime, where most of your shipping and billing information is already saved, purchases may be processed in a matter of seconds. A B2B sale, on the other hand, is often a much lengthier, trust-building process. 

Here’s a quick overview of how the two match up in other areas. 

B2B marketing:

• Small, niche-based target audience
• Few clients, high volume of purchases
• Buyer purchases fueled by demand and return on investment (ROI) 
• Fosters long-term relationships between businesses 

B2C marketing:

• Large, widespread target audience 
• Many clients, low volume of purchases
• Buyer purchases fueled by wants 
• Often short-term relationships between buyer and seller (Note: Some brands may focus more on client retention than others.) 

Knowing how these two models differ is key when it comes to setting up marketing efforts including your objectives and strategies. 

B2B Marketing Objectives

On any marketing team, having a clear set of objectives and a mechanism in place for keeping track of performance is essential. Your goals will likely variate depending on what stage in the marketing campaign you’re in.  

To that end, in which direction should you focus your B2B marketing approach? Consider a few common objectives: 

• Brand awareness – Defining your brand and painting a clear picture of your target audience are the primary items on the to-do list in this phase of B2B marketing. The more specific you can be as a marketer about who you’re trying to reach, the better. 
• Generate leads – When developing strategies centered around this objective, remember that B2B marketing tends to have fewer leads but higher purchasing volumes. Go after the right audience and target their primary pain points. From there, you can build the foundation you’ll use to persuade them that your service is an effective solution that will contribute to their efficiencies, growth, and ROI. 
• Client retention – If customer loyalty is your main objective, be sure to gather feedback, keep the lines of communication open, and consider treating faithful customers to a surprise (e.g. free upgrade, small gift) to encourage a long-lasting relationship. 

B2B Marketing Strategies: Finding the Right Fit for Your Brand

There is no one-size-fits-all approach for B2B marketing—nor should there be—so it’s important to assess your objectives and find a combination of strategies that will help your business cut through the noise. 

• Target audience – Defining your target audience is a marketing must for all companies, but it is particularly important for B2B models. Given the niche-based nature of the goods and services offered by many B2B companies, a clearly defined client base will go a long way in generating quality leads. 
• SEO – When done right, SEO is one of the most powerful tools for galvanizing organic growth in B2B marketing. Doing thorough keyword research and implementing it into your blog content, web copy, or image alt text connects you with users searching Google for a solution that your company can provide. 
• Google Ads – While polishing up your SEO may be a long-term approach to building awareness or driving conversion rates, Google Ads are instantaneous. Set your bid and maximize your reach by targeting the right audience for your brand. 
• Facebook Ads – The businesses you’re trying to reach are likely on Facebook, and so are the people who own them. With more than 2.7 billion monthly users, Facebook remains one of the biggest social networks across the globe.¹ Facebook Ads allows you to build effective B2B campaigns by targeting users based on interests, location, age, and more. 
• Email newsletters – The number of email users around the world is about four billion,² so it’s safe to say that email marketing is here to stay. Disperse your marketing touchpoints across a series of weekly or monthly newsletters. Keep your marketing leads in the loop about product updates, sales, or new blog content, and track performance using campaign insights provided by platforms like Mailchimp or Constant Contact. 
• Retargeting – Because B2B sales cycles are much longer than B2C sales cycles, there are many opportunities for retargeting over the course of months-long conversions. Consider what stage of the funnel you’ll need to focus on (lead generation, lead nurturing, proposal) and give your potential the nudge they might need to keep moving forward. 

B2B Marketing Content Ideas

B2B Content marketing can be a highly effective way of elevating your B2B marketing strategy. When producing content, the value it provides to your target audience should be the driving force behind everything you create. Learn more about best practices for B2B content marketing.

Not sure what kind of content is right for your brand? 

Take a few ideas from the list below and integrate them into your long-term strategy to boost brand awareness and drive sales. The key is to produce authentic, engaging, and dynamic content that portrays your brand’s ethos and connects to your audience simultaneously. 

