Insights
Successful B2B digital marketing strategies all have one thing in common: they’re dynamic and flexible. The most successful digital marketing teams revisit their strategies often, changing them as business priorities change.
As you and your team continue to refine your B2B digital marketing strategies — or any digital marketing strategies you use — Br8kthru has put together a digital strategy framework to help you align digital marketing maturity with your plans for a successful combination.
What Is Digital Marketing Maturity? Balancing Strategies and Tactics
Digital marketing maturity measures an organization’s ability to use B2B digital marketing strategies and tactics to achieve desired results or reach business goals. By understanding its digital marketing maturity, an organization can make more informed decisions about its activities, leading to a better return on investment (ROI).
At Br8kthru, we divide digital marketing maturity into three stages — foundation, acceleration, and expansion — to help organizations better understand their maturity and the tactics and strategies that may be successful.
At the foundation stage, organizations are working on the basics of digital marketing maturity, such as setting up a website and a customer relationship management (CRM) tool. At the acceleration stage, organizations are beginning to take on slightly more complex activities, like content marketing and search engine optimization (SEO). Finally, organizations can take on even more advanced tactics at the expansion stage, like search marketing and account-based marketing.
Specific tactics will best align with your current state to achieve optimal results, whether your organization is at the foundation, acceleration, or expansion stage. Keep this in mind as you build your B2B digital marketing strategies — it will allow you to create a plan that meets your needs while being mindful of your limitations.
Br8kthru’s Digital Strategy Framework
A digital strategy is a plan of action for approaching an organization’s overarching, large-scale goals using digital tactics. As noted above, digital maturity affects B2B digital marketing strategies because the tactics used may change depending on the maturity. For example, an organization without a website will not be successful in running search marketing campaigns.
Regardless of maturity, Br8kthru has developed the following steps to help organizations develop B2B digital marketing strategies that achieve results.
1. Reflect on the Past
Collect data on your activities for the last 12 months to find relevant trends. Not only will this inform your B2B digital marketing strategies, but it can also help you understand your marketing maturity.
2. Account for Change
Be prepared for change in your industry, economy, and business — and plan for it. As your business evolves, your maturity will shift and your strategies and tactics will evolve, too.
3. Identify Data Gaps
What information don’t you have that you’d like to have? Consider the metrics and answers you’d like to have, if you could.
4. Inventory Resources
Understand your available resources, both in terms of your tools and your people. What tools do you use? Are they the right tools for your processes and maturity? Who is on your team, and what skills and capabilities do they have?
5. Celebrate Ideas Big and Small
Brainstorm your ideal year, then scale back to start creating a list of manageable wins for the year.
6. Set Annual Goals
Set realistic and quantifiable goals using the data and information from previous steps. (Consider setting SMART goals to help guide you.)
7. Plan for Measurement
Revisit your goals and understand how you want to measure success so you can create systems and processes to do so.
8. Settle on a Budget
Use your quantifiable goals to help you build a reasonable, prioritized budget for the year. Keep costs lower for the activities that won’t directly impact goals, but don’t lose sight of indirect impact and long-term value.
9. Focus on Your Foundations
From your website to your CRM, your foundational tactics will lay the groundwork to allow you to move forward. This will ensure your foundation can best support your advanced work.
10. Accelerate or Expand
Once you’ve established your foundation, look for tactics aligning with your goals and maturity. What other plans do you have, and how can more advanced tactics help you achieve them? As you consider this, be mindful of your maturity and what is realistic for you and your team.
11. Think Far Into the Future
Plan for the future as you plan for the present by ensuring you’ve considered the long-term implications of your actions and incorporated them into your B2B digital marketing strategies where appropriate.
Not all B2B digital marketing strategies are created equal. The best ones are flexible and dynamic while being intentional and thorough. By considering your organization’s digital marketing maturity and this 11-step checklist for building a winning annual marketing strategy, you can create the ideal B2B digital marketing strategies for your business.
Need Strategy Help? Br8kthru Is Here
Building a digitally mature strategy depends on many factors, from digital maturity and goals to resources and beyond. Whether you and your team have a strategy that isn’t working for you or you’re looking to create a new strategy from scratch, Br8kthru can help. Our subject matter experts (SMEs) excel at building B2B digital marketing strategies that align with digital maturity and organizational goals.
Still trying to figure out where to begin? Start with a complimentary Digital Marketing Gap Audit. Before beginning on strategy, our SMEs can review three areas of digital activity to identify strengths and opportunities for improvement. These opportunities then inform our approach as we start working together. No matter how much support or guidance you need, Br8kthru will be there at every step.