In the competitive field of B2B tech, standing out is non-negotiable. The 2024 marketing landscape demands a recalibration of your strategy, will demand more than campaigns, it demands a brand revolution.

Our seasoned marketing experts, promoted by a recent roundtable discussion, shine a spotlight on the fact that in the world of marketing, your brand is your ultimate weapon, and it's time to make it stronger than ever. We're, therefore, focusing on what truly matters in 2024. This is not just another discussion; it's a grounded exploration of how to reinforce your brand's presence in a rapidly evolving market.

Our upcoming webcast on November 15, 2023, will explore the 10 key lessons shaping the B2B marketing landscape in 2024. From tackling the challenge of lead quality, doing more with less by maximizing impact to strategically collaborating with vendors, we will cut through the noise, providing practical strategies that redefines efficiency, delivers results, and ensures a solid ROI.

Join us as we explore the actionable steps to revamp your marketing approach. Our goal? To empower you with a step-by-step guide to identify areas for improvement, assess and comprehensively inventory your existing marketing strategy, team alignment, tactics, and technology stack.

Understanding the Key Shifts for 2024: Find out the trends that will define the upcoming marketing landscape.

Navigate Lead Quality Challenges: Gain practical insights to enhance the quality of your leads.

Optimize Resources for Maximum Impact: Discover smart approaches to maximize your marketing impact with minimal resources.

Hybrid Events: Gain insights on attracting and fortifying attendees in the evolving landscape of hybrid events.

Brand Performance, the 2024 Game-Changer: Understand practical steps to enhance your brand's standing within your industry.

Don't just adapt—lead the change. Register now for a webcast that goes beyond discussions, offering actionable steps that will fortify your brand in the swiftly evolving market of 2024.

Following a powerful roundtable discussion with marketing experts, we are exposing actionable strategies on how to dominate the marketing landscape in 2024. Join us as we dive into the critical challenges that marketers face, and exploring game-changing tactics, such as boosting lead quality, doing more with less, and elevating your brand. Learn how to assess your marketing readiness, pinpoint areas for improvement, and unleash your brand's potential.

*Use the button below to open the form for registration.

Strategic Shifts: A Tactical Guide to Boost Your Marketing Impact in 2024

DNS records act as the web's address book, translating user-friendly domain names into IP addresses. For optimal email deliverability, be aware of these pivotal DNS records:

MX Records (Mail Exchange): These direct the mail servers that receive emails for your domain. Set them correctly to route emails to services like ActiveCampaign.

DKIM (DomainKeys Identified Mail): A validation method that adds a digital signature to your emails. With ActiveCampaign's DKIM, your emails are certified untampered during transmission.

SPF (Sender Policy Framework): SPF records list the IP addresses authorized to send emails on behalf of your domain. Incorporate ActiveCampaign's SPF records into your DNS, guarding against email spoofing and asserting a trustworthy domain presence.

Building Trust and Credibility: A well-configured DNS signifies you as a legitimate sender, reducing the risk of your emails being classified as spam.

Enhancing Deliverability: Email systems use DNS and SPF to verify sender authenticity. Proper settings help your emails bypass spam filters, landing directly in inboxes.

Defending Against Impersonation: SPF shields against email spoofing, where attackers imitate domains. By defining which IPs can represent your domain, you deter such malicious acts.

Achieving Email Mastery with ActiveCampaign's DNS and SPF Tools

Hassle-free Authentication: When onboarded to ActiveCampaign, you're equipped with vital DNS records—MX, DKIM, and SPF. Integrate these into your DNS settings using the step-by-step guidelines provided.

Effortless Domain Association: ActiveCampaign enables smooth linking of your sending domains. Hence, emails via ActiveCampaign display your domain, augmenting your email's credibility.

Hands-on Guide: Integrating DNS and SPF with ActiveCampaign

1. Access your domain provider (e.g., GoDaddy, Namecheap).

2. Navigate to your DNS settings or DNS management section.

3. Locate the option to add a new DNS record, and choose the "CNAME" record type.

Record Name: acdkim1._domainkey.your-domain.com.

Record Name: acdkim2._domainkey.your-domain.com.

1. In your domain service provider, navigate back to your DNS settings.

2. Find the option to add a new DNS record and select the "TXT" record type.

Record Value: "v=spf1 include:emsd1.com ~all"

And you're set! Implementing these measures ensures ActiveCampaign-sent emails are seen as credible, maximizing your email's chances of hitting your audience's inboxes.

