The ROI dilemma of B-side enterprise marketing!

China's Internet industry has been developing for many years, and many fields have been monopolized by giants, leaving fewer and fewer opportunities for latecomers. For B-side enterprises, the bonus period of rapid growth has passed, and their marketing bottlenecks are gradually emerging at this stage.

Against the backdrop of the gradual disappearance of the Internet dividend and the vigorous development of new infrastructure, many Internet giants and emerging companies including BAT have been focusing on the TO B market. Competition among B-side enterprises is becoming increasingly fierce, and the costs of the three major links in their marketing path, “customer acquisition -> cultivation -> conversion”, are also increasing.

The ROI of the traditional marketing model has dropped to freezing point and is no longer suitable for the company's strategic deployment. The "precision marketing business model" that breaks the impasse may be a bitter medicine!

1. Bottlenecks in B-side Enterprise Marketing

The Internet industry has been developing for many years, but its dividends have long disappeared, and it has formed an oligopoly situation that is difficult to break. For B-end enterprises, after a period of wild and rapid growth, the marketing bottlenecks of B-end enterprises are now clearly evident.

The bottleneck can be attributed to two aspects: high customer acquisition costs and long marketing cycles. The most direct impact on the company is that it is becoming increasingly difficult to make profits!

1. High customer acquisition costs

The formation of this bottleneck is mainly due to internal factors.

At present, most B-end enterprises in China still use the traditional marketing model, and the cost of acquiring customers is getting higher and higher, mainly concentrated in two aspects: labor costs and advertising costs:

• Human cost: Traditional marketing often seeks customers through connections, number of people, number of phone calls, etc., and relies too much on the ability of sales staff. If the human wave tactic is adopted, the cost will be further increased.
• Advertising costs: In traditional marketing, advertising is often placed blindly without knowing where the customers are. After the money is spent, there is no idea what the actual conversion effect of a single point or channel is.

Based on this situation, even if a company’s products are at the pinnacle and its team members are very hard-working, it may not encounter many potential customers, and the ROI is often pitifully low.

2. Long marketing cycle

The formation of this bottleneck is mainly due to external factors, that is, the business attributes of the B-side field are like this. B-end products usually have larger contract amounts, ranging from tens of thousands to tens of millions. This also leads to the fact that when B2B companies make purchases, there are an average of more than 10 decision makers or participants, and the decision-making chain is quite long.

From this we can see the typical characteristics of To B enterprises: multi-person decision-making and rational procurement, which is also a significant difference from the To C field.

Tactical diligence cannot cover up strategic laziness! If we want to break the impasse, we need to reform the business model, and the three major links in the marketing path may be the three most direct entry points.

2. Customer Acquisition

Traditional customer acquisition usually adopts the approach of "casting a wide net, catching more fish, and selecting the best ones." It is like you cast a big net. The fishing process takes a lot of effort. After collecting the net, you still need to screen all the salvage before you can finally find the "fish" you want.

This approach often wastes a lot of resources on invalid customers. Its marketing model also follows the "diminishing cost-benefit model".

In fact, all changes first come from a change in our way of thinking. For example, if we change our way of thinking, if we can lock on the kind of "fish" we want from the beginning, then we can fish in a targeted manner, thus avoiding the waste of a large amount of resources in the early stage.

Then, if we can find the “school of fish” where these “fish” are by locking on to them, wouldn’t that be wonderful! The above model is actually the ABM marketing model (target customer marketing) we are going to talk about today, which follows the "increasing cost-benefit model"!

To establish an ABM marketing model, there are three things you need to do:

1. Find “pivot customers”

Archimedes once said, "Give me a fulcrum, and I can move the earth." Similarly, if you want to move the entire customer base, then we need the "fulcrum customer" as a leverage point.

For a company, it is usually not difficult to find several or dozens of precise "pivot customers".

