a close-up of a woman’s hands typing on a laptop

With the Information Age in full swing, it’s incredibly clear that consumers, especially business decision-makers, are tired. They’re tired of constantly being bombarded with targeted advertisements. They’re tired of receiving countless texts, calls, and emails each day—all pushing them to purchase yet another product they “need” or to sign up for even more subscriptions that clutter their inbox. 

Consequently, blogging has become a highly effective way to amplify content marketing ROI. It offers business customers a break from all the noise, allowing them to absorb useful information, keep up with the latest industry trends, and find answers to their most concerning questions. 

With this in mind, it’s no surprise companies that prioritize blogging see 13 times more ROI than those that don’t. Learn how best to leverage blogging to impact engagement and conversion rates. 

How Does Blogging Improve Content Marketing ROI?

Before getting into how blogging impacts content marketing ROI, it’s important to understand what blogging actually is. 

A blog is a web page regularly updated with various entries (“blogs” or “blog articles”) typically written in a conversational or informal tone. Its primary purpose is to inform, entertain, or educate readers on specific topics. Often overlooked, this highly effective form of content marketing is a key tool for engagement, brand establishment, and marketing. 

While other forms of content marketing, such as case studies, white papers, and webinars, are excellent options for B2B lead generation, blogs add a more personal and human touch to a company while still positioning it as a trusted thought leader in the industry. 

Overall, blogging can increase content marketing ROI by:

  • Increasing direct sales: 60% of people are inspired to seek out a product after reading content about it. 
  • Generating leads: Content marketing generates 3 times as many leads as traditional marketing. 
  • Keeping readers interested: 70% of people would rather learn about a company through articles rather than advertisements.
  • Improving brand loyalty: 82% of consumers feel more positive about a company after reading custom content. 
  • Cutting costs: Content marketing costs 62% less than traditional marketing. 

However, writing and publishing content alone is not enough to reap these benefits. 

How to Yield the Best ROI With Blogging

In order to yield a significant ROI on blogging, content must be:

Let’s take a look at how businesses can implement these strategies and maximize ROI on content marketing. 

Before writing the first word of a blog, it is critical to know and understand the target audience and what they care about. 

This can be done through surveys, social media monitoring, or analytics tools to gather data on the interests, challenges, and content preferences of the audience at hand. Without this knowledge, it will be nearly impossible to create high-quality content that resonates with the reader. 

One helpful tactic used by marketers everywhere is creating a buyer persona. A buyer persona represents the “ideal” customer or client of a company. By defining who the customer is, content can be more tailored to align with their values, address their concerns, and, therefore, meet their needs. 

Additionally, in the B2B or B2C world, it’s just as important to remain up to date on the latest news and trends within the industry. Readers will not trust a company to be a thought leader in the industry if their content is not timely or relevant. 

If a buyer does not trust a company, then why would they buy into its products or services?

2. Write High-Quality Content Using Expertise

Consumers, especially business customers, are not easily fooled when it comes to content quality and value. If they feel that reading your content is not an effective use of their time, they will quickly navigate to another web page. 

The best way to create high-quality content is by leveraging industry expertise within the organization. Find the subject matter experts on the topic at hand and share in-depth insights, technical breakdowns, or professional forecasts that specifically address the audience’s pain points or questions. 

If a claim can’t be easily backed up internally, then it’s essential to incorporate links from other well-known authorities in the industry. This helps solidify the company’s credibility as a thought leader while also showing its willingness to collaborate and connect with other industry players.

3. Utilize Effective Distribution Strategies

While distribution is not the most important part of this process, if the content written doesn’t effectively reach the target audience, then all the work put in is essentially pointless. 

Therefore, it’s important to take some time to develop a strategy for distribution. Below are just a few ways to enhance the visibility and impact of blog posts:

  • Optimize for SEO: Keywords are a great way to organically increase visibility and website traffic organically, and incorporating SEO strategies is pretty easy to do with a little research. 
  • Content syndication: Partner with other platforms to republish your existing content, reach a wider audience, and generate more traffic. 
  • Internal linking: Link the company’s existing blog posts or other content pages where relevant within the blog to keep readers on the site longer and improve SEO. 
  • Hire experts: If internal resources are spread too thin to research effective distribution strategies, then an alternative option might be to hire a professional company for content marketing services

Optimize Your Content Marketing ROI With Behind the Work

Rather than trying to effectively implement blogging as a content marketing strategy on your own, let the experts do the heavy lifting. Behind the Work is a team of experienced and capable marketers with the necessary tools and knowledge to help you create, distribute, and measure blogs that significantly improve your content marketing ROI. 
Get in touch with Behind the Work today to chat about your content marketing needs.

Contributed by Behind The Work Content Team
a group of marketing professionals sitting around a conference table discussing how to generate leads

As much work as you put into gaining traffic to your website, you need to also consider how you will turn those visitors into leads. After bringing visitors to your site, you need to encourage them to take the next step: provide you with their contact information. You can then use this info to continue nurturing leads until they are ready to become customers.

Generating leads may seem like a difficult task, but there are actually several strategies you can easily implement to see immediate results.

1. Develop Buyer Personas

61% of people say that if they don’t find what they’re looking for within about five seconds, they’ll go to another site

So, if you are receiving a large amount of traffic but are not generating leads, the problem could be that you aren’t tailoring your message to your audience. Before you do anything else, create buyer personas to accurately represent every type of customer.

Take into consideration the demographics, interests, and behaviors of your audience. You can find information through social media, through website analytics, and by asking current customers. The result will enable you to fine-tune your content to generate leads from your traffic.

2. Engage with Users

To build trust and show a personal side to your brand, communicate with prospects directly. You can reply to comments on social media, seek out questions on forums (LinkedIn groups are especially effective for B2B companies), and send personalized responses to queries you receive through emails and live chat.

3. Create Premium Content

Premium content gives visitors extra information about a topic they find useful or interesting. Providing useful information your audience really cares about not only engages them but also establishes credibility, fosters trust, and ultimately drives traffic and generates leads. 

Remember, you should always require contact details in exchange for access to premium content.

A few options to entice visitors include:

  • Ebooks: An ebook is an extended blog post. It is best if you include points, tips, or statistics from research that users cannot find anywhere else.
  • White papers: If your sales funnel is shorter, use white papers instead of ebooks. These tend to be aimed at users who are almost ready to buy but need a little more information to make a decision.
  • Infographics and slideshows: These options are perfect for presenting visual information or quick facts.
  • Webinars: Use webinars to learn more about your customers’ concerns, desires, or needs. After recording a webinar, you can rerelease it for future premium content.
  • Interactive tools: These are good options for attracting high-value leads who may want more from you before they are willing to provide their contact information.

4. Start an Email Newsletter

You can also collect contact information by asking your visitors to subscribe to an email newsletter. This generates leads from your website by offering valuable content and incentives to encourage subscribers. 

Once subscribed, you can use the newsletter to nurture leads through personalized content, promotions, and updates, directing them back to the website for further engagement and conversion. 

5. Design Your Website for Conversions

Your entire website design should focus on converting traffic into leads. Provide users with multiple opportunities to download premium content or sign up for your newsletter. This involves placing call-to-actions (CTAs) in strategic places, such as buttons on main pages, popups, and at the end of blog posts.

The most effective CTAs relate to the page content and stand out (whether on a mobile or desktop device) without dominating the screen. Test various versions and placements to find out what your audience responds to best.

6. Provide Easy Access to Contact Information

Add a tab in the navigation to make it obvious how users can contact you. Contact information must include your phone number—this adds credibility to your company and gives your customers a direct way to reach you.

Generate More Leads with Behind the Work’s Content Marketing Services

At Behind The Work, we’re not just another agency – we’re an extension of your marketing team dedicated to helping your business drive success, generate leads, and boost conversion rates.

From landing pages and blogs to resource materials and emails, bring your brand to life with content that attracts, retains, and grows your customers.
Learn more about our content marketing services.

Every company aims to attract new leads, generate more revenue, and grow their business. To achieve this, today’s businesses must create an effective digital marketing strategy to reach consumers online, where they spend most of their shopping time. A HubSpot technical consulting service can help your business reach its goals and create a sustainable future.

Today, more than 2.14 billion consumers shop online. The internet does more than bring countless products to consumers at the touch of a button. It also allows shoppers to conduct their own research. They can find products that meet their needs, sold by companies who provide a positive user experience. As a result, discerning consumers are more selective with where they spend their money.

The digital marketplace can be an overwhelming and confusing place. To maximize inbound marketing opportunities, businesses should consider enlisting the help of a HubSpot technical consultant.

Here’s what you need to know about the HubSpot Technical Consulting Service and what it can do for your business.

What is HubSpot?

