In our last post, we covered how personal and professional Facebook profiles impact your mortgage business. Now, let’s look at a common gap: using well-crafted content to drive engagement and capture valuable leads. 

Most mortgage pros underestimate how much high-quality, strategic content can achieve on Facebook. Some overlook the platform entirely, while others post sporadically, hoping something will stick. But without a focused approach, posts often fall flat, missing opportunities to connect with potential clients, build trust, and convert engagement into leads. 

Content isn’t just a “nice-to-have” anymore—it’s essential for audience engagement and lead generation, and Facebook is the ideal place to put it to work. 

By using Facebook’s Professional Profile mode, you’re not just posting; you’re building a direct line to potential clients. This isn’t about boosting likes—it’s about creating content that drives interest, builds trust, and opens doors for your business. 

AI-Powered Social Media Content – See Demo Now!

Let’s break down how to turn content into an engagement engine that grows your audience and positions you as a leader in the mortgage space. 

Maximize Content Potential: How Facebook’s Professional Profile Drives Engagement & Visibility 

Here’s how Facebook’s Professional Profile helps you maximize the impact of every post. 

Facebook’s Algorithm Prioritizes Content Shared from Professional Profiles 

When you post with a Professional Profile, Facebook’s algorithm gives your content a visibility boost, which means more eyes on your posts and a better chance of showing up in newsfeeds. 

This wider reach helps you engage with a larger audience of potential borrowers while building authority in your market. By sharing relevant, insightful content, you’re positioning yourself as a go-to expert that borrowers can trust, which not only strengthens engagement but also builds brand loyalty. 

Reach Beyond Followers with Local and Topic-Specific Content 

Facebook’s algorithm is designed to prioritize content that’s both relevant and local, so your reach goes well beyond just your friends and followers.  

Mortgage professionals can leverage this by creating posts that directly address local market trends, common mortgage questions, and specific borrower concerns in their area. When you focus on localized content, Facebook’s algorithm steps in to put your posts in front of people who may not yet follow you but are nearby and interested in mortgage-related topics.  

It’s an easy way to connect with the right people at the right time—expanding your reach and building an audience that’s primed for engagement. 

Turn Engagement into Insight for Smarter Content Strategy 

Content sharing is like a conversation. When you share, Facebook gives you data-driven feedback on which posts hit the mark, who’s engaging, and what topics resonate.  

These insights are pure gold for shaping your future strategy. You’re not just throwing posts into the void—you’re learning exactly what potential clients care about and using that information to fine-tune your content. Each post becomes part of a cycle: share, learn, refine, and re-engage. Over time, this approach keeps your messaging relevant, your audience engaged, and your strategy consistently aligned with what works best. 

Types of Content to Share on Facebook’s Professional Profile 

Now that we’ve covered how crucial content is for increasing visibility on Facebook, let’s dive into the types of content that will get you the best results.  

Not all posts are created equal—some content types are simply better at sparking engagement, establishing authority, and connecting with the right audience. Here are the top content types to focus on: 

Expertise and Educational Content 

To stand out, focus on sharing content that’s specific to your niche and aligns directly with the unique needs of your audience. Instead of general mortgage advice, zero in on the areas where you bring the most value—whether that’s first-time homebuyer guidance, navigating VA loans with low credit, or offering insights into mortgage options for self-employed or gig workers.  

By tailoring your content to your specialty, you’re not only showing your expertise but also creating content that resonates with the exact people you’re looking to connect with.  

This approach strengthens trust, reinforces your authority, and makes it clear to potential clients why you’re the expert they need. 

Geo-Targeted Content for Local Audiences 

Local relevance is a powerful way to connect with your audience, and Facebook’s algorithm loves it. When you share content focused on local housing trends, unique homebuyer programs in your area, or shout-outs to real estate partners, you’re not just providing useful information—you’re creating a community connection.  

Geo-targeted content helps you stand out by making your posts feel personal and relevant, particularly to those interested in local real estate.  

By addressing your audience’s specific needs and interests, you make it easier for potential borrowers to see you as their go-to resource for navigating the local market. 

