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The best methods for B2B lead generation! ✔ 7 tips ✔ Start successfully in 2023

In this article

1. What is B2B lead generation?
2. Which channels can be used to generate leads?
3. 7 proven methods for B2B lead generation
4. These strategic questions need to be addressed 
5. Don’t rely too much on freebies
6. Make inactive leads curious again 
7. Conclusion
8. FAQ

Gone are the days of annoying cold calls, because most companies rely on strategies from inbound marketing. According to statistics, it is now even more than 90 percent. And the goal is the same for all companies, namely to generate leads. Hardly anyone talks about more sales or new customers in the first step of their marketing strategy, but leads. They are the fine line between “My target group doesn’t want to have anything to do with me” and “I’ll win over customers who will stay loyal to me for 25 years.” And for two reasons, many businesses fail to walk this fine line.

One reason is a lack of strategy. Many companies have a rough idea of their lead channels, but are unable to use them effectively due to a lack of planning. This is why approaches to convert leads into customers fail in the end.

The second reason is a lack of know-how in using available channels for lead generation. With the constant changes in content or social media marketing, some businesses find it difficult to reach their target audience. And even when they do win leads, they don’t know how to retain them.

In this article, we address both of these challenges. By doing so, you’ll set the stage for successful B2B lead generation. We concretize best practices and go into strategic aspects that promise more leads in 2023.

The most important facts in a nutshell

• Leads are prospects who share their contact information with companies.
• For lead generation, consider strategic questions about your target audience, your available budget, and long-term prospects for success.
• Set realistic expectations for lead generation.
• Content marketing promises the most leads in the long run.

What is B2B lead generation?

A lead is a qualified contact who is interested in a company’s services or products. In contrast to a customer, a lead has not made a purchase or contacted the company yet.

The lead can be in different phases. For example, they may be on the verge of making a purchase, but they may also be interacting with a business out of pure curiosity.

The term “lead” often divides opinions. Not because of the definition, but because of the meaning of a lead. Some see leads as nothing more than prospects. For others, they are a measure of success that promises a lot of sales. Experts have therefore created the terms “cold leads” and “hot leads” to qualitatively classify and distinguish between prospects.

When making this distinction, it is also important to consider how sustainable a lead is. After all, some prospects quickly become customers, but they only buy from a company once. On the other hand, some prospects remain in the lead phase for a longer period of time, but then develop into long-term customers.

So much for the definition. In the next step, we’ll go more into detail about B2B lead generation channels and methods to help your company generate more qualified prospects.

Which channels can be used to generate leads?

Leads can be generated anywhere your target audience is located. Your options are not only limited to digital methods, because potential customers are also waiting for you in the outdoors, for example. The following channels come into question for lead generation:

-> Trade shows & events: Since 2022, outdoor events are again an interesting way to generate more leads.

-> Content Marketing: The undisputed number 1 in B2B lead generation. This includes blogs, videos and podcasts.

-> Social Media: In the B2B sector, LinkedIn is proving to be a promising channel to strengthen one’s brand and generate leads.

-> SEO: Search engine optimization is only partly a part of content marketing. However, it is a separate, independent area for expanding entrepreneurial reach.

-> Newsletter sign-up forms: Discounts and exclusive offers are still helpful lures for B2B lead generation in 2023.

-> SEA: There are commercial intentions behind many Google searches. And paid ads specifically address this demand. Google Ads is therefore one of the best lead engines in digital marketing.

-> Freebies: E-books, videos and whitepapers belong to the most popular methods among free downloads.

-> Print: Print media lost relevance in the last few years, but depending on the target group, they still support lead generation.

Don’t forget to provide your target audience with a “point of contact”. Your channels should ideally lead to a website where prospects can leave their contact information or contact you directly.

7 proven methods for B2B lead generation

The following methods complement the channels mentioned in the last point. Every company knows the advantages of a blog or a whitepaper, but often fails to implement them correctly or to build a sustainable lead strategy. Our following tips will help you to use the available channels in a target-oriented way.

