Last bite of the cherry - smash your Q4 marketing targets

Joe: Hello and welcome to this B2B Essential Skills Week webinar. I am your host Brand Awareness Manager, Joe Ducarreaux. Today, we're going to be discussing 'Last Bite of the Cherry - Smash your Q4 Marketing Targets'. So Q4 is somehow nearly here again and the likelihood is that is going to make or break your year. It's the quarter in which budgets are stretched, reputations are occasionally tarnished and legends are born! With gathered a panel of marketing experts to discuss lessons learned and top strategies from 2022 to date and what to focus on for the final stretch.

Joining me to discuss tactics for Q4 and more is a panel of fantastic speakers, we have: Georgina Quinn, Head of Inbound Marketing at Lead Forensics, we have Rachel Hatton who is Head of Demand Generation at Webeo and we have Tess Parsons-Broome, Marketing Manager at Select Technology.

We'll be using the chat function all throughout the webinar so if anyone from our audience has a question, please feel free to pop it in there and we'll get to it if we have time. Let's get straight into it then. The first question to our panel is....... How do you ensure you are getting an ROI from the tools you have already invested in ? How often do you evaluate your toolbox and who is responsible for ensuring ROI? I think we will start with Rachel, let's come to you on that one.

Rachel: That's a super loaded question! How do we ensure we're getting ROI from the tools we've already invested in? One of the key things I've been doing with all of the tools I've been using, all the tech in my stack is really making sure that we are utilising the whole of the tool. I think that I have been very guilty in the past of getting really excited about a piece of tech and having loads of ideas about how I'm going to use it and how I'm going to implement it into the strategy and I can see if fitting in here and here and here, put our money in to it and bringing it onboard and then only using like 30% of it. I think that we are all guilty of that, we are all busy. So looking at the tech stack and thinking right, what are we using, what aspects are we using and how can we be using it better and more to our advantage. One thing that I have found recently which I think has been more common over the last couple of years, is getting involved with the communities behind the tech that you are using and then sharing best practices. Naturally the suppliers that we are working with are going to tell us here's XYZ of how to use it but the best people to speak to is probably the clients and understanding how they've used it but also the issues that they've had. So hopefully you can have a bit of a smoother journey. So that would be my top one, make sure that you are using the whole of the tool rather than just small aspects.

Joe: How often would you make sure that is being put into place, make sure you are up-to-date with how everything works together?

Rachel: To be honest, I think that I'm doing it constantly. So at the end of the month, we are analysing how the previous month went, what do we need to do to increase our numbers, where are the shortfalls. I think that leads in quite well to how often do we evaluate the toolbox ....that is happening constantly and yes there is a time when I've sat down doing my budgets towards the end of the year and I'm looking at all that tech and thinking right when have I got renewals coming up, what am I using, what having been using more.......it's happening constantly. I'm also getting feedback from the team as well because they are the ones using the software, so what do they find is working and what do we need to put some more work into.

Joe: We all use technology each and every day and there are not many pieces of software or hardware even that's not changed daily so that's a very valid point.

Rachel: There are always new features coming out, (inaudible) really stay on top of it.

Georgina: That's exactly what I was going to say, that was my answer to this question. Just make sure you are keeping on top of the updates and developments within the tools that you are using. I am also guilty of pushing out calls with account managers because everybody is always really busy but I do think that's a vital part of maximising return on investment.....making sure that you are putting the time in to understand how things have changed in the platform, how they are continuously developing it to make it easier for you to use and keeping up-to-date with your account manager. Flagging issues and experiences that you are having when you're having them and not 2 months down the line when you're still having them and you need to fix it. So definitely a really good point there Rachel, for sure.

Joe: Tess, I think you were going to say.....it looked like you were about to be jumping with agreement....am I wrong ?

