marketing automation -...

Optimizing Your Agency’s Demand Generation Services

OPTIMIZING YOUR AGENCY’S DEMAND GENERATION SERVICES

Marketing Automation

Who shou ld read th i s document?

This document is designed to help agencies understand Demand Generation Strategy best practices to improve current services offerings as well as execute a successful internal demand generation strategy.

Components

Inbound vs. Outbound

Target Clients

Selling

Talk the Talk

Best Practices

Packages

TABLE OF CONTENTS

PART ONE

PART TWO

PART THREE

PART FOUR

PART FIVE

PART SIX

PART SEVEN

Components– Primary Components of a Demand Generation StrategyInbound vs. Outbound– Inbound Marketing vs. Outbound MarketingTarget Clients– Finding the Perfect Clients (Hello, Target Market!) and Avoiding Bad ClientsSelling– Selling Demand Generation Services SuccessfullyTalk the Talk– Walk the Walk, Don’t Just Talk the Talk- Examples of Digital Agencies Doing Demand Generation RightBest Practices– Best Practices: Elements of a Demand Generation Strategy Best Practices: Buyer Personas Based on Reality Best Practices: Lead Scoring Best Practices: SEO Best Practices: Mapping Content to the Buying Cycle Best Practices: Social MediaPackages– Building Packages for Demand Generation Services

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Target Clients

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PART ONE: P r imary Components o f a Demand Genera t ion St ra tegy

Demand generation strategies are designed around the principles of inbound marketing. Each element of inbound marketing is designed to deliver relevant content to the right people at the right time in order to facilitate the movement of prospects through the buying process. The many components of a demand generation strategy are each best tailored to specific stages in the buying process, as illustrated on the following page.

E lements o f a Demand Genera t ion St ra tegy• Buyer personas• Buying cycle/sales cycle• Lead scoring• SEO• Content creation• Social media• Lead nurturing campaigns (inbound, outbound, email, marketing, etc.)

Each element of a demand generation strategy is best suited to particular buyer personas at specific phases of the buying cycle. Tailoring content and marketing strategies is an art and a science that is constantly evolving. Let’s walk through each element of a demand generation strategy and discuss ways to optimize them.

MAP CONTENT TO THE BUYING CYCLE

AWARENESS

CONSIDERATION/COMPARISON

PREFERENCE

PURCHASE

POST-PURCHASE

• Statistics about benefits of your service• Case studies of problems solved• Infographics

• SEO-optimized content• Best Practice Guides• Testimonials on your website

• Demos, free trials, special offers• Unbiased comparison guides• 3rd party comparisons• Review sites

• Thank you’s• Getting started guides• Welcome to the team messages

• New feature updates• Optimization check-in calls• Email campaigns with best

practice guides

Anonymous

Marketing Qualified Lead

Sales Accepted Lead & Sales Qualified Lead

Customer

Customer Optimization

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PART TWO: Outbound or Inbound– We’ve A l l Got the Same Goa ls

As the paradigm shift to inbound marketing continues, some may believe that outbound marketing is completely obsolete. However, when combined with inbound marketing and it’s customer-centric philosophies, outbound marketing is still an effective way to reach prospects. The key to increasing its effectiveness is using messaging that incorporates inbound philosophies with supplementary inbound tactics. Here are two examples of a billboard:

Soda Kingdom

the lowest calorie fizzy drinks.

Soda Kingdom

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Soda Kingdom

Most fizzy drinks are the equivalent of an entire meal’s worth of calories.

Soda Kingdom

#fatfizzy

The first billboard is purely outbound. It contains messaging that talks about how awesome the product is, without focusing on things that their target market would care about. The second billboard is still a billboard, but the content is focused on customer concerns and it encourages viewers to find out more via social channels- thus continuing the conversation.

TIP #1: Reevaluate different forms of outbound marketing with an inbound perspective.

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PART THREE: Se l l i ng Demand Genera t ion Serv ices Success fu l l y

Many agencies selling demand generation services today got their start by offering completely different services, such as design and/or content writing. These skills are what made demand generation such a great fit- they’re complementary pieces to the same marketing puzzle. Your current clients recognized the need for your services because they were unable to create what they needed in-house, and/or because of the superior quality of your work. Demand generation services are sold for some of the same reasons; as marketing becomes more complex and requires expert content, available resources, social media interaction, etc. Businesses are waking up to the idea that marketing is a multifaceted function with a measurable impact on the bottom line. It is this ability to quantify value that can help sell demand generation services to your prospective clients.

