Build a data-backed B2B advertising strategy for SMEs

[Maelien:

We’re really passionate about helping small and underresourced B2B marketing teams.

So this podcast isn’t here to add more to your to-do list—it’s here to help you get more from what’s already on it.

Welcome back, I’m Maelien

Louis:
And I’m Louis.

So in the last episode we explored why a strategy is important and what different advertising strategies might look like. In this episode we’re going to put some meat on the bones, or for the veggie option – some cheese in the sandwich.

Maelie:

Oh cheese sandwich is a rubbish option Lou, let’s go with putting the carbonara on the spaghetti instead.

Also, while we’re here – I’m going to need to make a little confession, this is going to be more than a 2 part series.

Looking through everything we want to talk about, we’re definitely going to have to spread this across 3 episodes. So let’s call this part 2A.

Now as promised, this is going to be an open-book run through of our process for building strategies here at Web Marketer.

This is really the secret behind how we get to a working ads strategy. The best part is that it’s relatively easy to do.

Louis:

But don’t let that deceive you. While it’s not necessarily difficult, the difference it will make to your ad performance is huge.

Following this process will put you ahead of your competitors, because I can promise you that very few of them have taken the time to work through something like this before.

Most of what we’ll cover is best done as a group over a few different sessions. We’ve put together a workbook, that we’ve called the ‘breakthrough blueprint’. We’ll put a link in the shownotes so that you can download and work through in your own time.

There’s six steps to our process, which are:

1. Inception – for setting budgets and targets
2. Discovery – for storybuilding and information gathering
3. Competitor Analysis – to get a lay of the land in terms of what’s being said and done out in the wild
4. Audience & targeting research – so we can see our options in terms of reaching our ICP
5. Measurement – to figure out what we’re going to need to measure and how we’re going to measure success
6. Strategy building – to stitch all of the learnings we’ve gathered together into a powerful and fully tailored strategy

In today’s episode, we’re going to run through the first 3.

Maelie:

Okay so step one, is what we call ‘Inception’.

During the inception meeting, the whole point is to set the north star that you’re aiming for. This makes sure that you’re always travelling in the right direction.

Now, I’m very aware that budgets and targets usually originate in the boardroom, and if we’re being totally honest – they’re often plucked out of thin air – without any data backing up whether they’re realistic or not.

So with this first exercise we’re going to end up with a data-backed approach.

Let’s start by answering these core questions:

1. What percentage of leads convert to sale? So what’s your close rate.
2. What is the average lifetime profit on each customer?
3. How much, or what percentage, of that lifetime profit can you spend to acquire new customers?
4. How many new customers do you need per month?

Now I’m going to run through an example of how to use your answers here.

Just a word of warning, you may want to grab a pen and paper or follow along on the video version of this episode where we’ll have this on screen for you.

So let’s say your close rate from ads is 10%. So you need 10 leads per 1 paying customer.

Let’s also say that the average lifetime profit is £10k per customer and the amount you’re willing to spend on acquisition is 20% of that.

So that’s £2k per paying customer.

Now let’s say that your target is 10 new customers per month.

So that’s the £2k for acquiring a new customer times the 10 new customers you want each month.

Which leaves us with a £20k per month budget to hit those goals.

And then to get those 10 customers – based off of 1 in 10 leads closing, you’re:

1. going to need 100 leads per month too
2. your max cost per lead target is going to be £200.

Louis:

Okay, so now that your budgets and targets are locked down. It’s a good idea to check the current cost per lead in your ads to see if these are realistic. We’ll do a future episode all about budgets and targets to give you more detail.

But, sticking with Strategy – we’re going to talk about Discovery next. 

Last year we carried out some research to find out where ad agencies were going wrong – and interestingly, the most common thing that businesses complained about was that they didn’t feel agencies spent enough time trying to understand their business, their offering or their market.

So this is massively important.

Right now, there are 43 questions in our Discovery process that we explore with our clients in a 90 minute workshop.

In the interest of keeping the episode under 15 minutes, we’re not going to go through each one now, but they make up the bulk of the ‘breakthrough blueprint’ I mentioned earlier. Again – we’ll put the link in the show notes for you.

But I will run through a bit of a loose summary so you can get a feel for the sets of questions and why they exist:

So there’s questions around the Performance Baseline – so mapping things like current ad spend, lead volume, cost per lead, close rates and lead to close windows. This anchors where you are now so you can measure your improvements.