Tess: No you are right. It's always really awkward on these things, speaking over everyone. What Rachel was saying is so true, the way I looked it as well is our marketing is still in evolvement since I started 3 years ago now. I find that with the tools we are using, it's really important to look at what your marketing goals are and how your marketing strategy fits in with that to work out whether the tools you are currently working with are actually still relevant or if they are going to be relevant in the future. That's the way that we do it, we actually in the process of refining our toolbox at the moment. I think the key thing is as Rachel was saying, getting really over excited about something sometimes but I think it's good not to be scared of changing and not to be scared of maybe changing to a different tool than what you've been used to. For instance, our marketing platform that we are using at the moment it's just not working for us anymore or our goals for the future. It's not really fitting in with what it can deliver and what we want to achieve from it so we are in the process of evaluating a different solution at the moment for our CRM platform. To what Georgina said as well, totally agree. I think being able to objectively review what is working and what's not, especially as budgets are going to be getting tighter for most people maybe you're going to have to cut some things out. So it's really just utilising what you've got to get your money's worth.

Joe: I suppose it can be quite daunting to be the person who says have we thought about changing potentially quite a large system over to a new platform, that must be quite tricky. Can you share any low-cost or even free tactics that you learn to maximise your opportunities from your marketing activity? Georgina lets come back to you for that one.

Georgina: It's got to be Linkedin hasn't it. Linkedin is a great tool to be leveraging from a content perspective, a brand awareness perspective but also for lead generation as well. Connecting with people on a one-to-one basis, people that are peers within the industry, people that use the same tools that you do, that do similar sort of marketing tactics and leverage the same sort of channels that you do. It's a great way to generate new business and brand awareness for free. So definitely Linkedin is number one on my list for that. Also website conversion tools, I would say chatbots, webchats, they are quite cost effective and obviously with website visitors that are actively interested in your services, you can expect a much higher conversion off the back people visiting your website. So definitely those two for me from my experience.

Joe: We had somebody on a webinar who said on their chatbot they put little silly GIFs, just to grab a bit of attention. Perfectly valid point and you're right Linkedin makes the world go around! Rachel, let's put the same question to you .......relatively low-cost or even free tactics.

Rachel: So I completely agree.... Linkedin. I think that Linkedin and Sales Navigator has come on in leaps and bounds in the past couple of years. It's integrated into all of our cadences and obviously just getting the brand awareness out there. One of them .....I don't know if it's a tactic as such.... but personalisation I think is so important. Just weaving personalisation into absolutely everything that you do. Things are tough at the moment, marketing budgets are getting cut, we're having to really stand out in a crowded market and we have to cut through the noise. We've been banging the personalisation drum for quite a few years now but personalisation goes so much deeper than the 'Hey @ first name, @ company name', it goes so much deeper than that. You need to be personable throughout the whole of the cycle whether it's inbound or outbound. I think that prospect data is so valuable so we are collecting this data all of the time, we need to use it in our outreach and I think that is one of the things that we think we are doing personalisation good but in a lot of cases we could be doing it so much better, so I think that's really important.

Joe: I've said this is previous webinars that we've had this week, increasing its coming up that tailoring the experience. We had Amy Kelly from Creative Edinburg on earlier this week, who said if you consider B2B you should really consider it P2P, person to person selling because people buy from people. Chris Murray also had a similar point on a previous webinar. His focus is that your website should embody your most personable salesperson, even the content that is on that website should be personable in that similar way. Tess, low-cost or free tactics, anything to add?