Trending News and Opinion Posts 

Staying current with mortgage and real estate news adds relevance and authority to your profile. Sharing insights on trending topics—such as interest rate changes or new mortgage

regulations—positions you as a knowledgeable resource on timely issues that impact your audience.  

By adding your own expert opinion, you’re not just sharing information; you’re guiding clients through the noise, helping them understand what these developments mean for their own buying or refinancing decisions.  

This type of content not only drives engagement but also builds trust, as clients come to rely on you for clear, insightful analysis of the latest industry trends. 

Interactive Content 

If you want more people to engage with your content, ask them to! Interactive posts, like polls, Q&A sessions, or prompts for users to share their own homeownership stories, make it easy for followers to jump in and participate.  

Interactive content fosters a two-way relationship, inviting your audience to feel like part of a community rather than just passive observers. Not only does this increase engagement rates, but it also boosts your posts’ visibility, as Facebook prioritizes content that drives conversation.  

It’s an effective way to build both reach and a dedicated following interested in what you have to say. 

Client Success Stories 

Nothing resonates more with potential clients than real stories of people who have successfully navigated the mortgage process with your help. Sharing client success stories, such as testimonials or brief case studies, adds a personal touch and builds credibility.  

This type of content highlights your dedication and expertise in action, showing prospective clients that you’re not just knowledgeable—you’re effective. Plus, success stories make your profile relatable and encourage others to envision a successful journey of their own. 

Built for Online Marketing – Demo LHP3

How LHP3 Simplifies Content Creation for Mortgage Pros 

Creating engaging, valuable content doesn’t have to be a time-consuming process.  

LHP3’s suite of tools is designed to make content creation easy and effective, allowing mortgage professionals to build their online presence and attract new clients without the stress.  

Whether you’re crafting an in-depth educational blog post or sharing a quick update on the latest buyer assistance program, LHP3 makes it fast and easy, helping you focus on connecting with your audience and generating leads. 

Weekly Blog Content + AI Assistance 

Keeping fresh, relevant content on your website has never been easier. With LHP3’s AI-assisted blog writer, you can create original, customized posts that speak directly to your audience’s needs—all in a fraction of the time. Each AI-generated blog comes with built-in lead capture forms, turning each reader into a potential client with minimal effort on your part. 

Looking for a more hands-off approach? LHP3 also takes care of consistency for you, publishing a professional, informative blog post each week. These ready-made posts keep your audience engaged and position you as a trusted resource in the mortgage industry. Whether you’re short on time or looking for extra support, LHP3 provides the flexibility and efficiency you need to build an impactful content strategy without the stress. 

Ready-Made & AI-Assisted Social Media Posts 

Consistency is key on social media, but creating engaging posts every day can be a challenge. With LHP3’s social media program, staying active on your profile is easier than ever. You’ll have access to a full library of pre-made posts covering essential mortgage topics, from homebuyer tips to market insights, so you’re never scrambling for content—even on the busiest days. Each post includes a built-in lead capture form, turning every share into a potential client touchpoint that drives results. 

Need content that’s even more tailored to your brand? LHP3 offers an upgrade to an AI-assisted social media post writer, allowing you to generate unique, brand-specific posts in seconds.  

This tool gives you the power to create engaging, on-brand content that resonates with your audience and keeps them coming back for more. With LHP3, you can maintain a strong, professional presence on social media while focusing on what you do best—connecting with clients and growing your business. 

Quick Start: Steps to Build Your Facebook Audience Today 

Getting started on Facebook doesn’t have to be complicated. With these quick steps, you’ll be set up to grow your audience, share content that resonates, and turn views into leads fast. 

1. Set Up Professional Mode

Setting up Professional Mode is quick and easy. If you’re unfamiliar, check out the setup guide from our previous post to get started. 

2. Share Ready-Made Content

Quickly boost your Facebook presence by sharing ready-made content and adding your expertise in the captions. Tailor it to your local market with relevant details or hashtags—an easy way to stay active and connect with your audience as the go-to local expert. 

3. Use LHP3 for Custom Content

Use the AI-assisted blog writer or social media creator to make content creation fast and effective. With just a few clicks, you’ll have tailored, valuable posts that engage your audience—freeing you up to focus on what matters most: building client relationships and growing your business. 

