B2B Marketing: Case Studies Show What Works
It’s not a secret that content marketing gets results for B2Bs. But what do you do if you’re not a seasoned marketing professional or your business can’t afford to hire a full-time specialist who knows this ins and outs of marketing? You learn from the best, that’s what you do.
In this article, we’ll take a look at some of the top B2B organizations who are driving a high ROI with content marketing. The examples will help get your creative juices flowing so you can do content marketing like the big B2B brands.
Does content marketing get results?
More and more, as analytics and measuring gets more advanced, organizations are able to track the effectiveness of content marketing programs. The businesses getting results are those that produce more content than they did last year, have a documented strategy, and at the end of the day, successfully track ROI.
Who are these B2Bs? What sets these businesses apart from others is that first, they know their audience. From that understanding, they create content that matters. What they don’t do is create content just to create content. Then, they map specific content deliverables to each stage of the buying cycle, and finally, their internal teams are integrated in each stage of the content strategy.
Can you identify your business by these markers? If not, you won’t get the kind of results that
these B2Bs are getting.
DemandBase
A marketing cloud provider for B2Bs, the company invested in content marketing campaign to educate and inform customers about content technology to help them make wise investments. Employing a campaign that consistent of infographics, white papers, Slideshares, webinars and more, DemandBase generated an astonishing 1,700 leads, 5,000 Slideshare views, and $1 million in new sales deals.
ADP
Through white papers and an assessment tool, ADP set out to engage and connect with potential customers in their target audience. The campaign generated $1 million in new sales connections, with many of the new customers coming aboard within three months.
Logicall
Offering inbound and outbound solutions for managing customers, Logicall sought to improve its market position by establishing itself as a thought leader in the industry. Via custom messaging for salespeople that connected directly to the prospect’s campaign interaction, the company gained $8 million in new business from 2,000 businesses in its target audience.
Opentext
Based on in-depth knowledge of their customers, Opentext created an onboarding process that was personalized to each customer. The enterprise information management software solution provider offered a suite of assets to bring new clients up-to-speed and also up-sell and cross-sell products. As a result of the investment, Opentext identified 1,700 new contacts that led to 31 new business opportunities that tallied $1.8 million.
Fisher Tank
A long-time steel tank manufacturer, Fisher Tank relied on cold calling and existing-client referrals. As a result, the sales team was nurturing long sales cycles for multi-million dollar projects. Needing to speed up the sales process, the company turned to an online content marketing strategy. Revamping the website, integrating social channels and featuring free downloads, Fisher Tank’s campaign led to $3.4 million in new sales opportunities, an increase of 4800 percent in social media traffic, and 119 percent increase in web traffic. Lead conversions increased by 3900 percent and quote requests improved by 500 percent.
Xerox
Perhaps one of the most successful companies at targeting B2Bs with content marketing, Xerox was able to gain $1.3 billion in revenue with a strategic campaign that targeted its top 30 accounts. Via a customized magazine created in conjunction with Forbes, the company nurtured clients with business tips and a microsite that boosted email readership by 400 percent, increased contacts by 20,000 and generated more than 1,000 new appointments.
If you’re still in doubt that content marketing isn’t for B2Bs, these case studies should be evidence enough that adopting a strategic approach to marketing gets results.