• Blogs – These are like the very ones you are reading now. Consider sharing weekly or monthly posts covering topics sure to benefit and interest your buyer persona. Company updates, technical how-tos, and user trends are just a few ways to bring in readers and generate leads. 
• Podcasts – According to Semrush, people have spent a record-breaking 15 billion hours listening to podcasts so far in 2021.³ Whether it’s on the drive to work or while cooking at home, listeners often tune in to learn something new. Consider using this platform as a way to educate your target audience about the good or service you provide.  
• Video Tutorials– Show, don’t tell. Instead of telling a potential customer about how effective your product is, put together engaging video content highlighting what sets your brand apart from the rest on the market. Step-by-step video tutorials are an effective way of anticipating client questions and improving the overall user experience. 
• Product Comparisons – Video, audio, or text. Pick your preferred format and stack your service up against the competition to highlight the advantages of what your business has to offer. This way, you’ve already done the work that your target audience would have needed to do on its own. With all the facts laid out in front of them, your potential buyers will spend less time researching and more time considering the purchase. 

Build Your B2B Marketing Strategy with Power Digital Marketing

Now that you’re well-versed in the ins and outs of the B2B marketing model, it’s time to start shaping your strategies and putting them into action. Your time and marketing dollars are precious, so you’ll want to be sure you’re investing them efficiently and in a way that matches up with your business goals. 

Just like with B2B marketing, Power Digital Marketing is focused on building trust-based, long-term business relationships. And with a 96% client retention rate, we’ve got the numbers to back it up. Whether you’re developing a B2B marketing strategy from scratch or looking to breathe new life into your current approach, we’d love to lend a hand. 

Let’s generate growth opportunities together and expand your businesses marketing through platforms like LinkedIn b2b marketing. 

Sources: 

1. Statista. Number of monthly active Facebook users worldwide as of 4th quarter 2020. https://www.statista.com/statistics/264810/number-of-monthly-active-facebook-users-worldwide/
2. Statista. Number of e-mail users worldwide from 2017 to 2025. https://www.statista.com/statistics/255080/number-of-e-mail-users-worldwide/
3. Semrush. 69 Podcast Statistics to Boost Your Podcast Strategy In 2021. https://www.semrush.com/blog/podcast-stats/
4. Forbes. Becoming A Better B2B Marketer In A Digitally Driven World. https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbescommunicationscouncil/2020/12/16/becoming-a-better-b2b-marketer-in-a-digitally-driven-world

The post What is B2B Marketing? appeared first on Power Digital Marketing.

An entire world of untapped opportunities for B2B marketing success. 

According to eMarketer, LinkedIn accounts for about one-fifth of all B2B digital advertising spending in the United States.¹ Whether you’re aiming to build brand awareness, drive traffic to your website, or boost conversion rates, LinkedIn is a treasure trove of marketing tactics that can reshape and revitalize your B2B business strategy.

B2B Marketing: The Basics

Before diving into the best B2B marketing strategy and practices for businesses on LinkedIn, let’s take a step back to remember the basics of what B2B marketing is exactly. Unlike consumer-centered advertising, this technique focuses on the promotion of goods and services from one business to another—you’re speaking to your peers, your business partners, your network.

And that’s why LinkedIn can be so effective: you’re already connected directly to your target audience. 

From there, you can engage with these potential leads in a variety of ways before attempting to sell them your service (though we’ll definitely get there eventually). B2B marketing is aimed at fostering long-term relationships with clients, targeting niche audiences, and satisfying a buyer’s needs for efficiency and high return on investment (ROI). 

Now, how can we blend this knowledge with LinkedIn tools? Let’s have a look at some of the most effective tips, tricks, and techniques according to our digital marketing agency. 

LinkedIn for B2B Marketing: Best Practices

When building a marketing plan that leaves an impression and creates a profitable return for your business, the first step is to clearly define your marketing goals. First, determine your priorities. Are you focused on:

• Raising brand awareness? 
• Generating high-quality lead generation? 
• Boosting conversion rates?

Whatever your B2B marketing goals are, LinkedIn has an answer to help get your company page to where it wants to be. 

Here’s how. 

