For many B2B marketers, the shift from strictly outbound sales and marketing efforts to an integrated inbound/outbound strategy has not been easy. The vision of a well-orchestrated “concert” of integrating social strategies has taken some rethinking in how sales and marketing people use their time and energy. In all honesty, convincing a classically trained business development or marketing person to take precious time away from outbound efforts to spend that time generating content (or even ideas) for social media or other e-tactics has been more difficult for some than others!

It’s true, many savvy marketers (and those who counsel them) have the process well underway, constantly testing and refining. However, for those B2B companies who are finding the task more daunting, here are a few suggestions we find helpful when helping our clients:

Think big – It all goes back to “branding”. Make sure you’ve done the basics. Does your company have well-defined and articulated brand? This may be the perfect time to develop or refine your brand story, and brand/message guidelines. Make sure all your efforts are integrated and reinforce your company’s brand. At JHA, we call this process SquareOne –a proprietary business analysis tool.

Start small – Your world won’t change overnight: Build your followers just as you’ve built your sales efforts – over time. Don’t do everything at once. Developing social followers can be a long process – many B2B sales cycles are 12-18 months or longer. Helpful, relevant, well-targeted content can help shorten that cycle, but, in our experience, there’s no silver bullet. Less is more to start. Concentrate on fewer channels and better content. Each social channel is different. There are more than 10 major social channels to choose from. Don’t get spread too thin. Select the proper channel(s) for your company and your audience. Learn how to use the tools and manage them properly. When you expand to other channels, adapt the messaging to suit the unique channel.

Social Media ROI – How do you measure what you’re doing? Tools for assessing ROI are becoming more sophisticated but inbound efforts, just like outbound are pieces of a larger marketing strategy. Some marketers have also begun using the term, “Return on Engagement”: How much is an ongoing engagement with interested parties worth to your organization? Other specific ways to measure your efforts could include increased followers and web traffic, content downloads, clicks from specials or incentives for inbound offers and more.  As part of the overall marketing strategy, all of these efforts are to fill the top of the sales funnel with MQLs (Marketing Qualified Leads) and to lead them toward contact and ultimately a sale. Just as importantly, inbound marketing efforts are a perfect fit for nurturing existing customers with additional insight into new products and services.

At JHA, our responsibility to our clients includes helping them navigate the myriad of marketing options available to find the perfect mix of activities given their bandwidth, timelines and budget. Our process begins with building a strong foundation – a well-defined brand. Then we find the best ways to articulate and reinforce that message to the correct audiences, using the right mix of media, strategies and tactics to help position our clients as market leaders.

Citation: Dare to be different: The state of B2B content marketing differentiation in 2017 [Web log post]. (2017, August 29). Retrieved September 8, 2017, from https://www.b2bmarketing.net/en/partner-downloads/dare-be-different-state-b2b-content-marketing-differentiation-2017