TIP #2: Decision makers want to know your services will impact top and bottom line, so tell them!

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Decision makers like to hear how your services will impact revenue, so tell them. Using case studies of previous projects, current performance metrics for the prospect’s business and marketing automation data, it is possible to estimate to your prospects a real ROI when selling your services (and the actual ROI once they purchase from you). Calculating the ROI of marketing was virtually impossible if not imperfect 10 years ago- how do you assign a monetary value to a logo? It will always be subjective because you have no way to say how many people will view it, how many people were influenced by the logo enough to purchase a product, etc. The beauty of demand generation services is their trackability. Spent 10 hours designing an asset, landing page, email layout and CTA buttons for a new campaign? Spent 5 hours writing the content for each of those mediums? Great. Now you’ve got the cost, but the value is more clearly communicated through the ROI realized by the client. Campaign B sold 200 more toothbrushes than Campaign A, Campaign C brought in 40 new leads, 12% of which purchased from you within 6 months.

TIP #3: Numbers sell. Don’t just talk about the demand generation services you can provide and how much those services will cost. Give them expectations of an ROI they will see once they implement a demand generation strategy with you. Real results and growth will sign your future checks.

The other people in the organization you’re probably selling to are senior members of the in-house marketing team. They generally have years of experience within the organization and understand their target market. Explain the value of your technical experience to them and the intensity of the learning curve for the technology and concepts involved. Help them realize why it is cost-effective for the organization to outsource demand generation services to you, the expert who can drive greater results faster.

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In a survey by the Online Marketing Institute of 747 executives from Fortune 500 companies and digital agencies,

“Only 8% of those surveyed believe their employees are strong in all areas of digital marketing.”

The key takeaway here is that your agency has expertise that’s extremely difficult to find and takes a long time to build up. Content factories aren’t something most organizations have milling around their offices and familiarity with marketing automation software is a highly sought-after skill. Plenty of companies have interns handling their social media strategy, so explain the importance of each aspect of a demand generation strategy, outline why you’re the best agency for the job and give quantitative value for each service to sell your demand generation services.

TIP #4: The key takeaway here is that your agency has expertise that’s hard to find and takes a long time to build up.

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Your Cur ren t Customers a re your Bes t P rospects

Look through your current demand generation services clients and find the commonalities. Use the information to determine which current clients would be a good fit for your demand generation services instead of just design or content. This is an easy way to earn some more business and help your current clients be more successful. An even more efficient way to do this is by industry vertical. If you specialize in a few niche markets you might find a particular vertical makes an ideal candidate for demand generation services. All it takes is a little research and effort. Case studies are ideal in this situation, where you can showcase your vertical prowess with a real client story.

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PART FOUR: F ind ing the Per fec t Types o f C l i en ts (A l low me to In t roduce Your Targe t Marke t )

Not every organization is a good fit for demand generation services. The stereotypical target market includes business-to-business organizations, businesses with longer sales cycles, complex solutions, technology companies, etc. This is the established and obvious target market for inbound marketing. However, there are many companies out there that do not fit the typical profile but are a perfect fit for demand generation services. A demand generation strategy has many moving parts, several of which require a large amount of time and resources to make it a reality. Understanding the intense resource commitment of each element can help you tailor your service offering packages and cater to the most important needs of your clients.

Let’s take a look at that list of demand generation services again. Some elements are one-time needs, while others require a constant flow of time and resources. Remember to periodically reassess all of these elements to ensure they are based on current marketing and sales data.

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Buyer personas– One-timeBuying cycle/sales cycle– One-timeLead scoring– One-timeSEO– OngoingContent creation– OngoingSocial media– OngoingLead nurturing– Both one-time and ongoing. The nurturing campaigns can be set up automatically, but new content is needed eventually.Campaigns– Both one-time and ongoing. Campaigns can be set-up automatically, but content is needed for each campaign, and data gleaned from insights will lead to future, improved campaigns.

