Tactics

5-min Marketing Brief? Funnel Plan Makes It Easy

What's in a marketing brief? At it's core, a marketing brief needs to describe what you want done and any constraints like timing and budget But there's more, right? In the very least, some helpful context like a description of your target market and the products / services you offer. And maybe why buyers even need a product like yours so the tactic can speak to this motivation. We'd argue that the context of the tactics also matters. What's happening before and after this tactic, and long side it. Also which stage of the buyer's journey READ MORE ›

By Hugh Macfarlane|Tactics|

Build vs Buy, and some Surprise Benefits from Aspose.Slides

Build vs Buy, and some Surprise Benefits from Aspose.Slides We're all in. Funnel Plan has gone from being a great tool to help our consultants to build sales and marketing plans for clients, to a 'bet the farm' investment in a self-contained software product licensed as a software service (SaaS) model. Our clients have built over 2000 sales and marketing plans using Funnel Plan and we learn more every day about what clients want. So you'd think it reasonable that we feel we need to build everything ourselves, so that we can own all the IP. Our READ MORE ›

By Hugh Macfarlane|Strategy, Tactics|

Failed Tactics: 5 Questions to ask before Quitting

What do you need to ask yourself before quitting on a failed tactic? Don’t get me wrong, I’m a firm believer that if a tactic isn’t working, you should stop. In fact, we base our whole outsourced marketing business on the idea that one tactic may not work, and if you hire an agency who is only good at that one tactic, they're going to keep on telling you that's the one tactic to do. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iZTUewtCygc&feature=youtu.be Again, don't mistake me. I am a fan of quitting a tactic and moving on to something else. But today, I've READ MORE ›

By Hugh Macfarlane|Evergreen, Tactics|

Where to use video for B2B

If your blog copy and your web pages are boring and 'me too' – you're dead. People have really short attention spans. Video, on the other hand, is engaging, it allows you to be authentic, and it connects you with your buyers. Today, I'm going to show you where and how to use video for B2B. https://youtu.be/9d-ZAcdOyA4 8 ways to use video in B2B 1. Cold Outreach In no particular order, let's begin with cold outreach. If I'm about to make contact with you as a targeted prospect – and I've done a bit of homework about READ MORE ›

By Hugh Macfarlane|Tactics|

Radically cut your B2B AdWords budget

B2B AdWords can be wickedly expensive. However, they can also be incredibly affordable. The difference doesn't come down to small tweaks but instead, undertaking radical surgery to your existing approach. Today, I want to show you how to make your AdWords both affordable and very profitable. https://youtu.be/Gq6r0JG2t2o Does AdWords work for B2B? It's not unusual to spend $10 for a click. If you're getting a 2% conversion rate once they get to your landing page, then it's going to cost you about $500 for a lead. Sounds okay so far, but half of those will be rubbish, READ MORE ›

By Hugh Macfarlane|Tactics|

How to Recover from a Marketing Mistake

In marketing, we all make mistakes. So much of our work is automated that it's really easy for them to happen. Nevertheless, it's not about whether you do or don’t make a mistake, but how well you recover. That's what I want to talk about today. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uUVgj22LGFM&t=3s Not all mistakes were created equal I think it helps to separate mistakes: There are simple mistakes, things like, “Hi Firstname.” Frankly, we’ve all done it. It’s embarrassing when it happens and awful when you do it for a customer – as we did a couple of months ago. It READ MORE ›

By Hugh Macfarlane|Evergreen, Tactics|

7 Tips for Crafting Cold Electronic Direct Mail (eDM)

https://youtu.be/aos2WQZkxUQ Cold, bulk emails are an awful tactic. Your buyers hate getting them, you hate the responses, and you also hate the lack of replies you receive. They're ineffective and they can even devalue your brand. But sometimes, just sometimes, they're welcomed and very successful. I want to talk today about those exceptions. Like any marketing message, a good eDM should be highly targeted to the buyer - customisation is key. So, here we'll talk about how to approach two different targets: new movers and strategic targets. New movers are those people who have just moved READ MORE ›

By Hugh Macfarlane|Tactics|

4 tips for using Electronic Direct Mail (eDM) to promote events

Electronic Direct Mail is a great way to warm a prospect up to some great event, but warm up means warm up, not blast them with too much heat. Let me explain how to warm up your prospects. In B2B, there are all sorts of events that we might want to warm a prospect up to using electronic direct mail or EDM. Some fairly common examples are a physical event itself or a webinar, maybe some kind of launch of a product or service that’s new for you or new for that market. It could also be that READ MORE ›

By Hugh Macfarlane|Tactics|

7 opportunities to ask for a meeting using triggered Electronic Direct Mail

Electronic direct mail, or EDM, is a great B2B tactic for people who visited your site, discovered a great asset and downloaded it. Because what you really want isn’t to give them an asset, what you really want is to get a meeting. Today, I'll show how to do that with Electronic Direct Mail. If somebody visits your site, reads about an asset, downloads it, and in the process of downloading it, gives you their details, it's safe to assume they're interested. Because of that, everything changes. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3cfHXuRX3uc We need to use the EDM to earn the READ MORE ›

By Hugh Macfarlane|Tactics|

6 tips for writing Electronic Direct Mail to nurture your prospects

Not everyone is ready to buy from you right now. But that doesn't mean they won't be ready to buy from you soon. In B2B marketing, we use email nurturing as a tactic to remain positioned with our prospective buyers even when they're not ready to buy. Electronic Direct Mail provides us with an opportunity to remain at the front of a lead’s mind and shape their thinking until they’re ready to buy. In today’s blog, I've got 6 tips for writing Electronic Direct Mail to nurture your prospects. Let me share them with you now. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z_e6DgvvxOo&feature=youtu.be READ MORE ›

By Hugh Macfarlane|Tactics|