The seven methods at a glance:

• Don’t just use newsletters as a decoy
• Prioritize the user experience
• Don’t forget the customer journey
• Place call-to-actions in the right places
• The strengths of versatility
• Interact with your target group
• The overall impression must be right

Don’t just use newsletters as a decoy

The paths from leads to customers are often relatively short, because many prospects make impulse purchases. Even in the B2B sector. The reason for this are discounts that companies offer in return for newsletter sign-ups. You probably know this when you visit an online store and after a few seconds the newsletter registration form with discount code appears.

This method is great for quick sales, but the goal is to build up customers in the long run. A newsletter is more than a tool to give discounts. It’s a way to build long-term loyalty with your target audience.

Let’s say you’re the owner of an online workwear store. Your newsletter marketing options are many in this area, ranging from safety tips to information about textile properties. So why would you only use your newsletter to offer a one-time discount?

Of course, you should continue to offer discounts to attract buyers. But first and foremost, a newsletter should add content value and build trust with your target audience. The newsletter is not an entertaining marketing tool, but your digital corporate magazine.

Prioritize the user experience

People buy where they feel comfortable. And the feel-good factor is lost if a new pop-up window opens on your website every three seconds. Long loading times on your website or too much advertising are just as annoying. But optimizing the user experience doesn’t just mean eliminating disruptive factors.

The competition is getting bigger and your target group knows that they are only a few clicks away from the products or services of your competitors. That makes it even more important to clearly communicate USPs and benefits from working with you. You can produce the best content or even be a luminary in your field – but it has no meaning for B2B lead generation if the communicative approaches are not right. Set a clear tone, communicate key messages, and make it clear what you offer.

The last point is particularly important. Some websites advertise with promises such as “More sales with XY” or “Increase your brand awareness with XY”. In doing so, they ignore the questions that are actually important for cooperation. Among them the following:

• What are our focal points?
• What additional services do we offer?
• What do our services cost?
• What are our references?
• What makes us stand out from our competitors?

Advertise not only with objective advantages, but with personal strengths and UPSs. Exceptions are B2B services in need of explanation, where potential customers have not yet recognized their benefits. But in most cases your target group has a clear search intention and knows what objective advantages they get from your product or service.

Don’t forget the customer journey

Your target group has several touchpoints before taking action. Especially in B2B, impulse buys or quick contacts are rare. Rule of thumb: The more complex the product or service, the more information your target audience wants.

You can’t expect leads if your company doesn’t provide quality content. Write blog articles, publish social media posts or produce videos. Use these mediums to answer questions about your offering. Your target audience has objections and needs information before making a decision. 

Ask yourself: Would you subscribe to a newsletter or interact with a company more often in the future if it didn’t offer you value? Or if you didn’t even know what the company offers? Probably not.

-> Content marketing doesn’t just have the function of promoting your offer or providing information. You also build a trust base with your target group with regular postings/uploads. 

Often, lead generation also fails because of your content prioritization. The best example is our company, FRAMR.

Digital signage are B2B products that require explanation. Therefore, we can’t expect leads if we don’t go into more detail about the strengths of digital signage on subpages/blog articles or communicate information about application options and pricing. That’s why we created relevant content first and only then focused on guides on other topics (e.g. marketing).

Take-away: The more expensive and complex the product, the more touch points your target group has. A bottle of wine for 8 euro is bought because of the beautiful label. But a high-priced service is only claimed by interested parties who have insights into the work processes and in-depth product information.

Place call-to-actions in the right places

Successful lead generation is based on decisively motivating one’s target group. Not only through facts and information, but also through prompts. The call-to-action should not be missing from any website, newsletter or social media post description. But there are two important points to consider when it comes to the CTA.

First, the CTA must not appear anywhere in the text. Make sure to place the calls to action cleverly. This can be in the context of a challenge, for example, or after you appeal to possible “trigger points” in a blog article.

Example: You are a marketing service provider and write a blog article about seven mistakes in B2B lead generation. In this context, it is a good idea to place a CTA after the seventh mistake, worded as follows: “Mistake No. 8: You are not yet using the strengths of a professional service provider to increase your success rates”. Alternatively, you can describe a complex problem in the text and offer yourself as a helping hand.

