B2B marketers in traditional industries like manufacturing, agriculture & biosciences, furniture & textiles, and more may seem vastly different, but they all have a common bond.
Traditional industries typically have traditional ways of thinking about marketing.
The C-suite always seems to be asking for ROI, but they’re not sure why they should invest more in the latest marketing technology. From print ads in trade publications to trade shows, you might want to scream when it comes to measuring marketing success.
We’ve heard it before: “But our business is different!”
The problem is: marketing and technology are undervalued. How do you prove that marketing actually brings in or influences revenue, and what activities are most important in doing so even in traditional efforts?
Marketing attribution.
What is Marketing Attribution?
If you need to know where to focus your marketing efforts, you’ll need to assess the value of the various channels and how they influence potential customers or accounts.
Marketing attribution is measuring and analyzing touchpoints in marketing and sales to determine how prospects move through the pipeline.
You’re probably wondering, “Is marketing attribution truly possible within traditional marketing efforts?"
I’ll give you the good news: yes – it’s possible! It just takes strategic planning and a few sneaky ways to work around the obstacles.
I can’t move forward without stressing the importance of unifying your sales and marketing efforts (“smarketing”). In order to understand where revenue is coming from, you have to see it from all perspectives. Get your sales team involved in the marketing process to boost efficiency and make it measurable!
Prep for Applying Attribution in Traditional Marketing
First things first: get the right marketing attribution tools in place.
Next, map out a typical customer journey.
Then, choose a few activities from each portion of the funnel that are difficult to measure. For example:
Putting Attribution in Traditional Marketing into Action
After you’ve narrowed down some activities throughout the funnel that are important yet difficult to measure, let’s dig into ways to make them attributable. Bonus: in the process, you’ll also have more tips on how to unify marketing and sales processes. Let’s use the examples mentioned above.
A great one-pager can go a long way, right? It can inform, tell a story about a product or service, and be an easy way for salespeople to leave a takeaway at an event or meeting.
Traditional Mindset:
A typical sales sheet will list the company website and a rep’s contact information in the hopes that the prospect will make the first move.
Digital Attribution Mindset:
Create a unique QR code or simple URL on the sheet that links to a unique landing page with a form fill that so that you can track exactly where the prospect came from. If you want them to connect directly to the rep, the page could have a chat that helps them find the rep in their area to get more info or place an order on the spot.
Although digital ads are built-in finders and trackers, print ads don’t have those luxuries. However, it’s important to keep showing up in industry publications or in traditional media buys, even if it just seems like a formality.
Traditional Mindset:
Make sure the design and copy are creative enough to catch the eye of the right prospects. If you throw it out into the universe and it’s pretty enough, someone will call, right?
Digital Attribution Mindset:
This ain’t Mad Men, Peggy. If you’re spending money on ads – even if they’re print – make them attributable (but of course still beautiful and eye-catching). Each ad should have a unique QR code or URL to a landing page that tracks your specific campaign on the product or service you’re pushing. Even if it’s a generic ad for your company, you can create a unique place to send prospects to make it measurable.
Industry events are ideal for gaining knowledge, making connections, and hopefully, expanding brand recognition to boost sales. Whether they’re in-person or virtual, you typically have to cover the cost of entry fees, giveaways, a booth, and more. How do you know if there’s any marketing ROI?
Traditional Mindset:
Trade shows are all about exposure. The right people will be there, see us, and take action if they want to buy from us. We just gotta keep showing up; it’s what we do in this industry.
Digital Attribution Mindset:
Make a plan of action in advance to make the most of your time and investment into any in-person or virtual trade show. Prior to the event, set up an email sequence to customers or prospects, and set up targeted digital advertising if you don’t have direct contact information. During the show, interact with booth visitors and gather their data on the spot through something like a unique landing page or giveaway. After the event, follow up with another email sequence personalized directly from sales reps, hold a meeting for sales and marketing to connect, and continue to funnel the new prospects through the pipeline.
Where Do I Begin?
Don’t try to do everything at once; you can quickly be overwhelmed. Start small and keep your mindset focused around how you can connect everything back to data and digital strategies so that you can look at individual activities and attribute your success.
As you build up your digital footprint, determine what steps were taken and what channels or activities have been most impactful to prospects and customers. If you find that specific ones are doing really well and others are performing poorly, make tweaks as necessary to build a stronger marketing engine.
However – don’t lose the relational aspect that traditional buyers love. Your sales team still has an important place in building and keeping relationships. Your digital efforts are there to complement those efforts and make it easy for them to move through your pipeline.
Traditional efforts have a place, but digital isn’t going anywhere! You can continue to implement traditional efforts in your industry while “digitizing” them for attribution along the way.