Case: 30 sales opportunities in a month with content marketing strategies
As a marketer, you might feel overwhelmed with the number of things you have to do and if you are the head of marketing, oh God – I feel you. One of the greatest challenges of a marketer is to define the goals and build an efficient strategy to meet them. In this blog post, I am going to explain how I managed to achieve the sales qualified leads goals of a B2B startup, explaining the strategy that includes inbound and outbound marketing.
Happy reading!
Industry overview
The following case was conducted on a B2B IndTech startup, with 3 years of market experience. The startup was going through a process of re-positioning, aiming to be considered a reference for Artificial Intelligence projects and products for manufacturing. The startup was in a stage between an MVP and testing one specific product to identify market fit, as well as looking for opportunities to develop AI projects for manufacturers. At the moment, they were trying to generate leads with inbound strategies but the monthly average of qualified leads was around 2.
The marketing goal
As the head of marketing of that particular startup, after several discussions with the CEO and AI team, we defined the startup had the potential to be recognized nationally to be a reference for projects and products that use artificial intelligence to solve complex problems for manufacturers. At this time, one specific product had just been approved by the client that decided to develop it and the first challenge of the marketing team was:
- Define the public target;
- Create the customer fit criteria;
- Identify the benefits of the product/develop an AI project;
- Propose a pricing strategy;
The questions used to reach a conclusion about the 3 points mentioned above were: “who would buy this product, why and how much they would be willing to pay?” as well as “who would be interested in developing an AI project, why, when, and how much they would be willing to pay?”.
These studies took at least 2 months to complete but when we had all the information on hand, after several meetings with current clients, experts in the market, and our internal team, it was the time for showing it to the market, creating value and generate leads. Following the idea of SMART goals and using the OKR methodology, the marketing goal for a quarter was:
Objective: Make the sales team sweat (give work, don’t let them jobless)
Key Result: Generate 20 sales qualified leads in 1.5 months
Campaign distribution: 5 leads for projects and 15 leads for the product
The strategy and execution
It was not easy at any point. The startup was not positioned as an AI expert yet, we did not have many client testimonials based on what we wanted but we knew that the product had a fit and it was approved by our main client. Based on this, the marketing team:
- Created one powerful landing page for each of the strategies;
- Design an email marketing campaign with segmented lists on the CRM;
- Launched campaigns on Google and LinkedIn, simultaneously;
- Created an aggressive content strategy to be executed on: YouTube, Instagram, and LinkedIn.
All strategy was based on the AIDA model, we identifies the public of each phase and designed the persona inside of each step of the model. With the persona created, we were able to identify the channels to execute each content and created a list of actions.
Example:
Step one of the AIDA Model: Attention.
Public target: Society as a whole.
Persona: Human, 18-40 years old, interested in technology and industries;
Channels: Instagram, YouTube, Google Search and LinkedIn;
Type of content: Videocast and interactive images;
Investment: Organic content, investments only to produce materials.
And following the same flow, the steps for Interest, Desire, and Action also had their allocations, some of them changed the type of content, and others changed the investments, public target, and persona.
The team that responded to execute this strategy was composed of me, 1 content marketing coordinator, 1 content marketing analyst, 1 SEO strategist, and 1 sales development representative.
The results
The goal was 20 SQLs and luckily (or not, because a lot of strategies were in place), we managed to achieve it. By the end of the estimated time (1.5 months), we were able to generate 30 SQLs.
- 18 leads coming from inbound marketing, with paid media.
- 12 leads coming from outbound marketing, active prospection, and email marketing.
It is funny because when people ask how was the final result of our campaigns, we are proud to say we reached our goals, however… there were so many indirect results such as:
- We increased the number of followers on Instagram by 213%.
- The engagement rate on LinkedIn reached the highest amount in the startup’s history.
- Employers were happy and felt proud about the materials they saw being shared by the company.
- We received emails inviting us to participate in events as speakers about AI for manufacturing.
- We caught the attention of investors and venture capitalists, requesting meetups.
These results are indirect and they cannot be forgotten!
This case is just an example of how important is to invest time and other resources in content marketing. With the right strategy, results that were never reached become possible.
Now, if you are curious about the details of how we applied the AIDA model, where the paid media came in, and how we managed to deal with the 4 phases with different channels, personas, and public targets, stay tuned to the next content. I am going to explore the details of content marketing applied to this case and my personal learnings while leading this game-changer repositioning and product launch.