There’s questions around your Audience & Offer – getting the story of the business, ideal customers, services and top‑sellers – plus the problems, questions, objections and other curveballs that crop up during the sales process. This helps with coming up with ideas for your ads and landing pages to make your traffic and leads more sales-ready.

There’s questions around your Differentiation & Proof so exploring what sets you apart? Who your competitors and industry leaders are? And any social proof—reviews, case studies, emotional triggers, impressive stats and achievements or certifications you might have. This helps document all of the things that make you stand out in the market that again you can use in your ads and landing pages.

Then there’s questions that explore Seasonality & Business or Industry Calendars. To make sure any peaks and troughs, buying rhythms and any promotions or events are factored in from the beginning.

And the final set of questions are geared around Harvesting what’s worked to date. So are there any headlines, offers, images, videos or lead magnets that have already moved the needle? This helps avoid launching from a standing start wherever possible.

Maelie:

What we’re really doing as part of this process, is creating a collection of different insights to reference.

Inception gave us the budget and targets, discovery gave us everything we need to consider – next up we’re going to look at the competitor landscape. 

We want to know:

• How much competitors are typically spending
• What kind of targeting they’re using
• What they’re saying in their ads
• What they’re saying on their landing pages
• What kind of conversion mechanisms they’re using to get people to break cover

During the discovery phase, you’ll have identified the competitors you want to be looking at.

For each one, you’ll want to create a paid traffic report using something like SpyFu or SEMrush. It’s worth mentioning that we’re going to get the most insights about paid search during this process – especially around budgets and targeting.

You’re going to want to save off typical monthly budgets by competitor and their targeted search keywords lists.

 It’s really important to note the types of keywords being used here. Are they high intent? Are there specific or unexpected words or phrases being used? Is there anything missing? Why could that be?

Next you’re going to want to take each competitor on the list and have a good look through their ads. You can use SEMrush or SpyFu again for search ads, but you can also use publicly available tools like:

• The Google Transparency Center for other google ads formats
• Meta Ad Library for Facebook and Instagram ads
• LinkedIn Ad Library for LinkedIn ads

A simple google search will give you quick access to any one of these.

Here you want to pay really close attention to what they’re doing. Are they… 

• Using specific type of ad formats
• Specific visual styles
• Are they calling out specific audiences?
• Is there any information that’s used regularly – like a phone number?
• What’s their main call to action or what’s the first step they want people to take?

Again – save off everything you’ve noticed ready to reference later.

And then finally we want to look at landing pages.

I’ll typically get a list of landing pages from SEMrush and then I’ll go ahead and take full page screengrabs of the key ones using a Chrome extension called GoFullPage. 

For landing pages you want to look at a few things here:

The Masthead – so list off everything you see above the fold. Headline, form, call to action button, social proof, review badge, testimonials, telephone number, microcopy and so on. Just like the ads – any observation you can think of is going to be really valuable to note down. The point of doing this is to compare what’s consistent across all competitors.

Next you want to look at the Headline – what pain point, emotion or desire is it targeting? If it’s not targeting anything, then great – there’s a low bar and we can easily do better.

You also want to look at trust building and social proof – what are they doing to stamp out the risk of buyer remorse, because that’s the biggest enemy here.

And finally, what are they doing to get people to break cover? What are they promising and what’s the mechanism they’re using to capture the lead. 

For example ‘book a demo’ with an interactive calendar, ‘get a free quote’ with an online calculator or the low bar option: ‘get in touch’ with a contact form. 

Conversion mechanisms are often the key to high conversion rates and high lead quality, so you’re going to want to list each one you see on competitor pages – and think about what else you could do. 

Louis:

So that’s 3 of the 6 steps, which means that this is the end of Part 2A.

We’ve talked about how to set realistic budgets and targets, how to capture all of the essential information you need to factor in and also how to assess what’s already happening out in the wild.

Join us on the next episode where we’ll run through Audience & targeting research, Measurement – and how to package all of this great information you’ll have gathered up into a powerful strategy.

Maelie:

If you found this useful, please leave us a review. Our goal is to remove the smoke and mirrors from the B2B advertising world, and reviews really help towards this.

And if you’ve got a burning question or are facing a challenge that you’d like us to explore, just let us know.

You can head to webmarketeruk.com/topic and fill in the form.

We really wanna make every episode as useful as possible, and we read every single message. 

Thanks for listening and catch you next time.]