Because of intense content demands and the steep learning curve, many organizations NEED an agency partner to maintain a demand generation strategy. Blogging, asset creation and social media strategies necessitate constant upkeep. That’s where the agency comes in. You can help companies make the leap from email marketing to marketing automation and take their lead management strategies to an entirely new level. The starting point is helping the client develop an overarching demand generation strategy. Once that is in place and has organizational buy-in, you can start to dive into the logistical elements of the strategy, such as producing regular quality content or maintaining a social presence that supports the business goals.

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Avo id ing Bad C l i en ts (Because Somet imes I t ’s Jus t Not Wor th I t )

There is such a thing as a bad client, and we’re going to help you identify them ahead of time so you don’t waste any time trying to sell your services to them.

The word “bad” might be a little harsh. What is meant by “bad” is that the client is just not ready for your demand generation services. If they’re not ready, it’s best to wait until they are ready willing and able to proceed with a potential relationship. What does a bad client look like?:

A Bad Client:• Thinks demand generation or content marketing is a toolset, not a mindset.• Wants you to handle their ongoing demand generation needs, like content

creation and social posting, but they want to maintain an outbound approach to marketing

• Believes promotional content is the primary way to build their audience.• Is unwilling to purchase software to support their demand generation strategy,

such as social monitoring software, marketing automation software, a CMS, a CRM system, etc. Don’t dismiss solid reasons for not purchasing one of those, but refusal to purchase any is setting the company and your agency up for failure and/or a very difficult time to succeed.

“Content marketing is a mindset, not a toolset.”Source: Michael Brenner, VP of Marketing and Content Strategy for SAP

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It isn’t worth your time and effort to try and sell your services to bad clients. Focus on your target clients who understand that marketing has evolved and need your expertise and you will have an easier time selling your services and a client that is more receptive to your expert advice.

TIP #5: It isn’t worth your time and effort to try and sell your services to those that don’t understand and/or believe in the value of a sound demand generation strategy.

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PART FIVE: Do ing Demand Genera t ion R igh t : Wa lk the Wa lk AND Ta lk the Ta lk

It’s awfully difficult to sell something you don’t believe in, and demand generation services are no different. As inbound marketing practices becomes a standard service at digital agencies, we’ve noticed that a lot of these firms don’t actually have their own demand generation strategy or that they don’t follow best practices. To sell it well and really understand it you’ve got to implement demand generation best practices for your own company first before you start selling your services to other companies. Not only will this give you all the benefits you list off when selling your services, but it will also prove your expertise and give you a better perspective into the concept of inbound marketing. Nothing spells confidence like your own use of the offering. Sharing your execution and successes become a pivotal piece to winning a deal.

The Shoemaker’s Wife Has No ShoesWith that in mind, make sure you’re walking the walk. Follow these best practices to ensure this:• Offer resources and guides on your site • Share relevant content on social networks • Maintain a regularly updated blog with solid information relevant to your target

clients • Use landing pages and forms on your site, • Use nurture campaigns to nurture prospects• Point to your own efforts at demand generation to sell your expertise to clients.

Now that we’ve covered the types of clients you should target, we’ll go over best practices for each aspect of a demand generation strategy. Re-examine how you handle each of these phases at your agency right now, and think about how you could improve your offerings and your own inbound marketing efforts based on these best practices.

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PART SIX: Bes t P rac t ices w i th Demand Genera t ion Serv ices

It goes without saying that understanding the client’s business is a necessary first step in the process of crafting a demand generation strategy. With that, buyer personas should be revisited periodically to account for current business goals and real marketing and sales data.

When you need to build a persona from scratch with little marketing or sales data to build off of, it’s alright to make assumptions and develop personas based on the ideal customer in the sales, marketing and executive teams’ minds. When you have data to support or refute your assumptions it then makes sense to build based on real data and not assumptions. With that in mind, examine your client’s best customers. What commonalities exist? How did the relationship begin? What role(s) was involved throughout the entire sales journey? Once you’ve examined those aspects, build your buyer personas based on that information. Educated guessing works when you have no choice, but at the end of the day it’s still just that: a guess. Defining common characteristics of existing customers paints a real picture of who the real best customers actually are, which gives you statistical support for each persona.