Brand Yourself Clearly

LinkedIn doesn’t have the same customization abilities as your personal website but that doesn’t mean you can’t infuse your brand into every inch of your LinkedIn profile. After all, if you’re using it to connect to prospective clients and partners, it becomes your first impression. 

Here’s how to make sure it’s a good one:

• Spend time on design – Don’t overlook the power of good branding. Grab your audience’s attention and develop brand recognition by using cohesive profile and header pictures across all platforms. 
• Make a compelling pitch – Users might not linger on your profile for long, so be sure to hook them with a creative headline. Aside from capturing their attention, this space should clearly inform your target audience about what you do and how you plan to effectively satisfy their company’s needs. 
• Insert well-researched keywords – If discoverability is a priority, adding keywords into your company profile is a powerful way of connecting with professionals who could benefit from your product or service. Remember: It’s better to have fewer, more precise keywords than to overstuff your profile with an array of broad terms. 

Share Engaging Content 

Generate high-quality leads by using your LinkedIn profile as a B2B content marketing best practice. Whether you’ve written an in-depth blog post about the advantages of your product or want to announce a new feature that’s been added to your service, use this LinkedIn strategy to share regular, value-driven content. 

Here are a few more shareable content ideas to make your LinkedIn profile stand out:

• Video demonstrations
• Blog posts
• Links to podcast episodes
• Webinar events
• Infographics 

Be sure to post consistently and actively engage with other posts to maximize traffic and expand your reach.

Cultivate Trust with Testimonials

B2B marketing relies heavily on building trust with other businesses. This will help increase the quality of your lead generation and cultivate relationships that sustain over time. 

Aside from maintaining consistent levels of communication, producing valuable B2B content, and prioritizing the dependability of your products and services, you can increase the reputability of your business by sharing testimonials on your LinkedIn profile. When past or current clients sing your praises, they become powerful ambassadors for your brand.

The most effective testimonials will:

• Include specific details about both your work and its positive impact
• Prove the validity of your product or service
• Highlight your company’s areas of expertise
• Demonstrate why other businesses would want to work with you

Not sure how to go about requesting testimonials? For any B2B marketer beginner, this process can feel daunting and a bit awkward at times. According to Forbes, there’s a simple four-step process to request and receive impactful recommendations on LinkedIn:²

• Prioritize the people with the most influence – There’s no such thing as too many positive reviews but it’s still important to direct your efforts where they matter most. Identify fellow LinkedIn users who are respected within your industry, carry impressive titles at equally respected companies, and can speak directly to your value. 
• Reach out via email – How many LinkedIn notifications get ignored every single day? Instead of adding to that growing pile, send a concise, professional email to the person whose testimonial you seek. In that email, you can subtly suggest what you want them to include and even offer to write a draft for them. 
• Send a request on LinkedIn – Once you get the green light, send a recommendation request through LinkedIn:
• Navigate to the bottom of your profile and click “Ask for a recommendation.”
• Select the role in which you worked with this person.
• Select the user you’ve asked to write the recommendation.
• Customize your message, including the draft you’ve written for them.
• Follow up with a thank you message – At the very least, a genuinely grateful thank you email is a must. Forbes suggests going above and beyond with a letter or even a small gift to express your appreciation.

Find the Right People with Advanced Search 

B2B marketing, as the name suggests, focuses on business-to-business relationships. As such, the human element of marketing strategy is easily lost. But at the end of the day, a business is just a collection of people—and those human beings make decisions about who to work with and in what capacity.  

Rather than targeting company accounts, home in on the leaders and decision-makers behind these potential B2B leads. Navigate to a target organization’s LinkedIn page then look under the “People” tab. From there, you can connect directly with high-ranking executives in the departments that would benefit most from your product or service.

You can also use the Advanced Search tool and these filters to pinpoint the right people:

• Connection type (first level, second level, third level)
• Group members
• Location
• Industry
• Seniority level
• Company size

By tailoring your search to fit your company’s buyer persona, you increase the likelihood of encountering well-intentioned leads. 

LinkedIn Ads

Organic growth can usually only get you so far. Pairing direct communication with LinkedIn ad campaigns can take your B2B marketing plan to the next level. 

