The mad dash to the end of the year is here, and marketers are working over-time to ensure a successful finish to 2021. Here are some insights to help keep you at the top of your marketing game for Q4 and beyond.
Conversational Marketing
As marketers push for more and more automation, push back by consumers is inevitable. Messages that don’t resonate get ignored, and as AI-powered chat-bots proliferate, those who can tap into a personalized touch and create more person-to-person interactions with their prospects will come out on top. Conversational marketing is a visible trend as prospects want to engage with the people behind a brand, and are turned off by overly salesy messaging. While a one-to-many has its advantages, nothing will ever replace one-on-one interaction to build trust and rapport. Creating a dialogue with prospects across channels and encouraging them to share their challenges and concerns without cramming sales pitches down their throats, is a great way for marketers to learn even more about their buyer personas to build effective marketing messages that adapt to changing needs over time. Great opportunity for telemarketing outreach exists as prospects are now coming back to office environments and are more amenable to engaging on the phone. This human-to-human tactic has taken on a new form as personalization in marketing becomes a must.
Growing Focus on Meaning and Purpose
It’s not surprising that expressing meaning and purpose are a visible marketing trend. Knowing your “why” and expressing that to your prospects helps differentiate you from your competitors and enables you to stand out in an authentic way. Authenticity attracts customers because nothing resonates more than sincerity. Coming from a place of purpose will help drive marketing initiatives to attract your ideal customer—those who are the right fit for your business because they are best served by your offer. Focusing on the greater good that your solution brings to your customers helps them to take a step back and see the bigger picture. This fundamental idea not only helps better position your brand but will take it to new heights as prospects adhere to your mission.
Events are Back in Full Force!
The fact that live events and trade shows were banned for the past 18 months has caused an explosion in demand now that they’re back. Events are literally everywhere and attendance is higher than ever as people crave face-to-face connections with other people. Organizing or participating in events is a great way to network with prospects and introduce them to your offer. It’s important that your post-event follow-up is structured so that you can continue the momentum you have started to build at the event itself.
More Social Selling on LinkedIn
Many people still underestimate the power of social selling on LinkedIn and, more importantly, the quality of leads you can generate (both through paid advertisements and organic outreach initiatives). Organic social selling is often neglected by marketers because it is assumed that sales reps naturally do it themselves as part of their own prospect nurturing, but the truth is that they often neglect to because it is time-consuming and undervalued by management. Spending time building a network of prospects on social media platforms like LinkedIn can be judged as unimportant by organization higher-ups, especially since it’s a long-term strategy to educate prospects rather than convert the instant sale. However, having an “always-on” approach and leveraging valuable content that you can get in front of your target audience consistently over time is the best way to ensure that your pipeline never runs dry.
ABM Market Intelligence to Set the Stage for 2022
Accounts-based marketing is the next best thing since sliced bread, but in order for it to be successful, carefully selecting the companies that are part of your focus list is of utmost importance. You simply cannot pull accounts out of a hat and spend the better part of a year targeting them. Therefore, conducting deep research into those accounts is a must. Now is a great time to start conducting market intelligence to understand the triggers that make an account a good target in 2022.