HubSpot is a software company that helps companies optimize their marketing strategies and sell products more effectively. Originally a resource for businesses to succeed at inbound marketing, HubSpot now offers a cloud-based platform to house a company’s digital marketing efforts. From website hosting and social media posts to email campaigns and blogs, all digital marketing can now be accessed from anywhere at any time. This allows any employee within the company to access information and smoothly usher prospects through the sales funnel.

Since its inception in 2005, HubSpot has become a complete customer resource management (CRM) tool. Not only does its specific software help with sales, marketing, operations, service, and content management, it all integrates seamlessly for continued growth and success. With HubSpot, businesses can increase their sales pipeline and improve revenue growth.

How Can HubSpot Support Your Business?

Business growth and development relies on cultivating deep, meaningful relationships with your customers. After all, 65% of a company’s business comes from existing customers. HubSpot’s software suite helps you master your inbound approach to create useful content that resonates with your readers and delivers a positive user experience.

How Can HubSpot Support Your Business?

Business growth and development relies on cultivating deep, meaningful relationships with your customers. After all, 65% of a company’s business comes from existing customers. HubSpot’s software suite helps you master your inbound approach to create useful content that resonates with your readers and delivers a positive user experience.

HubSpot is an all-in-one marketing and sales package that drives traffic to your website, helps you attract new customers, and converts leads to sales. It provides help with social media, SEO, landing pages, marketing automation, and website analytics. You can incorporate the software into your current website or build an entirely new site through their system. HubSpot is highly effective and sought after because it:

  • Is user friendly
  • Removes customer frustrations
  • Helps with content optimization
  • Unifies sales, marketing, and service departments
  • Tracks communications
  • Delivers marketing insights
  • Offers more than 500 applications
  • Provides ongoing education

HubSpot helps take the guesswork out of digital marketing and frees up your staff members to focus on other aspects of your business. HubSpot’s software is an effective way to leverage expertise and grow your business for ongoing success.

What is a HubSpot Technical Consulting Service?

In addition to the many benefits HubSpot software provides, businesses can also enlist the help of an experienced HubSpot certified consultant. Their technical consulting services put you in touch with an expert who will learn all about your business, your customers, and your goals. They’ll use this information to identify what software solutions would help your business most. This will enable you to streamline your processes, overcome obstacles, and maximize your HubSpot services.

The HubSpot technical consulting service can help with:

  • Technical consulting projects: Reach specific goals with HubSpot software.
  • Onsite consulting: Attend an in-person meeting to discuss ways HubSpot software can benefit your business.
  • Ongoing consulting: Receive weekly or monthly guidance to help keep you on track for long-term objectives.
  • Solutions partners: Get technical consulting and hands-on help to ensure you’re making the most of your HubSpot experience.

When you purchase consulting services, you gain access to HubSpot technical support, custom CMS design work, optimized platforms like Shopify and Scribe, and full-service reporting. HubSpot software is highly advantageous on its own, but the addition of a HubSpot implementation consultant takes your digital marketing efforts to the next level.

How Can a HubSpot Technical Consulting Service Help You?

Technology plays a major role in today’s marketplace, but it can be time consuming and confusing. When you hire a HubSpot implementation consultant, you strengthen your digital marketing efforts. The HubSpot team is experienced in project management, strategy development, and best practices to optimize the benefits you’re already gaining from their software. You’ll receive focused attention on:

  • Developing effective marketing campaigns
  • Streamlining your sales processes
  • Ways to maximize your HubSpot software for best results
  • Tracking KPIs and quantifiable data

Working with a dedicated consultant can ease the frustrations of your own team while improving marketing and sales approaches. You’ll be able to attract new customers, deliver positive user experiences, and generate more revenue for ongoing success.

3 Steps Involved in HubSpot Technical Consulting

HubSpot for professional services is an effective way to leverage their software services. When you’ve made the decision to onboard with HubSpot, purchase their technical consulting to flatten the learning curve and meet objectives with speed and efficiency. You can enjoy the benefits of HubSpot technical consulting in just three steps.

1. Sign Up for Consulting

When you let HubSpot know you’re interested in working with a consultant, they’ll assign an expert to your business. Your dedicated consultant will contact you and ask questions about your:

  • Business: What is your mission and purpose, and how do you operate?
  • Customers: Who is your target audience and what solutions are they trying to solve?
  • Goals and objectives: What are you trying to achieve with your digital marketing strategy?
  • Current marketing efforts: What have you been doing so far, and is it working?

They’ll use this information to assess your current situation and determine which HubSpot software tools would be most beneficial for your particular needs.

2. Set New Goals

Your HubSpot technical consultant will analyze your efforts and use that data to help you plan a new digital marketing strategy. They’ll identify areas that have worked and areas that need improvement. They’ll recommend an approach to capitalize on the demands and expectations of your audience. Through carefully selected HubSpot tools and resources, you’ll receive a digital marketing plan that is expected to gain optimal results and help you achieve your objectives.

3. Track Progress

Once your new strategy has been implemented, your technical consultant will help you track your progress. Thorough analytics will show what aspects of your campaign are working. You’ll understand what messages are resonating with your audience and you’ll gain insight into their purchase behavior. Your consultant will also be able to identify strategies that need tweaking to gain the best results. Working together, you’ll have the opportunity to adjust your campaign to ensure you’re on track to meet your goals and maximize your efforts.

Maximize the Power of HubSpot

Behind The Work is a digital marketing agency whose broad range of solutions helps businesses drive success and boost conversion rates. We’re a certified HubSpot partner and can help you maximize the power of HubSpot software and technical consulting services.

This time of year is full of wonder.

But it’s also been an incredibly tough year for business owners and their marketers. Between inflation, supply chain issues, labor shortages, and recession fears, growing a business over the past few years has been challenging.

Although navigating choppy economic waters is no easy task… there are concrete marketing strategies business owners can use to grow their businesses despite obstacles.

This is where the big guy in red comes in. 

Santa Claus is more than just a festive figure. He is a symbol of joy, generosity, and the magic of the holiday season. 

So, how does Santa manage to capture the hearts of people worldwide? 

The answer lies in some powerful marketing tactics. We’ll refer to these tactics as Santa’s Marketing Magic because this timeless strategy has made Santa the ultimate brand ambassador for goodwill and consumerism.

Last year, the US spent a staggering $936.3 billion on Christmas, a $47 million increase from 2021 and underscoring Santa’s significant influence on spending. 

So, let’s unwrap the secrets behind Santa’s marketing success and discover how his proven strategies can inspire your brand to sleigh the competition in today’s complex economy.

A Little History Lesson For You About The Big Guy

To understand Santa’s marketing prowess, let’s take a sleigh ride back in time – waaay back – for a little history lesson about the big guy himself. 

Santa Claus traces his origins to the early 4th century. Then he was known as St. Nicholas, a monk living in part of the Roman Empire (now modern-day Turkey). St. Nicholas was a trust fund baby, and when his parents died, he inherited a small fortune. But he didn’t have any personal use for it, so he began to donate it to people who needed it more than he did.

The story of St. Nicholas’ generosity quickly circulated, and like any good story, it grew with each telling. 

One story in particular lives in infamy.

A down-on-his-luck farmer was struggling to raise dowries for his three daughters. If he didn’t come up with the money fast, he was going to have to sell the girls into slavery. When St. Nicholas caught wind of the situation, he knew he had to help. 

Under cover of the night, he went to the family’s house and chucked a bag of gold through an open window. He did this three nights in a row giving each daughter a sizable dowry.

And so the legend began.

The Commercialization of Santa

By the end of the 19th century, now known as Santa Claus, St. Nicholas (his legend anyway) had made it to America. Once a saintly monk, Santa was now a rotund, rosy-cheeked, jolly man who traveled through the sky in a sleigh pulled by flying reindeer. This was thanks to a combination of Clement Clarke Moore’s A Night Before Christmas and Civil War-era political cartoonist Thomas Nast.

From there, it didn’t take long for him to become commercialized by department stores looking to attract both kids and parents. Specifically, a dry goods store owner went by the name Colonel Jim. Whether Colonel was an official title is unclear. Nonetheless, Colonel Jim changed the game forever when he dressed up as Santa in hopes of attracting people to his store. Now, there’s no doubt of seeing Santa in every mall across the country during the holiday season, and that’s all thanks to maybe war veteran Colonel Jim.

Of course, we can’t talk about the commercialization of Santa without mentioning Coca-Cola. They have some of the most iconic Santa imagery ever to be created. It’s a common misconception that Coca-Cola created the Santa we know today, which is just another example of marketing genius that deserves its own post.

Over the centuries, the iconic persona of Santa Claus has been used to promote everything from movies to candy brands to the US Military.