In this context, it is also important, and this brings me to the second point, to place the CTAs strategically. Don’t just think of the CTA as a call to action to generate leads, but also consider the customer journey here. CTAs can also be references to use cases or informative articles. The request to contact or buy is the last step in the customer journey. Before that, it’s about answering questions from your target audience.

The strengths of versatility

The more content channels you play on, the better you communicate with your target audience. Of course, content marketing requires a lot of resources and the production effort should not be underestimated. But the investment is worth it, because the more reach your company generates, the more leads will stick. Consider all your options and think “outside the box” too. There are not only blogs, videos or podcasts, but also apps or rather “unconventional” social media platforms like Reddit.

Interact with your target group

Between reach building and lead generation, there is one more intermediate step which is the engagement of your target audience. Don’t just use the available marketing channels for advertising messages, but ask questions and invite interaction.

Everyone likes to be the center of attention and wants to present their opinion, accordingly people comment or at least mentally participate in your posts. Sure, the mental interaction has no effect on your KPIs, but your company will still be remembered. After all, the point is to set impulses.

Have the courage to post a clear statement on LinkedIn. Opinion leaders are not afraid to communicate something more daring. Your interaction rate will increase and more people will follow you.

B2B lead generation is not something static based solely on strategic approaches. Emotions and strong opinions also reach people. Sometimes even better than the pragmatic way.

The overall impression must be right

Lead generation is part of a holistic marketing strategy. Also, focus on building your brand awareness, strengthen your corporate positioning, take care of search engine optimization and also consider design elements on your website. Successful lead generation is based on a holistic approach.

These strategic issues need to be addressed

In addition to implementation, it’s also important to consider strategic components. And that doesn’t mean just thinking about content channels or user experience. Rather, companies need to clarify strategic questions to set the course for successful lead marketing. Among them are the following:

• What budget do we have available for external service providers?
• What measures do we take for lead generation?
• In how much time do we want to generate how many leads?
• How do we target the leads and convert them into customers?
• How can we actively involve cold leads in the company’s activities again?
• What alternative actions can we take in case our strategy does not work?
• Is it a push or pull campaign?
• How can we identify and implement our optimization potential for a campaign?
• How can we automate lead generation processes?

To answer these questions concretely, we recommend the SMART method. It is known to most and is considered one of the best goal setting methods. The graphic below details all five steps and how to use them for your strategy.

Don’t rely too much on freebies

Whitepapers and e-books are definitely on-target methods for lead generation, but they don’t promise the same growth they did a few years ago. B2B audiences in particular know that freebies are just a means to an end. And not everyone wants to receive your newsletter.

Our recommendation: Don’t use freebies as a lead magnet, but use them to strengthen trust with your target group. Give away the freebie and use it for positioning rather than lead generation. Your target group appreciates it when they get something for free. And that in turn has a positive effect on your business, because those who create trust position themselves more strongly among the competition and arouse curiosity.

In this context, we would also like to talk about expectations. Freebies and other lead generation measures do not promise quick success. Even today, many entrepreneurs think that they have a good foundation for lead generation with two blog articles. Others think that a 100 euros budget for Google Ads will generate many new customers. But these ideas miss the reality. To stay competitive, companies ideally produce weekly content. And if you want to take advantage of the strengths of Google Ads, plan on at least 250 euros in costs per lead.

-> Expectations have a major influence on business success. Only those who set realistic standards can develop a target-oriented strategy.

Make inactive leads curious again

Generated leads are not the only quantitative factor, but also converting prospects to customers. Leads only have value to your business when they buy products or claim services. Accordingly, consider customer acquisition via existing leads in your strategy.

Also, focus on re-mobilizing inactive leads. Many companies don’t realize the potential of inactive prospects because they are only focused on lead generation. But optimizations in your marketing can bring back many prospects.

Sure, you can’t increase the open rates of your newsletter marketing to more than 50 percent, but that shouldn’t be your goal. Instead, it’s about improving KPIs in general and adding quality to your lead inventory.

Remember that you are in competition with many other companies and have to fight for your leads. Change the language of your newsletters, make campaigns more engaging, and encourage engagement on social media. Interactive measures like gamification also mobilize inactive leads.