2. Online behavior “monitoring”

This is an age of data. In the environment of "Internet of Everything", most of us leave footprints in the connected world all the time. Along with this, we are always being silently "monitored" by this big Internet.

After years of development, in order to give full play to the value of data, a big data alliance is gradually taking shape. For example, if you search for a piece of clothing you like on Taobao, and then when you open Pinduoduo, it will also recommend similar clothes to you. This is a direct reflection of the value of the big data alliance.

Similarly, there will always be some channels to monitor the online behavior of our "fulcrum customers". For example, if our "fulcrum customer" logs into the website, he will most likely be monitored.

It is also highly likely that relevant data on "pivot customers" can be obtained from Baidu + Umeng, because Baidu + Umeng monitors hundreds of millions of websites, and all websites use the statistical data of both.

Monitoring itself is not the goal. Our goal is to find the data portrait of our target enterprise through the "fulcrum customer" point!

For example, the nature of the company's business and products, number of employees, background of the founder, scale, development prospects, ability and willingness to pay, capital and revenue and other characteristics. In this way, the link of "pivot customer -> target enterprise portrait" has been formed!

3. Establish a database of target companies

The third thing is to establish a “target enterprise database”. The big data alliance mentioned in the second article must have the data source we need. But in addition to this, the company itself can also expand its data source through some technical means.

For example, for website traffic statistics, third parties can crawl websites based on search rankings, the number of backlinks captured by crawlers, social network data, etc., and then reversely infer through statistical data.

In short, it is a technical method of "crawler + NLP + labeling + database establishment", but it is not that high-end. To put it bluntly, it is to capture external public data...

After that, we can link the target enterprise portrait with the "target enterprise database" we have established. The "school of fish" we mentioned earlier can now be found. In this way, the link of "target enterprise portrait -> target enterprise group" can also be realized.

The ABM marketing model is the fission model on the B side!

3. Cultivation

Now that the “school of fish” has been found, the next task is to make the marketing products reach our target customers and influence them to achieve conversion!

In the traditional marketing model, the way products reach customers is very limited. Perhaps it is more like a product brochure left by our sales staff to customers...

For the rest, we can only pray that customers happen to enter our official website when searching for information on the Internet, or open the relevant information we posted on the Internet... This situation creates great limitations and passivity.

If sales staff adopt an intrusive hard advertising approach, it is easy to cause disgust among customers. Blocking phone calls and WeChat calls is nothing new for sales staff...

If sales staff adopt soft-touch and soft-advertising methods, although it reduces the disturbance to customers, the customers may also be snatched away by other competitors during this period... This creates a dilemma.

From the perspective of human nature, people often like unintentional advertisements and subtle ways of influence. Moreover, each employee plays a different role in the company, and each role has different needs. Only by providing tailor-made content for each individual can the conversion rate be maximized.

Then, through various means of contact such as mobile phones, text messages, emails, WeChat, Toutiao, etc., the information that the company needs and wants to convey to him can be accurately pushed to him.

Efficient cultivation method: "Visitor recall". Among the means of cultivation, "Visitor recall" may be the most effective one.

Have you ever noticed that ads for brands or products that you recently learned about appear on other web pages you browse? And this is one of the specific manifestations of "visitor recall".

The “Visitor Recall” feature allows you to run customized advertising campaigns to people who have visited your website in the past, and dynamically customize your ads as these visitors browse the website and use social media apps.

The reason why this method is the most efficient is that, on the one hand, these "visitors" are usually more accurate potential customers; on the other hand, it is also because these "visitors" are easier to convert through a variety of contact methods!

Of course, the principle of "visitor recall" is also inseparable from the big data alliance we mentioned earlier!

Finally, I'll give you a picture:

(Complete customer nurturing campaign)

4. Conversion

Now that we have the target portrait and the way to reach them, the next question is how to convert them! Human beings are easily confused animals. When faced with a decision, we often need some stimulation to help us make judgments quickly!

