What Euro 2016 Can Teach Us About B2B Multi-Channel Marketing
After a 4 year wait, the UEFA European Championship is back to fill our TV screens and conversations for the next month. With 24 countries across Europe sending their best teams, there will be a selection of the world’s greatest players on show for the rest of the globe to watch admiringly. But, as we’ve seen in recent years, a single superstar isn’t enough to secure success for the rest of their team. The fact is, only teams which have talent throughout their squad are likely to progress to the latter stages of the event, and potentially win it. In order to achieve success in football and in B2B marketing, you can’t just rely on a single high-performing element of the team – you must ensure all elements are functioning to a high degree in unison.
Building a strong team
In B2B multi-channel marketing, you may have access to a variety of different techniques, for example, social media, content marketing, telemarketing, and direct mail, to name but a few. You may even be able to accurately predict the engagement and conversion rates for each channel. You may know what types of social media posts generate the most engagement. You may know what type of content is likely to attract a large number of landing page conversions. You may even be aware of how powerful a piece of high-impact direct mail can be. However, these are individual superstars, and without the rest of their ‘team’ they won’t be able to bring you success. The fact is, only by utilising all of these activities in a controlled and coordinated manner will they be able to generate the best result for your business.
Watch their form
When it comes to football managers building a team, they don’t simply pick 11 names at random. They meticulously watch each individual player to see how they are performing, and to determine if they are good enough to be included in the squad. Similarly, B2B marketers should be regularly reviewing each of the channels and activities they use in their marketing to see which are generating results and ROI, and which aren’t. Only the channels that have proved their worth should be included in the future campaigns and activity. Just like players in football, there’s no point investing time and money into a marketing channel if it’s failing to perform at an optimum level.
Be prepared to substitute
During a game, if a player tires, gets injured, or is simply unable to perform at their best anymore, they will be taken off and substituted for a teammate – and this is something you should be prepared to do in marketing too. During a marketing campaign, if you see that one of your channels is failing to perform as you had predicted, don’t continue to invest in it – simply swap it or remove it. For example, if your B2B multi-channel campaign includes investment in Facebook but you find it’s not generating leads, then look to move your energy and resources into other opportunities such as Twitter or LinkedIn. When it comes to planning your next campaign, be sure to leave Facebook out of the squad and choose other social media channels that you know can perform instead.
To find out more about scoring a great result with your next B2B multi-channel marketing campaign…