Conclusion

In 2023, B2B lead generation continues to pose challenges for many companies. The reasons vary, but many fail mainly due to inadequate content prioritization. Answer basic questions about your offer on your website and communicate added value.

So before you optimize your current lead strategy, it’s better to ask yourself what content is still missing or what objections exist to your offer.

FAQ

Finally, we answer frequently asked questions on the topic.

What is inbound marketing?

Inbound marketing is a method of acquiring new customers. Companies provide informative content via blogs and social media to attract attention.

What are cold leads?

Cold leads are unqualified leads who don’t know your product or service well or have no in-depth touch points with it yet.

Gamification improves the interaction with your target audience and generates more leads. We present 10 stunning ideas + examples.

Table of contents

1. Gamification in marketing: Interactive fun instead of dry content
2. Gamification definition
3. Playfully to more leads and new customers
4. Overview of gamification advantages
5. 10 gamification ideas which will leave your target audience stunned
6. Consider this hurdle by all means
7. How do I establish gamification methods?
8. Gamification examples: 5 impressive marketing ideas of known companies
9. Conclusion
10. FAQ

The most important in summary

• Gamification describes the playful interaction between users and applications
• Software as a service ensures an easy design of playfully-interactive methods in marketing
• Gamification does not only support lead generation but also increases quality of leads and improves communication with your target audience

Gamification in marketing: Interactive fun instead of dry content

Many businesses face the challenge that they can’t bind interests and customers in the long term. They either focus on the wrong marketing methods or they ignore current trends. Often, the target audience is missing incentives to interact more with companies. To face this challenge and to bind the target audience in the long term, we recommend the strengths of gamification. 

→ Playful interaction with the target audience improves communication, binds existing customers and forces lead generation.

But what are the advantages of gamification in comparison to other marketing methods? And which actions are available for businesses to execute gamification successfully? We will answer these and similar questions.

Important note: We will exclusively talk about gamification in marketing. Therefore, we will not talk about how gamification impacts, for example, human resources or health care management.

First, the definition: What is gamification?

Gamification describes a playful experience for users. Applications without playful elements ensure an interactive experience through integration of gaming elements. The goal is to improve the motivation of users and to win their attention.

Playfully to more leads and new customers

In general, gamification in marketing follows the goal to improve existing business processes. Which specific goals are prioritized, depends on the business and its target audience.

Gamification primarily focuses on lead management to either win more potential customers/interests or to improve the quality of existing leads. 

The classic way of lead generation often looks like that users subscribe to a newsletter and get a freebie (e. g. e-book or video) in return for giving a website their email-address.

But this process has some weaknesses. Users often only subscribe to a newsletter because they desire the freebie. It’s not a rare case that some leads leave unused email-addresses to receive no newsletter mails later. Other than that, many businesses fail to win the attention of their target audience with newsletter content in the long term. In e-commerce there at least is the opportunity to convert leads to customers through discounts but many businesses are not given this possibility.

Gamification ensures successful lead management. Through Sweepstakes or surveys your company interacts purposefully with interests or customers. The incentive exists within the playful interaction itself because it is fun and it motivates.

Example: You give away discounts to 20 persons. Through a sweepstake you determine the winner, the only condition of participation is to write a comment in the section of a social media post. That guarantees three advantages: First of all, the ways of lead generation are shorter because participation doesn’t require registration to a newsletter. Other than that, the playful component motivates your target audience to a (fun) participation. Last but not least, you potentially have more participants because social media has more users than your newsletter has subscribers.

Overview of the advantages of gamification

• Playful lead generation
• Customer loyalty
• Image expansion of your business
• Personalization through branding of gamification actions
• Insights of interaction rates
• Target group extension (gamification speaks to a younger audience)
• Improved interaction and communication with the target audience

Gamification offers businesses the particular advantage to get further information about the wishes and desires of their target audience. The focus is not on collecting email-addresses but to improve user experience through interaction and to find out about the wishes and desires of your target group. 

The diversity of gamification ensures a holistic optimization of existing marketing processes. Set methods give exact insights in the interaction rates and this also reveals trends in terms of needs and desires, enabling you to optimize existing processes in a targeted manner.

