Collaborate to Find Out What You’re Missing
Your marketing managers should constantly be building relationships. Not just with colleagues and clients, but with peers in complementary and adjacent companies.
These relationships will be incredibly helpful as you seek new lead generation sources. Encourage your team to reach out to their contacts and find out their results. What marketing channels are working (and not working) for them?
For example, we did this when my team considered sponsored tweets. We reached out to peers at other companies and found something surprising. We found that it had been a waste of money for them. They got very little return on their investment. That knowledge saved us a lot of time and expense.
If you’re not already, encourage your team members to network at conferences and events. Have them trade information with their peers at other companies. Make this a condition of approving their trip.
Another good practice is for each marketing manager to establish 3 peer partners. With these partners they can:
Polish Your Personas
It’s a best practice to constantly update your buyer personas. As a CMO, you are no doubt already making your organization do this. But have you thought to ask buyers about their content preferences?
Ask them questions like:
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How do you consume information? (For example: Do you read blogs? Do you listen to podcasts? Do you prefer to watch informational videos?)
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What were the last two sales calls that you accepted? How did they reach you, and why did you take the call?
With this kind of information, you can map a persona ecosystem. You can identify influencers, opinion leaders, and new sites and sources. You can determine a content strategy that plays to your buyers’ preferences.
Next, figure out how those sources are communicating with their audiences. And finally, determine how you can get your company’s information there.
Lower Your Risk of Testing New Sources
Finding a new marketing channel is exciting. There is high first-mover potential. But there is also huge risk. Your team must tread carefully to avoid wasting marketing budget.
First, approach each source rationally. It is easy to be swayed by helpful sales reps at lead source companies. Take the emotional element out of it – use ourMarketing Channel Scorecard beforehand.
Then, develop criteria to compare traditional lead generation sources to new ones. Determine what has made past sources successful. Then evaluate possible new sources against that scale.
Taking these two steps will help lower your risk. It will also streamline the process of testing new lead generation sources.