B2B Digital Marketing Strategy

About the author xiv
Preface xv

1 The new evolving business landscape 1
Introduction 1
Changes to the marketing discipline 2
New changes in sales 4
The new B2B customer 6
Legislation and ethics 8
Technologies and influence 9
The social organization 11
References 12
Further reading 13

PART ONE Developing the B2B digital strategy 15
2 B2B digital marketing strategy 17
Introduction 17
The digital marketing strategy matrix 19
Defining the digital strategy – first steps 21
Alignment: achieving strategic alignment 26
Evaluating and selecting strategies 27
Digital marketing strategies 29
References 31

3 B2B customer journeys and the customer experience 32
Introduction 32
Customer experience 36
Customer touchpoints 38
Touchpoint mapping 39
Final considerations 46
Inbound and outbound views of customer journeys 46
References 48
Further reading 48

4 B2B personalization marketing and buyer personas 49
Introduction 49
Types of B2B personalization 51
B2B personalization by channel 54
The B2B personalization marketing pyramid 59
The buyer persona 61
Progressive profiling 64
References 66
Further reading 66

5 B2B customer insights and data management 68
Introduction 68
Customer insights framework 69
Methods for gathering customer insights in B2B 70
Quantitative customer insights methods 72
Qualitative customer insight methods 75
Customer data management 77
Types of data in marketing 78
Data analytics 80
References 82
Further reading 82

PART TWO The early buyer journey stage 83
6 Generating awareness 85
Introduction 85
The early buying journey stage 86
B2B digital advertising 88
Types of advertisement targeting 93
B2B social media advertising 96
Selecting advertising channels 96
Ad retargeting 97
B2B content syndication channels 98
PR and online PR 99
Influencer marketing 100
References 104
Further reading 104

7 B2B SEO and search strategies 106
Introduction 106
B2B search engine marketing 107
B2B SEO 108
Keywords and key phrases 110
The long tail of search in B2B 111
Keyword and competitor research 113
Keywords and the buyer journey 114
Link building 115
Tools for search engine marketing 117
B2B SEM strategies 117
References 119
Further reading 119

8 B2B websites and website strategies 120
Introduction 120
Designing a website for B2B 122
Website conversion in B2B 125
Evaluating B2B websites 125
Managing bounce rates 127
Website navigation 128
Heatmaps 130
B2B website strategies 131
Other website technologies 132
References 135
Further reading 135

PART THREE Digital for lead generation and lead nurturing 137
9 B2B digital marketing for lead generation 139
Introduction 139
Lead capture 141
Gated content 142
Social media and lead generation 143
Websites and lead generation 146
Email and lead generation 146
Webinars 148
Defining the lead generation mix 149
Lead handover 150
Technologies for tracking leads 152
References 154
Further reading 154

10 B2B digital and lead nurturing 156
Introduction 156
Types of lead nurture strategies 161
Email lead nurturing 164
Social media marketing and lead nurturing 166
Website and lead nurturing 167
Lead recycling 168
Technologies for lead nurturing 169
Lead nurturing planning 170
References 172
Further reading 173

PART FOUR Digital campaign management and integration 175
11 B2B content marketing 177
Introduction 177
Content and its roles 179
Content marketing checklist 179
Aligning content to the customer journey 180
Key content formats in B2B 181
Core content and fragmented content 183
How much content do you need? 184
When to update content 185
Content activation and distribution 186
Scheduling content 189
Content amplification 190
User-generated content in B2B 190
B2B content marketing strategies: a summary 192
References 194
Further reading 194

12 B2B digital marketing campaign planning 195
Introduction 195
Digital marketing campaigns 196
Goal and objective definition 197
The target customer 197
Reaching audiences 199
Establishing KPIs 200
Defining resources 201
Setting the campaign budget 202
Campaign creation 203
Campaign tracking 203
References 206

13 Digital integration marketing in B2B 207
Introduction 207
Challenges in digital marketing integration 208
Integrating digital and offline 209
Planning for digital integration 210
Techniques and technologies for offline integration 210
Integrating direct mailing 213
Integrating events 214
PR and digital integration 217
Digital and customer service 218
References 220
Further reading 221

14 Digital marketing and sales 222
Introduction 222
Challenges for B2B sales 224
Identifying improvements in sales and marketing engagement 225
The 3Es of digital sales and marketing 226
Sales email tracking 232
CRM, and how sales and marketing leverage it 232
Sales and social media 233
The Sales Enablement Maturity Model 233
Account-based marketing 235
References 237
Further reading 238

15 Measuring digital marketing 239
Introduction 239
Creating a digital measurement framework 240
Process and outcome 241
Measuring the early buying stage 243
Measuring the mid-buying journey 247
Measuring the late buyer journey 248
Post-purchase measurement 249
Absolute marketing metrics 250
Vanity metrics and actionable metrics 251
Hierarchy of metrics 252
Attribution modelling 252
References 255
Further reading 255

PART FIVE Digital for retaining customers 257
16 Types of digital retention marketing 259
Introduction 259
Digital technologies and retention customer insights 260
Segmenting customers 261
Predictive analytics and retention marketing 261
The journeys beyond purchase 262
Identifying post-purchase journeys 264
Core retention marketing 265
Development customer marketing 266
Lapse prevention marketing 270
Contact strategy 272
Customer loyalty and digital 273
References 276
Further reading 276

17 Digital retention marketing channels 278
The digital channel mix for retention marketing 278
Email in retention marketing 280
Webinars in retention marketing 283
Websites in retention marketing 284
Mobile in retention marketing 285
Social media in retention marketing 287
Customer retention marketing strategies 289
References 291
Further reading 291

PART SIX B2B social media and digital marketing platforms 293
18 B2B social media marketing strategy 295
Introduction 295
B2B social media channels and goals 297
B2B social media and generating awareness 300
Lead generation and social media 303
Social media advocacy 305
B2B social media listening 307
B2B social media measurement framework 309
B2B social media marketing strategies 311
References 313
Further reading 313

19 B2B digital marketing technologies and platforms 314
Introduction 314
Marketing technology requirements 316
Artificial intelligence and digital marketing 318
The future of B2B digital marketing 321
References 324
Further reading 325

Index 327