10 Marketing Strategies For Luxury

Brands That Deliver Results

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In 2014, McKinsey published a report suggesting that digital now

influences at least 45% of all luxury sales.

It’s understandable why luxury brands have been hesitant to move online. Yet,
with print and display advertising returns decreasing, and luxury shoppers
spending more time online and on mobile devices, luxury brands need to not
only adapt to survive in the digital universe, but to thrive also.

Having created our own luxury online platform (Qosy) at Venture Harbour,
which has led to helping luxury brands such as Johnnie Walker, McLaren, and
Marriott with their digital presence, I’ve learnt a lot over the past twelve
months around the do’s and don’ts of luxury online marketing.

In this post, I want to touch on 10 tips and lessons to help luxury brands use
digital marketing effectively.

1. Take advantage of visual

social networks
When marketing luxury products, photographs are one of the best mediums
for evoking the aspirational emotions that we connect with driving a luxury
vehicle, wearing designer clothing, or experiencing something exclusive.

As such, visual social networks like Pinterest represent a huge opportunity for
luxury brands to raise brand awareness and advocacy.

In fact, Chanel are one of the most ‘pinned’ brands on the social network, with
over 1,244 pins of Chanel products pinned on the social network per day on
average. This is made even more impressive when you consider that Chanel do
not even have an account on Pinterest (it’s all driven by their advocates).
A luxury brand that I came across who do an exceptional job of marketing
themselves on Pinterest is 77 Diamonds in London. Their Pinterest profile is
aspirational, educational, and strikes a great balance between not being too
promotional, yet still raising awareness of 77 Diamond’s products.

2. Build a website that

combines style, user
experience, and functionality
Generally speaking, luxury brand websites are very stylish, but perform poorly
when it comes to user experience and functionality.
Take Dom Perignon’s website for example. Once you’ve completed a non-
essential age verification page, you enter a slow loading flash site that takes
about 13 seconds on a high-speed Internet connection to load.

If you’re still around, you reach a website that’s very difficult and confusing to
navigate.

The Chanel website is very similar in that, while the colours and visuals are
nice, the design is so unintuitive that it’s almost impossible to find what you’re
looking for, let alone buy anything.
While I appreciate the need for stylistic design, luxury brands need to invest in
websites that are also intuitive and well desgined from a user experience
perspective.

Aston Martin and Versace are both great examples of what luxury brands
should be doing with their websites. Their websites are visually stunning,
while very easy to use, and highly functional.
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Join me on this free webinar where I’ll share the secrets behind the lead
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3. Use brand heritage to tell the

stories behind products
In his book ‘Start With Why’, Simon Sinek explains how great marketing starts
by explaining why they exist. Despite this, the majority of brands still market
their products by explaining what they do.

Take Apple for example. Here’s a paraphrased excerpt of how apple

communicate with their customers:

“Everything we do, we believe in challenging the status quo. We believe in

thinking differently (why Apple exists). The way we challenge the status quo is
by making our products beautifully designed, simple to use and user friendly
(How Apple achieve their why). We just happen to make great computers
(What Apple do).”

Communicating the story behind your products, and explaining the values
that define a luxury brand, is fundamental to effective luxury marketing.

Aston Martin do a great job telling the story of their brand heritage on all of
their product pages and digital content.
By explaining that your brand represents an assurance of luxury, quality,
performance, style, or whatever value you stand by, you will find it easier
generating advocacy for your brand online.

4. Use Facebook Ads to reach

luxury shoppers
Facebook Ads are one of the most effective forms of online advertising, thanks
to the high level of segmentation and targeting that you can do.

You could, for example, target ads specifically to married 35 year old males
from Paris who like the brands Prada, Gucci, and Versace. You can even go
one step further and target people by what college they attend, where they
work, what their job title is, what music they listen to, and much much more.

Below are some examples of how luxury brands are using Facebook Ads:
5. Don’t underestimate the
value of good SEO
Google is one of the most influential channels when it comes to helping luxury
shoppers find products, learn more about brands, and make their purchase.

As we’ve already alluded to, most luxury brands have pretty poor websites.
Unsurprisingly, most of those websites also have extremely bad SEO, making
it difficult for their websites to rank well in Google for search terms that would
otherwise capture potential customers.

Take Prada for instance. When I search for Prada handbags, not only do I not
receive a link to Prada’s handbag page (due to their poor keyword targeting,
slow site, and poor on-site structure), but the results also look messy and
untargeted.

SEO is an untapped goldmine for luxury brands. If your site isn’t SEO-
friendly, you’re likely to be leaving a lot of potential traffic and revenue on the
table.

6. Create aspirational content

to educate customers
One of the most effective ways we’ve found to generate traffic and engagement
for Qosy is create highly visual and aspirational content, such as our guide to
kitchen islands.
By focusing on long-form visual content, we’ve generated 10,000’s of social
shares, and a huge amount of SEO traffic. While common in many other
niches, content marketing is massively underused and enormously effective
for luxury brands.

7. Supply content that appeals

to people’s desire to display
their status
In Jonah Berger’s book, Contagious, he explains that one of the main reasons
why people talk about things, and spread word of mouth (online or offline) is
to display the traits that they want others to see in them.

Charities, for example, are one of the most liked categorises of pages on
Facebook. While some of this can be explained by altruism, it’s been found
that the main driver for liking a charity on Facebook is to show others that
you’re charitable.

Because one of the primary motivations for buying luxury goods is to display
status, brands can take advantage of this by creating and publishing content
that, when others share, will make them look stylish, smart, or cool to their
friends.