The LinkedIn Ads tool, built directly into the platform, is an excellent option for branding, increasing website traffic, or accelerating conversions. They make it easy to get your content in front of the right people within your B2B target audience by allowing for hyper customization and relevant list-building. 

Customize your campaign and refine your market with the following LinkedIn Ads filters:

• Job seniority
• Company size
• Member age
• Job functions 
• Company industries

When setting up your LinkedIn Ads campaign you can narrow the scope of the campaign based on the following ad objectives:

• Brand awareness
• Website visits
• Engagement
• Video views
• Lead generations
• Web conversions
• Job seekers

Lastly, LinkedIn Ads makes it easy to adjust your ad formatting according to the type of campaign you plan to run:

• Single image ad
• Carousel image ad 
• Video ad 
• Text ad 
• Dynamic ad 
• Sponsored messaging 

Some ad formats match up better with certain campaign types over others. For a campaign objective centered around brand awareness, you’ll be best served with a single image, carousel image, or video ad. Alternatively, if the goal is to generate more leads, dynamic ads or sponsored messaging might be a better-suited option. 

Businesses are encouraged to experiment with ad format pairings, keep track of key performance indicators (KPIs), and adapt their formatting based on the findings. 

InMail 

You already know that email marketing is a core part of most marketing plans, but you might not know about LinkedIn’s sponsored messaging tool: InMail. According to an article published on LinkedIn’s Talent Blog, the InMail response rate is three times higher than a regular email.³ Connect your business directly with others via personalized messages that are delivered to recipients only when they are active, leading to high open rates. 

Companies choosing to implement this LinkedIn tool into their B2B marketing strategy should experiment with subject lines, visuals, CTA buttons, and InMail length to find the most effective way of reaching the brand objectives. 

Benefits of InMail for B2B businesses include:

• High open rates
• Precise targeting
• Bulk messages
• High visibility
• Direct communication

If you’re launching a new product or promoting a sale, find your audience and share the news via InMail. 

Efficiency: Automation Tools for LinkedIn B2B Marketing Strategies

Efficient marketing is about minimizing the time spent on smaller, more tedious tasks, and maximizing time spent developing new strategies and refining old ones. 

If it’s within your budget to purchase automation software, you can use it to effectively complement your B2B marketing approach on LinkedIn. Not only are these tools designed specifically for LinkedIn use, but they are huge time-savers when it comes to sharing content, evaluating performance, and connecting with new leads. 

Here are a few top-rated LinkedIn automation tools for 2021:

• Linked Helper
• Expandi
• Crystal
• Attach
• Leonard
• Zopto

Compare automation tools and features to find which one makes the most sense for your brand’s initiatives. 

Link Up with Power Digital Marketing for B2B Marketing Success

LinkedIn is not just Facebook for professionals. It’s a driving tool behind marketing success. It’s especially effective in B2B marketing models because of its targeting precision and diverse array of channels through which to connect with new leads and keep them interested. 

Using LinkedIn B2B marketing tools is just one way of turning your sales objectives into profitable returns. If you’re looking to develop a holistic marketing plan for your business, complete with a diverse set of tools and tactics, consider bringing Power Digital Marketing onto your team. Discovering the gaps in your current B2B marketing plan and unlocking your full potential is what we do best.

Connect with Power Digital Marketing and optimize your B2B marketing today. 

Sources: 

1. eMarketer. US B2B Digital Advertising Trends. https://www.emarketer.com/content/us-b2b-digital-advertising-trends
2. Forbes. 13 Techniques for Building a Successful B2B Marketing Campaign on LinkedIn. https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesagencycouncil/2020/04/17/13-techniques-for-building-a-successful-b2b-marketing-campaign-on-linkedin/
3. LinkedIn. 9 Stats That Will Help You Write Better LinkedIn InMails. https://www.linkedin.com/business/talent/blog/product-tips/stats-that-will-help-you-write-better-linkedin-inmails

The post How to Use LinkedIn for B2B Marketing appeared first on Power Digital Marketing.