Ready to Transform Your Facebook Reach? Watch LHP3 in Action! 

Building an engaged Facebook audience is easier than you think—especially with LHP3’s powerful content tools in your corner. With ready-made posts, AI-powered customization, and streamlined lead capture, you’re set to boost visibility and connect with potential clients fast. 

Want to see how it all works? Watch our short video and discover how LHP3 can take your Facebook engagement to the next level! 

Social Media Simplified – See LHP3 in Action

Leading companies are focused on creating stronger customer experiences that span multiple channels and feel cohesive and meaningful to end-users. But many teams struggle to effectively combine legacy tools and emerging technologies required to build effective omnichannel experiences.

Autodesk partnered with ActionIQ to develop a future-proof stack that would empower a self-service approach to achieving superior omnichannel CX. Join this virtual session to learn how you can accelerate your approach to mastering omnichannel customer journeys.

Register today for “Is Your Marketing Stack Ready for Omnichannel CX?” presented by ActionIQ.

The post Accelerate customer journey automation with this CDP roadmap appeared first on Search Engine Land.

You’ve heard about the results companies are getting with account-based marketing (ABM) and you want to know what it will take to make it work for you. In particular, will it fit in your budget?

Like any digital marketing campaign, the cost of running ABM campaigns consists of multiple components with multiple line items within each component. ABM components include your tech stack, assets, channels, and the expertise to execute and orchestrate everything. What can you expect to spend on each? What variables come into play? What kind of return can you expect from your investment?

Let’s break it all down.

How to think about ABM budgets

You may have seen the Forrester report that found the average annual ABM budget is around $350,000 (excluding headcount costs) and pilot campaigns around $200,000. It found more mature programs with proven value have budgets of around $600,000, and budgets for established programs at large enterprises can run into the millions.

While these averages are a good jumping-off point, smaller organizations shouldn’t be put off by the price tag before learning more, and corporations of any size should keep in mind these findings may have already changed. Forrester found that 70 percent of organizations expected the average cost to rise.

The best way to think about ABM budgets is to understand its components, your ICP priorities, and the right budgeting methodology.

Start by understanding ABM components

Tools, processes, and people — like any digital endeavor, you need all three to run ABM campaigns. ABM components include: 

• Strategy development 
• Tech stack
• Asset creation
• Paid ad channels 
• Expertise to run campaigns and analyze results 

The number of accounts and individuals within those accounts you want to target also drives your budget.  

Determine the relative importance of insight and engagement

Are you primarily looking for insight or engagement from your ideal client persona (ICP)? 

If you want to better understand your visitors’ intent and pain points, you’ll want to allocate more of your budget for insight. You’ll use this information to create targeted ICP content and give your team the perspective to make informed campaign choices.

On the other hand, if your targeted ICP is within the same industry or niche, you’ll want to allocate more of your budget for engagement because the insight provided will be similar for all accounts within your ICP.

Use the right budgeting methodology

You can use the same budgeting approach for an ABM pilot or 1:Many ABM campaign as you would for a traditional digital marketing campaign, but budgeting for 1:Few and 1:1 campaigns is more complicated and fluid.

Personalized ABM campaigns focus on targeting individuals within accounts — the cost is determined by account value and not a fixed budget. The more valuable a particular account, the more you’ll want to spend on it. Account values often reveal themselves during the campaign, so you’ll want to use an account-based methodology with more flexible line items.

How to price out technology and expertise

While the actual dollar costs of targeting specific accounts and individuals are too variable to cover here, we can quantify the cost of technology and expertise.

Budget for the tech stack you need

You’ll need to subscribe to a few key platforms to run ABM. The cost of your combined tech stack is based on the size of your organization and the platforms you choose — you can expect to pay $165-$325K in total for the annual licenses needed to run ABM.

Budget for the channels you need

Targeting accounts with the right messages at the right time means you have to get your assets in the right channels. ABM channels include programmatic, content marketing, paid search, SEO, paid social, email nurture, and online gifting. The total cost for each channel includes creating the assets and running them in the channel.