We found this with Qosy when we created our guide to the best scotch. Within
48 hours of publishing the guide, over 4,000 people had shared it – many of
whom were using the guide to show off their own scotch knowledge.

8. Create a sense of exclusivity

online
Exclusivity is fundamental to luxury brand marketing as it maintains
consumer desire through scarcity and rarity. If anyone could walk into Louis
Vuitton and buy a handbag, Louis Vuitton would lose their appeal to those
who wish to have something that others can’t get access to.

Given the Internet’s accessibility and autonomy, many luxury brands worry
about losing their sense of exclusivity when it comes to going online. This,
however, is flawed logic.
For luxury brands, the Internet does not represent wider distribution of actual
products. It’s a wider distribution of the content that evokes the desire to buy
luxury products.

Translated to the offline world, effective digital marketing is like running more
advertisements on buses, or more TV ads, or having more stores in Central
London.

Exclusivity can be created online through private member groups, concierge

services, or digitally-delivered loyalty perks that are reserved specifically for
previous customers.

9. Never stop building your list

Email marketing is extremely effective for eCommerce marketing and
increasing customer loyalty, as it provides the opportunity to educate
consumers and tell them about new experiences or products offered by the
brand.

Harrods do an exceptional job with their email marketing campaigns, and are
well worth subscribing to for email campaign inspiration.
10. Take the in-store
experience online, and the
online experience in-store
In the near future, talking about online and offline will be like talking about
the benefits of our left leg vs. our right leg. Both are integral to the other.

One luxury brand who are leading the way in combining the in-store and
online experience is Burberry.
It seems that every few months Burberry are running a new online brand-
awareness campaign, driving luxury shoppers into their stores. Once those
customers are in the stores, they’re encouraged to take pictures, share content,
watch live streams, and use in-store iPads.

Written by Marcus TaylorAugust 29, 2018

3 thoughts on “10 Marketing Strategies For Luxury

Brands That Deliver Results”
1. Alexandra says:
January 8, 2016 at 12:05 pm

Really great post, thank you

Reply

2. Sunny says:
April 2, 2016 at 5:13 pm

Amazing advice for us start up businesses!

Reply

3. Sean says:
June 22, 2016 at 9:01 pm

How would you compare the facebook ads with Google adwords?
If my target audience is small but people with very high purchasing
parity, what would work best for me?

Reply

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Inbound vs Outbound
Marketing: A Primer for
Newbies or Switchers
by: Luke Wallace
on June 30, 2017

There are two basic types of marketing—outbound and inbound.

There’s a lot of buzz around these terms, but what do they really mean? And
what tools do you need to be a successful outbound or inbound marketer?

These questions can be difficult to answer if you’re new to marketing, or

even if you’re considering switching from one strategy to the other.

To help, we’ll walk you through the basics of outbound and inbound
marketing and provide some tips on what kinds of tools work best
for both types.

Here’s what we’ll cover:

What’s the Difference Between Outbound and Inbound?

What Strategy Should You Use?
Choosing the Right Tools for the Job
Examples of Software for Outbound and Inbound
Tips for Switching from Outbound to Inbound
Next Steps

What’s the Difference between Outbound and

Inbound?
Outbound marketing—also called “push marketing” or “interruption
marketing”—is when a marketer contacts prospects, hoping for engagement.

You can think of outbound marketing as any type of marketing message that
proactively initiates the conversation with a potential customer.

Tactics include:

 Advertising on search engines

 Paying publishers of websites to post your ads (aka “pay per click,” or PPC)
 Commercials
 Cold calls
  Sending emails to a list of leads
Example: A real estate agent gathers leads from open houses, website
visitors who subscribe to their mailing list and by purchasing leads from
Zillow, a real estate website. The realtor emails her monthly newsletter to
these leads and advertises her services on Zillow, hoping homebuyers will
respond.

Inbound marketing—also called “pull advertising”—helps customers find

you, rather than you seeking them out. Marketers using inbound methods
don’t interrupt a prospect’s flow. Rather, they prioritize placing compelling
content where prospects are likely to find it organically.

This is usually done by providing interesting, helpful content on websites,

blogs or social media that engages buyers. Inbound marketers optimize web
pages to rank higher in search engine results so buyers are more likely to
find them (called “search engine optimization,” or SEO).

Example: A realtor maintains a blog where she writes about local real
estate trends and factors to consider when buying a home. She shares this
content on social media networks. Local homebuyers see her posts and find
them helpful. They contact her to ask more questions, giving her the
opportunity to build a meaningful, ongoing relationship as a trusted source
of information.

Examples of Outbound and Inbound Marketing Tactics

What Strategy Should You Use?
The short answer: It depends on your current situation, available resources
and future goals.

A good way to think about this is to understand the pros and cons of each
strategy. This will help you understand whether you should stay with your
current strategy or make the switch to another.

Pros of Outbound Marketing

Outbound marketing is easier on the front end. It’s a simple strategy if you
already have a large number of leads and you’re satisfied with the quality of
your leads.

Outbound marketers simply produce one-size-fits all content and distribute it

en masse to all their contacts. Then, they wait for click-throughs. Piece of
cake.

If you don’t have the time and/or skills (or want to learn the skills) to create
a bunch of high quality content, outbound marketing is a safe way to go.

Cons of Outbound Marketing

With outbound marketing, not all those who engage will be ready to buy. For
example: It’s really easy for me to click a link in a marketing email simply
because I’m curious to learn more. I may not be at all interested in making a
purchase.