10 gamification ideas that will leave your target audience stunned

• Surveys
• Sweepstakes
• Advent calendar
• Rotating wheel
• Quizzes
• Personality tests
• Swipe
• Scratch cards
• Games
• Slot-machine

Surveys

Through surveys, your business wins important insights about their customers and their wishes. This gamification method works perfectly to create individual offers for customers.

Example: Through evaluation tools web designers can determine the wishes of potential clients. Interests can, for instance, leave information about which additional functions they wish and how extensive the website should be. Based on the result, the potential clients receive an offer.

Surveys not only follow the goal to create offers for potential clients but to improve business performance as well. Some businesses give away gift cards to everyone who participates in a survey through a digital signage device. The goal is to improve customer satisfaction because businesses want to know what their target group wishes.

Sweepstakes

Giveaways of all kinds always leave a good impression. The participation conditions are mostly quite easy to understand and should follow the goal to expand reach of your business. You can, for example, start sweepstakes over social media and set the participation condition that one needs to write a comment or share the post.

Advent calendar

Your own business advent calendar with individual branding awakes the inner christmas feeling (positive connection to your company!). Your target audience is even happier when they can expect exclusive discounts or helpful tips and tricks.

Rotating wheel

You often find this concept in apps. Through tipping on the touchscreen of a smartphone, interests move the virtual wheel to win something (e. g. a discount code). This type of playful interaction provides for variety when using apps which require you to act on or do something.

Example: Sport apps give users the possibility to create a flexible as well as individual workout plan. The rotating wheel determines the next exercise or the user creates a varied workout plan before sports.

Quizzes

Quizzes are the queen of gamification methods. They are fun and participants can prove their knowledge.

Idea: Create a quiz about your company or about your products/goods. That awakes the curiosity of your target group and strengthens the trust in your business.

Personality tests

Personality tests are very popular these days. This gamification method doesn’t work well for many businesses but the ones which take advantage of them will have an active and loyal target audience that has a great interest in personal development.

Swipe

A concept that many people associate with dating apps. The swipe function allows users to make decisions based on their personal preferences because a swipe either means “I like it” or “I don’t like it”. A good possibility to find out more about the preferences of your target group and to use gamification as fundament for market research.

Scratch cards

Less used and known but still executed successfully for some apps. Businesses often combine this concept with sweepstakes or giveaways.

Games

A more general term because gamification theoretically describes all games. With this point we specifically mean games which have received a digital conversion. One example: Memory.

Slot-machine

Nowadays you will not only find slot-machines in the casino, businesses use this concept for bonuses and discounts as well.

Consider this hurdle by all means

Gamification makes your business more attractive and establishes innovative ways for your marketing. But you should consider putting gamification methods in the context of your business and marketing goals. In the foreground is your marketing strategy and the determined metrics.

In the strategic process, weigh the extent to which gamification fits your objectives and whether the cost-benefit ratio is high.

Many think that gamification only works for claiming more personal data but this is not true. Gamification supports the customer loyalty through, for instance, weekly rewards or scratch card actions. Quizzes or memory work good as methods for e-learning as well.

But precisely because you have a wide range of options at your disposal, the first step requires a consideration of the marketing goals in your company.

How do I establish gamification methods?

To execute gamification successfully, you don’t need any basic knowledge in programming. Providers of software as a service programs facilitate the entry with gamification because such applications are based on the modular principle.

In the programming process of the FRAMR software, our team also paid attention to establishing individual design options so that our customers can easily implement their ideas and wishes. Digital signage harmoniously combines the strengths from the areas of gamification, information technology and marketing and takes into account important features to position itself strongly against competitors (e. g. user experience).

See for yourself and configure your individual customer experience with our FREE cockpit configurator. You will gain more detailed insights into the possibilities of digital signage and develop a feeling for the advantages and functions in the area of gamification.

Gamification examples: 5 stunning marketing ideas of known companies

Concrete examples still best illustrate the advantages of gamification. In the following, we present five companies and their measures in the field of gamification.

Truity

Truity is a website for advocates of personal development and behavior psychology. The website offers many different personality tests with final evaluation. Truity uses this concept to win over paying clients because the test and the results might be for free but exact evaluation of metrics is only available for those who pay a fee or start a subscription.