While spending for each channel is highly variable by campaign, determining an overall paid-ad budget is part of your campaign strategy.

It’s best to stay flexible with specific allocations so you can spend more on the channels that are proving to be more successful as your campaign progresses and less on the ones that aren’t.

Budget for the expertise you need

You can use the right tech stack and channels for your ICP, but it’s tough to get the right ROI without the right team. You need:

• Tech stack integration specialists: Connect all platforms so they work together and convert data into dashboard visualizations everyone can understand. 
• Analysts and strategists: Translate ongoing campaign data into actionable tactics that ensure you’re targeting accounts most likely to convert.  
• Content writers and designers: Develop display ads, white papers, case studies, landing pages, and personalized assets for 1:Few and 1:1 campaigns. 
• Search marketers: Convert complex marketing plans and research into SEO and PPC strategies that get ads in front of buying committees at every funnel stage.

Remember to keep turnover in mind. Marketing specialists have a 19.8% annual turnover rate. 

How omnichannel impacts ABM budgeting

Much more of the buying process and B2B marketing is taking place online now — the pandemic changed how the world does business. B2B marketers who embrace the change are reaching accounts where they’re already hanging out.

Omnichannel changes how buying committees make decisions

The new B2B buying journey doesn’t include a lot of talking with suppliers. Most of it happens online before buyers reach out and includes more people on the buying committee. 

In 2017, you could engage in buying scenarios by targeting one or two buyers. Now, buying committees with two people represent only 18% of purchases while most have five or more people. These people are looking for solutions online and increasingly find them in social channels — B2B social sellers outperform their peers who don’t leverage social media by 72%.  

Why omnichannel ABM requires insight

To know which channels will work best, you need to apply ABM insight.

For example, if you advertise on LinkedIn but the accounts within your ICP are more active on Facebook, your ads aren’t likely reaching your intended audience. By applying insight using an omnichannel approach, you ensure your ICP will see your ads while enabling you to target specific pain points. This dramatically increases the likelihood your ICP will follow your ad to your website.

How to optimize omnichannel ABM

More personalized ABM campaigns work better. The data prove it — 1:Few and 1:1 ABM campaigns deliver much higher ROI because they move accounts further down the funnel faster. 

As you might guess, personalized ABM campaigns cost more because you need to create and orchestrate personalized assets. But if it’s ROI you’re after, the investment pays off. Make sure to be strategic during account selection and focus your budget on running campaigns that only target high-value, in-market accounts. 

ABM investment strategies 

While the bottom-line number for an ABM program deserves thoughtful consideration, keep revenue generation in mind as you deliberate. To realize the promise of ABM, look at all of your options and allow the strategy to play out once you start. 

Patience is a must

The B2B buying process takes many months or even a year or more to move a buying committee from awareness through decision. The first ROI benchmark for ABM is usually around month six — by then, if you’ve invested wisely and your sales team is leveraging campaign data correctly, you should be seeing a return of three times your investment.

The agency alternative

The most sophisticated ABM agencies run full-funnel ABM campaigns that include sales enablement as part of their services. These agencies earn their clients up to nine times annual ROI for 1:Few and 1:1 campaigns starting with the first campaign because they already have the teams, technology, and orchestration expertise. 

Agency results can be replicated in-house over time as you build the right team and a seamless operation. Consider comparing the budget you develop to the cost of partnering with an ABM agency by requesting demos from one of more agencies.

Ways to reduce in-house costs

There are a few things you can do to reduce the cost of running AMB in-house. The key is informed decision-making and careful planning:

• Research your tech stack options so you choose the ones that match your needs the first time
• Consider your data goals to cut back on costs associated with trying different products  
• Have the right team in place before you start
• Establish SOPs to avoid obstacles

As you’ve seen, budgeting for ABM is complex but you can get accurate numbers when you understand what’s involved and apply a lot of forethought. Reaching out to peers and experts about their hands-on experiences with ABM budgeting is always a good idea, as is giving equal focus to the other side of your balance sheet as you make your allocation decisions.

The post You’re interested in ABM but what will it cost? appeared first on Search Engine Land.

Most list articles — think “The Top 10 DSLR Cameras” or “The 5 Best CRM Products” — are written by armchair commentators.