Tess: Definitely agree with what Georgina and Rachel are saying. Linkedin in particular is a great way to create buzz and generate reach and hopefully generate those kinds of leads. From Rachel's perspective, personalisation goes hand and hand with email marketing. Email marketing is pretty much free so if you're able to get people from Linkedin or your website signed up to some sort of form, you're getting them into your database. Nurturing that group of people, that's all about customer journey so not just one thing that can work as a freebie but all these things and how they work together. I'd also say for us particularly a big focus for this year is - from what I've learned from everything in marketing - content is king. We've invested quite a low-cost amount really and anyone can do this for free......creating good quality video content but you can then use these low-cost methods to get it in front of people and it's just really helping us to stand out from the crowd and be completely different. We've taken a bit of a different tack so rather than it being like this corporate, dare I say, boring techy jargon we've really tried to inject some personality in. Totally like Rachel was saying, that embodying who we are as a company so that's getting across to our customers. As you were saying, at any one time you are really only talking to one other person even though you are trying to get a huge reach. That would be my key way and sorry to go one but another one is Facebook ads which sounds a bit strange in the business world. Linkedin ads can be quite costly and we've found there's not huge return or not huge click through rate. We've got so much more engagement on Facebook ads, we don't know whether it is because the main time people are clicking through is between the hours of 10pm and 2am, so I don't know what that's about ! I think it's where people are kind of like you're not 'on' if you know what I mean, so you may be more inclined .........you know you're relaxing and an ad pops up and you're more likely to click on it. That's where we've been using some of our more fun video content and it's cheaper than Linkedin as well. So that's my tip.

Rachel: That's really interesting because as like somebody's prospect I get emails all of the time and my work day is so busy I'm ploughed every minute of every hour, I don't invest the time in reading the emails and some of them are really strong emails of products I want to invest the time to research in but I'm not doing it because I'm really busy. Tess, I've done exactly that, scrolled through Facebook and Instagram, I've seen something and I've thought I've heard of them and clicked on it, I've done exactly that. We're not doing Facebook ads yet so I might put that in my Q4.

Tess: It's much cheaper and you can be really targeted as well so you're not just targeting everyone you can be specific to location, type of business, the type of seniority, their role and stuff. It's as good as using Linkedin, we saw a lot more success with a smaller budget.

Joe: Videos are what the algorithms are demanding at the moment. Some excellent points, interesting points you made about Facebook ads actually. I suppose it's kind of like a pattern break isn't it. If you're out of the work mode context, between the hours of 10pm and 2am, if you then see something related to something that you're going to be doing for your work the next day or next month or whatever, it probably stands out more because you're not expecting to come across that.

Tess: You're used to seeing on Linkedin, sponsored ads and most people use Linkedin during their work day so you're not inclined to click through on an ad? I don't know but it seems to work for us.

Rachel: I've just got one other thing to add, I think is probably a rogue answer to free tactics but I think at this time of year it's really important to invest in the team that you've got. I've worked with marketing teams before, that we get to Q4, it's our biggest quarter and half the team are burnt out because the year has been quite challenging. So I think now is a really important time to invest in your team, make sure that everyone is happy, everyone's got everything they need and you're putting time into them because the better that they are feeling, the better they're going to perform, the better your campaigns are going to run. That's really important.

Joe: Personally, I think there's not much more motivating than being part of a good team. I think that's an excellent point Rachel. Georgina, we're going to come back to you for this one......Have you found any secret formulas to uplift conversions or is the only way to ensure success is to cede value throughout the customer journey?

Georgina: For me personally, in my experience, I would say once you have generated that lead and you've got interest from that prospect it's really, really important to conduct effective handovers. Manage prospects' expectations, kind of give them a step-by-step of what's going to happen because I've found if you don't hold the prospect's hand through the journey that you're taking them on, it can be quite overwhelming and you can blindside prospects potentially. So I think that's a fundamental in keeping solid conversions. Managing those expectations but also keeping them front of mind, so not ramming a time down their throat to see your solution, you're making sure that it works for them, it's a time suits them. You're preparing them as much as you humanly possibly can, you're doing your research, understanding their business, understanding what they want and what they need from your solution.....that makes a huge difference in terms of conversions. For us at Lead Forensics, we work to qualify....so we generate the lead, we have a qualifying process to make sure that is a viable opportunity for us, also making sure that our solution is going to work for our prospect. I think that a qualification process and that expectation management is really important to secure some solid conversions for sure.

