Targeted

B2B Marketing
Handbook:
Guide, Checklists and
Worksheets
 2

Table of Contents

Introduction 3

Targeted Marketing: The What and The Why 5

Checklist 1: Targeted Marketing Roadmap 8

I. Getting in Front of the Right Customers (Relationship) 9

Worksheet 1: Ideal Customer Profile Template 14

Worksheet 2: Buyer Persona Builder Template 15

II. Connecting at The Right Time (Relevance) 17

Checklist 2: Aligning the Buying Journey and the Sales Funnel 22

Worksheet 3: Persona-Funnel Grid 23

Worksheet 4: Lead Scoring Template 24

III. Leveraging the Right Channels (Reach) 25

Checklist 3: Pre-Launch Checklist for Multi-Channel Campaigns 29

Worksheet 5: A Planning Template for Each Marketing Channel 30

IV. Crafting The Right Message (Response) 31

Checklist 4: The Right Message/Content for Each Buying Stage 35

Worksheet 6: Basic Content Planning Worksheet 36

Conclusion 37

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Introduction
Let’s say you head marketing at a mid-sized IT services firm. Your team returns from a

successful exhibit at CeBIT 2018 with a long list of tradeshow leads in tow.

The list looks clean and complete, showing neatly-stacked rows of names, email addresses,

phone numbers, companies, and job titles from the dozens of business cards and nametags

collected at the event.

After adding the new contacts to your email automation tool, You then hand over the entire

list to sales. Reps then follow up on the leads with their own round of emails and calls,

sticking to their three-month sales cadence like clockwork.

But once the three-month follow-up cycle wins down, sales finds that their pipeline looks

pretty much the way it did before the show, except for a couple of hand-raisers they’re

still trying to reengage. Faced with disappointing results, the age-old marketing-sales blame

game then begins.

This hypothetical scenario happens to most B2B organizations, not only with tradeshows but

for the other tactics in their lead generation toolkit as well. MarketingSherpa estimates that

only around a quarter of contacts who submit their information are actually sales-ready, yet

more than 60% of marketers send leads directly to sales.

Even for B2B companies that follow a lead nurturing process, converting leads remains a

key challenge. In fact, an Ascend2 study finds that only 20% of companies rate their lead

nurturing initiatives as “very successful” at achieving the main objective of moving leads

closer to being sales ready.

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 4

There’s plenty of reasons why marketing campaigns or programs can go haywire, but these
Introduction

things usually tend to reflect just the symptoms and not the problem itself. In our short

example, it’s easy to spot two major flaws in the made-up company’s approach to acquiring

and handling leads:

1. The process doesn’t take the buyer’s journey into account. The linear sales cycle that

most companies still follow no longer aligns with how B2B buyers actually evaluate and

purchase a solution.

2. It doesn’t consider the different buyer roles involved in making the purchase decision.

There are multiple stakeholders in B2B purchases that also need to be engaged with in

order to win the deal.

In this guide, we’ll take an in-depth look at the four R’s of targeted marketing (Reach,

Relevance, Response, and Relationships). We’ll see how to apply each of these ideas to help

you achieve every B2B marketer’s dream of getting in front of the right people at the right

time with the right message through the right channels. In more concrete terms, here’s what

this eBook covers:

1. Targeted Marketing: The What and the Why

2. Getting In Front of the Right Customers (Relationship)

3. Connecting at the Right Time (Relevance)

4. Leveraging the Right Channels (Reach)

5. Crafting the Right Message (Response)

Instead of simply talking about guidelines and best practices, each section in this eBook

concludes with checklists and worksheets to let you put these ideas into a solid action plan.

So, whether you’re building a marketing strategy from scratch or fine-tuning your current

targeted marketing program, this eBook helps you stay focused on the customer segments
where you will have the most impact, as well as develop and implement strategies that

resonate with your target buyers.

