Have your carefully nurtured marketing and sales targeting lists become outdated in the past 18 months? If the answer’s yes, you’re not alone.
More people than ever are changing roles. In fact, one study found that one in four workers was planning to change jobs following the pandemic due to fears about career advancement, because they’ve re-trained, or as they’re reconsidering their skill sets.
With an ever-changing workforce making many prospect mailing lists redundant, here’s our guide to how to stay up to date with your target audience.
Embrace digital experiences
For many B2B marketers, the days of in-person meetings have been replaced with remote online interactions. 77% of sellers are holding more virtual meetings than before the pandemic, no less than 58% of reps believe their role has permanently changed due to the pandemic, and B2B companies see digital interactions as two to three times more important to their customers than traditional sales methods.
Digital engagement tools, such as video calls, live chat, webinars, social networks, and website analytics, are a great way to stay in touch with your existing customers and keep tabs on your prospects as they potentially change roles.
Digital experiences enable you to respond quickly, eliminate the cost of travel, and afford you the flexibility to adapt to sudden change. Plus, the data mined from digital channels can also be used to improve the customer experience.
An investment in digital is an investment in customer relationships. In the absence of in-person connections, digital marketing with messaging tailored to your target audience can help you engage with key decision-makers and generate leads.
Embrace digital data
When it comes to connecting with your prospects (no matter where they’re moving to) digital data is your best friend.
By analysing the raw data from your website and social channels you can organise your customers and prospects into like-minded groups and discover what is known as the buyer intent.
This allows you to align your marketing efforts with your customers’ requirements and to produce smarter content that is personalised to them and adds real value.
It also helps you to plan marketing campaigns that are targeted towards the exact moments when certain customers are ready to make a purchase and create a structured series of content that nurtures them along the sales funnel and keeps your company top of mind.
Having a data-driven targeted approach is an efficient use of your time and helps you get the most from your budget as the campaigns are based on hard facts rather than a scattershot approach based on instinct.
For this reason, it’s estimated that by the end of 2022, over 70% of B2B marketers will use third-party intent data to target prospects and engage with groups of buyers.
If you’d like more information about utilising digital tools to strategically target your buyers, we’d love to chat. Get in touch today for a free marketing consultation.