It’s up to the outbound marketer to separate the wheat from the chaff. This
can be a time-consuming process. If you’re not satisfied with the quality of
your leads, or you’re struggling to manage a large volume of leads, consider
inbound marketing.

Pros of Inbound Marketing

Prospects who seek out content that addresses their pain points and make
contact as a result are more likely to be lower in the buyer funnel than a
lead who is contacted out of the blue.

For this reason, leads acquired from inbound marketing tend to be higher
quality (i.e., warmer leads), so inbound marketers spend less time and
energy converting them into paying customers.
 “[Inbound] leads are self-selecting. Instead of pushing out and
trying to identify who you think might be in the market to buy,
the people who are out to buy are basically coming and telling
you that they are in the market. In theory, at least, you are
skipping a lot of the time-wasters.”
CHRIS MACK, FOUNDER OF SPOKAL

In other words, the content does the initial legwork to nurture the
relationship.

Cons of Inbound Marketing

On the other hand, for content to be successful at drawing buyers in, it must
be meaningful and useful to the target audience. This means inbound
marketers must put in more work at the start when creating their content.

Inbound marketers must also wait for content to resonate and for buyers to
reach out. Inbound marketing doesn’t generate results overnight.
 “It generally takes six to 12 months before you start seeing a
decent return [with inbound marketing]. Once we’ve got the site
up and running and it’s established and it has traffic, we can
stop putting work into it for a month or two—and it’s still going
to deliver leads regularly.”
CHRIS MACK, FOUNDER OF SPOKAL

That said, neither strategy is inherently better than the other. What’s most
important is to choose which one meshes best with your current needs and
aligns with your future goals.

Consider these questions:

 What is your current lead situation?

 What is the target audience you want to reach?
 What lines of communication do you want to use?
 What kind of content do you want to produce?

This will also help you choose the best tools to support your process.

Here’s a handy overview of everything we just discussed:

Outbound Marketing Inbound Marketing

You already have a good source of You want to acquire leads by creating
Lead situation
leads or work with purchased lists. interesting, relevant content.
You’ll reach many leads right away You’re willing to wait for up to 6-12
Time spent and are willing to spend time sorting months for leads to come in, but you’ll
through a high volume of leads. spend less time sorting through leads.
Homogenous: Majority of customers Complex or less uniform: Customers
Target market
hold similar preferences. vary greatly in their preferences.
Communication One-way Interactive, two-way
Content type Generic, mass distributed Tailored, targeted

Choosing the Right Tools for the Job

The easiest way to understand how software supports these two strategies is
to visualize the marketing funnel associated with each:
 Outbound and Inbound Marketing Funnels

Source: Spokal

In the outbound marketing funnel, a steady source of leads are filtered

through. In the inbound marketing funnel, content is generated and
distributed and it attracts the interest of buyers, allowing marketers or
salespeople to build relationships with them.

Ultimately, the right tools for the job are those that support the way the
marketer wants to handle their leads:

Outbound marketing software. Look for software solutions with

functionality to help you easily distribute content en masse to your existing
contacts.

The tool you select should also provide ways for you to capture leads that
come in from your outbound marketing communication (e.g., a link to a
landing page in your mass emails).
Finally, look for capabilities that will allow you to filter your leads and
identify the most promising ones, such as lead segmentation and lead
scoring.

Inbound marketing software. Look for functionality that will help you
craft rich, engaging content and place that content in front of the right eyes.

Your solution should also provide tools for assessing how well your content is
performing with your target markets, along with functionality to help you to
judge the quality of your leads.

Valuable Software Functions

Outbound Marketing Software Inbound Marketing Software

 Send mass and drip emails  Send targeted emails
 Landing page creation  Website/content management
 Track email opens and site visits  SEO tools
 Lead scoring/segmentation  Lead scoring/segmentation

The two software systems most used for marketing are:

 Email marketing software: Primarily used for outbound marketing

 Marketing automation software: Used for both inbound and outbound marketing

It sounds simple, but choosing the right marketing software can still be
tricky.

First, there’s often confusion about the difference between the two types.
This is due, in part, to the language some software vendors use. For
example, some email marketing vendors will describe their software as
“automated email marketing software.”

Second, not all marketing software vendors use the terms “outbound” or
“inbound” to describe what their software does.

While many marketing automation systems support both outbound and

inbound marketing strategies, some focus primarily on outbound marketing.

And while email marketing software really only supports outbound

marketing, it is possible to combine email marketing software with other
tools (such as blogging software, SEO tools and/or social media marketing
software) to implement a successful inbound methodology.
We clear up some of the confusion about the two types of systems in this
article. If you’re struggling, it’s worth a read to understand what each
software offers.

In the next section, we’ll provide some examples of specific solutions to help
you choose the right software for your chosen strategy.

Examples of Software for Outbound and

Inbound Marketing
For outbound marketing, you have your pick. Any email marketing or
marketing automation system can be used for outbound marketing.

Depending on the functionality offered, marketing automation systems can

be used for either outbound or inbound marketing. Below are some
examples of marketing automation vendors that offer at least some of the
functionality discussed above.

Vendor Comparison: Outbound Marketing

Vendor Comparison: Inbound Marketing

NOTE: These tables do not represent a ranking of products, but rather a sampling of available
offerings on the market. All of the information is publically available online, drawn from product
brochures, data sheets, vendor websites, instructional manuals, case studies, knowledge bases and
support forums.