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 6

Marketers have come a long way since the spray-and-pray mentality of the past century.
Targeted Marketing: The What and Why

Today’s buying landscape requires more precision and timing when it comes to engaging

potential buyers, and marketers are changing along with the times. As Think With Google

puts it, it’s no longer about mass marketing; it’s now about mass customization. That’s why

targeted marketing plays a key role in how B2B organizations reach out and interact with

their audience.

What is Targeted Marketing?

Although most B2B marketers now carry out some form of targeted marketing, different

organizations follow different approaches in how they connect with their customers—from

basic firmographic targeting all the way to engaging “customer segments of one”. This makes

it difficult to pin down what targeted marketing exactly is.

Techopedia defines targeted marketing as the process of identifying buyers and promoting

solutions using strategies that are likely to reach these potential customers. It classifies

prospects into groups, uncovers the information preferences of each group, then aims

marketing messages based on these preferences.

Targeted marketing differs from mass marketing in that that former focuses on smaller, well-

defined groups (segments) while the latter delivers generic messages to a broad audience.

Mass marketing remains pretty much a numbers game, since the thinking behind it is to

reach as large an audience as possible in order to generate a decent volume of conversions.

Targeted marketing, on the other hand, prioritizes quality over quantity by staying within

limited but more engaged groups of buyers.

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Why Targeted Marketing Works

Targeted Marketing: The What and Why

Let’s go back to our short example from the previous section. Think about what would

happen if you could engage the tradeshow leads in their preferred channels (such as the

websites and resources they’re already looking at), and reach out with content or messages

that are relevant to the information they’re looking for when researching about your solution.

That’s the power of targeted marketing. It lets you achieve every marketer’s dream of

getting in front of the right people at the right time with the right message through the right

channels—which boils down to the 4 R’s:

• Relationships: Targeted marketing lets you focus not only on the right decision maker,

but the right buyer roles in a decision-making unit (group of decision makers involved

in the purchase process)

• Relevance: Targeted marketing enables you to tailor different tactics to different stages

in the buyer life cycle.

• Reach: Targeted marketing brings your message exactly right where your audience

wants and needs it the most.

• Response: With targeted marketing, it’s much easier to generate the right kind of

response by making your message more appealing and engaging to the needs and

preferences of your audience.

Targeted marketing is the right tool for the new B2B buying landscape . Both the buyers

and the process itself have evolved. Buyers go through the purchase cycle in their own

terms. They’re now better informed, part of a bigger group, influenced by peers, and are

really into personalization.

It’s not surprising why study after study shows a strong correlation between using

targeted marketing tactics (such as segmentation, personalization, lead nurturing, etc.) and

a wide range of marketing KPIs (such as a channel’s engagement rates, to conversions and

revenues).

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 8

Checklist 1:

Targeted Marketing Roadmap

Now that we’re on the same page
on what targeted marketing really
is and why it works, let’s wrap up
this section with a short checklist 1. Identify who you sell to
of everything you need to nail Do you sell to a particular industry or business size?
down before kick-starting your Do you have multiple buyer segments?
targeted marketing initiatives
(as recommended in Marketo’s
multi-channel checklist ). This 2. Set your business goal and objective
also serves as a roadmap to for each audience profile or persona
some of the next sections in this What path does each profile or persona take
eBook, so don’t worry about not when making a purchase?
understanding all the items on
the list for now. These will be
3. Understand your buyers
explained in further detail later.
purchase process
Does your target buyer purchase your solution
immediately or does it take several months?

4. Define conversion funnels for your

business and your buyers
Different types of customers require different types of
information. This step ensures that you build a sales cycle that
matches each buyer profile or persona.

5. Identify the right message and content

Map marketing materials and content to the appropriate stage
of the conversion cycle you’ve defined.

6. Determine how you will measure success

Make sure that you’ve set clear objectives and that your
program can be measured from start to finish.

7. Outline and select your channel mix

Let your target audience profiles or personas guide you on
which channels to focus on. Use previous and upcoming results
to refine your channel mix.