Not to be Scrooge, But People Aren’t in a Spending Mood

Without sugar plum coating it, times are tough. 

According to a 2023 report on consumerism, Americans are feeling the pinch. So much so that 63% of respondents say they’re tightening their budgets because of inflation and other recession indicators. 

Here’s a snapshot of how people are feeling about the current state of things: 

  • 64% of consumers think the US is currently in a recession
  • Half of all US adults have taken steps to plan or prepare for a recession
  • 42% believe it will last for over a year

However, this isn’t Santa’s first rodeo with a recession. Let’s explore how Santa’s clever and resourceful marketing strategies have helped him weather economic storms.

How to Protect Your Company from the Grinch of Recession

When facing the Grinch that is a recession, remember you don’t have to go it alone. One of the most effective strategies for business owners as they navigate difficult times is to get expert support. 

Here are a few reasons why relying on professionals can be a game-changer: 

  • Expertise: Professionals bring industry knowledge and experience
  • Efficiency: Save time and resources, allowing you to focus on core business activities
  • Adaptability: Swiftly respond to changing market conditions with expert guidance
  • Resource Allocation: Allocate resources strategically and maintain cost efficiency
  • Scalability: Adjust marketing efforts as needed, providing flexibility

Outsourcing your marketing efforts to highly skilled professionals ensures that your business remains agile, competitive, and visible.

Why Santa’s Marketing Works Like Magic

Santa’s remarkable success, even during recessions and economic downturns, comes down to consistency and his customer-centric approach.

Consistency is key. Santa has maintained a steadfast brand and message throughout generations, building trust and reliability. 

A customer-centric approach also sets Santa apart. He intimately knows his customers’ wishes, tailoring gifts and fostering loyalty and nostalgia.

Let’s take a sleigh ride into how you can work your own Christmas miracles and build a brand that endures, reaches your target audience effectively, and engages them on a deeper level.

How to Work Christmas Miracles: Implementing Santa’s Marketing Magic

He Knows You Better Than You Know Yourself

He knows when you’re sleeping. He knows when you’re awake. He even knows if you’ve been bad or good. That’s one of the greatest appeals of Santa. He makes it his mission to make your dreams come true. And he does it by intimately knowing you, aka his target audience.

You too, can use this in your marketing strategy.

Of course, you can’t know your target audience as well as Santa knows his. But with the right research, you can get pretty dang close.

  • First: Analyze existing customer data, like demographics, purchase history, and interactions with your brand.
  • Then: Look for patterns and similarities in the data to identify key demographic information like age, gender, location, and job role. Also, look for common interests, hobbies, values, and lifestyle choices.
  • Finally: With your newly gathered insights, you can create detailed profiles for each persona, giving them names, specific details, and visual representations.

Remember, it’s important to regularly review and update your personas to reflect changes in your target audience, market trends, or shifts in your business strategy.

Building a Timeless Brand

Santa Claus has not only become synonymous with Christmas but has also crafted a brand that stands the test of time. His image evokes feelings of warmth, generosity, and the spirit of giving. This branding success is rooted in the consistent messaging and imagery associated with him. From the red suit to the white beard, each element reinforces the brand, creating a powerful and recognizable icon.

You can also create consistent brand-building, just like the big guy.

  • First: Create and regularly update detailed brand guidelines that include messaging, visual elements, tone of voice, and other brand attributes. It’s important to make sure to regularly communicate these guidelines to your team.
  • Then: Collaborate openly between marketing, design, sales, and other relevant departments. 
  • Finally: Create a centralized brand asset library with approved logos, images, fonts, and other brand assets. And create a content calendar to keep everyone across departments on the same page.

By following these steps, you can create and maintain a brand that endures the test of time, just like Santa’s.

Spreading Joy Across Channels

Santa is not limited to the North Pole; he’s omnipresent in our lives, thanks to a clever multichannel marketing strategy. From movies and TV shows to parades, shopping malls, and even letters. Santa has strategically positioned himself in various channels to ensure maximum exposure. This omnipresence ensures that the magic of Santa is not confined to a specific medium but permeates every aspect of our lives during the holiday season.

Like Santa, you can do this too.

  • First: Identify your target audience and build personas.
  • Then: Decide which channels you want to be on. Blog? Email? Social media? Which ones?
  • Finally: Develop a consistent brand message that can be adapted for each channel.

It’s important to regularly analyze the performance of each channel and adjust your strategy accordingly. 

Harnessing the Power of Storytelling

What sets Santa apart is not just his image but the enchanting stories that accompany him. The tales of his magical workshop, flying reindeer, and global gift-giving spree add layers to the Santa brand. The reason this works so well is that people are more likely to remember something when stories and emotions are involved. And brands need to be remembered.

Marketers can take a page from Santa’s book of mastery storytelling

  • First: Define a compelling brand narrative that incorporates your mission, values, and unique selling proposition. 
  • Then: Create compelling characters, whether they are customer personas, employees, or even the brand itself. This will help you humanize your brand.
  • Finally: Develop a story arc with a clear beginning, middle, and end.

With the current adoption rate of AI technologies, the warmth and the humanity behind marketing are becoming even more important. And people are craving it. 

Research shows that 64% of people want brands to connect with them. 76% of people go so far as to say they’ll choose the brand they connect with over a competitor. This connection can be achieved with powerful storytelling.

Engaging with the Naughty and Nice List

Santa’s infamous “Naughty and Nice List” is a stroke of marketing genius. It engages the audience in a playful and interactive way, creating anticipation and excitement. 

The concept of leaving milk and cookies out for Santa is another clever marketing tactic. It’s just one more way to encourage interactive participation and engage the audience.

Brands can take inspiration from this concept too. 

 By incorporating gamification and interactive elements into their marketing campaigns, you encourage audience participation and create memorable experiences.

  • First: Select a game mechanic that aligns with your campaign objectives and resonates with your audience. Some ideas include challenges, quizzes, competitions, or reward-based systems.
  • Then: Provide incentives or rewards for participation. This could be discounts, exclusive access to content, or entry into a sweepstakes.
  • Finally: Track and analyze user data like user interactions, behaviors, and preferences. This data will give you insights into the effectiveness of your gamification strategy and help refine future campaigns.

By infusing gamification into your marketing, you can create engaging, memorable experiences for your audience.

Master Santa’s Marketing Magic With Behind The Work

The principles behind Santa’s Marketing Magic continue to captivate hearts and wallets worldwide.

But don’t fret if implementing these strategies seems like more than you can handle. Just as Santa relies on his team of elves, the Behind The Work team is ready to be your marketing partner and help your business thrive.

We’ll provide a tailored marketing strategy to suit your unique needs and goals. Whether you need to build or refine your brand, expand your presence across various channels, or create compelling storytelling, we’ve got you covered.
So, this holiday season, if you want to grow your business and spread joy to your customers, Reach out to Behind The Work. Let’s jingle all the way to success.

When building a B2B lead generation campaign, content marketing might not be the first strategy marketers consider. Often, marketers rely on Google Ads, cold calling, and LinkedIn outreach to find and generate quality leads. While those marketing strategies are highly effective, they rely on a solid foundation of content.

Explore how to use content marketing for lead generation by building awareness and priming qualified leads.

What Is Content Marketing for Lead Generation?

A B2B lead generation strategy is identifying and connecting with potential buyers. For example, a marketer generates leads through lead magnets when they can save that buyer’s information for nurturing and eventually converting.

Some B2B lead generation examples include:

  • Newsletter signups
  • Webinars
  • Contact forms
  • Free trials or demos

In each situation, the buyers move from an anonymous audience to an interested lead. By engaging with marketing campaigns, the lead exchanged their contact information for something of value.

Content marketing lead generation strategies use content to convince readers. The readers then download or sign up for the lead magnet. According to a recent report, 70% of B2B marketers generate leads from content.

70% of B2B marketers generate leads from content.

How Content Marketing Complements Lead Generation

Content marketing is more crucial than improving a website’s ranking in search engines. It also raises awareness, builds trust, and moves potential buyers through the sales funnel. Without content marketing, lead generation strategies won’t be as effective.

Content marketing is more effective than ads, according to 80% of decision-makers. That’s because ads focus on a sale while content marketing builds relationships with the audience. Relationship building leads readers to fill out contact forms or download lead magnets, allowing marketers to add that lead to their database. Relationship building also improves the effectiveness of lead generation advertising campaigns.

Why Marketers Need a Lead Generation Content Strategy

Why should a marketer invest in lead generation content instead of sharing the lead magnet through ads and other strategies?

The B2B buyer’s journey is becoming longer and more complex. Marketers are having a more difficult time convincing decision-makers with a single ad or sales pitch. Instead, decision-makers want more research and data before making a sales decision.