Explore account-based marketing. This is a great technique for aligning marketing and sales teams. Instead of focusing on specific individuals, think about the accounts your company or, in this case, your client’s company would LOVE to get. Have both marketing and sales target those accounts and you create a unified strategy with marketing content tailored to the needs of those accounts, sales goals focusing on specific accounts instead of monetary figures, and both teams are aiming for the same prize. It’s another form of persona-based marketing.

Best Prac t ices : Buyer Personas

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Lead Scoring is unique for every organization, but the first step in building a lead scoring strategy is understanding the lead stages the company has defined. How does a lead move from one stage to another? What is the handoff process? Who gets notified and when? What events occur once a lead moves into a different stage (either up or down)? Understand every one of these facets is critical before truly implementing a lead scoring system. Realize too, that most companies have generally two stages, pre-sales and sales. Once a prospect engages with something in the organization, whether it be online (asset download, etc.) or offline (visited trade show booth), most companies throw the lead over the wall over to sales. We all know how flawed that is by not doing middle-of-funnel activities but it’s a reality (and a major opportunity) for most companies. And you’re just the agency to fix it.

Lead scoring in its simplest form is about automating the progression from one lead stage to the next in a predefined buyer’s journey. Through automated lead scoring rules, companies with tools such as a marketing automation platform (MAP) can determine where any given lead is at in the sales process based on their online and offline interactions with a company or brand. Automating your scoring through MAPs as well as salesperson’s ability to manually adjust scores based on live interactions (or inactions) is a best practice that most companies should be following. Sales and marketing need to be heavily involved in both the lead stage definition and lead scoring rules. These shared definitions will maintain an aligned team and will ensure that nobody blames the other team for poor lead quality or definition.

TIP #6: Account-based marketing is a great technique for aligning marketing and sales teams.

Best Prac t ices : Lead Scor ing

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If SEO is the kingdom, Google is the King. Google has made some changes to the way they rank pages and it’s not all about keywords anymore. If you’re still trying to focus on a particular set of keywords or phrases then you should stop.

Yes, we said stop.

Why are we telling you to abandon your keyword-based SEO strategy? Because Google is telling us it’s not the way to get a high ranking. Google has consistently chosen to update their algorithms with changes that make specific words and phrases less and less important. What they’re trying to emphasize is good quality, relevant content. The point is, if you’re producing good quality, relevant content then you’re going to use certain phrases and keywords more often than others naturally, so you shouldn’t be trying to fit those words in. Instead you should just be trying to produce really solid content and visitors will determine how good of a job you did. Google doesn’t want to see black hat SEO tactics applied to elements of their algorithm that they never intended to encourage those tactics and keywords are an example of that. In a perfect world, sites that produce good content will naturally use certain words that are relevant to their organization more often than others and they should therefore rank well for those phrases. What’s been happening? Instead businesses choose a bunch of keywords they believe they should rank well for (whether they deserve to based on the quality of their content or not) and they are purposely cramming that word in any way they can. Google is not a fan, and you shouldn’t be either.

Best Prac t ices : SEO

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Rethink your SEO strategies so they focus on the roots of each organization’s purpose instead of on specific words and phrases if you want it to be a solid long-term strategy.

“Google is doing a brilliant job of pushing people away from tactical SEO behavior and toward a more strategic approach…the Google changes are all moves that encourage more strategic behavior... All of these new pieces play a role in getting people to focus on their authority, semantic relevance, and the user experience. Again, this is what Google wants.”Source: Eric Enge, SEO Consultant in an article published by Search Engine Watch

“The latest SEO shift has actively changed the core competence of savvy SEO companies to Content Marketing specialists. Even the term SEO was recently marginalized to just one aspect of the all-inclusive Search Engine Marketing (SEM). That means if you want to see your company’s website on page 1, you’re going to have to consider a comprehensive online marketing campaign, rather then rely on an SEO company to stuff meta tags with keywords.”Source: Eris Poringer, CEO Chatter Studios in an article published by Forbes

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The internet has made it possible for people to get just about any information they want about a company and its products on their own. With that, marketing automation software, social media monitoring tools and predictive modeling platforms are all trying to do the same thing: determine where each person is in the buying cycle, as well as providing the resources that are most relevant to them at that point. Doing so will allow that company to achieve a level of “vendor leadership” when it comes time to buy.