8. Test and iterate

Use a test driven approach at managing and
improving your program.
 10
The Right Customers (Relationship)

Getting in Front of the Right Customers

(Relationships)

Targeted marketing allows you to engage the right customers by focusing only on decision

makers that impact purchasing decisions. On average, B2B buying decisions today require

the approval of 6.8 stakeholders , and these decision makers come from a varied list of roles

and functions.

This clearly brings all sorts of challenges for targeted marketing, but by carefully identifying

each stakeholder involved and understanding their needs, you’ll be more effective at reaching

out to your target customers.

There are a number of ways to identify and segment your marketing audience, but many of

these can become too unwieldy for B2B marketers (i.e., some segmentation techniques are

too complex that they tend to confuse instead of clarify things). Targeting based on ideal

customer profiles (ICPs) and buyer personas often get the job done for most B2B companies,

so we’ll focus on these two methods in this guide.

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Ideal Customer Profile (ICP)

The Right Customers (Relationship)

In B2B marketing, an ideal customer profile (ICP) is a hypothetical business or organization

that’s a perfect fit for your solution. An ICP outlines the characteristics of a company that will

benefit the most from what you’re offering. In short, it describes the type of customer that

you’re aiming to acquire.

Example:
Our ideal client is a B2B SaaS company operating in North America that has an engineering team of

at least 20 people and has more than 20 million in annual revenues. Their customer base consists

of small and medium-sized businesses that require significant hands-on training and support.

Here’s a quick rundown of steps to build an ideal customer profile:

1. Make a list of your These are current customers that enjoy the most success from
top customers. using your solution.

2. Gather data on Pool together as much information as you can about your
these accounts. strongest customers.

Find common characteristics among the companies included

3. Describe your top
in your list. Terminus suggests focusing on the following
customers.
(at the minimum):

• Industry/Vertical • Technology they use

• Employee count • Size of their customer
• Annual revenue base
• Budget • Technology maturity
• Location

4. Document the ideal

see Worksheet 1 at the end of this section
customer profile.

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Buyer Persona
The Right Customers (Relationship)

Although you can set ICPs to be as detailed as possible to achieve more targeting precision,

customer profiles can only take you so far. To really target your audience down to the

individual level, you’re going to need to define buyer personas.

A buyer persona, according to Hubspot, is a “semi-fictional” representation of your ideal

decision maker based on market research and data about your existing customers.

It includes details such as demographics, behavior patterns, motivations, and goals. Buyer

personas differ from ideal customer profiles in that the former describes persons while the

latter represents companies.

To understand why buyer personas enhance targeted marketing’s effectiveness in today’s

marketing landscape, recall that it takes multiple stakeholders to sign off on B2B purchases.

You need to engage not only the right company but the right decision makers involved in

the purchasing process. These typically include the following roles in a B2B decision-making

unit (DMU):

1. Influencers: These individuals have a persuasive impact on deciders because of their

experience or expertise (e.g., consultants hired by the company).

2. Initiators: These persons are the first to recognize and recommend a need or problem

to be addressed.

3. Gatekeepers: These DMU members can accelerate or slow down the purchase process

by facilitating the flow of information among decision makers.

4. Buyers: These individuals are responsible for making the actual evaluation and

purchase, as well as procurement and negotiation.

5. Deciders: These decision makers give the final greenlight on a project or purchase.

6. Users: These individuals put the product or service into operation after purchase.

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 13

An individual can assume more than

The Right Customers (Relationship)

one buyer role in a DMU.

Marketo recommends coming up with 1-3 buyer personas using inputs from

interviews with customers, prospects, sales reps, and customer support.

Each persona should cover:

Buyer Persona

Background Basic demographic and firmographic details

Key job details, including likes and dislikes about

Job details
position
Main sources of Where the decision maker does his or her
information research
What the person wants to achieve professionally
Goals
and personally

Pain points The things bothering this persona

Preferred content
How the decision maker consumes content
medium
Marketo suggests humanizing a persona by gathering
Quotes
actual quotes during interviews
Possible sources of friction during the sales
Objections
process
Role in purchase
see previous bulleted list
process
The messaging tactic that resonates with this
Marketing message
decision maker

Use Worksheet 2 at the end of this section to get started building your buyer personas.