Therefore, marketers won’t generate as many leads from lead magnets alone. Instead, they must connect and convince the B2B buyer through quality content. Content marketing lays the foundation of trust before the lead magnet, or lead generation strategy, and converts the buyer.

The Best Types of Lead Generation Content

While any content can generate leads, a few content formats perform better than others. The key to effective lead generation content is quality and research. B2B buyers are most interested in facts that prove why a business’s products or services are the best or specific ways a product will benefit their company.

Creating authority content builds trust and convinces B2B buyers to respond to the lead magnet.

The best B2B lead generation content includes:

  • Case studies
  • White papers
  • Webinars
  • Blog articles
  • Videos
  • Infographics

How to Use Content Marketing for Lead Generation

Use these 12 tips to build a highly effective lead-generation content marketing strategy to build trust and generate quality leads.

1. Establish Lead Generation Goals

A marketing team’s lead generation goals define the campaign’s direction and establish success benchmarks.

Marketers should define the number of leads they want to generate, the purpose of lead generation, the timeframe to generate the leads, and metrics to measure the campaign’s success.

Here are several lead generation goals B2B marketers might use:

  • Generate revenue: Generating quality, conversion-ready leads. Measure the success by revenue generated.
  • Increase brand awareness: Raising awareness about a brand. Measure the success of awareness campaigns through leads generated and increased website traffic.
  • Build databases: Gather essential data to help in marketing strategies. Measure the success through changes in traffic, conversions, and customer experience.

Half of B2B content is for increasing brand awareness. The other half of the content is for nurturing and converting leads.

2. Research the Audience

Lead generation is only effective if the leads are potential buyers. For example, a company that generates 1,000 leads, but only two are B2B decision-makers, did not run a successful campaign. However, a company that only generated 200 leads but converted 100 of those leads had a highly successful lead generation strategy.

Generating the right leads starts with understanding whom to attract before running the lead generation campaign. Marketers create two types of audience identifiers:

  • Ideal Customer Profile: A description of a fictional audience that would make the best buyer. It helps marketers understand WHO to reach and includes information like firmographics, location, and key decision-makers.
  • Buyer Persona: A detailed outline of specific decision-makers helps marketers decide HOW to reach the audience. It includes motivators like pain points, job descriptions, and emotional triggers.

Marketers create these two profiles by looking at their current customer base, surveying their intended audience, looking at the competition, and examining third-party data.

Generating the right leads starts with understanding whom to attract before running the lead generation campaign.

3. Personalize the Content

Personalization is necessary for B2B marketing because it gives the audience a reason to care. According to 78% of consumers, personalized content increases purchase intent.

Personalization takes topics the audience might not be familiar with and turns them into relevant information. When customers see a business’s products and solutions apply to them personally, they’re more likely to respond to lead magnets.

For example, business-centric content would have titles like “5 Features of X Software.” Meanwhile, personalized customer-centric content would have titles like “5 Ways X Software Speeds up Business Operations.” The second option addresses topics from a customer’s viewpoint. It addresses specific challenges and shares customer benefits.

Personalizing content goes a step further than focusing on customers as a whole. Instead, marketers create content for specific customer segments.

For instance, a financial company will have different pain points than a marketing company. Therefore, marketers could address the same topics in their content in several ways to connect with each specific audience segment.

Account-based marketing is one of the more popular strategies B2B marketers employ for personalizing content. Account-based marketing uses ideal customer profiles to identify and target high-value accounts. Then, marketers create personalized content for those accounts to turn them into leads and, eventually, customers.

4. Use Relevant Topics

Keyword research is more valuable than a content optimization tool for search engine rankings. It’s also vital for attracting the right audience to content to ensure quality leads read and respond to the lead magnets.

Marketers use keyword research tools to identify search phrases their target audience uses. Then they create content around those keywords. Keywords research keeps the content relevant to the audience and improves the quality of leads the content generates.

For example, a B2B buyer searching for software solutions for their business will perform different searches than individuals researching software information. So, marketers would use keywords like “for businesses” and “business software” to attract decision-makers to the content.

5. Create Intent-Based Call to Actions

Keyword research also tells marketers the type of lead magnet to use in their lead generating content marketing.

For instance, a decision-maker performing a “how to” search is less likely to sign up for a free trial than a B2B buyer who searches “where to buy data management software.”

B2B audiences have four primary intents when looking for online content:

  • Navigational: Using a company name in the search because the user is looking for a specific page
  • Informational: Looking for general information or research
  • Transactional: Someone ready to act who is looking for a particular product or solution
  • Commercial: Someone who is interested in a product and is looking for more details

Marketers should customize their lead magnet based on the content keyword’s search intent. For example, informational keywords should have a soft call to action, like encouraging the reader to sign up for a newsletter for more information or joining a webinar.

Conversely, transactional and commercial keywords should have a more significant call to action, like signing up for a free trial.

6. Focus On Quality over Algorithms

While keywords are essential for lead generation, the content’s quality plays a more significant role in ranking the content and converting the reader. Bringing the right leads to marketing content is half the battle. The content needs to convince those readers to perform the call to action.

Quality content with industry-leading ideas, authority links, and expert advice will build trust with the reader. Then, when the reader arrives at the lead magnet, they are more likely to respond to the call to action.

7. Create a Full Funnel Strategy

Lead generation can occur at every stage of the buyer’s journey. Sometimes marketers might connect with leads who just met the brand. Other times a business will generate leads who are ready to make a purchase decision.

The most effective content marketing for lead generation combines the journey stage with the buyer’s persona.

“The most effective content marketing for lead generation combines the journey stage with the buyer’s persona.”

8. Make Conversions Easy

Businesses will generate more leads if the lead magnet is clear. For example, content creators might design a banner that attracts attention to the lead magnet.

Otherwise, content writers may make the lead magnet a bold sentence with a link to a webinar, contact form, or other lead magnets. This more subtle option is more effective for a top-of-the-funnel lead generation for raising awareness.

9. Incorporate Multimedia

Multimedia content performs best because it’s more engaging. The audience is more likely to act on the call to action when the content beforehand is engaging.

Some of the most engaging forms of B2B content based on the percentage of marketers who used the asset include:

  • Webinars (58%)
  • Reports (48%)
  • Blog posts (48%)
  • eBooks and White Papers (47%)
  • Case studies (39%)
  • Video (38%)
  • Podcasts (23%)

In 2022, 69% of B2B marketers increased their video marketing investment as that format is quickly becoming one of the most effective marketing strategies.

Marketers often combine formats to boost the performance of the content. For example, a content creator might embed a video in a blog post. That way, marketers are more likely to connect with the target audience and generate quality leads.

10. Use Creative Distribution Strategies

Once marketers create quality content, they must find ways to get it in front of the ideal audience. This task isn’t always as simple as choosing popular keywords. In reality, 90.63% of web pages don’t see any organic search traffic.

Marketers that want to ensure their ideal buyer sees the content and responds to the lead magnet must use more targeted distribution strategies.

Content syndication is highly effective for reaching buyers and raising brand awareness through lead-generation content. Content syndication is sharing content on third-party platforms. For example, a business might republish a blog post on LinkedIn, distribute it across targeted websites through Netline, or post it on a public site like Medium.

“Content syndication is highly effective for reaching buyers and raising brand awareness through lead-generation content.”

These distribution channels allow marketers to reach their audience by sharing content on sites they know the audience regularly visits. Through content distribution, marketers can go to the B2B buyers rather than wait for the buyers to come to them.

Other ways to distribute content to a target audience include email marketing, newsletter sharing, and social media posting. Those three channels are the business’s personal connections to reach interested buyers. So marketers can create middle and bottom-of-the-funnel lead generation content, like promoting trial signups.

11. Track and Analyze the Results

Marketers use the metrics they established in their goals to track and analyze their results. For example, tracking content performance helps marketers know what content is performing best and when to optimize the content.

Marketers often run several versions of the same content to see which version performs best. Businesses call this A/B testing. For example, content creators might compare the webinar signups from a link to a banner ad in the content to see which call to action readers prefer.

12. Continually Update the Content

After investing hours into a B2B lead generation marketing strategy, marketers want the content investment to work as long as possible. Regularly updating content helps content continue to perform well and generate quality leads.

Updating content includes:

  • Refreshing the writing
  • Adding updated statistics
  • Adjusting content optimization to new search engine rules

More and more businesses are including content updates in their content marketing strategy because updated content delivers consistent positive results and new leads.

Review Your Lead Generation Strategy

Behind the Work is a team of expert marketers with the tools and knowledge to create, distribute, and measure expert content that generates quality B2B leads. The marketing strategies attract and acquire a specific target audience to boost conversion rates.