They’re utilitarian, boring, and easy for rivals to copy.

Even if your lists rank well, their success is usually short-lived. Eventually, a competitor with greater authority (and perhaps a bigger word count) will swoop in.

Despite mountains of pageviews, try to measure their return on investment and you’ll find that… well, there probably isn’t one.

But there’s no need to fret.

Your list articles (or “listicles”) can be transformed into interesting, defensible, revenue-generating assets in five steps.

Here’s how.

1. Choose novel selection criteria

Most list articles are based on the same research methodology. If it had a name, it would probably be called “the first 10 things I found on Google.”

You search for your target keyword, scan the top-ranking content, and choose an assortment of popular things — software, products, people — to collate in your own article.

It’s a pragmatic process: deadlines are tight, original research is time-consuming, and compiling a list of popular “things” will never be controversial.

But this selection process is neither useful to your target reader nor defensible.

Your list risks recapitulating the same information as the existing search results.

It becomes another commodity among many.

Good listicles — like all good content — need a strong hook, a way to pique the reader’s interest and differentiate them from similar lists.

Your selection criteria can create this hook:

• Try ditching the “best” qualifier and pick something more concrete and interesting (e.g., X Overlooked/Foundational/Overrated…)
• Target a particular reader or use case (e.g., X for Front-End Devs/Content Marketers/CFOs…)
• Focus on a particular product trait (e.g., The X Best Browser-Based/Freemium/No Code …)

2. Persuade the reader by surfacing your thought process

Many writers assume that listicles don’t need to be persuasive.

After all, they’re intended as an educational resource, a repository of objective information that allows the reader to make their own informed choice.

As a result, most list articles dump things on a page and leave the reader to reach their own conclusions.

But I would disagree with this assumption.

I think that it’s more important to be persuasive because the entire premise of your list hinges on a promise to your reader: that the items you’ve featured really are the best, most relevant, most carefully selected choices from a sea of myriad alternatives. Your job is to persuade the reader that your selection and your selection methodology are worth trusting.

A good way to achieve this is to surface your thinking and explain the rationale behind each choice. You had selection criteria in mind when compiling your list, so bring the reader along for the ride, and answer the questions they’ll be thinking:

• Why did this particular thing warrant inclusion? “This is the most recommended…,” “This is the lowest-priced…”
• Why did you omit others? “We excluded any products without a freemium plan…”
• Is there something about this choice that defies conventional wisdom? “Though not a conventional CRM, this database tool is perfectly equipped to handle core CRM tasks…”

3. Share personal experience to demonstrate credibility

One sad reality of SEO is that good results — at least in terms of keyword rankings and pageviews — can come from bad articles.

In the case of listicles, “bad” means written without any firsthand experience of the items being curated. (My first published article, some 12 years ago, was a review of hair-curling tongs. Eagle-eyed readers will notice that I am as bald as an egg.)

Although these armchair articles can often rank for their intended keywords, they fail where it really matters: encouraging the reader to believe the advice on offer and make an actual purchase.

If your goal for content is to generate meaningful revenue — and not just rank for keywords — then it’s necessary to show firsthand experience of the thing that you’re recommending (and prove it to the reader).

Usually, this means some combination of:

• Screenshots of the back end of the software being reviewed (any part of the interface that you can’t access without actually logging in)
• Real-life product photos that don’t look like stock photography (bonus points for including yourself in the photo)
• Personal anecdotes about usage and sharing experiences that only a user would have

4. Lean on the experiences of others when personal experience is impossible

One caveat to the “share personal experience” point: it’s not always easy to have firsthand experience. Some products are too complicated, situational, or downright expensive to experience.

Given the constraints of content marketing, it’s never going to be cost-effective to pay your writer to train as a systems architect or implement an enterprise-level data warehousing solution.

Crucially though, your reader won’t care about your constraints: they want to see credible advice regardless.

So if you can’t personally experience the thing, base your listicle on the experiences of those who have. That means surveying, quoting, and synthesizing the experiences of real firsthand users of the product, tool, process, or service.

If you don’t feel credible, find someone who is credible.