I personally believe that the most effective way of stimulation among traditional methods is to organize offline meetings. For example, the contract between the client and us is often signed after a wonderful project presentation meeting!

The advantage of offline meetings is that they allow companies to influence the companies and people they want to influence, but the disadvantages are also obvious, such as being too costly, too formal, and having too narrow an impact.

In this case, let's hold an online live conference. On the one hand, it avoids the shortcomings of offline meetings; on the other hand, it inherits and expands the advantages of online meetings, which are mainly reflected in the following aspects:

1. Advantages

1) Relatively low cost

Compared with offline meetings, online live broadcasts do not require tedious conference organization work, and participants will not be constrained by time and transportation costs. We only need a live broadcast software and prepare the live broadcast content to conduct it anytime and anywhere.

Therefore, the cost of an online live broadcast is very low compared to an offline meeting.

2) Wide and precise audience

Offline meetings may have a limited audience due to restrictions such as time and location, but To B online conference live broadcasts do not have these restrictions. Although the audience is wide, for enterprises, of course they hope that as many people as possible participate in the live broadcast, and that the number of people participating is accurate enough.

3) Engage with your target audience

B2B online conference live broadcasts provide companies with the opportunity to communicate directly with audiences. During the live broadcast, companies can showcase their products and interact with any interested participants. In addition, the question-and-answer session during online live broadcasts can increase audience engagement.

4) Accelerate partnerships

Live B2B conference calls not only cultivate new leads but also accelerate relationships with target customers.

Through B2B online conference live broadcasts, companies can not only display content to a wide range of target customers at the same time, but also conduct live sharing for multiple departments of the same company, such as solutions, product training, etc., to ensure that every decision maker and stakeholder receives satisfactory information, simplifying and accelerating their procurement decision-making process.

5) Content accumulation

The impact of B2B online live streaming goes far beyond the event itself. The live streaming content can be stored and facilitated for future search and viewing, which gives companies more channels to attract potential target customers in the future.

Online conference live broadcasts certainly have many advantages, but how to successfully execute one requires companies to make some efforts. This effort can be carried out in three stages: before the meeting, during the meeting, and after the meeting:

2. Three stages

1) Before the meeting

Targeted invitations to target groups: Based on the target enterprise database we mentioned earlier, we can accurately screen the target group for the meeting and make targeted invitations through telemarketing, EDM, SMS and other contact methods to acquire higher-quality customers and efficiently promote subsequent sales conversions.

Pre-heating and precise delivery: We cooperate with high-quality advertising platforms and use precise crowd targeting to achieve precise advertising delivery on mainstream platforms such as WeChat and Toutiao. We also use EDM text messages and other methods to stimulate customer interest and maximize the pre-heating of the meeting.

2) During the meeting

Agile and efficient conference participation: The event process is managed through digital technology throughout the entire process, including smart sign-in, WeChat wall posting, data download and questionnaire survey, etc., to provide an agile and efficient conference experience and realize full data monitoring.

3) After the meeting

Automatically incubate post-meeting leads: Through the analysis of the behavioral data of participants, identify high-quality business opportunities, accumulate customer tags, and recommend similar companies based on the high-quality business opportunity portraits. Push the selected content of the meeting to expand the cultivation scope, cultivate loyal fans for the next meeting, and promote more sales forwarding.

V. Conclusion

The B-end market may not be as big as imagined. Let’s look at a set of specific data:

There are 60 million companies in China, but actually only about 30 million are active, less than 40 million; if we look at revenue, there are less than 2 million companies with revenue of more than 5 million; if we look at the number of employees, there are less than 400,000 companies with more than 50 employees; if we further break it down into each field, the target customers are actually extremely narrow.

The world is big but your world is small. In your world, if you can sign most of the customers, you will be No. 1 in this industry, and the ABM precision marketing business model provides you with the shortest path!

Author: Xiaozhuang

Source: Xiaozhuang's product notes