Marketers may be tired of hearing that they should "do more with less." This common sense has long forced marketing departments to bear the brunt of historically recessionary job cuts.
Unfortunately, the need to do more with less is a reality for today's marketers. Gartner reported last year that marketing budgets are 50% lower than before the pandemic, the lowest level in recent history. With a number of economic uncertainties facing the world (which has led to thousands of strikes), it's clear why marketing departments need to achieve more KPIs with less budget.
But it's not all doom and gloom. In recent years, marketing departments have made historic investments in advanced digital solutions. Today, nearly 90% of businesses are investing in personalized ads, which is great news because 90% of US consumers find personalized ads to be more effective than standard ads. It is clear that the sector is moving in a positive direction. The next step is to explore solutions and initiatives that provide better value to marketers, such as personalization and account-based marketing (ABM).
According to HubSpot research, 67% of brands have adopted ABM strategies. Focusing on improving outside sales rather than generating leads, ABM is an effective way to attract B2B buyers with high product needs. When implemented correctly, ABM can significantly increase a marketing department's ROI. The key to this? Evolving into the next form of ABM: Personal Advertising (PBA).
PBA can create and resolve ICPs directly.
In 2010, ABM has dominated digital personalization spend since its inception in 2003, and today's ABM market is growing at an incredible rate. There is a reason for this amazing boot. ABM increases overall marketing ROI by shifting the department's focus from internal efforts to external efforts. In addition, ABM connects B2B consumer interest with personalized advertising and promotion, resulting in increased awareness. This increases lead conversions. That's why ABM remains an effective marketing strategy today, but B2B marketing has changed dramatically since ABM entered the scene.
According to Gartner, the average B2B purchase decision is made by a group of 6-10 people. This is a significant increase in the number of decision makers involved in every B2B purchase. As a result, the importance of personalized advertising has changed. Marketers do not need to configure ad content for each account; They should target specific buyers in those accounts. By focusing on specific players within an account, marketers can increase the effectiveness of their outreach and improve sales process results.This is where PBA comes to the rescue. Instead of focusing on people interested in a product or service, PBA uses behavioral cues to target people who show interest. For example, if a senior member of another organization clicks on a social media ad or views a product's website, they are showing initial interest. Demand metrics are categorized using behavioral scoring models to help marketers know who's interested, when they're interested, and perhaps most importantly, how much they're interested. Marketers can use this information to create accurate customer profiles (ICPs).
Accurate ICPs are an incredibly effective way to reduce costs and increase ROI. With PBA-powered ICPs, marketers won't waste time (or precious dollars) chasing uninterested account members. Instead, you can use people of interest to make informed decisions. This makes a huge difference as PBA has been proven to increase revenue by 208%.
But improved KPIs are not the only benefit of PBA. Using behavioral results, marketers can further improve their digital personalization efforts.
Customization greatly reduces costs to the customer
Once marketers determine where a B2B buyer is in the funnel, they can use this information to create rich, highly personalized ad content. Creating personalized ads generates higher returns than generic content, including higher click-through rates (CTR) and sustained interest over time. This is promising because it is relatively easy and cheap to create personalized ads. And in most cases, personalized ad content can be embedded into existing templates or campaigns.
To create highly personalized content, marketers:
- ICP identification and behavioral assessment analysis; as well as
- Contact the target person's organization in speculative advertising.
For example, if an Apple operations manager frequently visits the company's website, they may show high interest in the product or service and receive a high behavioral score. As a result, that person may see ads featuring Apple in the future. This touch of personalization is often enough to significantly increase customer interest.
McKinsey reports that personalization can increase sales by more than 10% and increase overall marketing ROI by 8x. Combined with PBA's revenue opportunities, these revenues are even more significant.
In economic times, marketing teams are the first to tighten their belts. But that doesn't mean marketing teams can't increase productivity and awareness. Indeed, modern marketing departments can "do more with less" if they prioritize the right strategies and tools.
Today, Joe McNeil is Influ2's Chief Revenue Officer and Head of B2B Technology Sales, combining his passion for customer service, employee empowerment and strong revenue operations to grow and scale organizations. Led sales teams of 50 to over 100 employees, driving repeatable and scalable business growth with improved conversion rates and business volume, increased ROI and increased revenue year over year. He has helped several fast-growing technology companies deliver world-class technology services, including Proto Labs and Cytimeprov.