Have an expert marketing strategist review your strategy today.

Advertising of any kind within the healthcare industry can be challenging, especially with all the rules and regulations surrounding it. Healthcare PPC adds another level of complexity.

While it can be tempting to ignore PPC because of its innate challenges, that could be detrimental to the health of your business. Instead, you need to learn the right way to manage your advertising beyond simple word-of-mouth recommendations.

Digital marketing is the way forward for the healthcare industry. According to a 2019 report, Google gets about 70,000 health-related queries every minute. An effective PPC strategy can help capture some of those searches and lead them to your business.

The right digital marketing strategy can lead to long-term growth and increased revenue for your practice.

What Is Healthcare PPC

PPC stands for “pay per click.” These are typically the ads someone sees at the top of their Google search results. A business only pays for the ad space when someone clicks on the ad.

You get to choose which keywords you want to focus on to trigger your ad. For example, if you are part of a pediatric practice in Houston, you could run a PPC ad campaign targeting people who search for “pediatricians in Houston.” If someone Googles that phrase, your PPC ad would be near the top of the page.

Tracking and measuring the results of PPC campaigns is also relatively simple. This means you can quickly gauge how effective your strategy is and make changes if you don’t get the results you want.

6 Best Practices to Maximize Healthcare PPC

If you are looking for ways to maximize your marketing dollars, PPC is a great place to start. However, there are a few strategies and best practices you should keep in mind.

1. Understand Healthcare Paid Search Rules 

Healthcare is a highly regulated industry. There are specific rules and regulations you must follow, or you run the risk of incurring fines and other more serious consequences.

Google has specific paid search policies for healthcare ads. These policies apply to ads related to:

  • Clinical trial recruitment
  • Restricted drug terms 
  • Experimental medical treatments
  • Addiction services
  • Unapproved substances

There are also specific rules surrounding “health in personalized advertising.” This means you cannot target users based on their personal health information, including the following:

  • Chronic health conditions
  • Disabilities
  • Physical or mental health conditions
  • Sexual health

2. Know Your Audience 

One of the benefits of medical PPC and healthcare marketing is that the target audience is generally highly segmented already. Most practices know exactly who their target demographic is. This information can help you target new customers.

To do this, you will need to:

  • Create patient personas: Look through the historical demographic data of your patients and create detailed patient personas. Include information such as profession, healthcare concerns, income, etc. The marketing team can use these personas to create ad campaigns that target your ideal patients.
  • Create relatable messaging: Your ads and overall messaging need to reflect what your potential patients are looking for. Ads for a dental practice should be very different than those for an oncologist.
  • Track your ad performance: One of the best things about PPC advertising is that it is very easy to track. You can do A/B testing to see which ad copy or CTA works the best for your clients and delivers the most conversions.

3. Create Customized Landing Pages 

When someone sees your ad based on specific keywords and then clicks on your ad, they should immediately see relevant information on your website. The best way to do this is to create custom landing pages unique to each set of PPC criteria. Do not send people to your homepage. They will feel lost and not know where to click.

The landing page should have the same or similar wording to the triggering keyword or phrase. For example, if your PPC ad promises free dental x-rays for new patients, users should see the same offer on the landing page.

It should also feature a clean, minimal design with a straightforward CTA that lets users know exactly what they are supposed to do, like schedule an appointment. Be sure to thoroughly test your landing pages from the customer’s perspective. Are there any confusing steps or obstacles? Try to make the journey as smooth and seamless as possible.

4. Use Geotargeting 

While healthcare has shifted more into the digital world the past couple of years, it is still very much a local operation. Using geotargeting in your PPC campaigns is necessary to reach the right audience in the right place.

If someone searches for “urgent care near me” and they are in San Francisco, California, they will get results for urgent care centers near them. If you run an urgent care office near San Francisco, you can create a PPC campaign that delivers your ads to users within your geographic area.

5. Add Ad Extensions 

Ad extensions on the search engine results page (SERP) amplify your content and give users more information. Some of the most common extensions include:

  • Callouts: This is a short 25-character description that supports the main ad copy. You can highlight what your healthcare business has to offer.
  • Structured snippets: Use this area to highlight more of your services.
  • Sitelinks: Along with the main headline link, you can add additional sitelinks near the bottom of your ad. These links lead to specific landing pages, such as “About Us,” “Schedule an Appointment,” etc.
  • Location: Providing your address in your PPC ad is an easy way to let users know if your healthcare business is convenient for them. 
  • Call: With a phone number extension, users can click or tap the number to call you directly. 

6. Optimize Your Ads for Mobile 

According to Pew Research, 85% of Americans use a smartphone. Most of those people use their phones to research information online, including information about their health. Your website and all its landing pages must be optimized for mobile use. This means text, images, and CTAs should display appropriately without users needing to scroll around to find what they need.

Luckily, Google offers responsive search ads which automatically adapt based on the user’s device. You simply need to create multiple headlines and descriptions and the system will choose the best combination for each user.

Expand Your Healthcare PPC Potential with Behind the Work

If healthcare marketing feels overwhelming, don’t worry. Behind the Work is here to help. Just as we would never try to diagnose our own health conditions, we wouldn’t expect medical professionals to do their own marketing.

Our team of marketing experts is here to help your healthcare business with whatever digital marketing needs you have, whether that is SEO optimization, PPC ad campaigns, or anything else. We want to help your potential patients find you and get the expert medical help they need.

Ready to explore the world of healthcare marketing? Contact us today to start improving your online performance.

Contributed by BTW Videography

Hiring is the process of selling your company to ideal candidates.

When these candidates come across your job posting, why should they want to learn more about your company, culture, and benefits? What should they know about your history, and why should they want to be part of your future?

You’ll be hooking the right people if you can confidently answer these questions. Telling a visually interesting story is the best way to capture attention and allow you to make the case that you’re the best company to work for.

That’s why we recommend a recruitment video as part of any hiring campaign.

Many recruiters shy away from video because they think it will take too much technical knowledge or expensive equipment. However, the entire process can be completed with technology you already have access to.

From planning to production, we’ve collected eight easy steps you can follow to create your own engaging recruitment video.

FAQs About Producing a Recruitment Video

If you’d like to skip right to the details, scroll down to find the 8 steps.

How Do I Write a Recruitment Video for a Job?

To create effective company recruitment videos, start by laying out a basic story structure, including:

  • Your origins
  • The principles you believe in
  • Challenges on your road to growth
  • The role that your ideal candidate will play in the future of your business

From there, it’s best to flesh out the story with human interest by letting your employees speak on behalf of your business.

What Should You Include in a Recruiting Video?

You’ll want all the following elements in your recruitment video:

  • Interviews with current employees.
  • A cohesive, visually interesting narrative that tells your company’s story.
  • The culture of your company and why it’s a great place to work.
  • A relatable and optimistic plan for the future.

What Is a Recruitment Video?

Job recruitment videos, also known as video job postings, or work recruitment videos, are videos produced by companies looking to hire candidates for an open position.

How Long Should a Recruiting Video Be?

A recruitment video should be fairly short, about 2-3 minutes long. It should be long enough to communicate key details about your company’s culture and vision without getting too bogged down in minutiae or technical details about the open position.

Without further ado, here are eight simple steps you can take to make your own recruiting video.

Phase One: Planning

As with anything worth doing, it’s better to prepare in advance. Here are four steps you should follow during the planning phase of your recruitment video:

1. Determine Your Audience (Create Personas)

“In order to tell a great story that places your ideal candidate at the heart of the narrative, start with candidate personas.”

A persona is an idealized but fictional candidate representing the perfect employee you’d like to hire.

To design your ideal candidate, ask yourself questions like:

  • Who is my ideal employee on a personal level?
  • What are their career and life goals?
  • What do they need and want in a workplace?
  • How is your company better positioned to fulfill their desires compared to others?

2. Articulate Your Company’s Vision and Culture

After coming up with the ideal candidate persona, you should consider designing the image of the company you’d like to project.

Important factors to consider when developing an identity for your business include your ideal company culture, steps to achieve it, and how your business operations reinforce and feed off that image.

Your culture should feel cohesive with your ideal candidate. They are designed to be a perfect match for one another, so if something about this step feels off, it’s important to take a close look and smooth out any rough edges.

3. Come Up with a Rough Script

You should have a good idea of your final product before you begin video production.

Rather than trying to plan out every detail, focus on creating general guidelines that will shape the video you want.

Start by brainstorming simple ideas like music choices, office settings you can use, and visuals you want to include, such as office amenities or even a shot of your building and surrounding area.

Determine what you’d like to say in your recruitment video.