Tips for “Switchers”: Going from Outbound to

Inbound
Because inbound marketing requires more energy and effort up-front, it’s a
bit trickier of a ball to get rolling, particularly if you’ve been using outbound
methods for a while.

As we’ve said, outbound content is generally one-size-fits all. One piece of

content is shared with everyone.

Inbound content, on the other hand, aims to address more specific and
nuanced buyer pain points and questions. Thus, not only must inbound
marketers create more kinds of content, they must also decide how to focus
it for different target audiences and promote it.

Maybe you’ve heard the hype lately about ditching outbound for inbound,
but you don’t know where to start. Those of you who have been practicing
outbound marketing, but want to make the leap to inbound, might be feeling
overwhelmed about starting the process.

Never fear; Software Advice is here! We’ve put together a list of our favorite
tips for smooth switching:
✔ Know your target audience. Do some research to get a feel for your
target audience’s interests and pain points. Understand what channels they
use to find information and in what ways they prefer to communicate. Do
keyword research (with Google Adwords, for example) so you’ll know how to
optimize your inbound content with the keywords most likely to drive new
traffic to your website.

✔ Don’t rush content creation. The key to successful inbound content is

relevancy. Take your time crafting meaningful content that address real
buyer pain points, educates buyers and establishes you as a source of useful
information. This due diligence up front is well worth the effort and
attention.

✔ Cultivate a social media presence. Social media is a great place to

share your content and also develop organic relationships with prospects.
When used artfully (i.e., no hard selling), it makes for a friendly, intimate
way to connect and converse with buyers. For more on how to use social
media successfully, read our article on social selling.

✔ Be patient. Understand that it takes time to get inbound marketing

rolling. It’s not uncommon for there to be a lag time between content
distribution and the closing of leads. For example, some experts suggest it
could take six months to a year to see a full return on investment. Stay the
course and in the meantime, keep producing and sharing awesome content.

✔ Get salespeople on the inbound train. Great content can lead a

potential customer to contact a salesperson, but they may have additional
pre-purchase concerns that need to be addressed before they pull the
trigger. Salespeople can use your content to address a specific buyer’s
questions and help nurture them down the funnel. For more on how this
works, check out our article on “Smarketing.”

Next Steps
Need help choosing the right marketing solution? Here are a couple steps
you can take to narrow down your options and get more information:

 Email me at lukewallace@softwareadvice.com. I’m available to help you start the

software selection process, or to answer any additional questions you might have
about inbound or outbound marketing.
 Check out detailed comparisons and real user reviews of popular marketing
software.
The Organic Inbound Marketing Playbook
for B2B
LinkedInTwitterFacebookEmailShare
The inbound marketing for B2B landscape of 2018 is a brave new world for business – one virtually
unrecognizable from years past.

Go back to the start of the decade – concepts like content marketing, social media marketing,
influencer marketing, and inbound marketing were years away from conception.
Buyer demographic and behavioral data was difficult to find. Marketing campaigns were more
expensive to launch and harder to track. Market pulse was tougher to discern.

All that has changed. Replacing the old world of inbound marketing for B2B is a new landscape that
proves immensely favorable to creative and strategic marketers who prefer guerilla tactics, smaller
budgets, and surgical campaigns to grab buyer attention, generate interest, drive demand, and inspire
action.

Quality inbound lead generation can accelerate your sales cycle, create happier sales reps, and bolster
revenue growth. This playbook can be reused by any company looking to bolster inbound lead
generation, accelerate sales cycle velocity, and retain and expand its existing client base. This
playbook is co-written by two veterans of the B2B sales and marketing space, Boudinet Media’s
Jeremy Boudinet and OutboundView’s Blake Johnston.
The thrust of this playbook is simple: Launching an inbound B2B marketing strategy does not need
to be expensive. It does not require tons of money for Google AdWords and PPC. It does not require
that you spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on expensive events and sponsorships.
It does require the implementation of thoughtful content that truly engages your buyer. Use the nine
techniques below to build recurring organic traffic.

Technique #1. Dial into Your Target Audience

Every great inbound marketing strategy starts with a perfect understanding of your target audience –
your ideal client profile.

If your understanding of your target audience or ideal client profile needs work, then use these two
powerful, simple tactics to master and understand your ICP:

1. Make a list of your existing client base, enrich their data, and map their buyer journey.
2. Interview your best clients about their experience with your product or service intimately.
Phase I. Account-Level Research
This research starts at the account level, where you need to identify insights about the companies that
buy from you and start building a list of target accounts.
The Basics – Businesses often overlook tremendous value in determining their ideal customer profile
by neglecting to dig deeper. Within this space, you’re only discovering topical information such as
employee count, revenue, location, or industry. This is just a starting point, not where your research
should end.
Account-Based Research – What are key strategic priorities for the accounts you’re targeting? How
does your solution help them achieve their goals? What can the technology stack of your target
customer tell you? Account-based research gives you an extra level of targeting above and beyond
company size, revenue, and industry.
Buying Triggers – Which activities inside an organization indicate your solution could be a fit for
them? For example; at OutboundView, when organizations are hiring inside salespeople, it typically
means our services could be a fit. When a new VP of Sales is hired, that is a good time for our team
to reach out and discuss their lead generation strategies, because they’re typically reviewing new
sales processes. If we can tell a company isn’t getting any inbound traffic, that tells us that the target
needs outbound marketing. Identifying the triggers that drive organizations to buy is absolutely
critical for top of funnel targeting. Finding target accounts that are showing “buying triggers” for
your business should be the highest priority for your top of funnel outreach efforts.
Phase II. Buyer Research
Who’s your buyer? Not ideal company target – we’re talking the customer writing the checks or
using your products. We think about buyer personas in two main categories: Decision Makers and
Doers.
Decision Makers are the individuals focused on high-level, strategic outcomes, and are usually
writing the check for your product or service.
Doers are your users focused on the day to day tactics supporting your product or service.
Why is this an important distinction? Each requires different strategies to spark interest in your
product or service; but most importantly, each requires a different messaging to initiate a discussion.