Imagine sending out invitations to a grand event, but many of them end up lost or deemed untrustworthy by the recipients. In the digital landscape, this is precisely what happens when your emails aren't correctly configured. To ensure your emails are both delivered and trusted, you'll need to harness the power of DNS (Domain Name System) and SPF (Sender Policy Framework) settings. In this guide, we'll explore how these configurations integrate with ActiveCampaign to optimize your email deliverability.

Boosting Email Deliverability: The Role of DNS and SPF in ActiveCampaign

In a rapidly evolving marketing landscape, our webcast, "What's (not) changing in Marketing in 2024," is your guide to staying ahead. Recognizing a gap in the tech marketing community, we've convened five prominent marketers for an exclusive roundtable. Crafted by marketers, for marketers, we offer insightful discussions without overwhelming agendas.

We'll kick off by reflecting on the past year, exploring the efficiency of live events, the impact of economic uncertainties, shifts in the tech industry, and emerging technologies like AR, VR, and AI. We'll also critically examine the quality of channels and leads.

As we pivot toward the future, we'll explore upcoming marketing strategies. Are events going digital or staying onsite? How will you navigate vendor relationships, and what role will new technologies play in shaping marketing landscapes? We'll also address lead quality, brand focus, and innovative solutions to align marketing with your future goals.

But that's not all. Join us for candid discussions where panelists openly share their real-life experiences, thoughts, and the challenges they've faced, including budget constraints.

Review 2023's Marketing Lessons: Gain insights by revisiting successes and setbacks.

Gather 2024 Marketing Ideas: Access emerging trends shaping tech marketing in the coming year.

Learn the Art of Achieving More with Less: Discover approaches to maximize your marketing impact, even with limited resources.

Your participation will enrich this exchange of ideas, connecting you with fellow marketers who've encountered similar challenges. Secure your spot at this insightful virtual roundtable by registering now. Stay tuned for additional event details and updates as we approach the date. Join us on this exciting journey of learning and growth in the dynamic realm of tech marketing!

In a dynamic world where marketing continually evolves, it's paramount to stay at the forefront of innovation. Welcome to our exclusive virtual roundtable, "What's (not) changing in Marketing in 2024." Designed by marketers, for marketers, this event promises insightful discussions without overwhelming you with a detailed agenda.

What's (not) changing in Marketing in 2024

DO YOU STILL RELY ON DISCOVERY CALLS, PRODUCT DEMOS, AND OTHER SALES TACTICS TO NURTURE LEADS AND DRIVE CONVERSIONS?

Here’s some eye-opening data for you – nearly 93% of millennials make purchase decisions for their companies. Unlike baby boomers and Gen X, millennials are more tech-savvy and self-sufficient. Instead of reaching out to a salesperson, they’d rather research and compare solutions on their own.

In such an evolving landscape, how do you engage and convert prospects without escalating marketing costs?

The key is to use cutting-edge technologies like AI and AR/VR. While AR and VR can help you deliver immersive product demos, AI comes in handy for personalizing content and product recommendations. Together, these technologies can help maximize sales and marketing ROI and help you stand out in a competitive market. But how do you integrate AR, VR, and AI into your marketing and sales efforts?

In this webcast, we’ll walk you through effective strategies to leverage AI, AR, and VR for B2B marketing and sales.

How to use AR and VR for immersive product demos and training

How to use data from AR/VR/AI tools to improve customer experience

Fill out the form below to unlock the potential of AR, VR, and AI for your marketing and sales strategies

In today’s digital-savvy world, B2B buyers demand immersive and personalized experiences. Traditional sales tactics can’t woo them any longer. How do B2B marketers keep up with these evolving dynamics? In this webcast, we’ll show you how to use technologies like AR, VR, and AI to deliver better marketing campaigns and buying experiences.

How B2B Marketers Can Boost Engagement and ROI with AR, VR and AI Marketing

As is our tradition, we start every year with a review of the previous one. There’s no better way to start a new year than by comparing the accomplishments over the years to see how much we have grown and improved with each year. This serves not only as proof of our expertise and successful work, but also as great motivation for the year(s) to come. 💪

2022 was a challenging year; the marketing industry shifts incredibly fast, and the past year certainly wasn’t an exception. However, all the challenges brought us great lessons in the end.

In our upcoming webcast, we would like to share with you how we dealt with certain challenges, enabled our clients to create sustainable profitability and adapted our marketing and advertising strategies amidst the rapidly changing business climate.

In addition, we will also share with you a few case studies of our campaigns, which will further demonstrate how we arrived at some of our new learnings. This will highlight the importance of continuously innovating and being creative. After all, if something works well now, that doesn’t mean it couldn’t work better in the future! 😉

Here’s a sneak peek into some of our accomplishments of 2022:

Join us for a webcast in which we will review the accomplishments and success stories of the past year. We will reveal some of the strategies that we learnt in 2022 and demonstrate them using client case studies.

Join us on the upcoming webcast as we share our success stories and lessons learned, so we can all grow together.

Performance Highlights & Lessons From 2022

In this evolving business landscape, marketers are expected to drive increased revenue growth and marketing efficiency while being asked to ‘do more with less’.

Although this is not a new issue, it is becoming more demanding as businesses face tight budgets, priorities and ever-changing competitive buying behavior.

Do you need to run a fully-fledged marketing campaign with a very small budget or maybe you lack the in-house capacities to bring all your marketing plans and ideas to life? If so, it doesn’t have to be the end of your marketing endeavors and you don’t necessarily need to compromise on the quality of marketing assets.

In this webinar, you’ll discover proven strategies and tactics that you can use to streamline your marketing activities, increase efficiency and improve your return on investment (ROI).

Techniques for leveraging account-based marketing (ABM) and other advanced tactics to drive results

How to run a marketing campaign on a limited budget

How to align your marketing and sales efforts in order to maximize your bottom line

Doing more with less is the top challenge facing businesses today, according to recent surveys of go-to-market leaders. In this webcast, we will show you how to do more with less resources while remaining efficient and maximizing your marketing activities/ROI.

Performance Marketing – Do more with less

After almost two years of lockdown, there’s finally an opportunity to socialize and connect again in-person. Tech companies are organizing in-person events, which involve huge investments of time and money and organizers are tasked with attracting high-value prospects and delivering exceptional attendee experience to eventually turn them into clients.

This current and exciting trend brings a challenge – how to engage the right people, attract high-value attendees and market these new events.

One of the first hurdles is how to attract and persuade high-value prospects to attend. You might have top-notch speakers and great agendas, but still not enough attendees. One of the main reasons might be that most companies don’t stand out from the crowd, i.e. they are doing the same thing and trying to attract the same people. However, these people have very limited time and cannot afford to attend every event they might find valuable.

So, the real question is how can you attract these high-value prospects and persuade them to choose your event?

We have a few strategies in our arsenal for how to make that happen, ramp up the attendance ROI from in-person events and extend the event experience by amplifying your message!

Register for our webcast and learn how to swim in the sea filled with in-person events and how to come out on top.

In-person events are restarting as a result of the relaxation of the COVID-19 pandemic limitations, and 88% of event marketers claim in-person events are essential to the success of their business. How can these new events be promoted and marketed to high-value attendees? In our webcast, we'll demonstrate a few tactics for how to achieve this.

How to promote your in-person events and fill seats with the right people

Since ABM is an increasingly popular approach to marketing in B2B nowadays, we wanted to get some inside information on the topic and share it so that you can assess whether this approach could also be of benefit to your organization.

Imagine a world where you could start the sales process by selling directly to your best-fit, highest-value accounts with no wasted time trying to market to unqualified leads who aren’t exactly the best-fit audience for your business. You could move straight into the phases of engaging and delighting your target accounts. Wouldn’t that be much more efficient?

ABM allows you to eliminate less-valuable companies early on and ensure sales and marketing are in complete alignment. In return, your team can more rapidly begin the follow up process with the accounts that matter for your business.

ABM transforms businesses is such a way that it helps them work and communicate with high-value accounts as if they are individual markets. By doing this, along with personalizing the buyer’s journey and tailoring all communication, content and campaigns to those specific accounts, you’ll see an improved lead quality and greater ROI.

Why do you need to flip your lead generation funnel with ABM?

If you’ve ever worked in B2B sales or marketing, chances are you’re familiar with the concept of the lead generation funnel.