If you have access to a large audience — like surveying your client’s customers or their social media audiences — this process can become a differentiator in its own right, allowing you to market your article on the breadth of its research (how many other listicles can say they’re based on “surveying 50 systems architects”?).

If you don’t, a deep dive into one person’s expert opinion can still be enough to lend credibility to your list (e.g., “The Best Startup Data Warehousing Solutions, According to This Startup CTO”).

5. Make a single, opinionated recommendation

The primary goal of listicle content isn’t to rank for keywords or generate traffic; it’s to help the reader make a decision.

Most listicles are good at one part of this process: offering a wide array of suitable choices. But these choices are often less helpful than they first appear.

Does the reader really need to know about 20 DSLR cameras if they’re only ever going to purchase one?

Most articles hedge their bets because collating popular “things” doesn’t provide enough information to make a useful recommendation.

But if your article didn’t help you choose — how will it help your reader?

Great listicles provide options but also go a step further: they take a stand and make a single opinionated recommendation.

This is a potent differentiator.

By seeking out firsthand experiences of the “things” on review, it becomes possible to form opinions and make clear, defensible recommendations: we did our homework; here’s the one you should buy.

Wirecutter is a master of this strategy, pairing extensive research (for their “best everyday wineglass” list, reviewing over 250 glasses) with a single final recommendation.

Optimize for revenue, not pageviews

These recommendations probably sound great in theory, but are they actually worth implementing?

Do we really need to dedicate more time and money to listicle content if we can generate tens of thousands of monthly pageviews from articles with a less rigorous research methodology?

Yes.

Pageviews are only useful as far as they further our ability to generate revenue.

Long, meandering copycat articles, lacking clear recommendations and written without credible research, may generate pageviews (for now) — but they don’t generate revenue.

The post 5 ways to level-up lazy listicles appeared first on Search Engine Land.

Anyone can argue that the popularity and successes of account-based marketing (ABM) are unmatched. Lately, marketers looking to get started with ABM are often flooded with terms like “strategy,” “thought leadership” or “best practices.” Thus, many B2B marketers are eager to implement the core tenants of ABM but are unsure of where to begin.

If you find yourself in this dilemma, join Jodi Cerretani, senior director of demand generation at RollWorks, for a refreshing ABM session. You’ll learn the steps you can take today to drive results tomorrow, including three tried and proven ABM plays to drive quick wins, the must-have ABM tech stack and the number one secret to getting buy-in from sales this quarter. You’ll also receive a copy-and-pastable ABM performance funnel.

In addition to these tactics, Cerretani also explains RollWorks’ three pillars of ABM:

1. Identify high-value targets
2. Engage buying committees through coordinated marketing and sales programs 
3. Measure the impact against shared goals 

With these proven tips, the right data and the right mindset, marketers can easily drive full-funnel impact against their targets, using the technologies they already have in their stack. 

Leveraging a robust ABM tech stack with many channels can aid marketers with attacking and impacting every level of their funnel very precisely.
View the session and build your framework so you can start to realize the actual value of ABM.

The post Proven steps to getting started with ABM appeared first on Search Engine Land.

Marketers are still adapting to the major disruptions of the past several years. Buyers, though, still expect marketers to provide personalization and enjoyable experiences. 

Luckily, the technology and data that can help are becoming more accessible.

In partnership with Ascend2, Oracle surveyed 853 marketers across the U.S., Canada, India, and the UK. The results showed what trends and technologies are helping marketers pivot where necessary, connect with customers, and drive conversions.

Top challenges marketers face in 2022

38% of marketers said maximizing performance across channels was one of their most difficult challenges. Audiences are now digitally everywhere. They consume and engage with content across a variety of channels and devices.

Somehow, marketers have to keep up with them, stay consistent and relevant with their messaging, and deliver value. Customers tell you everything you need to know about how to please them with their online behaviors. The right technology helps by taking in that data, so marketers can use it to connect with customers and adapt their strategies necessary.

Tactics and technologies for marketing success

43% of marketing organizations plan to offer more personalized content and offers in the year ahead. Videos and virtual events will make much of this content easier for customers to consume. Personalization will also help marketers put more focus on retaining customers rather than only acquiring new ones.

