Marketing Campaigns – B2B Lead Generation

From my experience, good campaigns follow a theme and include a series of touches in their specific target market. A unique value statement / proposition message delivered to a decision maker through a cold call makes a difference. While there’s no magic number regarding the best frequency for cold calling uvp message to make an impact, opinions range from three to ten times until you reach the decision maker.

Many of my marketing campaigns contain an unique theme, which can be leveraged over extended periods of time with maximum calling volumes until I get the decision maker or team that makes the decision on that product or solution you are offering on the phone.

Marketing Campaign Planning

Marketing Campaign Examples

An example would be Oracle SaaS ERP campaign launched by an Oracle Gold Partner and Premier Cloud Partner. While the company had been in business since 2013, it had only a  small % brand recognition rate before the campaign launched. The company used me to improve its name recognition. Creating a campaign the Oracle Hold Partner (which will remain un-named due to confidentiality) who eventually appeared in the marketplace  featuring as a premier Oracle partner for Oracle applications, upgrades, installs, managed service, and staff augmentations, customers who had trouble in this ever-fast-changing technology SaaS industry appeared to respond very well to my message and I had multiple appointments a week held each week.

Whether it was in regards to Oracles PeopleSoft, Oracles Application Suite, Oracle’s E-Business Suite, Oracles HCM Cloud, Oracles Cloud Infrastructure, Oracles Supply Chain Management Cloud, Oracles Enterprise Resource Planning Cloud, I was asking the right questions stating how we specialize in that and we would love to give more information on how we can help and do you have available on your calendar in 2 weeks? I would send a calendar invite and provide campaign message and do a video conference call. So, how did the decision maker handle their Oracle Applications? Was in in-house, outhouse, on- prem, in the cloud, were they found any installs or upgrades?  I can offer the support. I increased opportunities exceeding weekly expectations from 1 per week to 3 per week.

In a highly competitive technology software environment, I am good. I am the best! I’ve seen the results, I’ve done the grind,, right? As a result of this long-running campaign, Clients brand recognition jumped from 12% to 90%, and increased sales catapulted Oracle into a leadership position in the Sales as a Service technology industry. They are the Cadillac in the industry because It is easy to network and interact with other services and databases with Oracle DB in place using its networking stack. It is a cross-platform service; hence it supports multiple hardware and various operating systems. Oracle’s data dictionary enables easy administration and maintenance.

Its 2022, the campaign keeps evolving. Oracle keeps growing and acquiring new technologies and continues to meet the customers needs.

I have worked many large technology company campaigns like IBM, DELL, Cisco, HP, Lenovo, Workday, Oracle in which my role is to drive awareness to their product and increase opportunities for sales and revenue growth.

Another campaign example I have worked on is a technology strategy service which includes research and planning, digitization strategies, enterprise architecture, and product strategies all in one place. Use of modern development practices + the best talent + process discipline to deliver reliable, secure, and software is how I help growth stage companies build technology that drives transformational growth and increases their business valuation.

Marketing Mediums for Campaigns

While most small- to mid-market companies can’t afford the multi-million dollar ad budgets from the Madison Avenue agencies, they can create effective and memorable campaigns from Direct Sales cold calling the decision makers in these companies.

Campaign Messaging is unique to the companies product or solution offering. If you don’t have an ideal client profile, I csn help you figure that out, too.

These marketing campaigns are B2B lead generators for growing technology companies. In help clients increase, awareness to who they are, what they offer,  increase their sales pipelines and close more deals. It is done by providing sales development as a service to set appointments.

Its more than just advertisements. Complex campaigns leverage multiple mediums, use a sequence of messages over an extended timeframe, support positioning, define a brand experience, and handle the campaign fulfillment and selling. Here, sales development marketing campaigns are direct and a smooth hand-off to client or Managing Partner

Mafketing Sales Campaigns can also be simple – using a single medium, with a single message and call-to-action. Here are three examples of very simple campaigns:

GENERATE NEW LEADS	DRIVE EXISTING PROSPECTS TO YOUR TRADE SHOW BOOTH & VIP RECEPTION	HIT YOUR MARKET WITH A SPECIAL OFFER
1. Use search to generate traffic to your website.2. Receive information request from prospect via landing page form. 3. Email the requested information. 4. Call the prospect; qualify the prospect further and determine next steps.	1. Mail a postcard to attendees three weeks before the show; invite them to your booth with an intriguing incentive.2. Mail a special invite to key prospects and customers for a VIP reception. Ask them to RSVP by phone, email or URL. 3. Call key prospects and customers as a second effort. 4. Send an email to all confirmed attendees 3 days before the event. 5. Email the non-respondents one last time.	1. Run banner ads on industry websites and targeted email newsletters.2. Send out a special email to your house list. 3. Create an intriguing story and tie it to your offer. Write a search-optimized press release and post it on your site; distribute release and pitch to a key industry reporter. 4. Run a series of paid search ads.