The traditional lead generation funnel starts with a wide pool of leads at the top, which gradually narrows down to prospective customers, then opportunities and, eventually, to customers.

This encourages sales and marketing to take a so-called ‘spray and pray’ approach to lead generation, thus targeting masses of people on the premise that more leads will eventually lead to more revenue in the long run.

Of course, for some types of campaigns this approach works well, however, for B2B marketing, the funnel approach can be insufficient at times.

This is where ABM comes into play. Account-based marketing turns the traditional lead generation funnel on its head by starting with those consumers who would be the best fit for your product and working upwards.

ABM has been around for a few years, but it’s really starting to take off now as marketing technology has simplified the process with a wide range of data collection, personalization, and automation tools.

How to know if your company is ABM-ready?

This is indeed a very good point. Account-based marketing can be complex. To help you understand whether you need ABM or inbound marketing, we typically recommend considering the following:

Do you have a high value product or service? Low value doesn't tend to justify the ABM approach due to the excessive cost-of-sale?

Have you developed personas, and do you know the different messaging angles/pain-points of your target customer(s)?

Have you got clearly defined criteria to identify and analyze target accounts?

Can you execute a multi-channel campaign? Is there a sales team who’ll be running direct outreach/follow up across the target accounts?

If you answered yes to any of the questions above, then ABM might well be an approach to consider.

How do you know the difference between a good lead and a bad lead?

It really comes down to a simple analysis of interest and intent.

Interest is where someone has expressed interest in is curious about your product or service. They might have downloaded an e-Book, visited your website or attended one of your webinars. They have taken some action that tells you that they have at least some interest in what you have to offer.

However, interest alone is not enough. Interest without intent at best clogs your pipeline, and at worst results in wasted time and resources.

I am interested in high fashion. I have gone so far as to walk into a designer store. Does this interest mean I have any intent to shop there? Absolutely not. Anyone working at the store who spends time with me would be wasting their time.

Why? I may be interested, but I don’t have the funds needed to shop there, and even if I did, I most likely wouldn’t invest in more than one item. I have neither the ability nor the willingness to act upon my interest.

Intent is interest plus the ability and willingness to act.

So, when you go about the process of lead qualification, you must determine if the interest demonstrated is coupled with intent. Too often we try to find out if we think the person is a ‘fit’ for our product without considering if they are willing and able to buy it.

What is the hardest part of getting started with running ABM campaigns?

It would be difficult to just point out one single hard part, but I can point out a few of the main challenges.

The first is to ensure that you have the right content for an account-based approach: We always say that content is king. I would argue that clients often already have plenty of content for an ABM approach but are just not leveraging it. You have it in your sales decks, product sheets and even your website. The key to making that content usable is to only extract the exciting parts of it. Identify the most attention-grabbing parts and repurpose it. There’s no need to reinvent the wheel, instead create a campaign with content you know is already working.

The second is aligning sales and marketing on key accounts:

Developing an agreed list of ‘target accounts’ is critical. So, before you even think about ABM, you must agree on your ‘ideal customer profile’. Start analyzing your best clients, investigate the insights and take it from there.

And last but not least, moving away from lead-based volume metrics: Generating a high volume of leads is great, but only if those leads are: (a) from companies that meet your well-defined ideal customer profile, and (b) come with more information than just a name, i.e. what topics they might be interested in, what content they converted on and is the level of their engagement. All of this will then define the quality of your lead. That being said, you need to start thinking and aiming for quality over quantity.

Getting started with ABM could be one of the greatest moves you can make as a B2B marketer, if you have the right product and if you know your target audience well. But there is definitely a learning curve and it’s important to set yourself up for success with the right partners and tools. If you’re facing challenges and would like to dig deeper into how to solve them, feel free to contact us via LinkedIn. We offer free brainstorming sessions – no strings attached – focused on learning more about your pain points and giving you advice.

If you want to learn more about how to deliver successful campaigns with ABM marketing, you can contact us here directly.

Last week we spoke to Nina, a client performance manager who has worked on several successful account-based marketing (ABM) projects for our global clients.

ABM Lead Generation - How to Get Started

Whether you’re trying to capture new customers, improve your overall efficiency or receive more useful analyses of your leads and campaign performance, there are marketing tools and techniques to help you deliver results.