Joe: Fantastic! We did promise with this webinar there would be actionable tips, so I do hope our audience is taking notes as you speak there Georgina. Tess, let's come back to you for that one. Have you found any secret formulas to uplift conversions or ceding value throughout the customer journey?

Tess: I took this question another way. Rather than sales conversions I looked at more marketing conversions so click throughs, engagement and it kind of comes back to what Rachel was saying about personalisation and I think it is a bit of a long game rather than a secret formula for uplifting conversions quickly. I think, from experience, there's not really a quick win; it's all about nurturing the relationship every step of the way. What we've been doing with our prospects and our current clients as well over the past couple of years, we've evolved our tone of voice in all of our marketing. So it's a lot more conversational, colloquial, less jargon based and much more focused on the end result for the customer. So it's much more focused on them and that's had a huge impact on our engagement and has encouraged more people in our customer journey and it reflects the kind of business that we are. So when they are at the point of talking to our sales team, they are seeing that our brand personality we've already reflected in all of our communication is the same when they talk to the salesperson and that's really key for us. We are quite a small business so we want to reflect that kind of on their level communication and in the past year alone we've seen .....just on our Linkedin, just the amount of engagement we're getting and then conversion through to clicking through to our website, we're getting so many more enquiries with the way that we're doing things.

Joe: So striking that consistent colloquial tone as you say is vitally important and again we're back to personalisation, seems to be that's what it's all about. Rachel, your thoughts on this.....any secret formulas or have you got to put the work in a little bit?

Rachel: You've always got to put the work in, there's literally no running away from that. One thing that I am doing right this minute leading up to Q4, is looking at where I'm investing the majority of my budget and how can I maximise that. For us, it's the website. We're spending a lot of money driving people to the website and its just being able to convert more people off the back of it. Sometimes it's, Tess is right. It's a long game like a lot of things. There aren't any quick fixes but there are some small changes that we can make to be more personal to resonate with our audience more, it just pushes them through the funnel that little bit quicker. So not so much a secret formula but I think really drilling down to where you're investing your budget and maximise it.

Joe: I'm sure we wish there really was a secret formula but if there was it would probably have been discovered before now.

Rachel: If anyone's got the secret formula then please feel free to share.

Joe: Yeah, if you've got it, text in....do share!!

Georgina: I do think that segmentation is a huge part in terms of conversions for sure. I think that is a good way to identify your ideal clients, what industries are they in, what functions are they based in, how are they using your solution and working your way back from there. Data makes the best decisions so I always find looking back through your clients, what industries they're in, potentially targeting set industries and specific job titles so that you can be super personalised. I think reworking that pipeline will definitely help with conversions as well.

Joe: Lovely stuff, thank you very much. We'll jump to the next question now. What determines which KPIs are meaningful insights for you to measure and do you have any examples of important KPIs or examples of vanity metrics at all. I think we'll come back to Tess on that one.

Tess: Obviously in marketing its kind of two fold isn't it because a lot of it is difficult to measure. There are some, particularly from a digital perspective, there are some real key ones. Obviously, we look at marketing qualified inbound leads, so that's kind of a key KPI for us. Something I suppose is a bit different, we look at our website and all of the metrics there and we have KPIs for particularly dwell time and our bounce rate because we feel like the more engaged people are on the website, the more likely they are to convert or make an inquiry. What we are actually talking about today funnily enough is whilst website visits or the amount of followers you have on Linkedin looks really great, I'm feeling more and more that's a bit of a vanity metric. Because you could have 1000 people from China visit your website but that's not going to convert into a sale so whilst its great to have increased traffic to your website you want to make sure its coming from the right places which is why we look at these more specific metrics, like how long people are staying on the website. With Linkedin, we look at our interactions and our engagement there, more specifically on click through rates, video views, impressions, that sort of thing. But actually looking at the amount of followers we have, is that really telling us anything? We're doing a bit of work on that at the moment to be honest as I'm working out what our KPIs should be within marketing right now. So email, open rates, click through rates and how we can maximise that down the journey as well. Linking in to what Georgina said, that segmentation and lead scoring on your database are key things for us as well. Think that's about it on what I was going to say.

