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Very Small B2Bs Should Master a Few Marketing Tools
Organizations that are using new and new-ish marketing tools effectively have mastered them. If you’re like every other very small B2B trying to keep up with the flood of new marketing options, it should come as a relief to know that your greatest success is going to come through mastering 2-4 tools, rather than trying to keep up with the 20+ that you think you should be using.
Very large organizations, like Target Corp., have the resources to fully leverage every marketing tool available, but the vast majority of businesses do not. In the past, we spent a lot of time driving ourselves crazy by trying to incorporate every social, digital, direct, indirect, print/broadcast, etc. tool available. We quickly learned that the strategy turned marketing efforts into a Swiss army knife (doing a lot of things, but none of them really well) rather than a real knife (only doing a couple of things, but doing them very effectively).
A good tactic is to choose 2-4 marketing tools that align well with goals. And then have the focus, discipline, dedication, and confidence to master those tools. Only after you’ve mastered those tools and you get to the point where they are no longer working does it make sense to move on to something else.
Many marketing tools, particularly social and digital tools continue to evolve. Those are the best tools to choose because they keep you on top of advancements without a lot of relearning on your part.
For example, at Smart PR Communications, we are currently focused on the following for both ourselves and our clients (not in order of importance):
· Analytics (Google Analytics and Semrush)
· Blog Posts
· Email (Constant Contact)
What these four tools have in common is that they are very effective and they are continually updating. LinkedIn, Google Analytics/Semrush, WordPress (for posts) and Constant Contact have all demonstrated over the years that they take improvement seriously. The first three are unique, but most email platforms do update as regularly as Constant Contact.
We also chose these particular tools because they align well with the goals and strategies of most of our science and technical clients and these tools are all we can handle…well. Mastering LinkedIn and Semrush alone have proven to be difficult tasks—but the effort has paid off in results.
On the other hand, we’ve had to make some hard choices regarding marketing tools we are interested in, but we just don’t have the bandwidth to master right now.
The sad truth is that we LOVE YouTube. It’s on our radar and we are convinced that it’s an extremely valuable tool for B2Bs, but we just don’t have the time and attention to fully leverage it. That will probably change in the near future—especially as Semrush is taking over more and more of the functions of Google Analytics.
What we do have time for is soliciting recommendations, posting articles, starting industry groups, initiating discussion, etc. for our clients on LinkedIn. We have time for setting up basic and advanced analytics on our clients’ websites, reviewing the results every week, and adjusting marketing activities accordingly. We have time for creating blog posts that are strategically structured and designed to keep visitors on our clients’ websites. We have time for creating email campaigns that cleverly lead prospects through the sales funnel.
We do all of these things well and they bring results, because we are unapologetic about what we don’t do. So, if you find something that works, stick with it. Master it instead of jumping to the next hot thing. Any vendor you would want to work with will have the time and resources to help you fully leverage what they are offering.
For a no cost discussion of your situation and how we can leverage metrics-based marketing to grow your business call 630-363-8081 or email jeanna@smartprcommunications.com. Find out more about our Core Marketing Solution for Very Small Businesses
