At the forefront of the most successful marketing campaigns is efficiency and strategy. Even with this being common knowledge, one of the most significant oversights within the departments carrying out these campaigns is the approach of checking tasks off the list in what seems to be a random sequence. This not only stretches your resources too thin, but it also misses the opportunity to engage more qualified prospects effectively. To avoid this pitfall, a more structured, backwards approach in both the planning and the execution stages is needed.
We’ve all heard of reverse engineering, right? It’s when we have the end goal or outcome in mind and we work on how to get there. This is the same thing when it comes to redefining the marketing strategy and execution. It begins with identifying and prioritizing prospects who’re already in the market and ready to purchase. This audience is at a weird part in the buyer’s journey, where the right message at the right time can flip them from on the fence to customers. The focus should be on creating content that helps them throughout the journey, but also resonates with them at this specific ready-to-buy stage. This small tweak allows us to know that not only are marketing efforts being done efficiently, but they’re also being done effectively to convert more.
Once you have campaigns and content flowing that targets your in-market audience, the next step is to make sure your growth engine is spanned out as much as it could. In other words, your new marketing machine should cover as much ground as possible by having the right mix of product marketing, sales enablement, and conversion-targeted content. This serves as the backbone of your nurturing campaigns, guiding prospects through the buyer’s journey (with content!). The journey should be seamless, and every piece of content they come across should push them closer to purchasing.
While we’ve built the end of this engine, the entire strategy should move backwards so we’re able to engage those who are sitting in the consideration pond – not ready to buy just yet. This group of prospects require more nurturing and education that answers and questions they may have. Once again, the content should focus on pushing them to the purchasing decision stage. How? Well, we would have to provide as much information and solutions as possible. By doing this, they can gradually be led down the funnel to become ready-to-buy customers.
When this is set up, we can then shift to those who aren’t really searching for any new solutions. This group might not know their needs yet. They might also not understand how a solution works for their specific needs. All of the content at this stage should offer tools, resources, and more insightful content so that the prospects are found “enlightened” about their unaddressed needs and how addressing them could benefit them.
Even though it’s a phrase thrown around platforms like LinkedIn, thought leadership content should be used at the awareness stage. It’ll allow you to make people aware of the problem that needs solving. This foundational content is huge when it comes to building brand credibility and authority in the industry.
Everyone focuses on the awareness stage first without having mechanisms in place to convert awareness into interest and then a sale. This is very similar to putting the cart before the horse and can lead to significant resource wastage — both in terms of budget and internal political capital.
By following the new, backwards approach, marketing teams can ensure that they’re not just checking tasks off the to-do list, but they’re also doing so in a way that maximizes efficiency, effectiveness, and boosts ROI. This allows for the allocation of budget across various activities, ensuring that every dollar spent is spent toward moving people through the buyer’s journey. If you want to stick to a mantra, stick to the following: doing things in the right order not only saves resources but also amplifies the impact of marketing efforts, ensuring a higher conversion rate and a stronger bottom line.