It’s finally summer, so we’re going to take a quick break from our B2B lead generation blog series to share some of our favorite summertime B2B marketing hacks, tips and tricks. Enjoy!
Summer: soaring temperatures, summer vacations, slower pace. As a B2B marketing professional, you may be tempted to ease up on marketing activities. Everyone’s out of the office, right? Unfortunately you know that this is often the calm before the “we need to make our year-end numbers” storm. Fear not, you can enjoy lemonade in your hammock and keep the marketing momentum going with these three clever approaches.
HACK #1: MAKE PLANS
Feel like your department is constantly flying by the seat of its collective pants? The slower season is the perfect opportunity to forecast, strategize and make a plan. Here are two good places to get started:
- Product launches: Do you go into panic mode when your product department tells you they’re launching a new product in a month? This less busy season is the time to get a product launch calendar and strategy solidified so it’s less of a scramble the next time a new product is ready to go. Your strategy should identify every single component needed for a successful launch – for example, a press release, email campaign, ads, landing pages, sales tools, etc.
- Social media: Do you have a consistent, strategic social media presence? If not, create a calendar for the remainder of the year that identifies post categories (such as promotional, educational, human interest, company culture) and the best times to post that content. With this calendar, you’ll avoid the weekly panic to post something – anything! It’ll also help build awareness and engagement – you know, those things we marketers love.
HACK #2: CREATE CONTENT
Wouldn’t it be nice to have some engaging content readily available for the next campaign instead of the fire drill to pump something out quickly? Here’s how to solve for that problem:
- Conduct a content audit to gain a better understanding of any topic gaps that need filling or content that needs updating. For example, do you have a lot of top-of-funnel, awareness building assets, but lack middle or bottom funnel case studies?
- Talk to internal stakeholders (sales, product management, etc.) to discover what content they need and would use the most. Validating the usage and success of your existing assets offers insights, too.
- Reach out to customers to find out what topics, challenges and trends they’d like to learn more about. You can also pick up ideas by following industry association blogs and other publications your target audience enjoys.
- Develop a content marketing calendar or asset wish list so you have a roadmap for asset availability that you can reference for campaigns and share with your sales partners.
HACK #3: FOCUS ON INBOUND
While traffic to your website may slow down during the dog days of summer, you can still work on converting each visit to your site. In fact, this slower time is ideal for analyzing data to see what areas are performing well and what areas could use some improvements. Some things to consider:
- Where are visitors getting stuck? Find these roadblocks and do whatever you can to remove that friction. If you don’t know how to figure this out, take a step back and determine the metrics and formulas you need.
- It’s all about the search, so ensure that your site is optimized with unique content, keyword-rich tags, and inbound/outbound links.
- Since conversion is your ultimate goal, run some A/B tests on your contact form. Two easy tests to run are:
- Form fields. Do you really need all those fields? Try testing a form that requires less personal information and see if visitors respond more favorably. (Our money says they will.)
- Call to Action: Find out what visitors respond to better – your “Learn More” button or your “Get a Free Quote” button.
By creating a relevant and engaging website experience, you’ll increase conversion rates and get those leads queued up for fall.
THE TAKEAWAY
With a little planning, content creation and testing, you’ll be in a great place to continue driving leads once fall rolls around. And if you need any help hacking your summertime marketing goals, get in touch with us. We’d love to help.