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 14

WORKSHEET 1:
The Right Customers (Relationship)

Ideal Customer Profile Template

Industry

Geography

Size

Budget

Decision-making
Factors

Pain Points

Business
Objectives

Notable
Attributes
 15
WORKSHEET 2:

Buyer Persona Builder Template I

The Right Customers (Relationship)

I. Demographics

1. Are they primarily comprised of male or female?

2. How old are they?

3. How much money do they make?

4. Where do they live? (Urban vs. suburban)

5. What do they do in their personal time?

II. Personal Background

6. What has their career path looked like up until this point?

7. What is their level of education?

8. What are their favorite hobbies and pastimes?

III. Role & Responsibilities

9. What is their job title?

10. What are their personal responsibilities?

11. Who do they report to? Who reports to them?

12. How is their job measured?

13. What does a typical work day look like?

14. What types of skills are required to be successful in this role?

15. What tools do they use most frequently?

IV. Company Profile

16. Which industry or industries do they work with?

17. How many employees do they have?

18. How much annual revenue do they generate?

19. Where in the world are they located?

V. Challenges

20. What challenges are they facing in their job?

 16
WORKSHEET 2:

Buyer Persona Builder Template II

The Right Customers (Relationship)

VI. Goals

21. What are their career goals?

22. What are the organization’s goals for this person?

VII. Marketing Triggers

23. What types of events or situations cause this persona to

realize the need for a product/service like yours?

VIII. Common Objections & Questions

24. What are their most common questions about your product /service?
25. What are the most common objections they have about
your product /service?
IX. Identifiers

26. How do they prefer to receive information?

27. What is their personality like?

28. What common traits do they have?

29. Which industry terms or buzzwords do they use?

X. Segmentation Question
30. How would they describe themselves? The answer to this question will be
used as a drop down for self segmentation on landing pages — ex. “I’m a small
business owner. I want to learn about how to get started with inbound marketing”
XI. How You Help

31. How does your company help them overcome their challenges?

32. How does your company help them reach their goals?

33. What makes your offering different and better than other alternatives?

34. How do you address their most common questions and objections?

Source: Hubspot
 18
II. Connecting at The Right Time (Relevance)

Connecting at The Right Time (Relevance)

The B2B purchase process typically unfolds over several months and requires many touches

between buyer and vendor. In fact, recent research from various sources reveals that the

average B2B buying cycle has now gotten significantly longer and more complex. In order for

your marketing communication to remain relevant throughout the entire buyer journey, your

targeted marketing strategies need to take these different buying stages into account.

Targeted Marketing and the New B2B Buying Process

Findings from a 2017 DemandGen Report survey show that nearly 60% of B2B companies

believe the length of their purchase process has increased compared to the previous year.

The report also uncovers that:

• 52% say the number of buying group • 78% admit they spend more time
members has grown. researching a solution.

• 77% carry out a detailed ROI analysis • 75% indicate they consult more
before making a purchase. sources when doing their research.

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 19

Things look even more challenging once you consider

II. Connecting at The Right Time (Relevance)

the fact that the B2B path to purchase is increasingly

becoming buyer-directed:

• 57% to 90% of the buying journey is spent on self-directed research.

• 31% of B2B buyers want to research on their own with optional phone support; 10.5%
want to complete the buying process entirely unassisted, while only 12.5% want someone to
walk them through the process.

• 59% of B2B buyers avoid interacting with sales during the research phase out of distrust,
while 68% are more than happy to work with sales reps who listen to their needs and provide
them with relevant information.

All these point to marketing’s growing role in both the buying journey and sales process. Since

B2B buyers now reach out to vendors much later in the purchase process, marketers now own a

bigger part of the lead-to-revenue cycle. This means marketers need to proactively engage with

buyer at every buying stage by providing the information that prospects need.

