Strategy (the "how")

In this chapter, I will describe the long-term strategy that attempts to meet, on a continuous basis, the single goal we set in the previous chapter:

The strategy is adapted so it works within the limitations of the B2B investment management industry, which mostly means an increased focus on support for the sales team.

Strategy overview

The strategy follows two key principles:

1. Focus on supporting the sales team. We will use digital marketing techniques to help salespeople nurture relationships with their clients and prospects (such as arming them with all available materials they need, and feeding them information about the digital activity of their assigned contacts).
2. Use an inbound marketing methodology. To attract new audiences, generate leads, and communicate with clients and prospects, we will use inbound (rather than outbound) methods, which includes publishing valuable content and allowing audiences to decide what communcations, if any, they want to receive.

It will eliminate a lot of what appears to be standard practice in the industry: constant self-promotion, sending content to audiences who haven't asked for it, cherry-picking performance numbers, sending product emails out of the blue, and spamming visitors who give their contact details to download gated content. More focus is given to free digital marketing channels before any paid advertising is considered.

Strategy implementation

The strategy is implemented through a series of steps.

Step #1: Firm research

A key initial step — and something I have never seen attempted — involves comprehensively researching and documenting key aspects of your firm: an overview of the business, products & services offered, its target audience, and the languages it communicates in.

Step #2: Groundwork

Next, to make sure the basics are in place, we complete some important groundwork around marketing materials, website & SEO, and content publishing.

Step #3: Lead generation and management

Subscribers will be added to a database in the marketing automation system — and their digital activity tracked — which allows us to provide their digital activity information to the sales team. Any prospects who are not already known to the business will be vetted and passed on to an appropriate salesperson.

Next, we build the digital marketing infrastructure, centred around the firm's database of contacts stored within the marketing automation system. We want to build this database as much as we can – which will include both new prospects and existing clients – because we will be able to track a contacts engagement with the firm's digital content (website, emails, documents, and so on) at an individual level.

To grow our database, we will create forms in the marketing automation system and place them on the firm’s website. When a previously anonymous visitor to the website submits a form – to subscribe, download gated content, or get in touch – a new contact record is created for them in the marketing automation database.

For the newly generated contact records without assigned sales coverage (which we could consider to be “owned” by marketing), we next set up an automated process to filter out those which are a fit for the firm as a potential client, and manage how and when they are handed over to sales for an initial follow-up:

• As not all newly generated leads will be potential clients, we can “grade” each lead based on the details they submit in the contact form. This grade – calculated in the marketing automation system – represents how well a lead matches with a set of our “ideal” criteria; we can use a minimum grade threshold to determine if a lead can be eventually passed to the sales team. However, if you believe the volume of leads your activities will generate is sufficiently low, you may decide to skip lead grading and simply manually review every new lead that comes in.
• It's probably not a good idea to send vetted leads over to sales as soon as they are generated: the contacts will need time to engage with content. We can add a delay between a lead being generated and any initial sales follow-up, by using an engagement score for each lead – starting at zero and increasing each time they engage in digital activity – and setting a minimum score that needs to be reached (alongside any minimum grade) before a new lead is passed over to the sales team. The amount of delay will be inversely related to the level of digital activity: leads engaging with lots of content will be passed over sooner. Admittedly, the choice of minimum score can be a bit arbitrary, but it can be tested and tweaked over time until a suitable balance is found.
• We also need to determine the specific details of how leads are handed over to the sales team: which salesperson they are sent to, how they are reviewed, and how any leads that are qualified and accepted by the sales team are pushed into the CRM and assigned to a salesperson that will cover them. Having a clear understanding of the sales team structure and process is key at this stage.

Content distribution

Once the digital marketing infrastructure is in place, we begin distributing content to the marketing database via email, which should encourage digital activity (alongside, of course, any activities members take of their own accord that aren't driven by marketing) and provide the "fuel" for the sales notifications.

Expansion projects

Finally, we may wish to undertake additional digital marketing projects. Ideally, we want to incorporate these within our existing infrastructure as much as possible. Therefore, I will work through a selection of typical investment management-related projects and demonstrate how they can be incorporated into our existing infrastructure.

At a high level, the strategy covers four main areas:

1. Publishing content for the firm's target audience.
2. Offering website subscriptions to build up a database of contacts whose digital activity can be tracked.
3. Distributing content to members of the database to encourage digital activity.
4. Providing salespeople with information about the digital activity of specific clients and prospects who are members of the database.

For any curious colleagues and managers with questions, we will make KPI data available through a series of self-serve reports, but will not be beholden to any regular reviews.

Marketing automation database

The strategy is centred around the marketing automation database of contacts, so it's worth explaining it a little futher. As mentioned, this database contains records of contacts who have submitted their personal details through a form on the firm's website — to subscribe, download gated content, or get in touch — at some point.

Each time a previously anonymous website visitor submits a form, a new contact record is created in the database with the personal information provided (name, email address, company, and so on). A cookie is set on the visitor's device that allows the marketing automation system to track further digital activity of the contact — such as visits to the firm's website, email engagement, and file downloads — made on the same device. This activity is stored on the contact's record.

When the form is submitted, the marketing automation system checks if the provided details match any records in the firm's customer relationship management (CRM) system (a database used by the sales team use to record any meetings, phone calls, and other interactions with clients and prospects). If a matching CRM record is found — indicating the contact is known to the firm and has an assigned salesperson — the contact record is created in the marketing automation system, linked to the relevant CRM record, and assigned to the same salesperson; otherwise, an un-linked record is created, with no salesperson assigned.

At the point of form submission, a letter grade can be calculated (A to F) for each contact using the information provided in the form, which indicates how well the contact matches the firm's ideal potential client — based on their job role, the firm they work for, their location, and so on. This can be combined with scoring leads on their digital activity over time, to ensure only vetted and engaged contacts are passed over to sales.

The database will contain a mix of three types of contact:

• Lead — someone who has submitted their personal details and has no CRM record. A new contact record was created in the marketing automation database, but was not qualified by the marketing team as a prospect.
• Prospect — also known as a marketing qualified lead (MQL). A lead who has been qualified by the marketing team as a potential opportunity based on that contact's personal details (company, job title, location). At this stage, they will not have a CRM record or an assigned sales person.
• Opportunity — also known as a sales qualified lead (SQL). A prospect who has either had a CRM record created for them after they entered the marketing automation database, or already had a CRM record when their record in the marketing automation database was created. Although all opportunities will have a CRM record, some may have never invested any money with the firm or may no longer hold any investments.