A young startup with a B2B software product approached my partner and me to develop a marketing strategy.

The guys said they didn’t know what marketing channels would work for their product, so they needed a roadmap.

At the consultation, we told them it was not initially worth developing a detailed strategy.

The client today has nothing but a product landing page.

Therefore, they must lay the foundation:

• Set up content production
• Create a system for distributing content on social networks
• Run competitive demand capture in Google search

This should, in any case, be done before they start podcasting or using other advanced tools.

Marketing strategy template

We gave them the most straightforward marketing strategy Template.

BASIC level activities:

1) Site blog, SEO

Next step – Newsletters by email.

Goals – demand creation, demand capture.

2) Google Search Ads, Multi-channel Remarketing

Goals – demand capture.

Next step – Display/Youtube Ads for prospects.

Goals – to fill a demand funnel.

3) SMM on Linkedin/Twitter/Facebook

Next step – Paid Social for prospects and for content promotion.

Goals – demand creation

We believe that this Template is UNIFIED for a starting B2B.

ADVANCED level activities (for later):

• Podcast in a niche
• Youtube expert channel
• educational courses
• offline events
• own offline events
• account-based marketing/sales (ABM)
• brand awareness advertising
• partnerships

How to enrich a B2B company’s marketing with paid channels?

B2B marketing strategy is based on content. Therefore, it is important to use advertising channels to capture existing demand and effectively distribute content.

Below is the structure of our framework. The effectiveness of each activity is time-tested.

1) Google Search Ads to attract high-quality site traffic.

2) Remarketing Ads on Google, YouTube, and Social Media for active website visitors (for short and long audiences). Here is an example of the remarketing strategy.

3) Youtube Video Ads to fill a demand capture funnel. Combine targeted in-stream ads with ads for conversions.

4) Paid Social to reach target audiences with your best content (to scale demand creation).

This program does not require a large advertising budget.

Paid marketing for your B2B will be effective if…

…you accept the facts below.

1) B2B marketing = content marketing. Before using paid channels, you must create a content machine.

2) B2B marketing takes time. It will take us at least two months to evaluate the return on ads (even if it’s search ads to capture demand).

3) The company’s website must be ready for conversions. The site should contain – precise service/product positioning, client benefits, product/service features, pricing, case studies, and expert content.

4) We must build a combined tracking system (see below) for our acquisition funnel. We will use attribution software as well as first-hand customer data.

5 essential steps to measure our B2B marketing

We face significant challenges in measuring the effectiveness of marketing channels and campaigns.

– B2B marketing takes time. An effective campaign can take a long time to generate leads.

– Many interactions of prospective clients with our brand cannot be measured in principle (content consuming, community discussions, private communications, etc.).

– Attribution software capabilities and quality suffer from new privacy standards.

Does this mean we should measure less?

NO.

We must measure more.

1) Implement basic multi-channel tracking and analytics.

Use GA4 on your website. Implement parallel server-side conversion tracking using Google Measurement Protocol. Additional server-side tracking will help reduce privacy-related data loss.

2) Use advanced end-to-end tracking.

Track end-to-end chains “Traffic source –> Website –> CRM” using features of your marketing platform like Hubspot.

3) Use Ad system pixels and tags.

Implement Facebook Pixel / LinkedIn Insight Tag on your website. Set up parallel server-side conversion tracking (FB Conversion API).

4) Measure more micro-conversion events.

Mark up more events for each tracking system – playbook downloaded, the lead form started, pricing page visited, video tutorials viewed, newsletters subscription, etc.

5) Use self-reported attribution.

Add the question “How did you hear about us?” to lead forms on your website.

The biggest mistake you can make is to trust sources with distorted or truncated data.

This leads to wrong decisions and loss of money.

Spare no effort to build a solid data system to drive your marketing.

Ask us how to build a paid acquisition system for your business.