A McKinsey study finds that Engaging B2B buyers at different points along the path to purchase

results in 20% increase in the number of qualified leads, 10% growth in new accounts, and 20%

reduction in the time it takes to convert a lead into a customer. Meanwhile, Aberdeen says mapping

marketing activities to the buyer’s journey increases cross-sell and up-sell opportunities by as
much as 79%.

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 20

Remapping the Sales Funnel

II. Connecting at The Right Time (Relevance)

Part of the reason why B2B companies tend to experience underwhelming lead and

opportunity conversion results is that the sales funnel they follow isn’t really aligned with

their target buyer’s purchase journey. When your funnel doesn’t fit with your audience’s

path to purchase, it’s going to be difficult to deliver the right message at the right time,

which defeats the whole point of targeted marketing.

From the classic 3-step buying model (awareness-evaluation-decision) to more recent buyer

journey maps like the AARRR model, marketers use many different ways to represent how

their target customers arrive at a purchase decision. These models serve as great starting

points, but to really capture your target customers’ unique path to purchase, you have to

build your own buyer journey maps.

Forrester recommends using the “Five W’s” when developing buyer journey maps :

You have to clearly identify what outcome buyers are trying to achieve, as well
WHY?
as the need or pain they’re trying to address.

Buyers’ information needs change from one stage to another. That’s why it’s
WHEN? crucial to understand the buyer’s context and uncover the questions at each
buying stage.

Buyer journey mapping also involves identifying what type of content makes
WHAT?
sense for a particular buying stage.

B2B buyers look for information in a number of sources and formats. These
WHERE? include the various channels in the marketing mix and other resources such as
influencers and thought leaders.

Later in this section, we’ll find out how everything we’ve talked about so far fits together

with a short checklist on buyer journey/sales funnel alignment (Checklist 2) and a template

that helps you map stages in your funnel with specific buyer personas (Worksheet 3).

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 21

Refining Lead Scores

II. Connecting at The Right Time (Relevance)

Being able to clearly map the buying journey goes hand in hand with the ability to accurately

gauge how sales-ready your target buyers are. A prospect’s lead score tells you where he

or she is in the buying journey and helps you decide the most relevant way to engage the

prospect.

Whether you’re only getting started with a lead scoring program or looking to improve your

current framework, Matt Heinz (CEO at Heinz Marketing) provides an 8-point guideline to

ensure your lead scoring model works for your particular targeted marketing initiatives:

1. Create your buyer personas (see previous section)

2. Identify a buying signal, trigger, or activity for each stage of the buyer’s journey

3. Score each buying signal or activity based on its relative value

4. Start with 3 to 5 segments for starters (don’t overdo it)

5. Focus on qualitative data initially

6. Get input and feedback from your sales team

7. Build a set of specific next steps

8. Track behavior and modify scores accordingly

Use these best practices together with Worksheet 4 to develop or refine your lead

scoring program.

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 22

Checklist 2:

Aligning the Buying Journey

While there’s no one-size-fits-all
approach at mapping the buyer’s and the Sales Funnel
path to purchase, here’s a typical
B2B purchase process and how a
vendor can align its sales funnel.
Buyer’s Journey Sales Funnel
Based on a checklist from
Align.me
Find New Names
Untroubled and
Unaware Position in Category

Identify Problem

Acknowledge Pain
Qualify & Prioritize

Establish Credentials
Define Needs
Define Needs

Receive Proposals Propose Solution

Select Vendors Prove Concept

Stand Out From The

Competition
Choose Single Vendor
Get Stakeholder Buy-in

Prepare Contract

Engage Deliver

Support
 23

WORKSHEET 3:
II. Connecting at The Right Time (Relevance)

Persona-Funnel Grid

Buyer Persona Awareness Consideration Decision

 24

WORKSHEET 4:
Here’s a quick and simple template (based on Marketo’s
Lead Scoring Template lead scoring cheat sheet ) to get started with lead scoring.
Follow the accompanying instructions to set up the template.
II. Connecting at The Right Time (Relevance)

Step 1 Create a blank Excel workbook with two empty worksheets labeled “Weighting” and “Scores”

Step 2 Under the “Weighting” sheet, specify the weights of each criterion (in percentage):

CRITERION Definition Weight

Company Is the prospect’s company in your target market? 5%

Buying cycle What buying stage is the prospect currently in? 15%

Contact How senior is this lead? 15%

What level of interest has this prospect

Interest 25%
shown so far?

