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All great B2B strategy starts with a documented strategy around ROI. But too often, businesses skip this part and get directly into execution mode. Although it works for a short time, eventually you will lack focus in your B2B marketing efforts.
The first thing to create a B2B strategy that generates ROI is to know how to create one.
To know how to create a B2B strategy that generates ROI on a regular basis, we’ve got it covered.
How to Create a B2B Strategy
1) Define your Goals
Setting up goals is an important part of any B2B strategy. Goal setting can get difficult if you don’t know what you are capable of achieving. Your goals must be smart, measurable, attainable, realistic, and time-bound.
The small milestones should ultimately tie up to the big picture. You need to have backup plans in case your original plans don’t work out. Record that data and see how your strategies can achieve the respective goals.
2) Create a Buyer Persona
Once you set up your goals, the next step is to know your audience. You need to know how your audience thinks and the best way to do that is to create a buyer persona. A buyer persona is a semi-fictional character of your ideal customer based on market research.
Depending on the type of product you have, you can have multiple personas. But all personas must be based on extensive research and content must be created to fulfill their demand.
3) Map the Buyer Journey
Given that a B2B buying cycle is longer than a few weeks, most of your prospects will research before talking to your sales rep. So knowing what your prospect is searching for and how they navigate various digital properties, is critical for your B2B strategy.
As a buyer move through each stage of the buyer journey, their questions change. A good B2B strategy answers relevant questions at each point and eases the customer into making the right decision.
4) Conduct a Content Audit
AN overlooked part of creating an ROI-based B2B strategy is conducting a content audit. You could spend a couple of hours looking through your site, reading content, and forming opinions based on what you see.
Look at the quality of content you are producing and see what you could do differently. Understand the tone, relevance, SEO, visual content, and buyer’s journey through content.
5) Brainstorm New Content Ideas
Great content is a critical part of any B2B strategy. Sometimes, finding new ideas could become a daunting task. You can arrange a brainstorming session with your team, and get a ton of ideas.
It’s important to research your competitors and watch things that are working out for them. See what keywords are bringing them the highest traffic and try to incorporate those keywords into your content. Analyze all types of content from your competitors including offers, emails, website copy, landing pages, and even product descriptions.
6) Identify the Type of Content You Need to Create
Your competitor analysis reveals the kind of content your audience is consuming. Based on the resources available, you can decide what type of content you’ll be creating. Blog posts, Infographics, Video tutorials, social media, eBooks, there are many types of the content form you can experiment with. Case studies help you showcase how your product or service has been successfully implemented by other companies.
These are just the beginnings. There are tons of different content strategies you can leverage on your website.
7) Execute your Strategy
To get started, create a document that outlines your B2B strategy including goals, buyer personas, brand tone, and content requirements. This can be in the form of google sheets, docs, Evernote, or pdfs.
It’s another task to be able to execute the strategy. Many businesses excitedly create a strategy without following it through. For your B2B strategy to be successful, you need a good execution plan with clear defined KPIs. Set up project management tools to keep track of all the necessary steps.
8) Measure the ROI of your B2B Strategy
Measurement is a key area where most B2B marketers struggle. Right from step 1, you need to set up analytics to measure traffic at each step of the buyer’s journey. Sometimes attributing ROI can be difficult but after a time, you can clearly see what’s working for your business and what isn’t. To get a better sense, run an analytics report at least once every month.
To determine which metrics to track, go back to your goals.
Conclusion
Creating a B2B strategy focused on ROI takes work upfront and requires inputs from various departments in the company. Take time to create personas, set brand voices, and create a document for everyone to follow.
By following the steps mentioned above, you’ll be able to create a B2B strategy that brings ROI.