  • What’s the story of your company? Where have you come from, and where are you going?
  • How does your ideal candidate fit into this narrative? They should have an active role in the future of the company.
  • Don’t be afraid to talk about your challenges. Any good narrative involves a character overcoming problems. Your company has challenges and obstacles on the way to growth. Be open about those challenges and how you plan to overcome them with the right candidate.
  • Keep your video focused on the narrative. Don’t be tempted to include too many details about the position, job responsibilities, or other technical information. This will sap momentum from the video and detract from its ultimate purpose: telling an engaging story.

“Your company has challenges and obstacles on the way to growth. Be open about those challenges and how you plan to overcome them with the right candidate.”

4. Decide Whom to Put in Front of the Camera

No recruitment video can be complete without including the human element. Your current employees are the best resource you have when it comes to selling your company to potential candidates.

  • Ask for volunteers. This part is pretty important. You don’t want anyone in the video who may feel uncomfortable in front of the camera.
  • When asking for volunteers, make sure you keep the tone light. Let your employees know it’s a simple process that won’t take long and will involve them speaking honestly about their experiences at the company.
  • If possible, get someone outside the organization to ask recruitment video questions. This will reduce the pressure on them to feel like they have to answer questions a certain way. Keep in mind that a low-pressure, open-ended interview is the best way to get your employees to relax and relate to the interviewer on a human level.
  • Don’t forget to include some leaders in your video. Highly visible senior leadership gives the impression of a more dynamic organization that appeals to candidates.

“Don’t forget to include some leaders in your video. Highly visible senior leadership gives the impression of a more dynamic organization that appeals to candidates.”

Phase Two: Production

Now that you have a plan for your recruitment video, you’ll need to turn your vision into reality. This is the production phase of how to make a recruitment video.

5. Get Comfortable with Your Equipment

Despite what you may believe, having professional equipment is optional when creating a recruitment video. You can make do with just a couple modern smartphones—one for video and one for audio.

The only way to master the art of creating videos is to practice often. If you’re brand new to the process, here are a few tips for filming your recruitment video:

  • Avoid bad audio at all costs. Sound that is choppy, too loud, or incomprehensible will immediately degrade the quality of your final product and make it feel unprofessional. Record audio and video separately, then synchronize the two in the editing process.
  • Film in landscape, not portrait. Unless you create a recruitment video for social media where a portrait frame is appropriate, you want to avoid it. A wide-screen landscape picture is more visually appealing and will look better and more professional on bigger screens.
  • Keep the camera steady. Try resting your camera on a steady surface or invest in a tripod.
  • Get plenty of broll. In video production, a b-roll is the footage that is interspersed with your main shot. B-roll is important because it infuses the video with momentum and visual interest that a static, unedited shot can’t achieve.
  • Stay organized. Label all your video and audio files consistently, making them easy to reference in the editing process.

6. Be a Hands-off Director

Employee recruitment videos should feel natural and free-flowing while still having defined structures.

  • Keep interviews open-ended. Let employees talk as much as possible. The more freedom they have to search their thoughts and feelings for truthful answers, the more quickly you’ll get them to open up.
  • Be open to changes. You may learn that an idea or shot you wanted to include doesn’t make sense anymore. Be open to changing directions early and often at the suggestion of your employees or collaborators.
  • Minimize cliches and buzzwords. Compared to other methods, the best aspect of a recruitment video is the ease with which you can generate a compelling and engaging narrative. The quickest way to detract from this narrative is to bring the candidate out of it with too many buzzwords or cliches that will make it difficult to focus on what’s truly unique about your company.

7. Show, Don’t Tell

Remember that video is a visual medium, first and foremost. Keep your job recruiting video interesting by showing rather than telling.

For example, imagine an employee you’re interviewing bringing up how much they love the cafeteria. You should overlay that audio with a shot of the cafeteria, removing the need for the candidate to imagine what the cafeteria must look like and making it easy for them to imagine enjoying lunch there instead.

“Remember that video is a visual medium first and foremost. Keep your recruitment video interesting by showing rather than telling.”

8. Include a Specific Call to Action

By specific, we mean direct instruction, so the candidate knows exactly where to go to complete the application process. The less friction here, the more candidates you’ll have access to. Provide a link that is immediately accessible near the video, as well as instructions in the video for how to apply.

For Best Results, Go to the Experts

No matter your level of expertise or what technology you have access to, it’s possible to make a narrative-driven, personalized recruitment video that highlights the culture of your business to potential candidates.

However, if you really want to maximize your results, it might be best to let a professional recruiting video maker handle it for you.

Behind The Work is an inbound agency with a San Diego Videography team specializing in full-service creative campaigns, including professional recruitment videos for companies. We pride ourselves on our ability to collaborate with our clients and seek to fit ourselves into your production or marketing process as a partner first and foremost.

We’ll work alongside you to conceptualize and produce an effective recruitment video that tells the story of your business and relates it in a way that will maximize your recruiting efforts.

For an example of what we can do, take a look at what we created for the University of California. Of the candidates we helped them recruit, 100% were high-quality and still with them two years after the campaign.

To learn more about the services Behind the Work offers and how we can begin creating the perfect recruitment video for you, contact us to talk with one of our team members.

Free trials often lead to higher conversion rates. One study showed that two out of three buyers who used a free trial ended up purchasing the product or service afterward. However, encouraging B2B buyers to sign up for the trial in the first place isn’t always straightforward. Thankfully, PPC for SaaS companies can improve your trial signup rate.

Learn how pay-per-click for SaaS works and how you can use it to increase your trial signups.

Does PPC Work for B2B Marketing?

PPC advertising is effective for both B2C and B2B marketing for a SaaS company.

Reaching primary decision-makers can be difficult as you don’t have as many options as B2C marketing. However, when you use PPC strategies, you have a greater chance of your marketing content with your trial signup appearing in front of the right people, which will boost your B2B marketing strategy.

PPC ads can appear in searches, social media, and third-party websites.

What Are the 8 Types of PPC Ads?

Explore the eight primary PPC examples:

Paid Search Advertising

Search ads are content you sponsor to guarantee it appears at the top of relevant Google searches. This is the most popular type of PPC ad. When they appear at the top of search engine results, they have an “Ad” marker before the URL.

To create Google ads for SaaS businesses, you choose the content you want to sponsor and bid on keywords that you want that content to rank for in the tech niche. When your target B2B audience searches those terms, your content with the trial signup will be one of the top results.

Display Advertising

Display ads are like digital billboards. They appear in advertising widgets on sidebars of third-party websites. They are often images with messages that take the reader to a designated landing page.

Instead of targeting keywords, you target specific people. For example, Google can track users and display your trail signup ad to visitors who had previously visited your site.

Social Media Advertising

Over half the world’s population is on social media, making it an ideal place to advertise your trial. Even B2B companies see a positive return for social ads, with 60% of B2B marketers confirming they received an ROI from paid ads on social media.

Some of the most popular platforms for social media advertising include:

  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Twitter
  • Pinterest
  • LinkedIn

LinkedIn is the most effective social media channel for B2B marketing as 80% of the members are business decision-makers.

Because social media users enter an extensive amount of personal information, you can target your audience on social media easier. Use filters like location, demographics, interests, and behaviors to find your audience. Your paid content will appear on their feeds with a “Sponsored” tag under your profile.

Retargeting Ads

Not everyone who visits your website will purchase immediately. The average decision-maker will interact with 13 different pieces of content before choosing a vendor.

Remarketing is the strategy you use to bring your website traffic back to your site after they initially left. While there are several ways you can remarket, retargeting tracks the visitor and then displays PPC ads with your content on third-party sites. These reminders of your products and services offer visitors a chance to reconsider their decision and encourage them to return to your site.

About 33% of B2B marketers say they plan on investing in remarketing as part of their PPC strategy.

Instream Advertising

If you have a video ad, you can display it at the start, middle, or end of a YouTube video as a PPC instream ad.

YouTube is one of the top-visited sites globally, just below Google and Facebook, making it another prime spot to post your ads and reach your target audience. Since 70% of B2B buyers say they watch videos in their buyer’s journey, video ads should play a significant role in your PPC campaigns.

Gmail-Sponsored Ads

You can send your marketing content directly to your audience through Gmail-sponsored ads. These ads appear in the recipient’s inbox alongside their other mail but have an “ad” tag to distinguish them. However, since most businesses don’t use Gmail, these PPC ads are primarily for B2C marketing.

Google Shopping Ads

Google shopping ads are paid ads for your products or services. This ad format works best for physical items from ecommerce stores rather than SaaS companies.

Local Service Ads

This PPC ad is for local businesses offering services to help them appear in local search results. SaaS businesses do not qualify for local service ads.

“LinkedIn is the most effective social media channel for B2B marketing as 80% of the members are business decision-makers.”