 

If you’re planning a group of campaigns for your marketing plan, it’s good practice to start with your annual goals and work backward to develop campaigns to meet those numbers.

For example, when you know how many new customers you need, you can calculate how many leads you’ll need, and then design campaigns to generate that number of leads over the course of the year.

With solid planning, a jolt of creativity, and a focus on measurement, you’ll be in a strong position for success and cold calling these customers will do it.

 

Best Case	Neutral Case	Worst Case
You plan and execute your campaigns to hit specific goals. You don’t always hit them, but you test and improve different elements; the ROI on your overall budget is above your goal.You focus on an offer and call-to-action, and you touch your prospects several times and follow up when appropriate. You recognize the challenges in measuring results, but you do what you can; it helps you improve the next time around.	Your campaigns aren’t the most creative or the splashiest, but you’ve hit many of your marketing goals. You don’t test, but your response rate is fine. You don’t know your ROI, but you know generally which campaigns work best.When you’re faced with ambitious annual goals, you have problems gaining budget approval. Since you stick with the same campaigns, year in and year out, it’s also difficult to figure out how to generate additional leads.	Your marketing programs tend to be reactive – suddenly you’re low on leads or falling short of your goals and you launch a campaign to fix the problem.Since your programs don’t seem to work, it’s difficult to gain budget approval for future campaigns that could be better-planned and executed. It’s a vicious cycle and you don’t know how to get out of it.

 

How Planning for Marketing Campaigns Aligns with Your Brand Strategy

Your marketing campaigns are the vehicles for connecting with your marketplace, to generate leads and sales, and to position you as that certain “something.”

Sales and Marketing Campaigns are creative and should always support your brand strategy and messages, even if you’re running a tactical lead generation campaign. They’re one of the most effective customer acquisition tactics in your marketing arsenal.

Key Concepts and Steps

Quantify your goals

• Plan your campaigns to meet your annual revenue and volume goals. For example, if you’re trying to generate 100 new customers, figure out how many leads you’ll need and when you’ll need them.
• Think about how you’ll use different media. For example, if you’re B2B, your sales team may be able to generate 30% of your leads through prospecting; the rest may come from telemarketing, email, social media, direct mail, search marketing, webinars, trade shows, etc.

Generate campaign ideas and strategies

• Identify all of the business goals that will need marketing support. You may need campaigns to generate and nurture prospects, to sell direct or through a channel, or to market to existing customers.
• Evaluate ideas and options (traditional sales activities, Internet marketing, social media, telemarketing, direct mail, email and publicity) to determine which ones are most effective for meeting a particular goal.

Target your audience

• With more specific targeting, you can speak more directly to the prospect and raise your response rates in the process.

Deliver one or two key messages and your call-to-action

• If you include every detail about your offering, it’s easy for prospects to become overwhelmed. Move a prospect just one step at a time.
• Be creative — your market is bombarded with messages daily, so grab their attention and engage them.

Create your budget and estimate your return on investment

Projecting marketing ROI  or sales ROI is a powerful exercise that forces you to think through and estimate results for the important metrics of your campaign:

• Impressions, or exposure to your campaign creative
• Conversions, or those who take action from the impression
• The steps required to move from a conversion to a customer
• The number of units sold, and the profit from each
• The items of your campaign budget
• The estimated ROI of your campaign

Plan your fulfillment

• Your fulfillment processes can help or hurt your close rate, so be sure you outline your requirements. For example, if you’re running a campaign where prospects request a software demo, and it doesn’t arrive for a week, your prospects may lose interest.

Plan to measure

When you measure your campaigns, it’s easier to gain budget approval the next time around. You’ll also know exactly which programs produce the highest return.

• Establish how you’ll measure each campaign. If there are variables you can’t measure, decide how you will account for those results.
• Identify how you’ll capture the data you need – unique phone numbers, unique URLs, etc.

Continually test and improve

• Even on a small campaign, you can evaluate your ad, your copy, your list or other factors before you spend your entire budget.
• Choose a subset of your list or two versions of an ad; test them in small quantities and choose the best one for rollout. Then you can test a second variable against the winner of the first test.
• Keep the testing cycle going and track your results over time. You’ll improve your response rates and your return on investment.

Improving Your Marketing Campaigns

After you plan your campaign, it’s time to focus on tactical execution. That means having a deep understanding of the message or unique value statement you’re using to get the decision makers attention on the phone (you got 1 shot to make a good impression to get that appt.) carefully planning your list building and sales pitch, tracking your results, and following the best practices and steps for each lead you use. To see more campaigns I’ve worked on, unique messaging, background information intelligence, etc please check out links below.

Check out Bringing in Revenue

Sales Developnent Practices Step-By-Step Tech Sales Plan

Business Development Secret Weapon

Value Proposition Samples

Information Technology Solutions: Asking the Right Questions

Encompassing all aspects of business, Sales Development is crucial

Professional Recommendations from colleagues, customers, partners, clients, and community leaders

If you want to know more about my experience.