In B2B businesses, the process of generating new deals is well-known and established. Leads are generated by the marketing team and then passed onto the sales team to convert them into sales. However, this process is plagued by a major challenge: subjective bias and disagreement over the quality of leads passed from marketing to sales.

Many companies struggle to reach their next growth tier because their client acquisition process is broken. Let’s be honest, lead qualification can consume significant time and repetitive effort in collecting and validating data on leads. Once you learn how to automate, then you can deploy technology to take over and execute the tasks for which it was built.

It might take a human an entire day to accomplish what the right marketing tools can achieve in minutes, and they are usually more accurate as well! In no time at all, you’ll have the kind of clean, well-organized data that produces results and generates insights.

When you combine your own unique creativity with sophisticated marketing tools, you’re in the perfect position to create effective, sales-oriented B2B campaigns that increase your efficiency, generate better leads and, ultimately, boost your ROI.

Creating a good lead generation flow for your business can be incredibly powerful, and it will allow you to personalize your interactions with each lead based upon their personal information and current sales readiness stage.

In our previous successful webcast titled ‘Improve the quality of your leads – 7P tactics’ we tackled what it takes to better qualify your leads by using 7P tactics. In this upcoming webcast we will go over the tools and techniques required to support the execution of 7P tactics and to embed qualification processes into your campaigns.

Improve the quality of your leads – part II – Tools and Techniques

When talking with clients, generating leads is the number one priority. Due to continuous technological advancements, the changes in the buyers’ journey, the smart social marketing techniques and data driven performance, B2B marketing has evolved in ways that will allow customers to get closer to prospects, when the right strategy is in place. However, generating leads is not where the game is over. Following up with those leads and actually closing some deals, is the big bet and where marketing and sales come together.

What is one of the main challenges you face today working with large IT clients in terms of lead generation?

One thing I constantly observe is the lack of capacity from sales teams when it comes to follow up, usually at the end of our campaigns. If I had to justify this, I would mainly say that the problems start from not getting sales reps to align with Marketing in the first place, on a potential marketing initiative, the goal and expected outcome. At the end of the day, Sales and Marketing are both units of the same organization, therefore the goal should be the same, i.e. to adhere to the company’s vision and goals, and they should work closely together to achieve them. For instance, how can Marketing produce content that is king without getting Sales to have a say in it? Who knows your end customers better than your own sales team? Marketing teams do not necessarily interact with clients, thus any feedback provided by Sales can certainly be of great benefit.

What is your take on the proper definition of a lead? It’s not as easy as it seems.

As I frequently talk with our marketers’ clients, I’ve noticed that even the term 'lead’ is not properly defined between Sales and Marketing, so we end up having to use different language instead of using the same describing the same thing. From lead, to MQL, SQL and opportunity, there are many definitions that pop up, depending on who you ask. In addition, each marketing team has its own special terminology. I have found myself on several occasions in the position of having to explain how a lead is defined even at the last call we have with a client, when Sales show up and when we are supposed to discuss the overall campaign. So, getting things right from the very beginning is a must!

If you don’t want to find yourself in the very unfortunate position of having to defend your marketing efforts vs the results, make sure you set realistic expectations from the very outset. But what are real expectations in marketing? 20 leads or 5 SQLs? Or is it the ROMI? The best way to approach this would be to start from the very end goal and work backwards in order to calculate the right budget and then take it from there. More often clients want just ‘new leads’ or ‘increased revenue’ or ‘new pipe’. If for instance, your goal is an addition 10k of revenue, this could mean five deals of 2k each. Then you need to calculate the #of SQLs from the #of MQLs generated from the overall size of pipeline, taking into account the ability of Sales to close a % of SQLs. The right budget can then be identified. When clients come to us and say: “I’ve got 5k to spend and I want 50 SQLs,” we know that this just won’t work! So, get your calculators out, be precise and stop depending on wishful thinking. Especially, when marketing fund is provided to you, be smart on what you can actually achieve, based on your capacity, resources and deadline.

In order for Sales and Marketing to come closer together, sales reps should be informed about the concept behind any GTM activities, so they can find some kind of pleasure and think about how to make themselves handy to marketing. Why should anyone do more than what is required anyway? What’s in it for them? Sharing the big picture and making GTM a common effort might take sales reps out of the misery of having to just follow up on some random leads generated by marketing provided in a poor excel file. Sales and Marketing should be best buddies rather than acting like as a divorced couple who are ignorant of each other’s business. And we have seen the outcome so many times with our clients. When we have joint calls with marketing and sales or business development reps, the best discussions occur, there is such a vibe and energy all looking at achieving max results out of a common effort.