Buyer personas are the first step in the sales and marketing process. They help businesses clearly
define who the key decision makers and influencers are at a prospective company. These personas
clearly establish who the targets are for your team. Most importantly, buyer personas outline the
specific value proposition, thought-provoking questions, and resources needed to lead efforts toward
an opportunity for each type of Doer or Decision Maker.
OutboundView has created a simple list of steps to follow when building your buyer personas:

1. Start small with a goal of 2-3 buyer personas

2. Think pain points – What makes your customer’s job difficult? Keep in mind these pain
points need to be related to their overall job, not just pain points your solution solves
3. Perform customer interviews and ask your buyer the tough questions, don’t just make
assumptions
4. Make them tangible! Create bio pages for “Bill the Buyer”, ”Sally Seller” and have fun with
it!
5. Think “Personally” and “Professionally” – How does your solution help your buyer reach
their goals, both personally and professionally?
6. Create a unique value proposition for each type of persona
7. End with messaging – As the last step in the process, build messaging that aligns with the
customer’s pain points and helps differentiate your solution.
To see who is engaging with and responding to your content, create an updated database of people
who are following you on social media and subscribed to your email list.

Add calls-to-action for your blog, events, and gated content on your website to passively capture
emails over time. Then, use tools like Clearbit or DiscoverOrg to enrich the data you collect with
detailed firmographic information about who your audience is and how well they fit your ideal client
persona. Another option would be to have someone curate the list for you by hand.
Doing so will enable you to build an audience over time and get maximum return-on-investment for
your publishing efforts. This may take a little bit of work, but it will pay huge dividends in the short-
term and long-term. You’ll learn which topics and personas to lock in on, and focus your future
efforts appropriately.

Technique #2. Create Epic Content in Two Forms

Content creation is cheaper and easier to produce than ever. But your time and resources are precious
– so we recommend fixating content on one of two areas: thought leadership on your philosophy and
flywheel storytelling about client success (referring back to your philosophy).
What is thought leadership you ask?

Two things:

 An annoyingly-named and often-abused piece of business terminology.

 Content that explains the philosophy behind the product or service you offer.
Once you find your target audience, you should use BuzzSumo or Ahrefs to find topics relevant to
your buyer that have high Google search volume and a high volume of social media mentions.
Why use thought leadership? Because like Simon (Sinek) says, “The best way to inspire action is to
‘start with ‘why.’’”

Think back to Mitch and Murray’s favorite acronym: AIDA.

Lastly, recall that people buy products and services (especially expensive B2B solutions) from
brands they know, like, and trust. Thought leadership builds trust and awareness and table-sets future
action from your buyers.

The second type of content you should create is flywheel storytelling – where you tell client stories in
evocative fashion by placing them on the Hero’s Journey.

In these stories, your client (note: not your product) is the hero. They are facing a challenge or
obstacle to overcome – and that challenge or obstacle reflects a greater injustice in the world.
Here, it’s important to build up your client as a subject matter expert in their field. Perhaps they are
an integral leader in a Fortune 1000 or high-growth startup. Perhaps they are a visionary consultant
or well-known face in their industry. Whatever the case, you should establish their credentials,
backstory, philosophy, challenges, and how they discovered your product or service. From there, you
can chart their path to success and use their words to describe your product or service’s role in
getting them from A to B.

To flesh out best practices for doing so, we strongly advise watching this great webinar Prezi just did
with Marylou Tyler, Nigel Green, and Stefanie Grossman on using storytelling to persuade prospects
throughout the buyer’s journey.

Technique #3. Package content for maximum distribution

To maximize efficiency when it comes to content creation, we recommend repurposing and
repackaging content as much as possible.

For example, you can turn a webinar with a client into a video interview on YouTube, a podcast
episode, and an article that can be shared in various formats across social media.
The idea here is expediency. Rather than churning out a bunch of unique, disjointed pieces of
content, you can turn one epic piece of content into a multi-purpose series of articles, videos,
and podcasts.
Remember – not everyone consumes content in the same format. The beauty of this method is that
you can create content in the format of best-fit for your entire audience.

To gain maximum exposure for your content, focus on the best distribution channels. For B2B, a
solid email newsletter featuring valuable thought leadership, industry research, and client-led insights
is a great way to connect with buyers and build trust.

We also advise supplementing email with social media posts on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook,
Instagram, et cetera, depending on how much time your ICP spends on those networks.

Finally, we recommend uploading video, audio, and presentation content to social media networks
like YouTube, SoundCloud, and SlideShare. Optimize the content for SEO so that it can be found via
search and gain the maximum visibility over time.
Technique #4. Create trust and credibility with consistent
output
James Carbary has built a seven-figure business around the concept of “Content-Based Networking.”
We found similar value in the concept of leveraging content to create and enhance authentic
relationships with clients and audience.

An important best practice for this method is customer storytelling.

