Traditional B2B marketing nurture campaigns focus on cultivating relationships via email. A prospect downloads a content asset, then you follow up with a three-email drip that encourage them to take action.
Times have changed. Traditional B2B marketing nurture campaigns simply don’t cultivate relationships and turn leads into customers. In fact, did they ever?
Why email nurture campaigns aren’t enough today
Prospects aren’t behaving the way they used to. They’re doing their own research. Most have completed 70% of their buying journeys before they even talk to your sales team.
The problem with nurturing prospects via email? It’s not rooted in data. And it’s focused on you, not them.
In your typical drip campaign, you try to fit your story — all the information about you and what you do — into a series of emails.
But prospects need information tailored to their needs, their challenges, and their interests. And they’re not waiting for you to send it to them. Instead, they’re using a range of channels to find what they want on their own.
It’s time for a new approach to B2B marketing nurture campaigns
An effective nurture strategy today is an intelligent, always-on marketing campaign rooted in buyer intelligence and intent data. Rather than sending seller-centric messages via a single channel, it takes an omnichannel approach that reaches each prospect with the right message at the right time.
An always-on campaign gives prospects a continuous stream of relevant content that advances the conversation at their convenience and lays the groundwork for a long-term relationship.
The advantages of an always-on B2B marketing nurture campaign:
- Allows you to coordinate across channels.
- Gives you the mental space to plan.
- Generates continuous data.
- Serves as a vehicle for new content.
- Automates your marketing.
Five types of always-on B2B marketing campaigns
In the guide, “How To Transform Your Always-On Campaign,” Inverta describes five always-on campaigns and tips to help B2B marketers get started.
1. Welcome Campaign
- Triggered when a new lead is added to your CRM.
- Build it around a content track that’s relevant based on the initial touchpoint.
- Give every targeted account and contact a consistent experience.
- Create multiple versions tailored to personas or interests. (Upkeep is passive once the campaign has been set up.)
- Suggested channels — email, LinkedIn, and display.
2. Buyer’s Journey Campaign
- Use it to market to accounts based on buyer stage.
- Partner with Intentsify to determine buyer stages.
- Set a trigger for activation (e.g., when intent or buyer stage changes).
- Keep relevant by monitoring interest and engagement.
- Suggested channels: display, content syndication, LinkedIn, email, BDR outreach, content hubs.
- Note — this campaign requires the most data and buying signals to support.
3. Customer Lifecycle Campaign
- Use it to help customer success team predict and prevent churn and to encourage customers and contacts to adopt products and maximize value.
- Set a trigger for activation (e.g., when account data has changed, product has been used, or renewal date occurs).
- Occasionally add new content for upkeep.
- Suggested channels: chatbots, in-product messaging, web.
4. Closed-Lost Campaign
- Use it to re-engage with accounts and contacts on closed-lost and churned lists.
- Set a trigger for activation (e.g., when account is marked as lost)
- Occasionally add new content for upkeep.
- Suggested channels: sale outreach, email, content hub, LinkedIn
5. Keep-In-Touch Campaign
- Use it to build audience among contacts with a re-engagement touchpoint (e.g., newsletter, blog, or podcast)
- Focus on a content-driven audience that isn’t currently in a buy cycle.
- Set a trigger for activation (e.g., someone has exited a different always-on campaign)
- Be active in upkeep.
- Suggested channels — email, blog, website, social media.
Intent data: the fuel for always-on campaigns
To reach a prospect with the right message at the right time, you need to understand their buyer’s journey. That requires highly precise intent data. And a lot of it.
Intent data is derived from first, second-, and third-party sources. It’s easy to acquire.
The challenge for B2B marketers is activation. That’s where Intentsify and signal-based marketing come in. Our AI-powered custom intent modeling interprets and weights solution-specific topics and keywords from your website and marketing materials to monitor for buying signals. Then, based on these aggregate signals, it organizes target accounts and personas into research stages.
Of course, intent data is only one type of buyer intelligence. Intentsify collects disparate types of data points, including intent, firmographic, contact (USA), digital, business events, and technographic. We then transform that data into actionable account and buying-group intelligence for signal-based marketing.
How to map your content to B2B buyer stages.
During the awareness stage, highlight market problems, challenges, and opportunities. Use thought leadership content, blogs, analyst reports, infographics, and similar materials.
At the interest stage, teach prospects about specific challenges and improvement opportunities. Ideal content: eBooks, guides, on-demand demos, and webinars.
For the consideration stage, provide information on value propositions, use cases, and how products work. Use videos/webinars, guides, and case studies.
At the decision stage, promote specific products, services, and brands with case studies, ROI stats, pricing pages, info sheets, and product reviews.
Always-on Example: The Buyer’s Journey Campaign
Step 1: New contact enters CRM that fits your ICP (ideal customer profile).
Step 2: You create display ads that fit each buyer stage. Intentsify dynamically serves those ads to buyers based on where they are in their journeys.
Step 3: Prospect enters a persona-specific or interest-specific email sequence, based on their behavior. Prospect exits the sequence when they take any sales-ready action such as requesting a demo.
Step 4: Partner with Intentsify to retarget leads through content syndication, offering helpful content that keeps educating and informing prospect about the topics and issues that matter to them.
Step 5: Continue with enhanced retargeting on LinkedIn using Intentsify’s buying group contacts from your target accounts to feed LinkedIn’s predictive audience builder.
Step 6: Continue to use organic channels, including social media posts and invitations to in-person events and webinars. Invite prospects and customers to events based on their research interests and previous content engagement.
Step 7: As prospect reaches consideration stage, business development representatives (BDRs) look at relevant buying signals to create a personalized touchpoint.
How to implement an always-on campaign.
- Establish your goals and objectives.
- Create a content matrix.
- Get all of your marketing teams involved.
- Confirm your data sources and tech stack.
- Establish a monitoring and optimization framework.
Keep in mind it’s not always about pipeline. Each always-on campaign you launch may have different success metrics. To learn more, download the complete guide to “Intentsify your Nurture.”