We are very often asked how follow ups should be handled, i.e. what to say, in what tone, is it best to call the client or try to get in touch via email, etc. We always reply that follow ups should be dealt with in accordance with the content each lead has acquired. Therefore, when a list of contacts is handed over to Sales, the sales reps should make themselves familiar with the type of the campaign and content used, so that they are on the same page when they hold a conversation with the leads. It is also important to try to ascertain some additional information about the lead, such as job title, unit and size of company, in order to know how much influence they have on the company’s business decision-making. Another tip would be to also share the leads via a CRM system, so that all information is stored and tracked for future use. It’s also advisable to not sound too much like a salesperson in the first five minutes of your contact; try to slowly get your lead interested in the content and be sure to investigate the needs and current situation before you actually start selling.

If you want to learn more about how you can align your sales and marketing to deliver successful campaigns, you can contact us here directly.

A good relationship between Sales and Marketing is crucial for a successful and profitable business, however, its challenges are well-known. We invited Christina Maria, a marketing and sales specialist and part of our senior Performance Marketing team, to give her perspective on the topic.

Talk to us here, if you want to learn more about how can align your Sales and Marketing that deliver successful campaigns.

Sales and Marketing Alignment

The battle between quality and quantity seems a never-ending challenge for IT marketers. It’s 2022 and a large number of marketers are only focused on generating a great quantity of leads, thus overlooking the biggest challenge in B2B marketing, i.e. generating high-quality leads for your sales team.

Sales reps are far more productive when they use fewer high-quality leads, as it means they can focus on generating client engagements. Qualified leads for B2B sales teams produce a higher yield and an overall higher ROI.

Lead quantity is important, but what matters most is how many leads your sales team can close effectively!

Do you know how to identify and nurture the kind of leads that convert into new business relationships? Once you get it right, you will be surprised at the number of great clients who are out there trying to solve these challenges and will benefit from the solutions and expertise that you have to offer.

In our upcoming webcast, we will tackle what it takes to better qualify your leads by using 7P tactics to transform your lead qualification process.

Generating high-quality leads is the biggest challenge for 61% of B2B marketers. Converting qualified leads into paying customers is a top priority for 57% of B2B companies.

Improve the quality of leads – 7P tactics

IT marketing has become more complex than ever, B2B tech buyers expect more from vendors than traditional marketing and sales experiences. IT marketers can no longer succeed with conventional tactics, they'll need a more innovative marketing model in order to move from popularity to profitability.

While popularity and profitability may facilitate each other when it comes to B2C companies, B2B companies don’t have the same liberty. Popularity doesn’t mean profitability.

A great number of marketing agencies are mostly focused on brand recognition. But serving a client in B2B, especially in the tech industry, requires a completely different strategy.

So, how can you make sure your marketing agency is making you profitable? In this blog, we’ll discuss if B2B companies should focus on popularity, profitability, or both.

https://cdn.consalta.space/resources-consalta/blog-one.jpg

The complexity of New Marketing Solutions

Marketing for B2B companies has often been a struggle between new technologies and traditional marketing models. Popularity is not enough for B2B companies, and their marketing strategy needs to contribute to the sales and business growth of the company. This needs to be done in addition to adopting new solutions and rapid changes in the expectations and behavior of B2B buyers.

Today, B2B buyers expect B2B marketing to be personalized and data-driven. They will grow frustrated if their buying journey changes hands or if they must repeatedly remind vendors of who they are. New marketing technologies are supposed to use data to enhance B2B marketing personalization and deliver this experience.

As a result, typical B2B marketing strategies such as events and newsletters are no longer effective, and just gaining popularity through digital channels is no longer sustainable.

Fortunately, there are numerous methods available to improve the success of B2B marketing. The goal should be to shift from a task-oriented to a performance-oriented marketing approach.

Performance marketing focuses on marketing operations that provide tangible results, such as ROI. You can learn more about effective marketing solutions for the B2B industry in our comprehensive whitepaper, ‘Marketing in IT: Time to Move from Popularity to Profitability.’

