We recently published an extensive article for manufacturing professionals titled The 7 Core Elements of an Industrial Marketing Strategy in which we examined in depth each piece of the pie that we believe must be present, optimized and working in sync for an industrial sector B2B company to achieve significant and sustainable revenue growth through marketing.
Because that article focuses on first gaining a baseline understanding of the critical components that make up an ROI-driven industrial marketing and sales strategy, I’d like to nudge you in that direction before you read this article (and subsequently begin the process of auditing your own).
Once you’ve worked through that first article, make your way back here, where we’ll provide you with a structure for auditing your company’s industrial marketing strategy. The completion of your audit will set the stage for you to prioritize the strengthening of your weakest elements and develop a plan to make it happen.
How this self-audit is structured
The seven core elements of industrial marketing strategy that we reference –which also provide the structure for this recommended audit process– follow:
- Positioning
- Website Foundation
- Demand Generation
- Lead Generation
- Sales Enablement
- Lead Nurturing
- Measurement
In this article, we’ll work through each of these elements one by one and paint a picture of what an industrial company like yours may currently look like if you’re in a problematic state, just meeting the status quo or fully optimized.
After completing each section, score the current state of your company on a scale of 1 – 10 for that particular element, where 10 represents perfection. Following this exercise, you should walk away with a clear sense for where your time, energy and spend should be allocated.
Let’s get started!
Positioning Audit
Problematic
A score of 1 – 3 out of 10
You’re perceived as a generalist in your space with a multitude of products or services for anyone and everyone.
Status quo
A score of 4 – 7 out of 10
You have a somewhat-defined brand positioning and you know who your buyers are, but have not documented your buyer persona profiles. There is a hazy mutual understanding between your marketing and sales teams about the characteristics of your ideal client.
Optimized
A score of 8-10 out of 10
Your brand positioning is unique in your space and publicly documented on your website. Your buyer personas are clearly defined, documented in writing and understood by both marketing and sales. A consistent message resonates throughout your website and all marketing communications.
Website Foundation Audit
Problematic
A score of 1 – 3 out of 10
Your 10-year-old static website is filled with outdated and inaccurate information that can’t be easily updated without the help of your IT guy.
Status quo
A score of 4 – 7 out of 10
Your somewhat mobile-friendly website is mostly brochure-like, but sprinkled with bits of educational content. Your content management system makes your website partially editable, but presents some challenges to maintain and update.
Optimized
A score of 8 – 10 out of 10
Your mobile-friendly website is built on a flexible content management system, connected directly to CRM and marketing automation software platforms, optimized for search engines and equipped with clear visitor-to-lead conversion paths for each buyer persona.
Demand Generation
Problematic
A score of 1 – 3 out of 10
You occasionally but inconsistently deploy traditional marketing activities like print ads or direct mail. No inbound marketing strategies are in play.
Status quo
A score of 4 – 7 out of 10
Some online marketing activities like pay-per-click ads or banner ads accompany your traditional marketing practices. You occasionally publish content, most of which comes in the form of press releases, with an educational blog article here and there. Your website traffic is growing at a slow pace if at all.
Optimized
A score of 8 – 10 out of 10
You spend little time and money on traditional outbound marketing tactics because you’re generating significant awareness and resulting traffic from your inbound marketing activities. Multiple times each month, you publish laser-targeted educational content for your buyer personas on a combination of your website, industry trade journal websites and other online publishing platforms. Your content is keyword-targeted and well search engine-optimized. As a result, your website traffic is growing by 25 – 50%+ year over year and your visitors are becoming more and more qualified.
Lead Generation Audit
Problematic
A score of 1 – 3 out of 10
Nothing more than a Contact Us or Request a Quote button prompts your website visitors to take action. Few to no qualified leads are being generated through your website on a regular basis.
Status quo
A score of 4 – 7 out of 10
Your website generates a moderate level of qualified leads through form submissions, but little to no premium content like white papers and buyers guides are used to capture leads in the earlier stages of your visitors’ buying processes.
