Sales & Marketing, SEO, and Social Media Tips fro B2B Marketers - Ad Victoriam Salesforce Simplified Podcast

Sales & Marketing, SEO, and Social Media Tips for B2B Marketers

Episode Notes & Resources

On this episode we’re welcoming back to the “Salesforce Simplified” podcast Vende Digital CEO & Chief Strategist Paul Slack to talk about about B2B Marketing trends we saw – and worked well – across marketing strategies, sales and marketing, SEO, and social media in 2022 – and how those trends will be evolving into 2023.

Paul Slack on LinkedIn:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/paulslack/

Vende Digital:
https://vendedigital.com/

Paul’s Book: “Social Rules!”:
https://amzn.to/3ct2T8s

Google Helpful Content Guide:
https://bit.ly/3FbtmoD

Learn More About B2B Commerce Solutions:
https://bit.ly/3dJ6nDD

Book an AdVic Salesforce or MuleSoft Expert for Your Podcast (Click “Book an Expert” Button)
https://bit.ly/36zKinV

Transcription

Speaker 1:

This is Salesforce Simplified, the podcast from Ad Victoriam Solutions. Here’s your host, Mike Boyle.

Mike Boyle:

I am so excited for today’s episode because we are welcoming back to the Salesforce Simplified podcast, Vende Digital CEO and Chief Strategist, Paul Slack, to talk about B2B marketing trends we saw and worked well across marketing strategies, sales and marketing, SEO and social media in 2022, and how those trends will be evolving into 2023. Paul, I don’t know if you know this or not, but you are the very first outside of Ad Vic person to come back to the Salesforce Simplified podcast. Welcome.

Paul Slack:

Wow, Mike, I did not know that. And I’m very excited to be here, and honored to be your first repeat guest. That’s pretty cool.

Mike Boyle:

Yeah, we’re thrilled. First, I want to tell folks a little bit about you. Paul has more than 20 years of digital marketing experience. As I mentioned, he’s the founder and CEO of Vende Digital, a B2B digital agency based in the Dallas, Texas area. He’s also the author of, Social Rules and Social Selling Rules. Paul is also a very sought after speaker in the digital marketing space. He’s been featured in Success Magazine on Fox Radio, big stage events, and has trained tens of thousands of business leaders across the country on the best ways to leverage digital marketing for their businesses. All that means that Paul is just our go-to guy to talk about the things that are related to B2B marketing and the things that we’ll be discussing here on the podcast, which by the way, will be four areas, as I mentioned, Paul. We’re going to take a look at some marketing strategy things, sales and marketing, SEO and social media. So let’s just dive right in here and get into marketing strategies. Let’s talk a little bit about what worked for B2B marketers in 2022 marketing strategies wise.

Paul Slack:

When you think about strategy, that’s kind of that overarching thing that says, “This is what we’re going to do and this is how we’re going to achieve the goals that we need to achieve as a business.” And so, when I think about it globally, some of the biggest things that I saw work really well and I think will continue to work well into 2023 is just having a digital first buying experience.

And what I mean by that is, really understanding our buyer incredibly well and understanding what it takes for them to go from recognizing they have a problem in their business or an opportunity, or a challenge they need to overcome, and what’s it going to take to get that business and that buying community all to the finish line, if you will, to enjoying your product or service, or solution and that outcome that they’re looking for. And realizing that most of that journey, Mike, is happening digitally, right, the sales rep isn’t involved until the very end. And so businesses that are really understanding that and then breaking down that buyer journey and asking themselves the question, “Hey, what does my buyer need at each of these stages and how can I give them that information in a way that they can consume it online so that they can self-educate and move through the journey? And then how do I engage my sales force and my sales team to connect with them when that buyer’s ready to move to the next level?”

So having that really digital first perspective as it relates to that buyer, that’s a really important thing. And then also just understanding that when we’re going to market and we’re advertising or promoting that information that those buyers need, that we need to take what we’ve been calling an always on approach to our marketing versus a campaign centric or direct response approach to our marketing. And what I mean by that is just simply, we need to be in market all the time, and we need to be in market with that information that the buyer’s looking for all the time. So top of the funnel messages, we need to be in market always on. Middle of the funnel messages, we need to be in market always on. Direct response messages for when that buyer is ready to take the next step, we need to be there always on because we can’t control when that buyer is going to be ready to say yes.

And so, businesses are shifting from, “Hey, I’ve got this eBook, I’m going to go run a campaign in LinkedIn or online to promote this eBook and get a bunch of leads.” They’re really thinking about, “I’ve got all kinds of buyers out there, they’re at different stages of the journey. I need to always be on, giving them information and giving them a pathway to learn more about my business.” So that’s a really big trend that we’re seeing as working in 2022 that will also continue to work in 2023. And I think we can get into some of those tactics here in a little bit. But Mike, one thing I was thinking about is, we’ve got this framework that we call our Demand Gen framework. And when you think about strategy, it’s always good to just think about, what are these key pillars, if you will, that a buyer or a company needs to think about to get buyers through their buying journey? And it might be helpful if we just kind of talk through that, if that’s okay.

Mike Boyle:

Oh, absolutely. Go for it.

Paul Slack:

So there’s four pillars to our framework. The first pillar is planning. The second pillar is activate your audience. The third pillar is established authority. And the fourth pillar is nurture relationships. And so, when we think about being successful next year, really our goals should be to get better at each of those. And so from a planning perspective, what we’re finding that we need to really get better at, that B2B companies really need to focus on, is dialing in their ICP, who are their customers, the very best ones that they can serve the absolute best. So not necessarily trying to sell to everybody that can buy your product or service, but really dialing in who can we serve the best? And then from there, actually segmenting that buyer down to the influencer, decision-maker, all those different people so that you can add segmentation and personalization to your marketing and messaging. So that’s a big one.

And then moving on to activate your audience. What we mean by that is, simply understanding where your customer is going to learn and where are they hanging out online, because if they’re on their own kind of self-guided journey, and that’s why digital first is so important, we need to know where they’re going online. And we need to be there too, and we need to make sure that we’re helping them along their journey. And some of the things that we’re finding are really helpful for activating your audience is just doubling down on content marketing. And we can get more into this a little bit later, but you know what we call the three Rs of content marketing, mike, refresh your content, repurpose your content and reformat your content. We can’t think about our websites as being the place where all of our information lives anymore, we’ve got to think about, “How do we get our great information outside of our website into those places where we can activate our audience?” So that’s a big trend that we’re seeing, is companies really just kind of doubling down, taking their good information, getting it out there in the right formats and the right channels.

Another big activate your audience opportunity we see and we’re starting to see more B2B companies do it, and you know what, Mike, we’re actually doing it right now, and that is podcast guesting. I cannot tell you how valuable getting your key subject-matter experts out there on the podcast circuit might be, because you’ve got companies like Ad Vic right here doing podcasts as a way of getting really great content out there for their audiences. And the thing about that is, you can get your subject-matter experts on the podcast circuit. So maybe you’re not ready to start your own podcast, but one thing you can do in 2023 is have your subject-matter experts start guesting on great podcasts like the Salesforce Simplified podcast.

Mike Boyle:

Check is in the mail.

Ad Victoriam Solutions
Ad Victoriam Solutions helps companies bridge the gap between technology and business insights for greater efficiencies. We can turn even the most complex problems into smart solutions that help businesses perform better and achieve more. We’re cloud and data experts who work across a spectrum of leading-edge applications and technologies to help companies solve critical IT problems - quickly, simply and efficiently.