Has the prospect taken any action to show intent such as

Activity 25%
download whitepaper, view webcast, visit website, etc.?

Recent How recently was the lead acquired? 25%

In the “Scores” worksheet, rate each lead against the ranking criterion. For each criterion, assign a
score from 0 to 10 (or any range you see fit) based on how well that lead meets the given criterion.
Step 3
Then sum up the weighted values (using the weights from the previous step). Also, assign a ranking
grade (such as “A”, “B”, or “hot”, “warm”, etc.) based on the weighted total.

Here’s what part of the sheet should look like:

Buying
Company Contact Interest Activity Recent Weighted
Lead Name Cycle Grade
(5%) (15%) (25%) (25%) (15%) Total
(15%)
 26

Leveraging the Right Channels (Reach)

III. Leveraging the Right Channels (Reach)

Now that you’ve precisely defined your target customers and aligned your sales process with

their buying journey, it’s time to determine the right channels and platforms to engage your

audience in. B2B buyers use many different options when it comes to finding the information

they need to make a buying decision. This creates both challenges and opportunities for

targeted marketing success.

Multi-Channel Strategies Drive Targeted

Marketing Results

Leveraging the right marketing channels places your message exactly where your target

customers are looking.

But to ensure your message drives action and response, you need to keep it consistent
across the different channels you’re using. This is where having a multi-channel
marketing strategy comes in handy.

Multi-channel marketing, according to Robbie Richards at the SnapApp blog , is the practice

of engaging prospects, leads and customers across a combination of indirect and direct

communication channels. It’s not just about doing marketing through different channels,

but integrating multiple touch points into a single, cohesive tstrategy. In a multi-channel

campaign, a channel can include a device, medium, or network.

McKinsey estimates that, on average, a B2B customer regularly uses six different interaction

channels throughout the decision journey, but around 65% of these buyers get disappointed

as a result of inconsistent experiences across touch points. A multi-channel strategy helps

keep your message consistent by combining (not just executing) different channels to enable

a seamless buying experience.

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 27
III. Leveraging the Right Channels (Reach)

Inbound, Outbound, and Everything Else in Between

In 2013, only around 36% of B2B companies were using at least 5 channels to engage their

buyers. Today, more than 95% of B2B marketers understand the power of multi-channel

marketing. The number of available channels has also grown substantially, with several dozen

options marketers choose from.

When there’s talk of multi-channel marketing, the discussion eventually gets bogged down

with the inbound vs. outbound debate. Proponents of inbound marketing tactics (e.g., content

marketing, social media, SEO, PPC, etc.) often argue that inbound is the (only) way to go since

this approach closely matches the modern B2B buyer’s path to purchase.

However, as Salesforce, GetResponse, and other sources point out, inbound actually works

better when combined with outbound channels (e.g., email, phone, direct mail, etc.). Since

most outbound tactics rely on scalable, direct, one-on-one interaction with prospects, they’re

ideal for improving inbound marketing’s precision and reach.

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 28
III. Leveraging the Right Channels (Reach)

Specifically, outbound enhances inbound marketing in three ways :

1. Promoting and distributing content

2. Building and cultivating relationships with your audience

3. Reengaging stalled or inactive leads

The results of a 2018 DemandGen Report survey reveal that B2B marketers use a

combination of both inbound and outbound channels. That’s because different types of

channels work well at different stages of the sales funnel (as illustrated in the next figure).