Audi

Audi configurators leave a strong impression on users. They convey the feeling to create something on one’s own and interests see the final result with their eyes. The free room for maneuver and exact price information also force the purchase decision.

McDonald’s

The US-American franchise giant has been known worldwide for its “McDonald’s-Monopoly” since 1987. In the past, there were various high-priced grand prizes which encouraged many guests to visit the fast food chain more often or to buy more products.
However, McDonald’s has also shown that it is better not to exploit the good nature of its target group. A few years ago, the fast-food chain made negative headlines because it came to light that it was manipulating sweepstakes.

Reddit

Reddit users collect so-called “karma points” through posts, replies and votes, which increases their reputation. With this system, reddit ensures that its users become more active and thus secure a stronger status within the community (need for status).

Duolingo

Duolingo users collect rewards and badges for completing lessons. It gives a good feeling to unlock achievements and Duolinge has recognized this advantage to motivate millions of users to learn foreign languages every day.

Conclusion

Gamification supports lead generation and customer retention. In addition, companies improve communication with their target group. Software as a service solutions do not require any programming skills which means that any company can easily create, establish and implement its desired measures. When planning your gamification actions, make sure to consider the wishes of your target group and choose measures that are in line with your objective. For example, it makes little sense for a software development company to focus on personality tests or advent calendars.

FAQ

Finally, we will answer some of the most asked questions about gamification.

Where is gamification used?

Companies use gamification mainly for marketing purposes. However, the concept of playful interaction is also suitable for staff retention, for further training and to establish new corporate processes.

Which industries benefit from gamification?

Gamification is a cross-industry approach. It depends less on a company’s industry than on its target group and which interaction measures bring the desired success.

Pictures: © Canva.com

Marketing is one of the most difficult hurdles for IT companies. We show you the six most important steps for successful software marketing.

Table of contents:

1. Software marketing is not rocket science
2. 6 simple steps to successful software marketing
3. Example of a 6-step-plan: How to implement it successfully
4. Ideas for your software marketing
5. This is how much marketing budget you need
6. Conclusion

The most important things in a nutshell:

• Marketing is first and foremost a strategic process
• Always align your software marketing with the desires of your target audience and identify your strengths relative to competitors
• Use the strengths of different marketing channels to create content dispersion

Software marketing is not rocket science

Innovative ideas pay off and secure you a strong position on the market. That’s one of the reasons why software development has surged in recent years, especially in the area of mobile applications and business process automation (e. g. in accounting and marketing). But just like with any other product or service, software companies first have to find buyers / clients, and this is where one of the biggest challenges becomes apparent.

→ Marketing is the be-all and end-all in any industry, because without buyers even the greatest ideas remain undiscovered and the software sector is no exception. 

With this article we follow the goal to help IT businesses develop their marketing strategy. Many companies fail to win Clients because they make fundamental mistakes in the marketing process. And we are not talking about too little financial investments or choosing the wrong marketing channels, but about an insufficient strategy, poor positioning and wrong communication with the target group.

Many people think of marketing in terms of search engine optimization, social media or web design but these areas follow only after strategy development.
First, there are six important steps to follow to lay the foundation for successful software marketing. These steps will not only help you target the right audience, they will also save you resources.

6 simple steps to successful software marketing

To develop a good marketing strategy, you need to answer the following six questions first:

• What are my strengths compared to my competitors?
• Who is my target group and how do I address them?
• Which communication channels do I use for my marketing?
• Who is responsible for implementation?
• What is the best way to spread our marketing presence?
• How do I measure the results of my software marketing?

The implementation only takes place after you have worked out every single aspect of your strategy. A good marketing strategy will not only help you to plan your resources and approach, but will also give you a better overview of the required effort and the time buffers that need to be planned for implementation.

Position yourself

Every software stands out from its competition in its own way but your target audience may not be aware of these advantages. To use channels like social media or blogs effectively, you need to recognize your strengths in order to communicate them. But being aware of your weaknesses also has its advantages because it allows you to recognize potential for improvement and what possible objections your target group raises or what possible disadvantages they see in your software.