You should foreground your clients in your content as much as possible. Make them the heroes of
articles and case studies capturing their success story with your product or service in grand detail.
Explain their background, philosophy, challenges, success path, and subsequent gains from choosing
you as a vendor.

From there, you should map the distribution of these stories to the audience of best-fit. If the hero in
your client success story is a VP of Sales for a SaaS company, then route that story to similarly-
situated prospects and clients in your sales, marketing, and client success funnel.

The bottom line is – you should always seek to route content to your audience of the best fit. Use
data and well developed personas to make this happen.

Technique #5. Leverage content to build authentic

relationships
Once you commit to a content-driven inbound marketing game plan, it’s important to know that
you’re playing the long game.

Content publishing pays back exponentially over time. It may take months or years – but you’ll see
it. Provided you commit to publishing steadily and consistently.

Let’s say you publish 3 articles per week – and two out of three posts feature a client or a key ally in
your industry. You’re setting yourself up for success.
Think of it this way – publishing 2 articles each week that cross-promote a client or peer leads to 104
goodwill relationships over the course of a year, possibly more if you publish content that features
multiple clients or peers.
Content creation is a long-term investment with escalating payoffs in the form of heightened SEO, a
strong database, referral-minded channel partners, and powerful press relationships.

These, in turn, lead to increased qualified lead velocity from content you’ve already created.
Technique #6. Build your brand on what others say about
you
Every brand needs to cultivate reviews and testimonials that describe their value.

As Daniel Pink and HubSpot CEO Brian Halligan discuss in this must-listen podcast interview, for
the first time in history your buyers have as much access to information about your company as your
sellers do.

In other words, your brand is your reputation. It’s not what you say it is. It’s what others say
about you.
Creating a committed campaign that incentivizes happy customers to review your company is an
incredibly powerful, worthwhile investment in this day and age. Whether it’s Google
Reviews, Yelp!, G2Crowd, or another vendor, it’s important to have your clients affirming your
value publicly on the internet.
The second component to building your brand is creating clear statements of philosophy, or why
you exist. This can be accomplished through published mission statements and consistent thought
leadership output that dials into your purpose as a company, which we covered in Technique One.
Last but not least, always be aware of what is being said about your brand across the web and social
media. This means using a powerful media monitoring tool to help you stay on top of real-time
mentions.
Technique #7. Serve the entire customer lifecycle
Content should serve the entire customer lifecycle – from first touch to renewal.

This ensures maximum value from your publishing efforts and total artillery coverage for sales
development, account executives, and customer support.

Again, we look back to Technique One. The goal is to provide content with the breadth and depth to
add value across as much of your audience as possible. This includes:

 Cold prospects
 Warm prospects
 Lost prospects
 New clients
 Long-term clients
 Lost clients
The broader the scope of impact a piece of content has, the better it serves your bottom-line. If you
are only creating content designed to impact the top-of-funnel, you are vastly under-serving your
audience, your company, and yourself.

Technique #8. Track and analyze the entire funnel

This technique is a critical component that should be applied to everything you do.
To get the most benefit from your content-driven inbound marketing efforts, you should use a tool to
analyze what content and channels drive results.

Invest in a marketing automation system – HubSpot, Marketo, and Pardot (especially if you
use Salesforce) are all great options.
Devote a few dollars to a content tracking tool like Guru to build your internal knowledge base.
Use Outreach, Cirrus Insight, or SalesLoft to send trackable content at scale and give your sales reps
the ability to see what messaging, links, and attachments get prospects to respond.
Keep track of the data-driven insights these tools give you. Then triple down on what is working and
fix areas that need improvement.

Technique #9. Emphasize process, details, and fundamentals

The final technique is also a ‘must apply’ for all aspects of the content-driven inbound marketing
playbook.
The key mantras here are to:

 Create transparent, consistent workflows.

 Strike balance between speed and quality control.
To accomplish the former, use a project management tool like Asana or Trello to keep your team on
the same page. These tools will also help you strike the balance between speed and quality control.
Being detail oriented when is comes to content means doing every little action that will help you
maximize SEO.
This includes adding alt titles to your images, using the proper text formatting with headers, et cetera,
and using an SEO tool (we love Ahrefs) to discover the best keyword opportunities for high Google
rank.
Here’s a high-performing blog post whose title was chosen specifically for its high search volume
(400 per month) and low keyword difficulty (less than 5 backlinks were needed for a top search
ranking).
Going the extra mile is as simple as emailing a partner or client you feature prominently in a piece
of content to:
 Give them a heads up they are being recognized.
 Gently ask if they can share it across their channels.
The biggest driver of content is the willingness to do these two things. Once you do, you can
guarantee a sound return-on-investment in your content marketing efforts to drive inbound leads.

Over to you
Ready to drive more leads across your sales funnel strategically? We’d love to know about your
experience!
Contact myself or my co-author for more information – or to let us know your thoughts about this
playbook.

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18 Outbound Lead Generation KPIs to

Track in Your B2B Dashboard
0 Comments/in Lead Generation /by Rebecca Matias

Not all marketing KPIs are created equal. Some are meant to be measured at fixed
intervals, while others have to be closely monitored round the clock.
In today’s post, we’ll take a look at the latter group. Specifically, we’ll focus on
several outbound multi-channel lead generation KPIs that need constant
monitoring. These metrics need to be displayed on your dashboard all the time to
give you a good grasp of your day-to-day marketing activities.

