Did you see the B2B Tech Lead Generation Marketing Trends report launched by IDG Enterprise this week? It provides some really useful facts and figures about where the industry’s marketing is heading, based on the feedback of around 800 industry professionals. There’s a link to the full slideshare presentation at the end of this blog but first you might be interested in our take on some of the key findings relating to B2B tech PR, social media and content.
ONE: Generating high quality leads is the number one priority
‘High quality’ is the key word here. We think this suggests that B2B companies have got decent pipelines coming in but they struggle to sort the wheat from the chaff. This also suggests that companies need to differentiate through high quality content strategies. In order to ensure they aren’t only generating the content volumes designed to drive SEO and visitors, they need to be creating quality content that will help to convert the casual visitor into serious customer. We believe that the traditional principles of B2B PR and storytelling are critical here. Content, stories and coverage that have stood the journalist acid test also add that high quality aspect to content marketing.
TWO: Compelling content is the secret to email marketing success
Email marketing is still critical to fuelling and filling the B2B tech inbound pipeline. However, your material needs to strike a real chord in terms of solving pains and problems or providing inspirational information. We have to face up to the fact that as content marketing catches on and becomes more commonplace it becomes an increasingly crowded market. The winners are those which provide content that engages and also nurtures leads through the journey to closure.
THREE: B2B tech PR is a top 50% lead generation tactic
OK, let’s be honest, there were twelve tactics lists and PR was number 6 in terms of the number of people that thought it was effective. It’s never going to be top of a lead generation list but the fact this it is in the top 50% is very important. Currently it beats social media, as well as PPC, online advertising and telemarketing. This suggests that in a world where everything to do with marketing is increasingly measured (a good thing) we should not ignore the power of influencers. Finding and communicating an organisation’s natural PR stories turns heads.
FOUR: Social media – start with your website
B2B tech social media is often a confusing and daunting place with an ever increasing and changing range of platforms and tools that should be utilised. The research shows that most strategies centre on the company website. Website centric social media helps to improve the visitor experience as well as ensuring content is ‘pooled’ and the site is refreshed regularly. The second most aspect of social media is building relationships with 3rd party bloggers and community moderators. We think many companies ignore this – their efforts stopping at continual outputs but little work done on outreach. Blogger outreach should be a natural extension of your PR programme. There’s a massive opportunity for your content to be shared and your people to become industry bloggers if you spread the word.
If you would like to see the full report click here, or you might be interested in receiving our guide to developing integrated and compelling content.
Thanks for the report IDG.