But don’t only focus on objective advantages of your software but also on how it meets the challenges of your target audience and what subjective needs your company addresses with its marketing strategy. When analyzing weaknesses, you should ideally consider the opinion of your team because it is often difficult for you to remain objective and even identify possible weaknesses in your own software.

Know your target audience

Many software businesses make the same mistake and explain any technical terms on their website or via their social media channels. But why? Your target audience probably are people who are familiar with the application areas of your software.
There are benefits of using a good glossary or encyclopedias to explain certain terms, especially if they are very technical, but don’t treat your audience like clueless people who need a primer on the subject first. Instead, communicate the advantages and which use your software promises. Also, creating informative as well as unique content should help position your company. 

This “I first need to explain everything” mistake is due to poor target audience analysis. Every company has an idea of its persona but still commits communication mistakes. As a result, it’s not uncommon to miss the mark, which means no sustainable growth and no leads will be generated.

Depending on your target audience, you need to consider different criteria when communicating. In the case of a B2C target audience, information regarding price or characteristics such as motives or personal preferences play a primarily role. In the B2B sector, on the other hand, solution-oriented approaches, industry and return on investment matter the most.

It should also be mentioned that every company has several target audiences which in turn are segmented into different subgroups – therefore, you should never focus your software marketing on only one group of people.

Buyer Persona: Profile of a fictive customer who represents the target audience

The right communication channels

It’s well known that social media and blogs belong to the best marketing channels. However, this does not answer the question of which exact channels should be used, how often and with which content. It makes a big difference whether your company is targeting a B2B or B2C target audience, as channels need to be selected accordingly.

The following table shows which (social media-) channels are particularly well suited for each target audience:

Consider that the industry plays an important role as well. For example, Twitter is not bad for B2B businesses but it hardly offers any advantages for software companies. On the other hand, the platform “Reddit” has proven to be an insider tip because millions of people search there everyday for advice on different topics – with knowledge of software development, you can position your business extremely well.

But choosing the right channels isn’t everything, because that doesn’t answer any questions about posting frequency or the type of posts. In order to create a working content strategy, you should therefore clarify the following questions in the team:

• Which channels do we use?
• What content do we post?
• When do we start with social media postings and blogging?
• How often do we post on social media or our blog and what time buffer do we allow ourselves?
• What are potential challenges? (e.g. copyright in image use for blog articles)
• How do we achieve broad content distribution through different channels?
• Are our blog articles and website aligned with search engine optimization (SEO) criteria?
• How do we use your content to generate leads and retain them?

Are you looking for an exclusive content format that guarantees competitive advantages and triggers a lasting “wow effect” with your target audience? Then you should take a look at the advantages of digital signage!
Our software offers you a wide range of functions, starting with image playback and ending with interesting additional features such as the display of Facebook postings or YouTube videos. Of course, you can also use FRAMR as a presentation medium to communicate the benefits of your software. We promise: Your target audience will be stunned!

Internal vs external expertise

Blogs, social media, SEO, SEA (Google ads) – with all the given possibilities it’s difficult to find the necessary expertise internally, even when specifically choosing marketing channels. But that’s not necessary either, because through freelancer portals and Google research you can easily find a freelancer or even a big agency for your software marketing.

Both internal as well as external production of marketing content have advantages and with the following table we draw a comparison:

External labor requires good delegation. Don’t get it wrong, you don’t have to control every process in detail but working with freelancers or agencies is only purposeful if good framework conditions are created. For this, the first step is to clarify the following questions: 

• Who is responsible for which activity and what is the goal?
• Which deadlines do we set?
• Which information and materials does the freelancer or agency need?
• How well does the cooperation work and what can be improved?

Scattering

In the third point we have already mentioned content distribution – but why is this important at all? The answer: Many companies fail with implementing their marketing strategy and end up rearranging everything or plan all over again.

For successful software marketing, you have a variety of channels at your disposal, be it social media, SEO, SEA, PR or blogs. But just because you have so many options doesn’t mean you shouldn’t use the advantages of the different channels. Instead it’s better to set up multiple channels right from the beginning to see what content resonates best with your target audience and what content format gets good results. 

But make sure to ask yourself to what extent a good and broad content distribution is possible with the available resources because it doesn’t make sense if you have one person available for marketing, but you want to play ten marketing channels at once.