B2B buyers have changed dramatically over the past decade. They are behaving more like consumers than ever before, and they are bringing new expectations to the marketplace.

According to Forrester, “B2B marketers need to rethink and evolve every aspect of their strategies, programs, and tactics, from branding to lead generation and post-sale engagement.”

This is especially true in technology marketing. B2B IT buyers will expect to be able to shop online, make purchases through marketplaces, and chat with representatives in real-time through a variety of digital channels just like they might with a B2C company.

It's important for the marketing agency you are working with to understand the changing buyer behaviors so they can create an effective and customized marketing strategy.

IT marketers must also navigate a new regulatory environment, which means placing new restrictions on how they use and collect customer data.  Tech companies are also competing on a global scale. The marketing strategy for one region may not be relevant — or complaint — to another. For example, contact data obtained from EU citizens must be stored and used in compliance with the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), whereas the United States has no such regulation.

Create An Effective B2B Marketing Strategy With The Right Agency

While there’s no doubt that brand awareness is crucial for all types of companies, businesses in the B2B sector need to think a step ahead. After all, popularity means nothing if it doesn’t translate into sales.

So when hiring an agency, it’s important to make sure that they understand the key differentiators between popularity and profitability and understand the different strategies that B2B companies require.

Never had this type of discussion with your marketing agency? Then it’s possible that you are running a brand awareness campaign instead of a campaign that will make you profitable! If that’s the case, you might want to check around for someone that understands the complexity and needs of your buyers. 📷

If you'd like to learn more about how we do things and which strategies we use, you can contact us here directly.

If you'd like to learn more about how we do things and which strategies we use, watch our previous webcast in which we discuss what questions you should ask a marketing agency before performing marketing campaigns.

"Performance Marketing in IT – Time to Add ROI to Your Campaigns"

Is Your Marketing (Agency) Making You Popular Or Profitable?

From the prior approval form to the certified proof showing that the marketing campaign has really been executed, many give up simply because it involves too much work.

While each vendor has its own set of rules, they want you to use Co-Op funds, as they consider them critical investments for their own business to drive key business priorities. From the extensive rules and guidelines to the draining claims process, many companies struggle to access these Co-Op funds, which creates frustration in initiating the funding process.

We can offer an easy way for you to access Co-Op funds; we will support you in envisioning the marketing activities and support you in the process of qualifying for Co-Op funds, as well as their execution and administration.

Based on feedback from vendors with whom we work, on average only 30% of partners claim their Co-Op funds. We know that the process is full of bureaucracy and intricate rules, we´ve seen it all and can wade through it easily thanks to our experience.

Watch our webcast and take full advantage of Co-Op funds to skyrocket your business while cutting costs at the same time!

When talking about Co-Op funds, most partners are either eager about the possibilities that they entail or skeptical because the process seems too complex and time-consuming for you and your team to pursue.

Over 5,000 IT marketing professionals from 100 different countries have participated in webcasts hosted by Consalta. If you want to contact us directly please use link below

How Co-Op Funding Can Halve the Cost of Your Marketing Campaign

Does hiring a marketing agency mean that your marketing team is not good enough at their job? Not at all, but they might think so.

But we’d like to explain, why your internal marketers shouldn’t feel threatened by an external agency and instead embrace this collaboration.

It’s time to bust the misconception that your firm either has to have an in-house staff or rely only on an outside agency. On the contrary, they should operate together hand-in-hand. 

In the aftermath of Covid-19, which is producing a wave of change in the sector, we need to replace this old-fashioned approach. Hiring an agency does not hint that your internal team isn’t up to the task; it’s simply an understanding that occasionally, an external partner can offer valuable insights or capacity that the in-house team can’t.

Hiring a marketing agency to work jointly with your marketing team can help you in these three ways. 

Seasonality is a fact of life for most businesses, with highs and lows happening throughout the year. Sales and marketing teams tend to be at their busiest at these times, as lead creation is cranked up to fill the pipeline and prospects dry up. During such cases, a marketing agency can provide extra capacity to launch new campaigns and close new deals.

The familiarity of your in-house staff with your company might lead to a lack of perspective. A compartmentalized attitude might make it tough to widen your efforts or open your mind to approaches that haven't worked or even been attempted.