What technologies will help?

• A customer data platform (CDP) allows you to anticipate customer needs
• A content management system (CMS) helps you manage and create more innovative content
• A customer loyalty program incentivizes and rewards customers that keep engaging with your brand

Go all-in on AI

59% of marketers who say they can’t live without AI have highly successful marketing strategies. 30% of marketers surveyed overall fear they’re missing out on AI’s ability to predict customer behaviors and adjust campaigns.

AI creates efficiencies and maximizes resources, especially with manual, repetitive tasks, such as:

• Setting up campaign workflows
• Testing different offers, subject lines, and copy
• Customizing content

42% of marketers say they already trust AI to personalize content and offers in real-time.

Marketers look forward to big things in 2022

An impressive 94% of marketers thought their 2021 was successful. 37% are confident 2022 will also be a successful year.

Find out what trends and technologies will make it so.

Get the trends report

The post 2022’s trends in digital marketing appeared first on Search Engine Land.

Does this scenario sound familiar to you? 

As a marketer, you know the importance of website conversion rate optimization (CRO), so you run A/B tests or set up personalization rules. But before you know it, you’re bogged down by setting up tests, monitoring them daily to see if they’ve reached statistical significance, and declaring winners (if you can even call them that). Even then, you’re stuck with the laborious task of baking these into your base site or pinging your engineering team to do so yet again for you. 

And after all this work, you realize you’re still not meeting the goal you set out for in the first place: driving more conversions. This is because your visitors are still receiving a one-size-fits-all static experience and not the personalized, dynamic experience they’re expecting. At this point, you’re behind on your goals and wondering if there’s a better way.

There is.

What if we told you there’s a website optimization solution that replaces manual, developer-reliant testing and marries your great ideas with machine learning to help you easily turn website visits into money? It’s here now, and it’s ready to help you drive growth.

Meet continuous conversion

Continuous Conversion is a SaaS technology that turns static, one-size-fits-all websites into adaptive Learning Websites that optimize and personalize the experience for every single visitor in the moment. 

Powered by machine learning, Continuous Conversion allows you to test a virtually unlimited number of ideas at once. It amplifies your better ideas and starves your losing ideas of traffic, as it continuously drives conversions. With ML doing the heavy-lifting for you, this gives your team more time to do what it does best: understand your audience and come up with creative ideas that would resonate with them. To take a deep dive into the ins and outs of Continuous Conversion, download our Introduction to Continuous Conversion eBook.

The post Ready to turn website visits into money? Meet continuous conversion appeared first on Search Engine Land.

First, you walk. Then you run. What if, instead, you learned to dance?

While Account-Based Marketing (ABM) is a key strategy today, going forward, B2B marketers will take a more holistic view. More of a dance than a race, marketing is evolving to look at the entire lifecycle and how to care for the customer relationship at each phase. Driven by this holistic approach, Forrester proclaims in its New Tech: Account-Based Marketing Q1, 2022 report that “the term Account-Based Marketing will disappear by 2025 as B2B organizations focus on the entire customer lifecycle.”

As part of this evolution: Buying Group Marketing (BGM). While ABM blankets your key accounts with messaging, BGM targets the specific people involved in purchase decisions at your key accounts. It does this through carefully crafted buying group personas and delivering custom campaigns to buying team members. It’s a person-based marketing approach versus an account-based one. BGM is about relationship building – externally and internally.

While that sounds great, the devil is in the details.

One of the keys to implementing a successful BGM strategy requires a fundamental paradigm shift in how you market. As Forrester reinforces in the New Tech report, “sales and marketing must come together to identify and prioritize buying groups for effective ABM.”

A lead isn’t something to be tossed over the wall at the MQL stage for sales to run with. Employing a BGM strategy, requires marketing and sales to work together at every stage of the customer lifecycle from awareness to deal and beyond.

If your marketing and sales alignment has looked more like a tussle than a dance in the past, it’s time to streamline your moves into elegant choreography. Here’s how you and sales can ditch your two left feet and learn to dance well together.

How BGM sales-marketing alignment works

Let’s set the scene with an example from the movie Dirty Dancing.

