Steps to Build Your B2B Digital Marketing Capabilities |Denave
Digital Marketing Capabilities

A successful B2B digital marketing engine should consist of a comprehensive set of digital capabilities that help B2B marketers target their ideal buyer personas across channels

A successful B2B digital marketing engine should consist of a comprehensive set of digital capabilities that help B2B marketers target their ideal buyer personas across channels

Discover three key steps to build B2B digital marketing capabilities effectively and successfully

Discover three key steps to build B2B digital marketing capabilities effectively and successfully

Evaluate the business objectives of driving digital marketing transformation

The first step to enabling digital-ready marketing engine is defining the business-critical objectives of the activity and how it can empower marketing to achieve the desired business goals. Identifying the appropriate level of digital transformation is necessary to prepare the B2B demand generation teams to set up campaigns for success. There are three primary types of transformation to consider:

• The way marketers present the brand to the market, including buyer engagement and partner journeys: This type of digital transformation revises the buyer’s interactions with the brand. A common example is integrating digital or B2B inbound marketing strategies such as content syndication, paid ads, social media marketing and blogs. This does not impact the enterprise’s brand, products, business model, or processes. Also, it can easily be implemented with existing operational capabilities but will require new marketing capabilities.

• How the company operates, including workflows, processes, systems, and/or infrastructure: This digital transformation reinforces change internally and is typically not apparent to the customers and external partners. It alters the ways and the TAT of how offerings are delivered depending on the nature and scope of expected operational changes.

• What the company’s brand identity is: This is the most comprehensive type of transformation and has a bearing on the core attributes of the company. It impacts the digital demand generation processes and how the revenue is generated. It manifests changes across the company’s brand, business model, or offerings.

Step 2. Outline the company’s required marketing capabilities

After assessing the objectives of B2B digital marketing services, business leaders must determine the digital capabilities needed for B2B marketing services and deliver value to the business. This assessment will allow marketing leaders to understand the current capabilities and identify those that must be built or further developed.

For example, if the transformation is to modify the way the brand interacts with the buyers by adding new digital approaches and touchpoints, marketing capabilities required would be B2B demand generation, cross-selling and upselling, and leveraging advanced analytics to derive unique insights across campaigns.

Step 3. Map resources to execute the required marketing capabilities

Marketing competencies are defined as the knowledge, skills, processes, and tools required to build brand promotion and online lead generation campaigns. Companies need a consistent marketing approach across all channels in terms of brand messaging, principles, models, and best practices. Marketing competencies are the scaffolding that keeps the foundation of B2B digital marketing services intact and scale to the next level.

For example, suppose a company wants to add new digital approaches. In that case, marketing leaders must enable a baseline understanding of both inbound and outbound B2B marketing mix within the demand generation team. This would also entail adding new digital delivery channels and integrating tools to optimize digital marketing performance. It also helps marketers interpret buyer signals influencing the next based action depending on user behaviour.