You know this already.

What you should know are the best practices for which forms of contact and content are appropriate at each of those stages. This knowledge will help you map content to stages in the buying cycle. By undertaking a content audit you can determine which stages of the buying cycle need more content, what topics resonate the most with leads, and where you need to focus content production efforts to increase lead flow and lead quality. Let’s examine each stage, characteristics of leads in those stages, and what types of content are best for catering to each particular stage.

Best Prac t ices : Conten t Mapp ing

AWARENESSCONSIDERATION/

COMPARISON PREFERENCE PURCHASE POST-PURCHASE

• Discovery of need

• Realization of potential benefits with your service

• Research solutions

• Reviews• Testimonials• Discussions• SEO is key

to getting found

• Elimination of contenders to arrive at final options

• Test out final favorites

• Monetize• Interact

voluntarily with sales

• Optimize• Encourage/

incentivize recommen-dations, referrals, positive reviews

• Upsell

BEHAVIORS OF LEADS DURING THE BUYING STAGES

• Statistics about ben-efits of your service

• Case studies of problems solved

• Infographics

• SEO-optimized content

• Best Practice Guides

• Testimonials on your website

• Demos, free trials, spe-cial offers

• Unbiased comparison guides

• 3rd party comparisons

• Review sites

• Thank you’s• Getting

started guides

• Welcome to the team messages

• New feature updates

• Optimization check-in calls

• Email campaigns with best practice guides

AWARENESSCONSIDERATION/

COMPARISON PREFERENCE PURCHASE POST-PURCHASE

APPROPRIATE TYPES OF CONTENT FOR EACH STAGE

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Awareness- In this stage, a lead is just becoming aware of their need, and is starting to look companies in the space of their need. Content tailored for the Awareness stage allows people to understand more of their need for your product or service. The goal is to make your leads aware of their problem and help them realize the potential benefits to them and their company if they implement a solution like yours. SEO and “getting found” is the name of the game for this stage and the next one, with broad search terms like “marketing automation software” being important for awareness (as opposed to specific terms like “compare marketing automation software” or “Vendor A vs. Vendor B”, which would be appropriate for the consideration-phase). At this stage, the key is to create content that contains information on a very general level. For example, an asset like “Are you ready for marketing automation software?” would be an awareness stage asset because it doesn’t target anything specific, it merely states the problem and helps make readers aware of the authoring organization.

Case studies or customer stories are a great type of content to provide because they outline the success another organization had with your solution and help demonstrate the potential your lead is missing out on. Other great topics include statistic-based content that outlines the business case for your solution (x% more leads with our software, etc.). While you do the collecting and assembling of the stats, they are from third parties and so serve as unbiased evidence to support your case. Infographics are another popular form of content because they are easily digestible and contain a lot of information in a visually pleasing and relatively small amount of space. They’re a short and sweet way to make a compelling case in a friendly way.

AwarenessCons idera t ion/Compar i sonPre fe rencePurchasePost -Purchase

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Consideration- In this stage, leads are comparing multiple solutions to determine which is the best fit for them and their needs. Once again, SEO is critical here because it is the key to getting found and identified as a possible solution. You can’t make the short list if you don’t make the long list! Researchers are looking for reviews, testimonials and discussions about various vendors. Help them find third party review sites by promoting them. Generate discussion around your solution through mediums like Quora and LinkedIn Groups. Run campaigns designed to generate more reviews on third party sites.

Content targeted to this stage could include comparison charts, feature breakdowns and differentiators. Best practices guides are also a great fit because they establish your expertise and knowledge compared to other vendors in the same space and show you aren’t all talk.

Preference-

This is the testing stage. Prospects are eliminating possibilities to arrive at final vendor options. They will want to test out their final favorites as realistically as possible to choose the best possible option for them based on their needs. Leads will test out their short list of potential solutions through actions such as demos, samples and free trials to narrow down their final contenders and arrive at a purchase decision.

