B2B marketing campaign

All ideas start with insight, and all great ideas require great insight. Insight enables you to see and understand what your audience is all about, and marketing without insight is like marketing blind. Many B2B organizations make educated guesses at what they perceive to be the wants and needs of their customers. However, true marketing insight is generated through carefully considered interpretation of business intelligence and financial data. It’s the stuff that’s gathered through the process of analyzing market research, together with everything already known about the target market. It provides vital information and data that helps us craft killer ideas and creative ways to communicate to our audience.

Strategy – Get Integrated

Marketing in the B2B space is not like marketing to consumers. I love Paul Dunay’s analogy: if B2C marketing is a sprint, then B2B marketing is a marathon. Let’s face it. We are living in an age of information overload. It’s a noisy landscape. That’s why it is so important for B2B organizations to cut through that noise with integrated marketing that’s both strategic and creatively crafted. In the everyday bombardment of messages and tweets, it is pointless to hope to stand out and be heard without consistently engaging our audience. An integrated B2B marketing strategy helps organizations successfully connect with their customers because it helps them get branded, get online and get social in relevant and meaningful ways.

Creative – Get Experienced

Creativity is no longer just an embellishment to brand management. It has become a strategic imperative for creating killer content and a core driver of innovation and differentiation in a crowded marketplace. Creative thinking is drastically transforming online experiences by separating great content from mediocre content. Why? Because creating great content is hard. It’s not a creative writing or pixel pushing project. You can’t “just create something” out of thin air. Content creators know that great content involves so much more than “clever buzzwords” (if there is such a thing). Great content requires a balance between function and form, both written and visual, in order to deliver an experience that is both relevant and meaningful to the customer.

Metrics – Get Optimized

Planning and executing a marketing program is a good start, but how are the results measured? What’s working? What’s not? Accurate metrics involves consistent and persistent monitoring, measuring and adjusting along the way. The process becomes truly valuable when the right data helps make intelligent business decisions. A critical component to achieving the right data is testing. At Ad-Tech, last April, I learned that less than 30% of companies test their marketing. Those 30% saw their marketing ROI increase by more than 70%! That means the majority of companies rely on gut instinct and misinformation. No wonder marketing is perceived as an expense rather than an investment! When in doubt, test… and then test again, because testing illustrates what the customer really wants.

How to Brand Your Small Business?

Of course, increasing name recognition is only one aspect of the branding puzzle, but an important one. It is particularly perplexing to a Small Business well known in a certain market, (perhaps where the Small Business originated), but disappointed at the lack of carry over in name recognition upon entering a new geographical area.

So, what can a Small Business do to increase name recognition? Here are some tips & ways you can begin branding your Small Business and increase the name recognition of your firm.

1. Hire a branding Small Business to bring your image and message under a brand. Develop all collateral and image materials (web, stationery, logo, tagline, mission statement, cards, postcards, brochures, elevator pitch, newsletters, letters, project sheets, resumes, bios, firm description, etc.) to coincide with the brand and your message.

2. Develop a mission statement that shows your reason for being and the value you provide to your customers.

3. Develop a memorable tagline that expresses who you are and what you do.

4. Make a matrix of all those you’d like to reach in the next year and the potential influencers on those people. Develop a timetable and calendar of outreach.

5. Regularly write and issue press releases to the media.

6. Regularly write and post press releases to your website.

7. Regularly write and post press releases directly onto the internet.

8. Regularly write articles and do all three of the above.

9. Regularly write and pitch feature story ideas to the media.

10. Diversify all marketing, PR and media to reach the markets where your clients are to be found (as opposed to marketing within your own service industry).

11. Participate (attend, speak, host, present, show) in at least two national and local industry conferences.

12. Create and issue an online or direct mail newsletter to the others for your Small Business.

13. Get known for niche expertise or specific industry knowledge. (speak, write, present, teach).

14. Participate in professional internship programs for your Small Business.

15. Participate and sponsor local charitable efforts; get your name in the program the charitable cause distributes; get your name in the press surrounding the event.

What Will Do a Well-Prepared Business Plan for You

1) It will help you develop a thorough understanding of who your competition may be with your business and if there is a market out there that needs the service or product you would like to offer. This step is what solidifies that you are considering a viable business that will meet your goals and the requirements of financers if you need them.

2) Understand the numbers and expenses of starting up a business. There are so many elements out there that you do not always think about right away. A well rounded, accurate business plan needs to consider the following:

a. Slow times

b. Marketing

c. Insurance

d. Monthly overhead

e. Credit lines

f. Rate of return on investment

g. If additional employees are needed

h. Accounting methods and procedures

3) The preparation of the business plan itself is quite time intensive. If you are not able to put the thought, detail, and vision of your business idea down in a thorough plan it is a warning sign. Owning a small business does require the owner to wear many hats (at first anyways). You need to pay attention to the details to have success. Keep in mind, that doesn’t mean that you have to create an absolutely polished professional business plan. You need to show that you’ve acknowledged all the facets of being a business owner in that plan though.

4) A well thought out and prepared business plan will allow you to show other people your vision. The people who see the plan will most likely play a role in your business in one of two ways. You may want them to invest in it or you may want them to participate in it. The well prepared business plan is a great indicator of solid leadership.

5) You will be able to clearly see if the business you want is a viable one that is worth the time and financial investment. If you need unrealistic results just to break even you need to re-evaluate. If you still want to do the business that is fine but your incentive cannot be financial freedom because it may not happen. When businesses do not pan out with a strong financial return people often do them as a hobby or small supplement to their income.

Article , Thanks - http://b2bhelps.com/business-plan/what-will-do-a-well-prepared-business-plan-for-you/