The clients and industries that external agencies work with are diverse. They can view the good, the terrible, and the ugly, allowing them to give you a new perspective.

The nature of the business of external agencies necessitates tight timeframes. A third-party agency will be at your side throughout the entire process, from conception to completion. It's possible for the agency to work alongside your in-house team to complete a project checklist, which can help get the task done faster as your in-house team is more likely to get distracted by all the other things they have to do each day. Hence, having an outside agency working with your in-house staff is beneficial.

Moreover, if a member of your team cannot fulfill a deadline, an agency can step in to fill the gap. Due to the abundance of resources and time, deadlines are less likely to be postponed.

Drive your marketing to its true potential with a marketing agency

So, as you’re well aware now, it doesn’t have to be either-or, it can be both. And in most cases, marketing agencies are just the help your marketing department needs.

If you'd like to explore the option of hiring an agency, but you're not sure, let's talk, and we will see if it makes sense for your company.

Are you starting a new marketing campaign or launching a new product? One of the things you might be considering is – will your in-house marketing department be up to the task and have the capacity or should you outsource to a marketing agency? 🤔

If you'd like to learn more about how we do things and which strategies we use, read our previous blog post in which we discuss what questions you should ask a marketing agency before performing marketing campaigns.

"The Six Questions You Need To Ask Your Digital Advertising Agency Right Now"

Marketing Agencies: Friends or Foes?

The B2B sales funnel has changed considerably within recent years. In the old school days – marketing would generate leads, pass it over to sales and hope they close the deal. Without a proper sales and marketing alignment strategy, the organization creates silos among key cross functional teams, ultimately breeding failure.

Regular digital marketing campaigns can be sometimes effective for IT companies, but the only way to truly measure the benefits of a campaign is through business results. It is one thing to identify key marketing challenges and try to address them, and totally other thing to run a successful marketing campaign.

Most of the Marketing teams tend to creation of a plan that falls into one of two categories: overly complex plans that are hard to understand and therefore not actionable, or overly agile plans that create a lot of activity, but not enough business impact.

Register for our webcast: "Is your Marketing plan set for Profitability or Popularity?" and learn about:

Tips and tricks to boost the impact and ROI

Sales & Marketing alignment models for a stronger follow up

Building an annual B2B marketing plan is no simple task. The plan must provide a strategy to transform business objectives into marketing priorities and goals, while outlining how to execute and reach those goals.

Is your Marketing plan set for Profitability or Popularity?

The answer to this question seems obvious. Who wouldn’t know what is the difference between B2B and B2C in the business world?

The answer to this question seems obvious. Who wouldn’t know what is the difference between B2B and B2C in the business world? 🤔

We generate leads.

We help B2B companies generate high quality leads that convert. No nonsense marketing.

How can we help you?

Every company deserves an opportunity to grow. Check how we can help yours.

Lead generation

We will supply your sales department with qualified leads.

Brand marketing

We will make sure your target audience knows and remembers your name

Marketing automation

We will automate and personalize your nurturing stream.

Performance marketing

With a data-driven approach, we will spread the word about you online.

Content marketing

We will craft content strategy and assets that will be effective.

Social media marketing

We will ensure you have a notable presence on social media.

Consulting and trainings

We will pass on our expertise to your team.

Web development

We will develop awesome websites that will bring you conversions.

Design

We will design highly converting banners, website, or anything else.

The difference we make

Do you want to learn how we achieved these numbers in our campaigns?

4.84/5

1400+

40%

92%

Clients that trust us

Otilia Cernat

Marketing Manager - Africa, Middle East & Central Asia

“Our collaboration was really great and you gave us all the support needed to reach our campaign goals. Thank you for all your suggestions and advices, they were all taken…”

Jessica Kruger

Tarsus On Demand

“Enjoy every second working with Consalta, as they are not only focused on business but relationship building which makes the campaign process easier. Their work is great …”

Karolina Pankiewicz

Cloud Product Manager at AB S.A. Poland

“Professional support for the project, detailed feedback, a large amount of information about actions, leads and budgets. Easy and frequent contact.”

Gregor Klauser

3Dee

“A great experience, I am happy that we discovered the potential of automation.”

Elisa Guarnaccia

Westcon

“The team was reactive and proactive, always well prepared and available to test and change even with a very difficult campaign.”

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Marketing Manager - Africa, Middle East & Central Asia