A lot of time and effort is needed for thoughtful implementation of B2B marketing automation. But once it’s ready to be operational, it can do wonders for the sales pipeline.
A significant challenge encountered by most B2B marketers revolves around following a predetermined workflow, without which they may just be shooting in the dark. No matter the type of business, the benefits of marketing automation are many – increased efficiency, improved quality, and more time for strategic planning. But most importantly, it generates more high-quality leads for your sales funnel.
But what exactly is a marketing automation solution all about? How do we use marketing automation? And what are the best B2B automation techniques and tactics to enhance B2B lead nurturing strategies?
We will delve into answering all such questions in this blog!
IN THIS BLOG
What is B2B Marketing Automation?
In simple terms, B2B marketing automation is among the ideal B2B lead generation trends that simplify the process of managing leads and nurturing relationships thus, helping close more. To achieve this, a set of tools must be integrated into the marketing and sales system.
A thorough understanding of customers’ preferences allows one to send personalized content for every interaction, eliminating the stress of lead nurturing. This content can immensely benefit the sales team, allowing them to identify high-quality leads. Marketing automation is one of the best B2B lead generation solutions that helps achieve better results for lead generation and nurturing, without spending much time on traditional outreach and sales.
The Purpose of Marketing Automation
Marketing automation stands true to its name – it automates marketing activities within a specific threshold. The success of most marketing campaigns depends on the ability to contact the maximum number of prospects at scale. If this process is done manually, the number of prospects that could be reached is not very significant.
On the other hand, marketing automation software can help improve the outcome of marketing campaigns exponentially, leading to both an increased number of leads and conversions.
B2B demand generation marketers stand to benefit from marketing automation. Benefits include the following:
- Allows for personalization: B2B marketers can tailor-fit their marketing campaign for numerous customer segments, thus fulfilling their needs by offering personalized content.
- Enhances productivity: Marketing automation software helps eliminate repetitive tasks, thus allowing teams to focus more on strategic planning.
- Streamlines campaigns: The custom view feature of the software allows every marketing campaign to be easily managed by different people.
How To Get The Best Results With B2b Marketing Automation
Whether you’re new to the world of marketing automation or want to ramp up an existing strategy, the following B2B marketing solutions can help you win more deals.
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Lead nurturing
Emails, when automated, help deliver content in a consistent and personalized manner. This can help win loyal customers. If you do not want to lose on hot leads, set up an automated workflow that sends email alerts to the sales teams when the prospects reach the high-scoring criteria.
This tactic works best for the B2B industry as purchases are made only after establishing a large amount of trust and education. Once the lead makes up your list, send targeted content until it’s warm enough to be sent to the sales team.
Lead nurturing helps achieve two crucial things. One, it keeps track of the leads throughout the buyer’s journey and second, it allows changes to B2B digital marketing strategies in accordance with the different steps.
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Lead scoring
B2B leads also need to be qualified; that is, there needs to be a system that can show at which stage of the buyer’s journey the lead is. Here, timing is very important for a B2B marketer whose sole aim is to send high-quality leads to the sales team at the correct time.
A lead scoring model, therefore, becomes inevitable to get the most out of the efforts put in by the marketing team. Based on the level of engagement, this model can help score leads. With the leads scored, it helps put the spotlight on the more engaged leads first.
For instance, marketing automation can assign ‘points’ to leads whenever their interactions suggest a growing interest in your brand. It might appear to be too complex, but it’s not. Some of the best marketing automation tools can help you create a lead-scoring model.
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Multi-channel campaigns
At the root of an effective B2B marketing automation strategy lies targeted communication. Prospect behavior must be analyzed to create relevant and engaging content across different channels. This not only helps achieve results but builds brand image as well.
If you are a B2B marketing automation starter, you should use one channel at a time. Email nurturing programs can give you a good start. Once you have mastered one channel, you can opt for a multi-channel approach.
Multi-channel marketing automation calls for marketing interventions at different layers and is implemented over a period of time to get the most from lead nurturing. The name indicates this form of digital marketing strategy touches leads at multiple touchpoints across the buyer journey. Multi-channel outreach can include email, SMS, targeted ads, and social media ads.
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Segmentation & customer profiling
Irrespective of the complexity of the business process, B2B marketing automation can help smoothen it. It is here that the idea of B2B customer segmentation and progressive profiling comes in. It goes a step ahead of the initial interaction between a customer and a brand. It seeks to gain an understanding of the requirements of a user and fulfill it.
If a business needs to design landing pages, it would be tricky to decide on the questions that need to be put on which landing pages. The questions that need to be asked must be done in a way that covers all crucial reasons why prospects need your product or service. Marketing automation can help increase your business’ efficiency and allow it to scale drastically. Relevant, customized contact fields can be put in place based on the lead source.
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Lead Routing
There’s a lot that the sales team needs to achieve, and they need to remain focused. Lead routing is one such B2B marketing automation workflow that sources leads to the most sought-after sales reps based on commonality in fields like products, services, or territories.
B2B Marketing Automation Best Practices
Here we bring to you some of the best practices that can help you keep track of the best results:
- Before configuring automation workflows, it is best to understand the various stages of the sales cycle and sales leads types and map the lead’s journey. All key aspects – from brand discovery to conversion – must be covered as this helps to build the marketing automation workflow.
- Make sure that messaging is accurate at every workflow stage.
- B2B email list ought to be entirely opt-in (organic subscribers). It’s better to provide unsubscribe tools as leads can change their minds at any moment.
- Inactive leads should be removed from email lists regularly. This will help improve engagement rates and enhance email deliverability.
It’s a Wrap!
A one-size-fits-all approach to marketing automation can never work. This is because everyone’s different – lead generation strategy ought to be different for everyone. This blog has covered almost all important aspects of B2B marketing automation; it’s time to get into action. If you want to know more about B2B marketing automation, talk to us at Binary Demand.