Metrics for measurability

Every company wants to achieve goals but surprisingly, this part of the marketing strategy in particular is treated quite superficially. Common goals are “growth” or “reach,” but no one mentions exact numbers or what metrics are used to achieve them. 

To measure the success of software marketing, you have several metrics at your disposal, be it website traffic, Google Analytics stats, social shares, newsletter signups or number of purchases or bookings. However, don’t make the mistake of focusing too much on the number of website visitors because even if high reach is an indicator of good marketing performance, it says nothing about the quality of your visitors.
Our recommendation: It’s best to use two metrics to evaluate the success of your marketing, for example website traffic and number of newsletter signups.

Don’t forget to use the results as a foundation for further development of your strategy. For example, if Facebook insights show that your target audience is mostly active between 5:00 and 7:00 p.m., these numbers should guide the time of your future posts. Similarly, you should remove content types from your strategy if the metrics show that they are performing poorly.

Example of a 6-step-plan: How to implement it successfully

Below, we give you insights into FRAMR’s marketing strategy so that you can get a feel for how to implement the 6-step plan.

1. Positioning: At FRAMR, we focus on speed and agile processes. This is because the Linux operating system starts even when power is lost and does not require a license. In addition, no complex installation is necessary and our cloud service guarantees permanent availability ofthe services. This flexibility also ensures constant expandability and good runnability on all platforms. We see potential weaknesses in the established market position of our competitors. Since we are competing with big companies like Sony or Panasonic, we have to position ourselves with good content and address our target group effectively.
2. Target group: We specifically address B2B customers with our digital signage solutions. We don’t discriminate on industry or company size, instead our marketing agenda aims to convince the target audience with the benefits of digital signage and position ourselves as innovative pioneers in entrepreneurship.
3. Communication channels: Besides our blog, we primarily use B2B channels because they best fit our target audience. We communicate via LinkedIn, use cases, workshops, and the FRAMR blog.
4. Internal vs. external expertise: We rely on both internal and external expertise. With internal strengths we ensure fast communication within the team and with external marketing support we “buy” the necessary know-how to do so.
5. Distribution: Two up to three articles are published on our blog every month. In addition, we post one LinkedIn post per week, publish guest posts on other websites for link-building, have already published case studies and regularly participate in knowledge-sharing events.
6. Metrics: To measure the success of our software marketing, we consider website traffic, number of purchases, and completed subscriptions.

→ What are use cases? Definition and examples

Ideas for your software marketing

• Blog articles on industry-specific topics
• Use case studies to show results of your work
• Explainer videos
• Google Ads campaigns with keywords targeting the search intent of the target audience
• Free use of your software for a certain period of time
• Live webinars to explain your software
• Postings on Google MyBusiness
• Digital brochures

Looking for more sustainable ideas? Then be sure to read our blog article on the best content formats – you’ll find valuable tips and tricks for implementing your software marketing strategy and which tools will help you do it.

This is how much marketing budget you need

The cost of good marketing has skyrocketed. Before digitization, people were less able to get information and it was correspondingly easier to sell products or services. But in the information age, different rules apply and your target audience has several touch points with your offer before they even develop interest. This is partly due to the growing competition, but also because access to information through search engines like Google is now available and your target group uses this offer. Because of that, you need to provide your audience with good content to spark curiosity, answer important questions, and get them to interact with your business.

How much budget you need to allocate to your marketing depends on several factors, including which channels you use or whether you cooperate with a freelancer or agency. Experience shows that the set-up phase with strategy development, setting up social media profiles, web design with texts and logo creation already costs well over 10,000 €. In addition, there are monthly costs for content, SEO and social media, which costs between 2,000 € and 5,000 €, depending on the factors mentioned.

Conclusion: Software marketing unfolds your potential

There is no question that marketing is one of the most important areas for the successful implementation of a business idea. There are high investments involved, but the long-term goal is a positive return-on-investment and most companies achieve this by working out a good strategy in the first step.

But that’s exactly the point: The first step requires a good strategy to set the stage for successful software marketing. The six steps from this article will help you establish your innovative idea on the market and set you apart from your competitors.

Pictures: © Canva.com