The first step in understanding the impact these two metrics have on your predictable Revenue model is benchmarking your current “state of sales affairs”; where are these numbers at now? At a high level – Sales Velocity is a unit of time, measured in Days, Weeks, or Months depending on the nature of your industry’s life cycle. The easiest way to calculate Sales Velocity is to take the average of length of time from Opportunity Creation to Closed Won/Closed Lost. 

Win Ratio, for either a Sales Rep or Sales Organization is calculated as a percent, showcasing the number of Opportunities that are Closed Won – aka how effective your organization or reps are at converting the potential deals that are in front of them into paying customers.  

Just like anything with Sales and Business Development, there are a number of factors, both internal and external to your organization, that can negatively affect those numbers. Why is this important? Because if your Sales Velocity suffers, it will take your team a longer period of time to hit your goals. Conversely, if your Win Ratio suffers, it will take you a much higher volume of opportunities to hit your goals. Here are some of the factors that most commonly affect Sales Velocity and Win Ratio for sales organizations and teams:

Poor Economic Factors

Some things we as Sales professionals or business owners cannot control. The economy is one of those things. A great example is COVID and the economic downturn that occurred and how it is affecting day to day life and business. 

Lack of Strategy Customization 

Your team is dishing out boilerplate strategies that aren’t customized to the prospect, their pain points, or their preferences. Lack of customization in an increasingly more personalized world is a sure fire way to lose a deal. 

Your “Solution” is Not Solving a Real Problem

Your team has not done the job that a polished sales professional should, and that is outline the “why” behind a plan or strategy, and highlight the organizational problem that your strategy helps solve. 

We put together 6 tips that we have seen, when executed correctly and consistently, help to increase both Sales Velocity and Win Ratio through better understanding, prospect targeting, subject matter expertise, and customization.

Tip #1: Fish in the Right Ponds

Learn who your best customers are, and why, and find prospects that fit that criteria. Some of the criteria that has generated the best results for polished and robust sales organizations over the years include lookalikes of your current customers who:

• Spend the most 
• Have been with you the longest
• Exist in verticals where you drive the best product or service results

Tip #2: Conduct a Great Discovery Call 

• Ask tons of questions to get context into their overall business and goals
• Do NOT leave the call (or allow your Sales team to do so) without getting an understanding of their pain points, decision making criteria, budget and timelines  

Tip #3: Solve a Problem, Do NOT Just Sell a Product

• Tap into the pain point from the discovery call and drive that home with your SOLUTION
• Solution selling as opposed to commodity selling

Tip #4: Build Empathy and Rapport With Your POC

Prioritize building a good relationship so that you can ask candid questions on feedback and establish trust 

Tip #5: Ask For the Order, and Handle Objections

Don’t shy away from asking direct questions, and keep asking until you get an answer. 

Tip #6: Shorten your Sales Cycle

It’s common sense in sales that the longer the delay, the less likely you are to ever connect with a lead. Ideally shoot to respond in no more than one hour to contact qualified sales opportunities, but aim for the holy grail of a real-time handover from SDR to AE.

In conclusion, there are a few key factors that truly affect Sales Velocity and Win Ratio. Through better targeting, customization, subject matter expertise and gathering the right information in an emotionally intelligent way, you and your sales organization will be able to increase these numbers, and make the MOST out of the leads in your pipeline, and with a quick turnaround to really be able to make it rain.

The post How to Increase Sales Velocity and Win Ratio appeared first on Power Digital Marketing.

How to Use Personas to Create Effective Sales Enablement Materials?

What do we mean by Sales Enablement?

Any form of messaging that aims to both inform and champion your product or service and thereby drive sales can be described as a sales enablement material. As stated, most companies produce this messaging for both internal and external use to activate their sales team and to vocalize directly to consumers. Examples of sales enablement materials include: 

• B2C materials:
  • Social media content
  • Social copy
  • Blog posts
  • Case studies and testimonials 
  • Product reviews and post-sales materials
• B2B sales enablement materials to arm internal sales teams:
  • Competitor Comparisons (typically presented as battle-cards)
  • Sales scripts
  • Product one-sheets
  • Educational presentations
  • Third-party industry research and data

These sales enablement tactics are the tools and resources that can equip your sales team on how best to sell your product. Think of these as the armor that your sales team put on before going into battle in the market place each day. They aim to educate your sales team into your product specifics, the buyer rewards, and the user satisfaction rating of your product. 

