Running Integrated Marketing Campaigns in 2022

October 22, 2020

If you’re targeting mid-market or enterprise companies, you can't rely on a single channel to drive engagement and qualified leads. Here we share examples of campaigns with solid ROI and show how to integrate different channels into a unique workflow.

The COVID pandemic has put an immediate pause on live events and conferences, forcing B2B marketers to quickly re-allocate their budget in order to hit pipeline and revenue goals. If you’re targeting mid-market or enterprise companies, you can't rely on a single channel to drive engagement and qualified leads. You must engage several decision makers per account on multiple channels, online and offline. Here we share examples of campaigns with solid ROI and show how to integrate different channels into a unique workflow.

 

Integrated Marketing

 

An integrated marketing campaign is a marketing program that leverages multiple channels simultaneously, while maintaining a cohesive message and objective. The difference between multi-channel marketing and integrated marketing is that integrated marketing uses all of your different channels for the same objective and with the same message. You may be running campaigns on Facebook, LinkedIn, Webinars, etc -- but the key is how do you make them play together? 

 

  

The goal of an integrated marketing campaign is to create a unified and seamless experience for prospects to interact with your brand. It is designed to ensure that all messaging and communications strategies are consistent across all channels and centered around the customer. 

 

Enterprise Marketing = Integrated Marketing

 

If you are an enterprise or mid-market SaaS company, you need to be running your marketing across multiple channels. In the SaaS buyer’s journey there’s multiple decision makers and stakeholders involved in the process, and the journey from prospect to customer can be quite long. If you’re not leveraging multiple channels to reach your customers, there’s a high chance you are missing out somewhere.

 

It’s highly unlikely that a prospect would see your ad on Facebook and immediately convert. They first need to become aware that your product/company exists, then they might engage and learn more, and then finally sit down with your Sales team. Throughout all of these stages, the goal is to have different “touches” across several channels. For example someone might (1) download some of your content on LinkedIn, then (2) they see your ads on Facebook, then (3) they sign up for marketing emails, then (4) you send them a nice direct mail package requesting a meeting, then (5) they request a demo. Meanwhile, you are retargeting these prospects across social media channels and possibly OOH/digital ads.

 

Integrated Program Components

 

  1. Target niches - which audience is most likely to feel the pain that you solve?
  2. Campaign theme and message for each niche - what is the topic of your program?
  3. Program goals - how many conversions or how much revenue do you hope to bring in?
  4. Campaign budget - how much do you need to spend to reach your goals? Make sure it’s realistic based on your actual funnel conversion rates.
  5. Channel selection - which channels are most likely to be successful at engaging your target persona?
  6. Program assets for each channel/niche - how will you customize your assets by channel and niche?
  7. Funnel map & timeline - how will your channels interact? In which sequence? 
  8. Program dashboard - what are the final results from your program?

 

Niche examples

 

Here are two examples of niches we targeted in our own ABM efforts at SaaSMQL. Instead of broadly targeting types of companies, we narrowed down to the specific person at a specific type of company, with a specific problem, and looking for a specific result. 

 

Niche #1

  • Description: CEOs and VP of Sales at venture-funded SaaS companies in the U.S. who have raised at least $5M and have at least 20 employees.
  • Current Status: Can’t scale pipeline predictably. Can’t engage with target accounts.
  • Desired Status: Generate a consistent flow of qualified opportunities per month for the growing sales team.
  • Solution Offered: A done-for-you program that engages and converts decision makers from target accounts.
  • Case Studies: Travelbank, Quid

 

Niche #2

  • Description: VPs/Directors of Marketing at venture-funded SaaS companies in the U.S. who have raised at least $5M and have at least 20 employees.
  • Current Status: Don’t have enough internal resources to manage and optimize ABM programs.
  • Desired Status: Scale ABM program and integrated marketing campaigns without having to hire additional FT employees.
  • Solution Offered: We act as an extension of your marketing team to launch and optimize your ABM program.
  • Case Studies: Intellimize, Side

 

Program Goals and Budget

 

It’s important to define your program goals ahead of time, preferably per niche. For example, you want to target 800 accounts, your goal is 35% engagement, and you want to book 65 meetings with a $5M pipeline goal. Once you have these goals in mind, you can work on the budget.