How Do I Create a SaaS Marketing Plan to Increase Trial Signups?

Paying for an ad only improves your reach but doesn’t guarantee the right audience will click on the ad. So, what are the proven PPC tactics for more effective SaaS marketing?

Use these eight strategies to build a SaaS marketing plan to increase your trial signup rate.

1. Use Comprehensive Analytics

Tracking the buyer’s journey will tell you where your clients came from before they signed up for your trial. Those previous touchpoints will be key channels for displaying your PPC ads to increase the number of buyers ready to sign up.

However, the attribution model you use for tracking your buyers and their touchpoints will impact how you view your channels. An attribution model is how you distribute value from a sale among each contributing channel.

If you use a last-click attribution model, you only attribute the trial signup to the last channel the buyer visited. This model doesn’t consider other stops they made leading up to the trial signup. For example, that same buyer might have spent significant time on social media earlier in their sales journey, making that channel another valuable location for ads.

Seeing the entire journey in your attribution model is the most effective way to choose the best channels for your PPC ads.

Seeing the entire journey in your attribution model is the most effective way to choose the best channels for your PPC ads.”

2. Optimize Your Landing Page

Each PPC ad should have its customized landing page. A landing page is a static page that your traffic arrives at from your PPC ads. If your ads send your visitors to your website, they don’t have any specific direction to go and are more likely to get distracted on your site or lose interest.

However, a landing page removes all distractions like the navigation bar. When visitors arrive, there is only one action to complete, like signing up for your trial.

It can also customize the visitor’s message according to the campaign they come from. For example, if your ad was a PPC ad on LinkedIn that targeted financial decision-makers, your landing page might focus on the financial benefits of your software.

To optimize your landing page fully, you will need to perform A/B testing to see which formats and page setups connect best with your audience. For instance, you can run several ads that lead to a copy of the same landing page. However, each landing page might use a different color trial signup button. You can watch to see which color received the most trial signups.

3. Use a Variety of Ads

The average person sees between 6,000 and 10,000 ads each day. In addition, many of those ads are the same across different platforms. If your buyers see a copy and paste of your ad several times a day for several days, they will quickly develop ad fatigue. Instead of reaching them with your invitation to your trial, you will create a negative response.

To avoid ad fatigue, continually switch up your ads, message, images, and format to keep your ads fresh. Each interaction will feel like a new experience and give you another opportunity to highlight the benefits of your trial and products.

“The average person sees between 6,000 and 10,000 ads each day.”

4. Use Lookalike Audiences

When you use Facebook, take advantage of their lookalike audience feature for PPC ads. It will help you reach more of your target audience with your trial signup.

Lookalike is a feature that analyzes your current social media audience. It then searches Facebook for groups with similar characteristics and shares your ads with that audience.

You can create a custom list of a segment of your audience for Facebook to analyze. Then you can make up to 500 lookalike audiences for each group.

5. Create Multiple Personalized PPC Ads

Roughly 80% of marketers say they saw more sales when they used personalization in their strategies. Personalized PPC ads and landing page content change for each target audience to ensure it has the most relevant message for each decision-maker.

“Roughly 80% of marketers say they saw more sales when they used personalization in their strategies.”

For example, what motivates the head of marketing to sign up for your trial will be different than what motivates the CEO of the same company. Therefore, adjusting your ad to those titles allows you to reach your audience more effectively for a higher conversion rate.

6. Use Negative Keywords

You may already know about keywords, which are search phrases you target in your content to improve your ranking in Google searches. However, you can also use negative keywords in your PPC ads.

Negative keywords are the opposite of keywords you want to rank for. They tell the search algorithm what searches you don’t want your ad to appear in because they aren’t relevant to your products or services. By using negative keywords, you reduce the number of clicks on your ad from visitors who aren’t going to sign up for your trial because the service isn’t designed for their needs.

For example, if you are promoting a cookie tracking software trial, you might include “cookie recipe” as a negative keyword, so the search algorithm doesn’t pull your software up in baking-related queries.

Keyword vs Negative Keyword PPC

7. Track Micro Conversions

Before your buyers sign up for your trial, several micro conversions take place. The first micro conversion is clicking on your ad. Next, you can track how long they stay on your page or whether they scroll through the landing page to read your content.

By tracking these micro conversions, you can identify what parts of your PPC ad are effective and where you are most likely to lose your traffic.

For example, you might see many micro conversions leading up to filling out the form. However, most of your visitors might abandon the trial signup form before completing it. Therefore, you can identify the form as a roadblock to trial signups and work on improving that specific area of your landing page.

8. Create a Lead Qualification Process

Once your target audience signs up for a trial, your job isn’t done. When the trial ends, there is a chance they won’t purchase your product.

Part of your PPC ad campaign should include how to convert trial signups to retainers.

For example, once a buyer fills out the trial signup form, this action might trigger an automated email drip campaign. Through the emails, you nurture the lead and address any remaining roadblocks they may have.

You might also set up a support system where you can quickly resolve any issues and answer questions during the trial experience to ensure it’s as positive as possible.

Making a seamless transition from trial to retainer is also key to converting trial users because if the process is too complicated, they are less likely to complete it.

Optimize Your Trial Signups Using PPC for SaaS

Behind the Work can help you design ad copy and landing pages with a high conversion rate. Work with our B2B marketing experts to create customized content that will help you reach more of your marketing goals.

Contact us to learn more about our SaaS PPC Management service.

B2B professional services create customized offerings for buyers and develop relationships with each business based on trust. While there are several ways to build this relationship, video marketing is quickly becoming one of the top strategies for marketers.

However, is video marketing relevant in B2B marketing, or is it a passing trend among consumers?

Explore the potential of B2B video marketing for professional services and five ways for using video in B2B marketing.

What Is a B2B Marketing Video?

A B2B marketing video promotes your business, introduces your services, and builds trust with your audience. You can share your marketing video on your website, social media, or a third-party website where users can view it. Then, they can use links within the video or in the description to return to your website and sign up for your services.

“A B2B marketing video promotes your business, introduces your services, and builds trust with your audience.”

Is Video Marketing Necessary?

The demand for video content is growing as more buyers prefer the immersive experience that the media format offers rather than traditional channels for interacting with brands. Today, 86% of marketers use video as part of their strategy and plan to continue using it because of its high ROI.

To remain competitive in today’s market, you must incorporate video into your strategy.

Is YouTube Good for B2B Marketing?

The second most visited website is YouTube, the online video hosting giant. It provides the tools and audience you need to launch your next video marketing campaign.

Before you start investing in YouTube, here are a few B2B video marketing statistics you should know about the platform:

  • 30 million users log onto YouTube daily, and two billion monthly
  • Users watch over one billion hours of YouTube content daily
  • There are over 38 million channels on YouTube
  • 90% of digital consumers also use YouTube

Among that large audience are your B2B buyers, looking for relevant content in their industry. You can position yourself as a leader by providing that content through the most popular video site.

Why Is Video Important in B2B Marketing?

Here are four benefits to including video as part of your B2B marketing efforts:

Increases Lead Engagement

Videos are one of the best content formats for encouraging engagement.

For example, videos on Facebook have the highest engagement rate, videos on Instagram receive twice the engagement of regular photo posts, and tweets with videos see ten times the engagement as those without.

Engagement shows your viewers are interested in your message and trust your brand. It also lets you know whether most of your viewers are having a positive experience.

The ideal video length for engagement is within two minutes. After that, many viewers tend to leave. However, if viewers stay at least six minutes, they will most likely remain for the full video.

Addresses Different Learning Methods

Not everyone learns the same way. Roughly 65% of the population are visual learners. Visual learners retain information by viewing images, videos, and charts.

“Roughly 65% of the population are visual learners.”

You are missing a large demographic if all your touchpoints are only text emails, blog posts, or phone calls. Bloggers publish over 6 million new posts daily, and the average office worker receives over 121 emails daily. You want your content to be memorable despite the oversaturation of digital media, which requires a mix of strategies and an incorporation of media.

Adding a visual touchpoint through a B2B marketing video ensures that most of your audience will retain the information and remember your professional services brand.

Improves Your Search Ranking

On average, 68% of online experiences start with a search engine. So before your buyers ever find your brand, they will be on a search engine like Google looking for solutions or learning information in their industry.

The more content you create, the greater your chance of ranking in those searches. In addition, over half of website traffic comes from organic searches, which means search engine optimization should be a high priority in your B2B marketing efforts to drive new traffic to your site.

Video in your blog posts and web pages improves your site’s ranking in search engines. It also ensures the traffic you attract stays on those pages longer as it keeps them engaged.