In this 80s classic, there is a scene where Baby (the main character) is learning to dance the Mambo with Johnny (the dance instructor). His usual partner, Penny is on the sidelines and can see that Baby is struggling to learn the steps. So, Penny steps in and guides Baby from behind while Johnny leads. And the three of them move together in fluid unison to the music until Baby gets the moves down and learns the dance.

How does this relate to Buying Group Marketing?

In an effective BGM strategy, Johnny represents the sales team, Penny represents the marketing team, and Baby is the prospect. Marketing and sales work together to guide the prospect into finding the right steps and rhythm that will help them succeed.

This is a fundamental shift in how sales and marketing has traditionally worked together. With BGM, marketing is no longer stuck on one side (or in Dirty Dancing… the corner) of the MQL wall but involved in all the stages of the process. Because of this, each department needs to know the steps and be able to dance together first. Then they can bring the prospect in and teach them to dance, too.

5 Steps to improve your marketing and sales alignment

Below are five key areas to help you improve your marketing and sales alignment for an effective BGM strategy:

1. Align goals and operations

To ensure that your funnel is unified, sales and marketing must have common goals and a common bench of metrics that deliver insights for continuous improvement. One of the first steps in the process is coming together to develop this operational backbone and to create service-level agreements, defining the goals and the lead management process from the top of the funnel to the bottom.

2. Share your data

Sales and marketing teams need to have access to all the same data and insights around contacts and accounts at the same time. This will prevent missteps and ensure that everything that is created is of value to your prospects and enhances their journey.

3. Orchestrate your messaging

Because the messaging in BGM is more highly targeted to buying group members, it’s important to team up and work through your air-cover narratives and carefully orchestrate them. The focus should be consistent messaging that is on-target for every successive stage of the funnel with the end goal of generating value for the buying team member.

4. Align your platform structure

Synergy across sales and marketing starts with your systems. The platforms that you choose to use for BGM, whether a CRM, marketing automation or sales engagement tool, should be engineered to share data, processes, messaging, goals and metrics.

5. Communicate continually

To execute a BGM strategy well, you will need to design a feedback loop between the sales and marketing organizations for regular communications regarding pain points and successes and for developing mechanisms to test and learn. Content is king, but context is everything because your data is shared. There should be an open communication loop to adjust campaigns for the context of the prospect along the way.

How a BGM approach helped a B2B industrial workforce platform close more deals

One B2B platform whose business is to digitize the industrial workforce took a Buying Group Marketing approach, using top-of-the-funnel advertising to close more deals.

This organization had a highly specialized audience that was particularly difficult to reach. While marketing did bring in some viable leads, the organization’s existing solution (that was based upon reverse IP look-up) was insufficient to produce high-quality leads. The result was nearly non-existent lead follow up by the sales team. The lack of follow up led to a strained relationship between sales and marketing.

There needed to be better alignment within the two teams and a more granular approach to marketing efforts. To do this, the marketing team used sales’ data to create highly customized advertising campaigns using Influ2.

Sales were delighted with the results, receiving immediate notifications about engagement on the ads from the contacts they had been trying to reach. They were also appreciative of the context-driven insights and lead prioritization that marketing was now able to deliver. And what started as a pilot was expanded globally.

Taking this approach helped the marketing and sales teams better collaborate. They defined the processes, determined the appropriate infrastructure, orchestrated their messaging, and openly communicated with each other to improve the pipe and close more deals.

A meaningful competitive advantage with BGM

According to Forrester, “Many organizations have already evolved or are evolving processes and technologies to account for buying groups; those organizations have a meaningful competitive advantage over those who do not.”

Buying Group Marketing is here to stay. While there are many components involved in building an effective BGM strategy, marketing and sales alignment is among the most important. These five steps will help you get started with your BGM marketing-sales alignment.

Remember: not stepping on each other’s toes is great. But you can do much more. Learn to dance with your sales team and help your prospects achieve their lift!

This sponsored article was written by Nirosha Methananda, VP of marketing, Influ2.

The post Lessons in Buying Group Marketing – Learning to dance with your sales team appeared first on Search Engine Land.