 

To define your budget, work backwards from your goals using your conversion rates. You’ll want to use these win rates to understand your Customer Acquisition Cost and make a realistic calculation of the budget you’ll need to reach your goals. Once your budget is defined, divide it between your target niches.

Popular B2B Channels

 

In 2022, certain offline channels are becoming less and less available. Companies have adapted to the circumstances by increasing their investments in digital channels, but that also saturates the market and increased cost per lead. Now is the time to get creative and try other channels. For example, Quora Ads are not as popular as Facebook and Linkedin, bringing the overall cost per click down significantly. The best combination involves both digital and offline channels, because while the digital channels are important, also having an offline touch makes it more likely that a prospect would convert. Below are some examples of digital and offline channels. Once you’ve chosen your channels, you will need to build assets. All of your assets should be consistent in messaging and branding across each channel. 

 

Draft your Funnel Map

 

Before launching your program, you will want to draft a funnel map for the campaign. The funnel map should match your engagement stages (cold, aware, engaged, opportunity, closed), and include all of your channels. Segment your channels by funnel stage, and visualize how they interact with each other. For example, your billboard might not directly bring in conversions, but if someone sees your billboard 10 times in 2 weeks and then receives a cold email or direct mail package, they will immediately recognize your brand. You can estimate engagement rate and conversion rate from each stage, and use that information to help allocate your budget for each channel. You can forecast your funnels using your estimated conversion rates and win rates.

 

Integrated Funnel Example - Organic

 

 

Integrated Funnel Example - Paid Ads

 

Integrated Funnel Example - ABM

 

 

Campaign Example - Brex

 

Source: ProductHunt

If you live in San Francisco or New York City, you have probably seen one of Brex’s giant billboards or subway ads. Brex is a startup that provides corporate credit cards for other startups, and went from a $0 to $1B valuation in just under 2 years, (valued at $2.6B recently). They spent $300k to cover San Francisco with ads on billboards, taxi cabs, bus stops, buildings, and more.

 

 

Source: ProductHunt
Source: ProductHunt

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

From the Founders: 

 

“The thing about billboards is you have to buy a lot of them to work, because marketing is about repetition. It’s about awareness and people hearing about you many times and it’s really hard to attribute, but a lot of times when we went to do outbound, we reached out to our customer, and we talked to them, they’re like “Oh, I saw your billboard already.” We had actually a higher response rate on outbound emails because we did this billboard campaign and that was super powerful.”

 

These out-of-home ads had an incredible impact on other channels. When the Brex team began reaching out to prospective customers after the campaign launched, most of them had already seen the billboards or other OOH ads. They also saw a higher response rate on cold outbound emails.  

 

But the campaign didn’t stop there, it also involved a lot of targeted digital and display ads that ran at the same time. These ads carried the same message and branding, and served as a complement to the billboard campaign. Around this time Brex also launched a podcast called “Brex in the Black”, which is “a crash course in financial operations” and one of the only podcasts about finance and accounting in startups. This podcast appeals to their biggest niche, the startup CFO. 

 

Rounding out these efforts, Brex also launched a webinar series paired with email marketing. These billboards, out-of-home ads, podcasts, and webinars complement Brex’s digital marketing efforts and help maximize awareness for the young company. 

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


 

 

  

 

7 Lessons from Brex

 

  1. Invest where there is less competition
  2. Think outside the box and go where your audience is
  3. Set a realistic budget (e.g. $300K for billboards)
  4. Mix online and offline channels
  5. Focus on partnership with bigger players in your space
  6. Create valuable content and repurpose it across channels
  7. Build your attribution model early on

 


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