How to Improve ROI

Increasing marketing ROI is the top reported goal for B2B marketers for 2023. While most B2B companies have committed to spending more on marketing activities, simply increasing outlays doesn’t guarantee a better return. Marketers must develop data-backed strategies to maximize value and revenue and adapt to changing conditions. To help you get started, here are five ways to improve ROI.

1. Track Marketing Performance

Understanding how to increase marketing ROI begins with analyzing the performance of the marketing content you create and distribute. High-quality marketing campaigns result from incremental adjustments made through trial and error. You need hard data for specific KPIs to improve on your successes and shift away from underperforming content.

While the effectiveness of predigital marketing efforts has always been difficult to track, tools abound for analyzing traffic and conversion rates for digital marketing campaigns. Using platforms like Google Analytics, B2B businesses can easily mine a wealth of actionable data across marketing channels, with options to customize reports, issue notifications for traffic decreases, and automate email and post sends.

2. Develop an Omnichannel Marketing Approach

Over the last three years, the accelerated digital transformation has significantly changed how B2B buyers interact with companies to make purchase decisions. Like individual consumers, today’s businesses increasingly prefer omnichannel engagement through the devices and platforms of their choice. B2B companies that create an integrated customer experience across channels, such as social media and other digital touchpoints, achieve nearly three times the customer retention rates of those that do not.

3. Capitalize on Inbound Marketing

With proper planning, inbound B2B marketing assets outperform outbound content in lead generation 10 times over. However, attracting quality, purchase-capable leads takes more than periodically publishing keyworded blog posts.

To give potential clients value upfront, B2B marketers must develop assets in formats better suited to content deep dives. These include whitepapers, e-books, webinars, and other multimedia content that address industry pain points and emerging trends without jumping straight to a pleading sales pitch. Inbound marketing content that establishes authority as thought leadership directly influences the opinions and decisions of 90% of C-level leaders more than mass-market outbound content.

4. Empower Your Team with Marketing Automation

The high demands and fast pace of today’s B2B marketing environment can quickly exceed the capabilities of even seasoned teams. Marketers increasingly rely on automation tools to handle rote tasks and monitor traffic and interactions to drive productivity and get the most mileage out of in-house talent.

Examples of ROI-focused B2B marketing automation include:

Notifications for follow-ups after potential clients access high-intent content such as product pages and on-demand webinars
Personalization of lead nurturing email campaigns through the dynamic integration of customer data such as names, industries, job titles, content consumed, and various trackable online behaviors
Establishing lead scoring criteria with tools like customer relationship management (CRM) software
Enhancing ad and page content with A/B and multivariate testing
Triggering automatic rewards for customer loyalty and advocacy, such as completing a threshold of purchases or referring new customers

5. Attribute Sales Back to Marketing

The most direct measure of marketing spend is the contribution of marketing to the sales pipeline. Of all the activities marketing performs, this is the one that most clearly contributes to top-line results and ties most directly to ROI. Closing the loop between your sales and marketing efforts effectively links your conversions and revenue back to the marketing campaigns and channels that drove the sale.

Are you measuring your marketing campaign and channel performance?

If you’re interested in learning how to improve ROI or want to generate more high-quality leads to fill your sales pipeline – contact us today.

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