In addition to supporting other content, video also ranks in a search engine by itself. YouTube videos appear in search queries based on the keywords you use in your closed captions, description, and title, as well as the video’s engagement rate.

Works Well with Social Media

Since 59% of the world’s population is on social media, spending an average of two and a half hours each day browsing content, it should be a core part of your marketing strategy. However, reaching your target audience isn’t always easy as there are millions of users and competing content.

Video content helps cut through the noise by adding an engaging touchpoint to your social media channels. To ensure your video appears in front of the right audience, you can sponsor the content and use filters such as profession and location to target your B2B buyers.

The top social media marketing platform is LinkedIn. There are over 630 million professionals on this social channel. In addition, 80% of them are decision-makers in their businesses. If you are looking for the best channel to share your B2B video content, consider adding LinkedIn to the top of your list.

Builds Trust with B2B Buyers

Trust and authority are the cornerstones of a buyer relationship. They need to trust your brand and recommendations and see you as a leader in your industry before they are willing to invest in your services.

“Trust and authority are the cornerstones of a buyer relationship.”

Video helps build that trust by developing a relationship through personal interactions on video. It gives you a fresh way to interact with your buyers and deliver messages. In addition, because they can see a face and someone’s eyes as they speak, it also improves the experience of receiving information.

Studies revealed the power of eye contact in communication. Some of the benefits of showing your eyes when communicating include:

  • Sharing emotions without speaking
  • Appearing more honest
  • Increasing your persuasive power
  • Improving understanding
  • Building respect

How To Use Video in B2B Professional Service Marketing

Use these five strategies for incorporating video into your B2B professional service marketing:

Types of Video Content

1. Thought Leadership Content

Roughly half of decision makers spend over an hour interacting with thought leadership content each week. Thought leadership is content where experts speak on a topic in their niche for the education and inspiration of others.

When you create thought leadership content, you establish yourself as an authority in your field. Your clients will see your content and learn to respect your opinion.

You can publish short-form thought leadership on YouTube or as short business-to-business marketing videos on your website. These are snippets of ideas and inspiration you share through video. They work well as complements to other content.

However, some of the most effective B2B video thought leadership are webinars. About 91% of marketers who use webinars say they saw great success with the format. Webinars allow you to dive deeper into a subject as most attendees prefer them to last around 45 minutes. In addition, they can be live events or on-demand, allowing you to share the webinar on YouTube and your website even after the event ends.

2. Monthly Video Blogs

About 94% of people will watch a video to help them understand a business and its services. Instead of only publishing regularly written blogs, you can add video content to your monthly or weekly schedule.

Regularly published video blogs can cover a wide array of subjects, just as you would on your website’s blog. For example, you can explain how your services work or talk about why businesses need services like yours, which creates demand.

Your monthly video blogs might also include training to help current customers continue benefiting from your services and maximize their returns. For example, if you offer content creation services, you can post videos on effective lead nurturing and follow-up strategies. These will help your customers convert the leads your content brought in.

3. Client Testimonials

Your buyers will conduct online research before choosing what services they will buy. About 92% of buyers will read reviews as part of that research. In addition, 95% of people say that reviews influence their decision.

Example of Client Testimonial

Sharing reviews on your website can build trust with future buyers as it shows you are a reliable company. Reviews also sometimes share specific ways others can benefit from your services.

However, you can add another layer of authenticity to your reviews by creating video client testimonials. As with your video content, testimonials are more trustworthy when the audience can see the speaker. They have more faith that the previous client is providing an authentic review and that the experience was positive because they can see the client’s body language and eyes while they share their experience.

Case studies are one of the most effective B2B content types. They are testimonials about past customers and how your brand helped that client succeed. In addition, it can serve as a roadmap for future clients looking for the same results and build trust with buyers since it provides specific ways your services benefit businesses.

4. Company Introductions

When you meet clients in person, your first act is reaching out your hand, making eye contact, and introducing yourself.

However, when a client’s first interaction with your brand is your website, you don’t have a chance to offer that hand of trust. Instead, you rely on your website to give a positive first impression. One way to make your visitor’s acquaintance is through an introduction video.

An introduction video appears on your about page or landing pages as a greeting to new customers. It gives them a friendly face to see while introducing them to who you are and what services you offer.

The ideal introduction video should be between two and three minutes long. Keep it professional yet remain human throughout. In the end, provide a clear call to action. These might be directions for contacting you or a specific service they could sign up for.

5. Talent Acquisitions

The expert team supporting your business is a crucial part of your outstanding services. However, finding that talent is getting more difficult in today’s labor shortage. There are 3.4 million fewer Americans working today than there were in 2020.

Because of the competitive market, you want your business to stand out to attract the best in your industry.

Video promotions for your business give job seekers an inside look at who you are as a company, what you stand for, and what your company culture is. It helps potential employees know whether they are a good fit and can attract new employees because the engaging format stands out in stark contrast to the thousands of plain text job listings.

Add Video to Your B2B Content Marketing Strategy

The upward trends in video marketing show that B2B video isn’t going away anytime soon. Therefore, those in B2B professional services marketing should adopt video into their strategy to remain competitive and stand out in today’s immersive multimedia society.

Contact us to learn about our video content solutions for B2B professional services.

So, What’s a Nascar Slide?

Essentially, a Nascar slide is the part of the sales deck or webpage that showcases all the companies that have worked with you. These are typically displayed as a series of logos, much like a Nascar vehicle is embellished with sponsorship logos. It’s part brand pride and part trust with current opportunities during the buying process. More importantly, there is a right way to demonstrate which brand you are working with and the wrong way. This blog is designed to help you navigate building out your own Nascar Slide and which companies should be featured during your sales process and on your website.

When deciding which companies make the cut, ask yourself – Who visits my website? Surely, its qualified leads, 100% of the time right? Realistically, you will get current clients, family & friends, referrals, leads and let’s not forget to mention competitors perusing your site. For that reason, we need to take care of the types of clients you present to the world.

There is always the argument that if you’re doing a great job for your clients you should not have to worry about them leaving for your competitors – even though as marketers, we like to think conservatively with the information we give to competition. By mitigating risk, we think protecting your company from losing key accounts is ideal – Yup, we have a little competitor paranoia in us.

What are some key features to think about when building your Nascar Slide? Below, read some helpful rules that should go into consideration before sharing your Nascar slides with the public:

Customize for the client you want to serve

Start by segmenting your clients. Some of the ways we do this is by separating clients based on Industry type, employee size, or revenue size. Present clients that are similar to prospects you’re presenting to. For example, if you are presenting to a small plumber in Phoenix, showcase plumbers you’re currently working with across the country that are the same size in your Nascar Slide. This will build trust and assure the client you understand their niche industry and size.

Need Help Building Out Your Nascar Slide?

Present the information, but don’t share it permanently

Present your clients to potentials in a way that your competitors can’t get a hand on it. Use Zoom or Google Meets to present your sales deck, but don’t share your client list to your opportunity to hold onto, as that may eventually find its way to someone who shouldn’t have it.

Forming relationships with prospects is an exercise in trust – ideally, you want to establish a mutually beneficial partnership that accounts for potential leakages. This will obviously be different on the layout of a web page – keep your most loyal accounts here for immediate reference.

Look to show off size in the public places

Clients like Microsoft or Oracle are great to have on your slide because they have several thousand employees and it becomes hard to pinpoint who at the organization is the buyer that is working with your company. Also, it may show the enterprise work you’re looking for.

However, this can work against you if your pitching to a small business and telling them you work with giant companies. Use giants on the website and other places that are more public but ensure it’s a good fit for your organization. If you serve smaller companies and are showing off much larger ones you might send the wrong message to the clients you are trying to attract.  

Share for Quality, Not Quantity

It’s nice to showcase how you work with thousands of clients –there are clear advantages for doing this for several types of industries like SaaS. However, we prefer to see a more intimate group of high authority companies. For example, if you are serving hospitality, it may be enough to say you work with Marriott, Hilton and Hyatt, rather than listing off hundreds of smaller clients with less brand recognition.

Positive Referrals Only

Lastly, only put clients on your site that will advocate for your company. Expect that in some cases, prospects might ask for referrals, or they may know several people at a company you say you’re working with and they may reach out to find out how the relationship is working out. There’s no faster way to lose confidence in a brand than by reaching out to someone who claims to have given a positive referral, only to find that they think otherwise.

We are a firm believer that in B2B ,prospects want to work with companies they trust and know. Your Nascar slide will help them build the trust in your organization by showing that you have the experience in working with other clients.

What are some simple ways that your company can begin implementing Nascar slides immediately? 120/80 can help. We are a full-service digital marketing agency specializing in a broad range of solutions that have proven to drive leads and conversions in B2B. For proof of our success, look no further than our Nascar slides!