Tracking and Improving What Matters

In the old days, outbound lead generation used to be all about cold calling and paid
advertising. The priority was volume over relevance, quantity over quality, reach
over precision.
Today, outbound lead generation relies on targeted, relevant, and timely prospect
outreach. The focus is now on high-quality interactions and conversions.
This is why outbound marketing now plays a key role in winning new and repeat
customers, as well as driving results for ABM programs.
With its recent functions and focus, outbound lead generation performance is now
measured using a new set of metrics. These numbers include KPIs that track
campaigns on a tactical and logistical level, not just the strategic picture.
It’s important that you closely monitor these KPIs. These numbers give you a sharp
view of what’s happening in the trenches, and complements the bird’s eye view you
get from looking at other marketing metrics.
Here’s a screenshot of Callbox’s Pipeline CRM showing these KPIs in action. We’ll
go over some of these numbers in the next section.

Outbound Multi-Channel Lead Generation KPIs

Modern B2B lead generation campaigns are typically made up of a number of
marketing channels. These include a combination of outbound and inbound
initiatives.
An effective outbound B2B lead generation program includes:
 Phone
 Email
 Social Media (LinkedIn)
 Live Chat
 Remarketing

Phone

Phone outreach fulfills various functions in the modern outbound marketing

program. Marketers use it to connect with top-of-funnel prospects as well as
convert leads further down the pipeline.
This has led to an explosion in the types of metrics to measure the performance of
phone-based outreach campaigns, covering various areas like data quality,
activity/volume, reach rates, conversation quality, etc.
But the core KPIs to look at in order to get a feel for day-to-day phone-based
outreach operations are:
 Total Calls: This is the number of calls made in a given time (usually per hour, per
day, etc.)
 DM Reached: The number of target decision makers successfully contacted (also
expressed as percentage of total calls or positive contacts)
 Positive Contacts: The number of answered calls (also expressed as percentage of
total calls made)
 Success Calls: Calls which resulted in an appointment, lead completion, or any
target action

Email

Different types of outbound emails (such as cold emails, nurturing emails, follow-
up emails, etc.) enable personalization at scale in a lead generation program. That’s
why no matter what the naysayers claim, emails continue to be a go-to channel for
practically every B2B marketer alive today.
Email KPIs fall into various categories (such as deliverability, engagement,
response, conversions, etc.), but the important metrics to track in real-time
include:
 Emails Delivered: The total number of sent emails that didn’t bounce (often
expressed as a percentage of total email send-out volume)
 Opens: The number of sent emails opened by recipients (also taken as percentage
of total emails sent); what constitutes an “open” can vary from ISP to ISP
 New Email Contacts: The number of new valid records added to list (can indicate
how fast email database is growing)
Email metrics like click-through rates, bounce rates, and spam complaints are also
crucial KPIs to monitor. But these are best observed over time, since these tend to
be noisy in real-time.

Social Media (LinkedIn)

LinkedIn remains the best social media platform for B2B lead generation. LinkedIn
currently has 630 million users and continues to add users at a rate of two per
second. Plus, nearly half (45%) of LinkedIn users are in upper management.
Depending on the specific LinkedIn lead generation tactics you’re using, here are
the daily KPIs you need to keep track of for this channel:
 Connections: The number of LinkedIn contacts you have a first-degree connection
with (gained either when they accept your invitation or you accept theirs).
 Groups: The number of LinkedIn Groups you’ve joined and are actively
participating in (measures potential for reaching a targeted audience and building
authentic relationships)
 Invites Sent: How many invitations to connect you’ve sent out at a given time
(used as base for comparison with number of connections)
 InMails Sent: The number of InMails sent out
 Leads: The total number of LinkedIn connections that meet your lead profile

Related: Facebook and Twitter Metrics to Track [INFOGRAPHIC]

Live Chat

Marketers and sales reps increasingly rely on live chat to engage outbound leads.
Live chat is an ideal channel for boosting outbound lead generation results, since
it’s the fastest and simplest way to start a one-on-one conversation with a lead.
 To stay up-to-date with how your live chat channel is performing, make sure to
track the following KPIs:
 Inquiries: The number of chat inquiries received in a given time (useful to
determine surges in chat volumes and to respond accordingly)
 Appointments or Leads: How many qualified appointments or completed leads
generated via live chat

Remarketing

Remarketing is a fine example of using outbound tactics to turn inbound prospects

into leads. It works by targeting online ads at people who have already interacted
with your company before (such as a prior website visit).
This is why remarketing now forms a key component of the modern outbound lead
generation program. These are the remarketing KPIs to closely watch in real-time:
 Clicks: These are the number of clicks your remarketing ad receives
 Impressions: The number of times your remarketing ad is shown
 Click-Through Rate: A ratio showing how often people who see your ad end up
clicking it.
These KPIs are also ideal stats to test out when running an A/B experiment on your
remarketing ads.

Conclusion:

These are some of the outbound multi-channel lead generation KPIs you need to
constantly monitor. Of course, there are other important KPIs you also have to
periodically track and analyze, though not as often as these metrics. Keep in mind
that you cannot improve what you can’t measure.

11 Tactics B2B Marketers Should Be Thankful

for
 KRISTEN VAUGHN
 NOVEMBER 21, 2017
 Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
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  Click to email this to a friend (Opens in new window)

Being the week of Thanksgiving, it’s only right that we take the time to think about some of the
tactics that we’re most thankful for within the B2B industry.

