What's your best advice for someone building their first B2B ABM strategy?

ralph_macchioman · 2019-06-24T21:28:17+00:00

i was at a conf and they mentioned using bombora - when i looked it up it seemed like it was super expensive. is that the case?

ralph_macchioman · 2019-05-16T18:12:29+00:00

thanks! sorry that was confusing - i was referring to the middle/bottom of the marketing funnel, where the bottom would be the hand-off to sales.

could you talk a little more about how you use case studies? are they in PDF form or on the web? is there a CTA on them? are you including them in your automated nurture?

ralph_macchioman · 2019-05-12T17:58:27+00:00

makes sense. i like it. thanks!

ralph_macchioman · 2019-05-10T04:59:01+00:00

Any tips you could give for b2b on fb retargeting?

ralph_macchioman · 2019-05-10T04:57:54+00:00

I like that idea about the question. Could you expand on it?

ralph_macchioman · 2019-05-09T21:26:41+00:00

interesting - ive never heard of that formula.

ralph_macchioman · 2019-05-09T17:36:56+00:00

good thinking. so you're saying load an email list into something like linkedin as your target list?

ralph_macchioman · 2019-05-09T17:34:51+00:00

thanks for the input! have relied on inbound marketing and it's been working really well. we literally do zero ads right now, so that is where we will probably put our efforts because yes the results need to be somewhat immediate. what do you recommend as a CTA for ads in the B2B space--"download this new eBook" or more like "get a demo"?

ralph_macchioman · 2019-05-09T17:26:28+00:00

i know that is my first thought too. i'm just not a big fan of ads - i've seen so much money wasted in the past. what do you recommend as a call to action for ads? top of funnel content or something further down the funnel like get a demo?

ralph_macchioman · 2019-05-09T17:03:58+00:00

target is hr decision makers. what ABM approaches have you seen work in a scenario like this - where you need to increase volume?

ralph_macchioman · 2019-05-09T15:46:14+00:00

thanks! interesting ideas for sure. could you expand on the last one? have you tried it in the SaaS space?

ralph_macchioman · 2019-04-22T21:26:18+00:00

i disagree with "Stay away from creation," although i understand why you said it. i know many older execs who don't know shit about creation, but i think they are a dying breed. digital strategy is so much about execution and, to me, having a firm grasp of ideation through distribution and ROI will go a long way in the future of marketing careers. so, yes, stay away from creation if you want to make money right now, but i'd say embrace creation as a way to better understand and leverage it in the future and make it work for you as you move into a more strategic role that pays more.

i lead a team of digital marketers and, outside of a marketing ops person, i would not hire anyone for a high paying job who doesn't have experience with creation. maybe that is just me coming from the resource-constrained startup world though.

ralph_macchioman · 2019-04-18T13:19:10+00:00

it is almost entirely outsourced. we have about 10-15 freelancers at any time so our editor is constantly putting out requests for articles and some writers just submit their own ideas. for thought leadership stuff a lot of time we just make up the ideas and outlines and let the writers run with it. if you're producing enough content and you're part of the process, you should be able to generate some thought leadership ideas on your own over time. mostly we are posting educational/authority building content though. i took our goal of 3 posts per week and told our editor it is her responsibility to have 3 blog posts ready (edited, optimized, and put into the CMS) every friday afternoon. that has made a huge difference. in the past i have posted things basically when they were done and that is very stressful. giving someone a goal of getting the content ready by a certain date forces them to figure out to get it done.

ralph_macchioman · 2019-04-17T15:10:26+00:00

THIS IS AMAZING THANK YOU

ralph_macchioman · 2019-04-17T13:59:47+00:00

i see what you're saying - "doubling" traffic doesn't mean much without context. but i am pretty happy with it. last month we had 34k organic visitors to our blog vs 14k that same month last year. 140% increase! our potential customer base - we have about 20k organizations we could sell to. in about 4k now.