80
Stage
Early Funnel Stages
70
Later Funnel Stages

60

50
RATING

40

30

20

10

Email Website Telemarketing Retargeting Direct Mail Search Social Media Content Online Ads
Channel Syndication

While email clearly remains the top-performing channel for both early and later phases of the

sales funnel, the chart indicates a shift in channel effectiveness at different points along the

sales cycle. Telemarketing, for example, works better as a tool for converting potential buyers

further down the funnel, while search performs more effectively as an early way to reach

prospects. This underscores the importance of having both inbound and outbound tactics in

your targeted marketing program.

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 29

Checklist 3:

Managing multi-channel
Pre-Launch Checklist for
campaigns can appear very Multi-Channel Campaigns
daunting for most marketers.
That’s why you need to make
sure everything needs to be in
the right place before launching. 1. Set goals per channel
Do you sell to a particular industry or business size?
The following prelaunch Do you have multiple buyer segments?
checklist combines multi-channel
marketing best practices from
2. Create a Unified Presence
Kissmetrics , OpenView Labs ,
SnapApp, and Gartner . What is your campaign’s core message? Make sure
all your marketing materials provide a consistent
experience. Put everyone on the same page using
these goals support and align with your campaign’s
primary purpose.

3. Build a single, comprehensive

customer view
Does your multi-channel program allow you to pull
data from different channels into a single, unified view
of the prospect? Do all your campaign components
freely communicate and share information with each
other? Have you identified and removed possible silos?

4. Prioritize your channels

How quickly does a channel let you deliver the
message to the target audience? How cost effective is
the delivery? How likely is it that the prospect converts
via this channel?

5. Apply the right attribution model

Does your program let you accurately pin down each
channel’s contribution to the overall goal? Ensure that
your attribution model (first-touch/last-touch, linear,
weighted, etc.) fits your reporting objectives and
funnel characteristics.

6. Work with the right tool and vendor

Does your marketing automation platform or CRM
support your multi-channel processes? Have you
identified a suitable agency to handle part or all your
multi-channel campaign?
 30

WORKSHEET 5:

A Planning Template for

III. Leveraging the Right Channels (Reach)

Fill out this short planning template for each channel

Each Marketing Channel in your targeted marketing program.

Launch /
Target Persona Message Offer Goal Metrics Completion
Date
 32
IV. Crafting the Right Message (Response)

Crafting The Right Message (Response)

We now know that B2B buyers wait until they’re more than halfway through the buying

journey before reaching out to a potential vendor. By the time prospects contact someone

from your company, they’re already close to making up their minds.

The key to attracting and winning customers is to deliver marketing messages that help move

prospects down the path to purchase. That’s why delivering the right message takes up the

largest and most important part of the holy grail of targeted marketing.

Defining the ‘Right’ Message

Whether delivered through inbound tactics like content marketing or via outbound channels

like email, every piece of successful marketing message speaks to a specific person and

matches the context of a given stage in the buying journey.

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 33

As Jay Baer explains , what constitutes the ‘right’ marketing message will depend on whether
IV. Crafting the Right Message (Response)

it’s able to provide the information and insight that potential customers are looking for.

In a typical B2B purchase journey, the right message fulfills any of the following roles:

• Drives awareness by helping them understand what your company does and, in turn, let
you get to know the set of problems they face

• Promotes discovery by pointing them to a specific solution to the problem they’ve

uncovered

• Enables comparisons by allowing your brand to position itself as a trusted resource in the
areas that concern the prospect

• Motivates a purchase by providing everything needed to assure potential buyers they’re

making an informed decision

Driving the Right Response and Action from B2B Buyers

B2B buyers consult an average of 10.4 pieces of content before making a purchase decision.

The more costly and complex the solution involved, the higher the number of content sources

B2B customers review. According to a study from LinkedIn Business , B2B buyers want

both product information and educational (thought leadership) content. Combining these

two main content categories helps buyers:

• Build a business case for the purchase

• Compare scenarios and results from similar businesses

• Obtain buy-in from the rest of the stakeholders in the purchase

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 34

In other words, you need to have your message present throughout the entire buyer journey:
IV. Crafting the Right Message (Response)

from educational/thought leadership content in the awareness stages (upper funnel stages),

to product sheets and demos in the decision stage (bottom funnel stages). Getting the right

kind of response or action from your prospects means providing pieces of content appropriate

for where they are in the purchase journey.