Optimized
A score of 8 – 10 out of 10
A variety of high-level content designed and written for each buyer persona (and for all stages of each persona’s buying process) are present on your website and gated behind forms that require contact information to be submitted in order to download that content. Page-specific calls-to-action on all pages of your website direct visitors to the lead-capture opportunities most relevant to them. 3%+ of your website visitors are converting into leads with names, phone numbers and email addresses for your sales team to pursue. You’re running A/B tests monthly to optimize your visitor-to-lead conversion rate on all high-traffic pages.
Sales Enablement Audit
Problematic
A score of 1 – 3 out of 10
Your small internal team focuses on growing and maintaining your existing customer base, but little to no time remains for new business prospecting or other new business development activities.
Status quo
A score of 4 – 7 out of 10
Your small- to medium- sized inside sales team cold calls, attends networking events and walks the halls of trade shows a few times each year. Limited time is spent pursuing inbound leads generated through your website. Your sales team has never been trained on how to pursue inbound leads and as a result lacks both the processes and automation tools to effectively do so.
Optimized
A score of 8 – 10 out of 10
Your small- to medium-sized inside sales team spends limited time cold calling and traveling to drum up new business opportunities. Responsibilities and processes for pursuit of inbound leads are clearly defined and understood. Cool and warm leads consistently receive personalized (but automated) emails focused on helping solve buying process challenges rather than asking for premature sales meetings. As a result, your sales team’s time is spent almost exclusively in conversation with your most sales-qualified, sales-ready and profitable leads.
Lead Nurturing Audit
Problematic
A score of 1 – 3 out of 10
A legacy database of less than 100 email contacts exists somewhere. No email marketing or marketing automation activities are in play.
Status quo
A score of 4 – 7 out of 10
Your 100 – 2000 email contacts receive generic monthly e-newsletters that are mostly promotional in nature. Return visits to your website from existing contacts are infrequent.
Optimized
A score of 8 – 10 out of 10
Your 2000+ (and growing) contact database is being automatically segmented by industry, persona and customer lifecycle stage (researcher, evaluator, sales-ready buyer, existing customer). Contacts receive one to two highly-targeted marketing emails every month, composed not of promotional messages, but of links to helpful, educational content designed and written as if it were just for them. Consistent return visits from existing contacts are commonplace as trust and attention are built over the course of time.
Measurement Audit
Problematic
A score of 1 – 3 out of 10
No web analytics software is being used to track the source of website visitors or their behavior on your website. Therefore no reporting is possible.
Status Quo
A score of 4 – 7 out of 10
Google Analytics has been installed but its data is not being utilized. A CRM software like Salesforce or HubSpot is being used inconsistently by your sales and marketing teams. Little to no consistent dialogue is occurring between your marketing and sales teams regarding lead quality or closed sales.
Optimized
A score of 8 – 10 out of 10
Recurring monthly Marketing – Sales team meetings stimulate thoughtful conversations between the two teams and influence future business development decisions. Your Sales team consistently classifies all inbound leads based on level of qualification and backfills revenue figures into the CRM software every month. As a result, your Marketing team learns what marketing initiatives are producing not only qualified leads, but actual sales. The marketing team generates ROI reports for the Sales team and company President every quarter from this data.
So where do you go from here?
Our hope is that you’ve learned something from this audit and have acquired a sense for where your organization can go if you’re not there yet. Most importantly, we hope you’ve begun to identify where your time, energy and dollars should be prioritized as you begin building a sustainable industrial marketing and sales strategy for your organization.
Your next step of course is to take action and begin designing that strategy. There are a few ways to do it:
- Execute with your existing staff.
- Hire an internal marketing employee.
- Partner with an industrial marketing agency.
There’s no default answer to which approach makes the most sense for your company, so we’ve laid out the pros, cons and associated cost estimates for each in the “Budgeting and staffing for your industrial marketing initiative” section of our Industrial Marketing: The Definitive Guide.
If you think an industrial marketing agency partnership could potentially be the solution for you, consider requesting a consultation with one of our Marketing Strategists. Otherwise, we wish you the best of luck getting started and hope that we can at least be a source of helpful information along the way. If you haven’t yet, I encourage you to visit our Industrial Marketing Strategy Learning Center and at the top of the page, subscribe to our newsletter to receive more content like this in your inbox on a regular basis.
Good luck with your audit!
