MarketStar Blog | Marketing (6)

Programmatic advertising has become one of the most commonly-used forms of media buying simply because it is the most efficient method available. Instead of relying on human salespeople to bid and negotiate for inventory, agencies and brands can now utilize programmatic software instead. 

The benefits of Account-based Marketing (ABM) included an increase both in the number of deals closed and the average size of a deal in ABM accounts but also an increase in the engagement level in ABM accounts. However, only a little over half had an ABM strategy in place. As high as 42% of those who did not have an ABM strategy in place said the reason for that was that they found it difficult to get their marketing and sales teams aligned. This is unfortunate, considering that both teams are internal to an organization. 

When revenue-generating departments don’t speak the same language, it often results in steep financial losses that are easily preventable. The Fortune 250 B2B company that spent a quarter of a million dollars trying to solve the wrong problem would agree.1 After the failure of a new product, the company threw money at product research and sales methodology, when, in fact, the problem was caused by misaligned goals between sales and marketing. 

The symbiotic relationship between sales and marketing finds them both deeply interconnected and yet at odds. According to Forrester research, 78% of executive buyers claim that salespeople do not have relevant examples or case studies to share with them.2 The same is true when marketing has an inflated view of the company’s brand equity on target customers. Yet sales and marketing rarely sit together to plot targets, strategies, and objectives for the year. That is set to change, especially as more businesses go the Account- Based Marketing (ABM) route. 

Snap Inc. lost over $1.3 billion in market value recently when their shares sank by 7.2% following a tweet by Kylie Jenner in which she said that she doesn’t open the app anymore, drawing agreement from her 24.5 million followers1. Now whether Jenner was solely responsible for the decline in share value or whether she only contributed to it, it must be noted that influencers wield a power like never before. 

Last year was the year of influencer marketing with 84% of marketers launching at least one influencer campaign2. That number is only likely to go up this year. Some experts deem that influencer marketing is the fastest growing channel for online customer acquisition. 

Influencers are people, typically on social media, who talk to their captive audience - their tribe - about things that matter to them. Their influence comes from their knowledge and expertise in a particular area. When they talk, people listen. Influencers have the ability to make or break your brand. 

In theory, your channel partners should be eagerly awaiting the chance to utilize the Marketing Development Funds (MDF) made available to them. After all, as far as they’re concerned, it’s essentially free marketing money! However, the reality of the matter is that 60% of marketing development funds are left unused on a quarterly basis. There are a number of reasons why channel partners leave such a large portion of the MDF pie untouched, ranging from excessive paperwork and lack of resources to poor communication with the business and low confidence in them.1, 2 

Using Cross-Channel Attribution and Analysis

The only way you can keep up with today’s multi-screen, multi-device audience is if you incorporate an integrated multi-channel approach. This basically means nurturing and advancing prospects down the conversion funnel using coordinated marketing channels. This leads us to the challenge of measuring and apportioning the role of each of these channels to determine their impact and performance, or attribution.

In the competitive world of business, marketers are increasingly turning their focus to Customer Lifetime Value (CLV). This crucial metric offers insights into the net cumulative profit a customer can generate over their entire relationship with a company. Understanding and enhancing CLV is essential for businesses aiming to boost sales and foster long-term customer relationships. Despite its importance, many marketers fail to fully leverage CLV due to outdated perceptions of customers as mere value-extraction targets rather than value-creating partners. 

Programmatic advertising is still a relatively new discipline, and brands remain unsure about the best approach to follow. The eventual goal for programmatic advertising is to serve ads to targeted consumers in a more efficient and timely manner. However, the complexity lies in the fact that there is considerable variation in the automated platforms aiding the campaign execution, as well as in the way in which the results are measured and quantified. Companies should therefore first decide on the metrics they will be using for tracking their ROI of the programmatic spend. 

Various companies have approached their digital marketing needs with programmatic marketing. We will be discussing five instances where these brands have disrupted their respective industries with a programmatic advertising approach. 

Did you know that B2B marketers who use Twitter generate twice as many leads as those that do not? (Source: InsideView) Or that 55% of B2B survey respondents search for information on social media (Source: Mediabistro)? Your customers are tweeting their frustrations, liking pages of brands they would like to be associated with on Facebook, viewing videos of similar solutions on YouTube, posting queries on forums to make decisions. Not monitoring and indulging in these discussions means losing out on crucial information about valuable prospects and alienating your potential customers.

Content is an essential tool for marketers. Digital marketing, especially, revolves around the creation of tons of content. But most of the content that you put out there has a particular shelf life and could begin to look a little stale or outdated in a year or two. So how exactly is a content marketer meant to overcome this challenge? 

Welcome to the next generation of digital business, where predictive marketing powered by artificial intelligence and advanced analytics is revolutionizing the way we connect with customers. As a B2B marketer, you know that the traditional methods of marketing are no longer sufficient. Today’s customers are more informed and discerning, and their buying journey is more complex than ever. So, how do you stay ahead of the curve? The answer lies in predictive marketing.