It’s the perfect time for B2B marketers to reflect on successful tactics (and even failed ones) to
help guide more effective strategies for the year to come. Especially since the next few weeks are
likely reserved for 2018 planning, setting up client programs, considering business goals, and
even scoping out your personal goals for the new year.

For marketers looking ahead to 2018, here’s a list of B2B marketing tactics that have proven to
be the most powerful over the past year. Each strategy is backed with data conducted by a variety
of industry leading resources.

1. Focus on the Buyer’s Journey

Findings from Forrester survey data showed 74 percent of business buyers conduct more than
half of their research online before making an offline purchase.

Mapping out the basics of the buyer journey can be one of the most difficult elements of strategic
marketing. But, if done successfully, B2B marketers can gain a better understanding in all
aspects of strategy and campaign development.

This information can be used to guide essential elements of a program like the prioritization of
keyword research, orchestration of social media channels, and alignment of content marketing
development and distribution with buyer preferences.

2. Multi-Channel Approach
Findings from our recent report show B2B marketers responsible for marketing in a complex
sales environment were divided in the tactics that were most successful in generating quality
leads for their organizations.

This illustrates the importance of investing in multiple tactics to see what will be the most
effective for your target audiences and buyers. While there is not a single channel that everyone
can agree to be the most effective, taking a multi-channel approach and being open to
adjustments could be the best place to start.

3. Prioritizing Customer Experience

Marketers must focus on improving existing customer experiences and creating new ones. The
Brand Relevance Index, an annual study conducted by Prophet, surveyed 50,000 consumers in
China, Germany, United Kingdom and United States to determine which 750 unique brands
they simply cannot live without.

What do these top brands have in common? The strongest brands are the ones that truly make a
difference in consumers’ lives. While there are a number of ways to enrich the experience and
better engage customers, Prophet has determined the changes that make the most impact.

4. Account-Based Marketing
B2B marketers are widely adopting account-based marketing (ABM) tactics, and research
suggests that 74 percent are seeing success with it. Despite ABM strategies not being in place for
very long, it’s quickly become an all-encompassing phrase for highly targeted marketing
programs – whether technology or process focused.

5. Increased Video Content

As marketers continue to use more and more video marketing to reach their target audiences,
they are seeing greater success and increased ROI. A recent report from Vidyard and Demand
Metric discovered that 44 percent of marketers have improved their video marketing ROI in
2017.

Over the past year, we’ve seen video marketers grow more confident about the performance of
their video content on social media specifically. This could be traced back to the growing
popularity of video-friendly social media features like Facebook Video and Instagram Live.

6. Dedication to Content Marketing

A report from Chief Marketer recently looked at how marketing efforts like content and email
are contributing to leads. Out of all channels, marketers cited in-person meetings, email
marketing and content marketing as the top tactics for lead nurturing.

The growing dedication to content marketing is definitely something worth noting. Successes in
this area can be traced back to the amount of time and money that marketers are investing in
content.

In fact, 75 percent of marketers will generate at least three times more content than last year.
About one-third are already releasing content daily or hourly. By the end of 2017, 42 percent of
marketers will spend at least $250,000 on content efforts.

7. Revived On-Page Content

When aiming to reach SEO goals, marketers are finding that refreshing on-page content plays a
big role in their success. A recent report from Ascend2 discovered that 57 percent of marketers
say that on-page content is the most effective tactic when it comes to meeting SEO objectives.

While on-page content helps marketers meet objectives like increased website traffic, boosted
search rankings and improved conversion rates, there are still a number of challenges that
marketers face when it comes to SEO. Ascend2’s report found that marketers have the most
difficulty with link building and website structure in particular.

8. More Personalization
In 2017, personalized marketing has shown to be a solid way to create a competitive edge.
Organizational leaders continue to use personalization as a tool to better meet customers’ needs.

Not only does personalization benefit the customer experience, but it’s also proven to help
marketers improve their bottom line. A recent study from Monetate found that 95 percent of
marketers who increased their ROI three-fold through personalization saw a rise in profitability
last year.

9. Increased Analytics and Customer Data

The more customer data, the better. That’s the motto for most marketers as they continue to see
the benefits of utilizing analytics for increased customer data. In fact, research shows that within
the next three years, marketers intend to spend 376 percent more on analytics to improve
customer experience.

At the moment, marketers are lacking access to the customer data they need. And, 62 percent of
marketers agree that improving data quality is the most important objective of a successful
marketing data strategy.

10. Inbound Marketing

If leads and customer engagement are a top priority, inbound marketing is certainly a noteworthy
strategy. HubSpot’s recent research shows that 81 percent of respondents who primarily conduct
inbound marketing claim that their marketing strategy has been effective. This is compared to
just 18 percent of those leveraging primarily outbound tactics.

While marketers find inbound marketing effective, they still face a variety of challenges
including the relationship and communication between sales and marketing teams.

11. Social Media Marketing

 A recent study from Clutch found that 78 percent of enterprises see social media as more
important than other digital marketing tactics.

It’s worth noting that Facebook is widely viewed as the most effective social media platform,
with 62 percent of respondents saying it drives the best results. LinkedIn came in second place
(14 percent), and Twitter in third place (7 percent).

Final Thoughts
These are just some of the tactics that present the most immediate opportunity for B2B marketers
in 2018, but the list certainly goes on. I hope these ideas provide you with a good starting point
as you plan budgets and campaigns for the year to come.

Did I miss any tactics that B2B marketers can’t afford to miss out on in 2018? Feel free to leave
your thoughts in the comments below.
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