Joe: In my background, in the stuff I do for Lead Forensics, I do video, social media, that sort of stuff and I completely understand and appreciate what you're saying .....yes having loads of followers looks good but having a consistent community that is constantly engaging, that's far more powerful than just oh look 1 million followers who don't do anything at any given time. That's a fantastic point you make there Tess. Thank you very much. Rachel, swing back around to you for that one.....What determines which KPIs are meaningful insights for you to measure?

Rachel: Basically everything that Tess just said. Probably just to add into that obviously ROI, cost per demo is a huge one for us at the moment. We are a growing business so we have cost per demo targets so we're always looking at what channels are doing better than others, what channels are costing us more than others, so that's a really important one for us. This is probably up for debate but one thing that I do feel like opens and clicks are almost becoming a bit of a vanity metric. I don't know what it is with Webeo's marketing at the moment but we're not linking our opens and clicks to our email campaign success. They're not really linking up, we're still tracking them but it doesn't always link up to our response rate. ROI and cost per demo, huge one and obviously MQLs.

Joe: Georgina, your thoughts on that one?

Georgina: I think click through rates! We run quite a few email marketing campaigns and we saw that we were getting really high open rates and really high click through rates but our conversion rates were through the floor. We actually found that a majority of our clicks we’re getting and our opens we were getting, were all bot activity. So we were continuously changing our content, we were trying to make it super personalised, we were relooking at the user journey and the user experience before we actually looked at where our clicks were coming from. It took us a couple of days to realise actually the clicks that we were getting reported into our ESP aren't actually clicks, they're not real. So I do agree that click through rate is potentially a vanity metric at some point. I think the most important metric for us is MQL generation because I think if you aren't looking at the quality of the MQLs that you are generating then they could potentially be a vanity metric as well. If they are not genuine, if they are not an ICP for you, if they really aren't going to get value from your solution or your services, ultimately they are not going to be valuable to your bottom line, to your business, they're not going to convert. So MQL generation is a big one for us, for sure.

Joe: Fantastic, so just a quick reminder that today's webinar is brought to you by Lead Forensics which is in essence software that tells you who is visiting your website and can even track specific journeys through your website, along with providing you with valuable contact information so that you can close more deals.

Can you share any considerations for Q4 specifically when it comes to making the most of your marketing plans? Tess, I think we'll start with you on that one if that's okay?

Tess: So I guess for us the key to all of our marketing is a strategic plan that we make not even just at the beginning of the year. I am already making the plans for 2023 and making sure that's in line with our business goals. I hate to not really answer the question properly, I'd say we are much more focused on the longer term rather than focusing on one quarter to generate leads. One thing I would say is what we do plan specifically for Q4 is really push our highest value service. So we're an IT support company but we provide many other managed services than just IT support but IT support is the one that is going to make us generate the money. We know that between September and November, for whatever reason, is a key time for people to look for new IT support. So we make sure that all of our messaging is focused around that side of the business and I would say that would be my consideration. Thinking about not what could be an easy win but what are things that you could push for, like higher ticket items. Yeah that's all I've got to say.

Joe: Fantastic! You seem to lose confidence in your answers but I think that was perfectly valid, absolutely great!

Tess: There's no-one else saying anything, so you think hmmmm?!

Joe: It comes back to that you don't want to jump in and it's all online and everything, no....... Thank you very much Tess. Rachel, back to you on that one, any considerations for Q4 specifically?