Whether your sales team is an office of three in rural Ohio, or three thousand in Silicon Beach, their training and expertise in your product matters. Personas are the next step to elevate this training. According to ITSMA, 82% of companies nationwide already use a persona model in their b2b marketing model.

Why do we Leverage Personas in Sales Enablement Materials?

The purpose of identifying your unique buyer personas is to help you create a marketing strategy specifically tailored to each one. Thus, your unique personas will inform the basis of your strategic marketing positioning. For example, if your first persona is ‘Fran,’ an 80-year-old woman from the suburbs of Portland, your primary form of messaging is unlikely to be through an Instagram campaign. 

Equally, ‘Caitlin,’ the 19-year-old persona from The Bronx is less likely to stumble upon your paid editorial campaign in Town and Country magazine. 

Creating Visibility 

Personas create a visual. They are the personification of a customer. They add flesh and bone to a series of data projections and create living breathing beings. 

• Beings with habits. 
• Beings with thought patterns. 
• Beings with whom we can empathize and relate. 

From a marketing perspective, this demand for empathy works to humanize the ad-world jargon that surrounds target demographics and consumer behavior. While customer data and analytics in their pure form are valuable, it is the creation of personas that allow both your marketing and sales department to add a flare of innovation and creativity to their campaigns. It is that “human” component that elevates strategic thinking to thoughtful, personalized, and pragmatic campaigns.

Define Your Buyer Personas 

How to Build Your Personas?

The first step is to define your personas. Depending on your business type, aim to create at least three to five unique persona individuals. Each individual should represent a sub-segment of your core consumer base. The best way to get started is to conduct research into your audience to gain an accurate perspective of your target demographic. Listed below are tools that can help find your target demographic, and improve sales.

• Google Analytics—Utilize Google Analytics to discover insights about your brand’s reputation online. What countries or states generate most web traffic to your site? What are the core age and gender norms of your customers? Google has a wealth of data readily accessible at your fingertips, allowing you to fully engage yourself within your brand.
• Social Media Metrics—Similar to Google, the social media metrics of your business page gives an informative insight into the geographic, age and gender breakdown of your audience. This is a goldmine for small businesses. More so, it grants a thorough breakdown of user habits: When are the sweet spots for activity on your platform? What competitor brands do your customer base engage with? Which influencers or brand ambassadors are they listening to? Which platforms are driving clicks to your website and conversions to purchases? All the questions you have may be answered with this savvy technology. 
• Ask Your Audience to Participate In a Survey—Present your mailing list recipients or website visitors with a simple CTA asking them to fill out a brief survey. Use your survey to target any withstanding questions or more specific research factors such as their profession, their hobbies, and habitual patterns (or their knowledge of competitor brands).

While quantitative research adds ballast and insight into your target demographics, it is qualitative research of your audience-base that provides a wealth of information useful to create your personas. Planting each persona geographically is vital since 82% of companies target their marketing campaigns according to a locality.

Enlisting a market research agency with professional marketers to conduct a thorough, detailed deep-dive into the user habits of your customers will give specific guidance for building the fine details of your personas. This is what takes your personas from the crude sketch of a numeric statistic to developing their human elements. 

It gives them a face, a lifestyle and an identity. 

Claire

Now, ‘Claire’ goes from being a number on a page to a student from Denver who enjoys motorbike racing and religiously attends folk-rock concerts. ‘Brian’ goes from being a dot on a graph to a grandfather in Reno who collects vintage Time magazines and is a keen member of his local Rotary Society. Your customers are what drive your business, whether you’re selling a product or providing a service. Let your customers become more than people you are selling to, and an added number to your data. Your personas have pasts and futures, which is what makes them so valuable in tracking customer behavior. 

Determine What Sales Enablement Materials Are the Best Fit 

Different types of messaging or sales materials will resonate stronger with different buyer personas. Research conducted by MECLABS offers some vital insight into the messaging preferences of different generations. 