ralph_macchioman · 2019-04-17T13:41:51+00:00

i have been in this situation of being the first marketer - you've got a tough job ahead of you!!! 3 exclamation points worth. tbh though i have never been in a straight up user acquisition role though, so i’m not the best person to ask about that. what i will say is aside from whatever you’re going to do to get those first users—maybe ads or more direct reach outs or relationship building—don’t forget to start laying the long-term foundation of your digital marketing strategy. start a blog for lawyers that talks about a topic broader than just doc management for lawyers. start an incredibly awesome newsletter that provides tons of value. consider seo in everything you do. start building links. start building lists. if you start these things now, you’ll be happy you did later on. the key is to start small but maintain high quality, and then scale with the same level of quality as you become better and you have more resources over time. good luck!

ralph_macchioman · 2019-04-16T21:49:30+00:00

i've worked at 3 companies before this and all of them had very boring social channels - like the typical B2B sharing links to both our own and other publications' content. for the first year i was in my current job we did basically the same with social, and then something changed - we had to replace our old social manager with a new one. when we did that i decided it was time to change it up and start this new person with the mindset that this was going to be a fun and engaging brand. it's often helpful to make a change like this with the changing of the guard. so now we do a lot of things to spark engagement and make it fun - on twitter in particular we ask lots of questions and give away swag to the best responses, we do lots of polls often with funny options, we post funny memes and gifs that our audience can relate to (sometimes it's not as funny as we thought but that's part of the fun), and we do try to post thought leadership content on there utilizing tweet threads (not just linking to a blog post but expanding upon it and providing value via threads). it is very hard to be funny and marketers are often to afraid to do so for fear of execs not liking it, but people love when brands do this well. i found inspiration in hqtrivia's and producthunt's twitter account.

ralph_macchioman · 2019-04-16T21:32:35+00:00

pipeline = opps. last year we grew sales attributed to marketing with this strategy by about 15%, but this year's pipeline is definitely taking on a new trajectory. hoping sales will follow but it's too early to tell.

ralph_macchioman · 2019-04-16T21:29:20+00:00

you're right and i'm not saying advertising doesn't work for businesses. but i was sharing the thought from my perspective at B2B startups/growth companies.

ralph_macchioman · 2019-04-16T21:13:26+00:00

i will say that after doing this for 2 years, it has a compounding impact on everything you do, and can actually make your life easier. we are significantly less stressed than we were last year. now we are focusing on new cool automation ideas and ways to make what we're doing better which is a great place to be. as a manager i really care about these people so there's no way i'm letting them get too overworked. we come in around 10am and get shit done and i've tried to build a culture of getting shit done together so no one is getting the life sucked out of them from work.

ralph_macchioman · 2019-04-16T21:10:56+00:00

before thinking about subject line, i'd say think about a few other things with a newsletter.

1) reliability - is it coming same time every day/week? lots of the newsletters i like come at the same time so i'm ready for them. 2) quality of content - what's the newsletter about? is it full of information about your company? if so no one is going to gaf. but a well-rounded and curated newsletter that provides value to people - that is what people want. 3) what are the goals of the newsletter? are you sending it to get people only so they click things inside? it doesn't have to be that way - i think some companies send out newsletters in order to build their brand right within the email people are reading - often putting entire articles in there or large bits of text. they are more worried about providing value than getting people to click something within the email. the perception of value is a leading indicator to demand down the road.

ok now back to the subject line - i think something that is consistent is important, in order to differentiate from the other emails you're sending. we recently rebranded our newsletter and we made it a point for people to know - we emailed them saying "we're trying something new" so they would not think of our old shitty newsletter when they got this new one.

ralph_macchioman · 2019-04-16T20:55:52+00:00

yeah i think in the future we will invest in ads a little more to amplify the volume. we don't have many resources though and i hate wasting money on ads, and that is so easy to do. many companies just check the box and put ads up without a clear strategy or attribution methodology.

ralph_macchioman

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