Content tailored to this stage could include assets such as “Things to Look for When

“Almost half (46%) of buyers still prefer creating a short list of vendors before making the decision to communicate with a sales rep.”Source: Demand Gen Report 2013 Buyers Survey

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Purchasing Marketing Automation Software” or “10 Questions to Ask Before you Buy”. Comparison guides can also help outline differentiators, as long as they come across as unbiased. Being too promotional can actually harm your brand image because it can make your company appear harsh and inconsiderate to competitors, as well as not being objective. Openly identifying your weaknesses can actually create a positive impression because it humanizes your product- just make sure that despite showing your weaknesses you still showcase strength. Discounts can also be a great way to incentivize purchases when used in moderation. They can help move a prospect along from the “Preference” stage to the “Purchase” stage by creating a sense of urgency and value that incentivizes an immediate purcha

Purchase- This is the stage where a prospect monetizes and becomes a customer. Don’t forget that this stage needs content too! Make your customers confident that they made the right choice by providing them with expert guidance right off the bat.

Thank you’s, getting started guides, intro to our software packets and “Welcome to the Team” types of content are great ways to show your enthusiasm for a new customer and get them started on the path to success with your product/service.

Post-purchase- After someone purchases your services, focus on optimizing their use of your product. The more satisfied they are with their purchase, the more likely they are to recommend you to others or purchase more from you in the future.

Success guides, check-lists, best practices and tips & tricks assets are all great ways to help monetized clients realize success. Keeping in touch via optimization check-in calls, newsletters and new feature updates are other solid ways to maintain regular contact with clients and also make sure they’re getting the most out of your services. This makes upselling easier because clients are aware of new offerings and feel like they can approach you easily with questions about additional offerings.

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Now that you understand the best practices, do a content audit and see what areas of the buying cycle need some more content love. Can you repurpose any assets so they are better-tailored to the buying stages? Learn where to spend your time and how to find where your clients need the most help with their content production needs. Demonstrating that you also participate in content marketing helps endorse the financial value of content marketing and shows your clients that you can help them realize success with it too.

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PART SEVEN: Example Packages fo r Demand Genera t ion Serv ices

We’ve covered best practices and the art of selling and implementing in your own demand generation strategy, now let’s go over some example packages with demand generation services offerings. These are just examples, and there are no hard-and-fast rules here, but each is designed to address specific client need situations. Feel free to use these as a starting point for redrawing your own demand generation services packages. The idea is that you can sell each module on it’s own or as part of a customized package. We have deliberately chosen not to include pricing because every agency is different and can set their own prices. We’ll start with service modules and then build them into more comprehensive packages.

ServicesThese services are based off of the elements of a demand generation strategy, but they are more in-depth and include aspects of each element that should be billable to your client.

Buyer personasBuying cycle/sales cycleLead scoringSEOContent creationSocial mediaLead nurturing campaigns (inbound, outbound, email, marketing, etc.)

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Buyer Personas• Review current buyer personas (if any) and critique.• Research current best clients to identify commonalities.• Go through existing data to determine opportunities for new buyer personas.• Create 2-3 buyer personas based on data, demographic and psychographic

characteristics and what role they play in the decision-making process.

Buying Cycle/Sales Cycle• Review current buying cycle and critique.• Research current best client paths to purchase and find commonalities: Examine

average time from discovery to purchase, current nurturing practices, sources of discovery and roles of marketing and sales during the process.

• Create a buying cycle that illustrates roles of sales and marketing teams throughout the process and includes clear buying stages with specific criteria for moving from one stage to the next.

Lead Scoring• Review current lead scoring practices (if any) and critique.• Meet with marketing team, sales team and executive-level managers to discover

current definition of each buying stage.• If current definition has any variance among the separate teams, create one

unified definition for the entire organization based on best practices and outline roles of every team throughout. (This helps align marketing and sales).

• Determine appropriate lead score thresholds for each stage of the buying cycle• Build lead scoring guidelines with suggested amounts per action (e.g. asset

downloads = +10 pts, webinar attendance= +20pts, demo request= +30pts plus automatic progression to SQL stage).

• Create several example use cases of leads that accumulate lead scoring points throughout their buying journey to illustrate appropriate lead score thresholds. (ex: download an asset = +10 points, MQL to SQL = >150pts).

• Advice/training session on new & improved lead scoring practices to get your whole organization on the same page with 3 months of support (for answers and advice through the transition to the new lead scoring methodology).