For example, where 24% of 18-30-year-olds respond positively to text messages from brands, only 6% of people over 65 would feel comfortable with a brand communicating via text. Comparatively, while only 30% of 18-30-year-olds would respond positively to postal mail from a brand, a significant 68% of 65 and overs say that they would. Listening to these insights allows your sales team to optimize each messaging platform and leverage them to communicate to your audience well.

Goals, Desires, and Pain Points

Once you’ve established your personas it is crucial to outline their needs and their frustrations. In doing so, you can position your product or service in a manner that speaks directly to their desires and craft a solution-orientated narrative around your brand. 

• Pain Points—In order to understand what your audience perceives their need to be, you need to understand what they lack (or perceive to be lacking).
• Goals—Once a pain point is established, set a criterion that would hypothetically enable each of your personas to overcome their pain points and find a satisfactory solution.
• Desires—The outcome: Either the solution to the problem or the perceived antidote that your persona would wish to buy into to alleviate the pain point.

The aim is to create a unique message, tailored to each of your 3-5 personas, that specifically informs them how and why your product or service will benefit their lifestyle and alleviate their pain point. 

Equip Your Sales Team with Targeted Sales Materials 

Now that you have crafted your unique messaging angle and material placement, it is time to deploy these developed materials in the marketplace. The first step is to share your findings with your internal sales team. This is where b2b persona usage applies. 

Create a presentation that gives an in-depth insight into each persona. Take time to build and explain each character, empowering your sales team to establish their own empathy and understanding towards each one. Follow this by teaching the various sales enablement tips that your research has granted you. 

Last Words

Now the aforementioned b2b sales enablement materials come into the picture. Arming your sales team with specific one-pagers and sales scripts allow you to create a uniform angle and narrative across departments and territories that distinctly cater to your 3-5 personas. This meeting should produce a unanimous understanding of your unique messaging angles, and generate a synergy across your sales team as they go forth with a fresh and thorough understanding of each material.

Since your sales team will likely handle the day-to-day communication with potential and current customers, a concrete understanding of each persona will prove valuable to their communication style. No matter what department or messaging tactic that they employ, whether telecoms, social media or email lists, they will now be armed with a deeper, more humanized understanding of your audience.

Sources

https://www.marketingsherpa.com/article/chart/channels-preferred-by-age-groups – ‘Marketing Research Chart: Do difference age groups prefer different channels?’ sourced from Marketing Sherpa

https://www.itsma.com/whats-behind-the-customer-mask/ – ‘The Marketing Strategist: What’s behind the Customer Mask? Buyer Personas Reveal What Motivates your Customers to Buy’ sourced from ITSMA

https://s3.amazonaws.com/factual-content/marketing/downloads/LocationBasedMarketingReport_Factual.pdf – ‘2018 Location-Based Marketing Report’ sourced from Lawless Research

The post How to Use Personas to Create Effective Sales Enablement Materials? appeared first on Power Digital Marketing.

This is uniquely crucial in the B2B space, as the marketing and sales strategy to reach these unique audiences is different than the oftentimes more straightforward B2C efforts. 

Discover how to create customer personas for B2B marketing to enhance your digital marketing strategies and performance. 

Research your Buyer Personas 

It’s important for content marketers to get granular to really define and differentiate the various audiences. Do research into some of the following: industry, company title, demographics, motivations and goals. 

You can do this research process online and/or talk to your sales team to establish goals and objectives. 

Formalize Your Research

The next important step is to actual concretize the research you’ve done so you have one source that defines each persona template and all relevant aspects about him/her. There are many different forms this can come in, but having one sheet will enable you to disseminate the information to all members of your team. It can also serve as a guiding light to which you & your team consistently refer to in all marketing campaigns and communications efforts. 

Deploy Personas into Strategy 

Once you have a clear understanding of your target user personas, you will then be able to integrate your insights about him/her into your various digital marketing or communications tactics. Use your understanding of the persona’s goals, motivations, challenges and objectives to help inform your sales enablement materials, your communications and your marketing efforts. 

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