Rachel: I think analysis is key and like Georgina said earlier, segmentation ....refining your targeting and focusing on your best performing segments for Q4. We do break our year down quarter by quarter and in Q4 we go hard. Sales want MQLs, they are trying to hit their sales targets by the end of the year and I know Lead Forensics are exactly the same. So really focusing on those target audiences that you see the most engagement throughout year and really honing in on them. We've just started planning our Christmas ABM campaign and I know it's that time of year when everyone is getting the same stuff so making it super, super personal. That analysis not just goes to our target segments but cross channels as well. So what channels are doing the best and what else can we do with them? It's a really important time to work with Sales as well because we are trying to get them those big opportunities that are the slow burners but we are trying to get those quick opportunities across the line as well. So make sure that Sales and Marketing are working super close which we do in Webeo, we work really well together. We are not a huge team across Sales and Marketing so we have a really good relationship so we make sure we are super in sync because butting heads just wastes time in my opinion.

Joe: Absolutely, it's certainly not a time to be lifting your foot off the pedal at all, is it. Georgina, round us up with this one then, any considerations for Q4 specifically?

Georgina: I would probably say seasonal holidays. From a marketing and campaign perspective I think that Q4 is a great opportunity to be super creative and just have fun with it. So you need to think about how you can maximise traction by jumping on the bandwagon potentially with seasonal campaigns. As Rachel said, you need to stand out, you need to cut through the noise, you need to be super creative but we have an abundance of opportunity in Q4 to do that. So if you think about Halloween, we've got Bonfire Night, in the US they have Thanksgiving, we've got Christmas....it's a marketer's dream. But also for your teams as well, so Rachel I know that you touched on this earlier about motivating your teams. Q4 is like the last hurdle, it's like the biggest mountain ever and so I think that it's important to kind of inject some fun into your teams as well. So whether that be doing a silly Halloween dress-up in the office, not many people like to do it but once they are dressed up they love it. I think it just oozes positive energy and the more positive your team is the better the results are going to drive so for me Q4 seasonal holidays is number one.

Joe: I'm going to hold you to that Georgina, if you're not dressed as Dracula on the 31st October I will be very disappointed.

Georgina: I'm doing it, you've got it on record Joe, I'm doing it!

Joe: Okay, this has been a fantastic discussion and I've really enjoyed talking to you. If there is one key takeaway that our audience should implement, one key thing to remember for this discussion, the golden nugget of advice, what would that be for you. Let's start with Tess, what would be the one thing that you would want our audience to take away and action.

Tess: Content, create content that's different to your competitors, stand out from the crowd because everyone is saying the same thing so you want to be able to say it a bit differently.

Joe: .........and absolutely using video to do that as well.

Tess: Yes, video content. I should have been specific, yeah video content.....that's what we're doing, its working so well in B2C, its starting to work a lot more in B2B especially if you do it...... if you go on to our (full plug!), if you go on to our website or go on to our Linkedin you'll see some of the videos that we've done and it's just about making it a bit more fun. Kind of linking into what Georgina said as well, last year we did this really fun Christmas competition across our website and the amount of traffic it drove to our website (I know a vanity metric, as I said) but the amount of traffic that it drove to our website and the amount of chat that it created with our Sales team and our Clients, loads of people complimenting saying its really different and put a smile on their faces....especially at that time as it was still Covid heavy at that time of year.... It's that kind of like raising people's spirits as well and it's not just for the short term marketing, it's a long game, you've got to nurture those relationships.

Joe: Tess, thank you so much, that's brilliant. Georgina, one key takeaway from you please.

Georgina: Oh one!...I would say have fun. Have fun with it, motivate your teams and have fun. That's my one takeaway.

Joe: Dressed as Dracula on 31st October, that's what you'll say. Thank you so much Georgina and finally, last but very much not least Rachel.....one key takeaway from you.

Rachel: Mine is to personalise, personalise your email campaigns, your social campaigns, your website. Make sure that everything is personalised because it's a crowded market out there and you've got to cut through the noise, you've got to be remember-able. Personalise

Joe: Thank you Rachel. Thank you ever so much for joining us on the panel to all our speakers, it's been really good fun chatting to all of you. I do hope that our audience has taken away a lot of very useful information there....there was a lot of valuable content going on.