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SEO Strategy Development• Review current search engine rankings (with a focus on Google) and determine

what the client currently ranks well for.• Analyze client’s top 5 competitors and what they rank well for.• List terms and phrases to aim for high rankings with based on research findings.• Present an SEO strategy for ranking well for the goal terms which includes tips

for the client’s blog, social media, website content and content marketing topics.

Content Creation• Perform a content audit to examine all current content and determine what can

be salvaged as part of an inbound marketing strategy and what should be retired or refactored.

• Map salvageable existing content to the buying cycle to determine areas with a content deficit.

• Determine a list of 5-10 suggested topics/titles for content per buying stage to help kickstart content creation efforts in deficit areas.

• Take high-performing content and create other versions of it (for example take a solid whitepaper and create a slideshare, social post, blog post, infographic, etc. with the same concept.

• Create a monthly editorial calendar and plan out content creation and promotion in advance.

Social Media• Examine current social strategy (if any) and determine what’s working and what’s

not.• Set-up or research and recommend appropriate social monitoring tools.• Determine which social channels your company should be using and which are

not worth the investment for your business to ensure best ROI based on time and monetary budget.

• Set-up any recommended channels not currently in-use with appropriate company branding and some initial social media collateral to get them started.

• Create a monthly social posting calendar to plan out posts and promotion in advance and to ensure social strategy supports the overall content strategy.

• On a monthly basis analyze social metrics and make recommendations for improvement for the following month.

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Lead Nurturing Campaigns (Email Campaigns)• Examine current nurturing process (if any) and determine what’s working and

what’s not.• Map nurture campaigns to personas and buyer stages to determine if there are

any areas which need more nurture campaigns or where the existing nurture campaigns should be updated to better support the overall lead nurturing strategy.

• Build email campaigns as needed with creative, design and content elements. This includes initial building to fill gaps and ongoing creation on an as-needed basis.

• Ensuring that all leads are getting touched and that none are falling through the cracks. Just because a lead does not engage on initial campaigns does not justify dropping them from any future campaigns. You want to always be top of mind with your prospects when they are in the buying stages.

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Best Practices

Packages

Technology ExpertiseAs marketing becomes progressively more technical and the number of tools available seems to be growing exponentially, organizations are realizing a need for technical expertise and advice. They need to know which software they should evaluate and potentially purchase, which technology vendors fit their needs best and how they can integrate new software into their existing systems, workflows and strategies.

This new realm of technology expertise is a role agencies are evolving into as demand for it increases. Clients need help implementing, integrating and measuring the effectiveness of their software solutions. Agencies have the knowledge and experience to help with the decisions as well as the processes necessary to set organizations up for success. This is a huge opportunity for agencies with technology expertise to win new business.

“The marketing software vendor landscape is nine times the size it was a little more than two years ago”Source: Dom Nicastro, CMS Wire

Marketing Technology Expertise

Data & Analytics

Marketing Applications

AdvertisingChannels

Social Media

A/BTesting

Content Marketing

Software Expert

MobilePlatforms

Sales Process

EmailMarketing

MarketingAutomation

CRM Systems

BehavioralTargeting

InfluencerMarketing

Responsive Design

Cookies & PII

Agile Processes

Blogging

PPC

SEO APIsVideo

IT Operations

Databases

HTML

CSS

Components


Target Clients

Selling

Talk the Talk

Best Practices

Packages

PART EIGHT: Cus tomize Packages Bu i l t f rom Demand Genera t ion Serv ices

We’ve covered best practices and the art of selling and implementing in your own demand generation strategy, now let’s go over some example packages with demand generation services offerings. These are just examples, and there are no hard-and-fast rules here, but each is designed to address specific client need situations. Feel free to use these as a starting point for redrawing your own demand generation services packages. The idea is that you can sell each module on it’s own or as part of a customized package. We have deliberately chosen not to include pricing because every agency is different and can set their own prices. We’ll start with service modules and then build them into more comprehensive packages.

Conc lus ion

Demand generation is a highly marketable and desirable service, but just like anything there is a right and a wrong way to go about offering and providing that service. By implementing a solid demand generation strategy for your own agency, you establish credibility and expertise that helps increase the success of your demand generation services for clients. Follow the best practices outlined in this document to optimize your current demand generation practices and improve those you provide to your clients.

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