While the exact content mapping strategy will depend on your audience and funnel

characteristics, the key points to remember under each buying journey stage are:

Here, prospects are only starting to uncover a problem or need. They

know very little about the problem and are in full-on information-
gathering mode. Awareness-stage content focuses on narrowing
Awareness down the problem and helping prospects define the need as clearly as
possible.

When prospects reach the consideration stage, they have a fuller

understanding of the problem but still have an incomplete grasp of
the solution. This stage is all about defining the full range of possible
options and finding out as much as they can about each alternative.
Consideration
Consideration-stage content should help prospects learn more about
how to best resolve the issue in question.

Buyers’ information needs change from one stage to another. That’s

why it’s crucial to understand the buyer’s context and uncover the
Decision questions at each buying stage.

In short, the awareness stage revolves around defining the problem; the consideration stage

focuses on identifying potential solutions; and the decision stage convinces your prospects

why they should choose you as a vendor.

The next checklist helps you identify which particular pieces of content to provide under each

funnel stage.

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 35

Checklist 4:

The Right Message/Content

IV. Crafting the Right Message (Response)

Use this checklist to develop a content

portfolio that’s aligned with your audience’s
for Each Buying Stage buying journey.

Stage Objectives Prospects Content Types

• Attract new prospects Buyers who are ‰‰ White papers

• Encourage them to educating themselves ‰‰ Blog articles
engage with your brand about the problem ‰‰ Thought leadership
Awareness • Narrow down the through thought webinars
top-of-funnel problem or pain point leadership content ‰‰ Infographics
‰‰ Social media posts

• Continue education Buyers who have ‰‰ Blog articles

process already identified ‰‰ Comparison videos
• Guide prospect toward the problem and are ‰‰ Case studies
Consideration value proposition looking to examine ‰‰ Feature-focused
middle-of-funnel • Identify possible possible solutions webinars
solutions and ‰‰ White papers
alternatives

• Showcase your product Qualified prospects ‰‰ Product sheets

or service who have chosen a ‰‰ Comparison guides
• Differentiate your offer solution but looking ‰‰ Pricing pages
Decision from competition for a vendor ‰‰ Reference checklists
bottom-of-funnel • Help prospect convince ‰‰ Case studies
other stakeholders ‰‰ Research reports
‰‰ Blog articles
 36

WORKSHEET 6:

Basic Content Planning

IV. Crafting the Right Message (Response)

Salesforce Pardot suggests using the following

Worksheet planning template each time you approach a

content marketing initiative:

Describe your objective

Who is in charge of
the initiative?

How will this objective meet

your business goals?

Potential Costs: Anticipated Cost: Goal for Completion Date:

Delegation of Tasks:

Creation Launch Maintenance

 37

Conclusion

We all know the holy grail of marketing by heart: to get in front of the right people at the right

time through the right channels with the right message. But achieving this remains the top

challenge for most marketers. Targeted marketing takes us a step closer to this goal.

In this eBook, we’ve walked through each of the key components of a workable targeted
marketing program. We learned how to identify and classify your audience, how to align your

sales funnel with their path to purchase, how to reach them via the channels and platforms

they’re using, and how to craft relevant messages that generate the right kind of response.

If all this seems a bit daunting to you, that’s okay. Most marketers think so, too. The real

challenge lies in putting what we’ve covered here into practice. So, take your planning one

step at a time, make sure to always be testing, and let results be your guide.

call or email us.

USA: +1 888.810.7464 NZ: +64 9.9143122 hk: +852 3.6786708

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Now, you’re ready to run your targeted, account-based
marketing campaign and drive the right customers into
your sales pipeline.

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Marketing
Consultation!
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