How To Strengthen Your B2B Demand Strategy
During Times of Economic Uncertainty
Use data-driven B2B display advertising to support your demand strategy
At times of economic uncertainty, every dollar matters. And since every part of every media buy is being scrutinized, marketers want to ensure they can prove value with every solution they employ. Because many providers cannot provide ABM analytics that validates performance on B2B display advertising, this budget is often the first to get cut. However, companies cutting display budgets are doing a disservice to their funnel and could be missing out on highly qualified leads.
Even if you have been experiencing pressure on the performance of your display budget, incorporating B2B display advertising into your demand strategy will allow you to promote brand awareness and warm leads while also generating data that will lead to more efficient outreach for your sales team. In fact, a TechTarget case study has proven that pairing display advertising with lead generation dramatically improved performance and demand: TechTarget saw a 30% lift in the probability of an advertiser ending up in the end client’s consideration set when pairing display and lead gen, compared to executing on lead gen alone (source).
Finding a partner like AdDaptive that can measure B2B display advertising (as well as other parts of the B2B journey) will support your demand strategy by yielding data that shows how leads are being warmed through your advertising efforts.
Working with a partner that can hit your brand awareness goals with data-driven B2B display advertising and show clear ABM reporting will give you the most well-rounded approach and set you up for success in any environment.
Deploy ungated thought leadership to produce useful data – and leads
Many marketers believe gated content (downloadable material that requires users to fill out a form in order to access it) is the only way to capture data on their audience. This poses a problem when the environment changes and companies don’t want to gate content as often. As a result, they provide thought leadership content assets but surrender the data capture opportunities they thought could only be accomplished with form fills and other additional actions.
Thankfully, you can still deliver thought leadership content without losing intent data.
Gating content is not the only way to track B2B audience intent. Audience members can intentionally view ungated content (freely available material that does not require providing information to access), click around your website, and engage with your resources, thus producing a warm lead and putting them in a better position to move through the funnel. If you deliver a display ad to a company on your ABM list through AdDaptive’s Platform, for example, you can track how engaged that company is through their behavior with your content, even if you don’t gate it.
Benefits:
- Requires fewer actions by the target audience
- Shares thought leadership resources without creating boundaries
- Tracks account engagement across greater customer journey
- Produces a better lead for your sales team
- Yields downloads 20-50 times more often than gated content
Gather comprehensive ABM analytics to fuel your lead pipeline
Comprehensive ABM analytics can help you understand your demand strategy and your audience, as successful reports will paint a picture of campaign success and business impact while also drilling down into the specific companies that are engaging with your advertisements. There are a few tips to reading these reports that will maximize your experience:
Tip #1: Compare pre- and post-campaign analytics to learn about your audience and optimize it. If you have access to a list of companies you want to target before a campaign, whether you upload it or build it with your tech partner, you can compare the results after the campaign ends to learn whether those companies were as warm leads as you thought. If some companies are engaging more than others, tweak your budget and delivery to achieve the intended results. This exercise will help you learn about your audience and ensure your marketing efforts are going to good use; this is especially useful when faced with tight budgets.
Tip #2: Use the results of your ABM list to fuel the lead pipeline for sales. After a campaign flight ends, and you are left with a list of companies with data showing the extent to which they have engaged with your ads and content, savvy marketers can mesh this into their lead list, translating the engagements into intent to interact with your brand (thus identifying them as warmer leads than those who did not engage). Supplying this list to your sales team can help them understand who is already engaging with your content versus who has not been exposed to your brand, which will help them personalize their outreach and communication.
Summary: Your demand strategies can remain strong, even in times of crisis
Adjusting your messaging to convey greater compassion during difficult times is only step one of a well-rounded strategy during times of economic uncertainty. There are other ways you can continue to build long-term business relationships and elicit brand awareness that will help your business survive crises and emerge stronger as a result.
When linking B2B display advertising to ungated content as part of the lead gen portion of your overarching demand strategy, effective analytics can show account movement through the funnel without asking for additional behaviors by your target audience. This integrated approach is simpler for your audience while also providing your marketing team with evidence of their efforts’ value and providing your sales team with warm leads and a high-quality pipeline based on intentional behaviors.
Data-driven B2B display advertising can support thought leadership and roll up into your demand strategy if you work with partners that provide comprehensive ABM analytics, such as the pre- and post-campaign reports AdDaptive supplies to our clients.
If you don’t have these elements in your strategy yet, consider focusing your approach with these tactics to increase touchpoints through the funnel with your target audience in the most effective and efficient way possible.
We’ve created an infographic as well as a four-page PDF to tell this story in various formats, based on your preference for engaging with and sharing content.
Discover new ways data-driven B2B display advertising can support your company’s demand strategy in the infographic and 4-pager below:
