Dminor Studio Newsletter

October 9th, 2024

Hey, it’s Stephen.

My favorite season in New York, Autumn finally arrived.

The leaves🍁 here have started to change color.

Various types of apples🍎 started to show up on the shelf.

Hope you will enjoy this issue.

In today’s issue:

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👨‍💻 MY PICK FOR THE US MARKET

• Why the Digital Marketing Funnel Demands Sales and Marketing Alignment

• Content Marketing Needs to Evolve Beyond SEO

• SEO vs. PPC: What are the differences & where do they meet?

🧙‍♂️ MY PICK FOR THE CHINA MARKET

• 2024 China Internet Users Data

• China’s Online Payment Market 2024

• East Meets West: Bridging the Color Gap in Cross-Cultural Marketing
  

📖 DEEP DIVE 

How B2B Marketing Has Evolved: Old School vs. New School

In the rapidly evolving B2B marketing landscape, traditional methods are being replaced by strategies leveraging data, digital integration, and collaboration. 

This shift transforms business connections with target audiences. 

Understanding these changes is crucial for staying competitive and maximizing marketing ROI.

Old Way of B2B Marketing

1. Heavily invest in trade shows
   
   Companies allocated substantial budgets to participate in trade shows.

   
   They believe direct interactions at those events would generate significant leads.

   
   The focus was primarily on increasing brand visibility rather than assessing the actual impact on sales.

   
   The success of these events was typically measured by the number of business cards collected.

2. No clear ROI measurements
   
   In the past, sophisticated tools were lacking to effectively measure the return on investment from marketing activities.

   
   Businesses would often launch campaigns without specific performance metrics in place.

   
   This often resulted in vague conclusions about the effectiveness of the marketing efforts.

3. Only sales lead marketing
   
   The primary responsibility for generating business lay solely with the sales team, with minimal input from the marketing department.

   
   Marketing’s role was limited to creating brochures and supporting sales materials.

   
   This structure led to missed opportunities for comprehensive, integrated strategies.

4. Ignore marketing
   
   There was a tendency to undervalue marketing, considering it a minor component compared to sales efforts.

   
   As a result, marketing departments received fewer resources and insufficient authority to impact business strategy.

   
   This neglect reduced awareness of brand-building's long-term benefits.

New Way of B2B Marketing

1. Sales and marketing work together
   
   New B2B marketing emphasizes collaboration, where sales and marketing align their objectives to deliver a unified customer experience.

   
   This synergy removes internal barriers, permitting shared insights that optimize customer touch points.

   
   This alignment ensures that both teams contribute towards closing deals effectively.

2. Data-driven marketing to build up relationships
   
   Analytics tools empower marketers to understand customer behavior and preferences in-depth.

   
   Campaign decisions are now informed by concrete data, enabling personalized communication that strengthens customer relationships.

   
   This approach transcends traditional methods by offering tailored solutions that meet specific client needs.

3. Use digital marketing aligned with offline marketing to maximize ROI
   
   By merging digital platforms and offline marketing efforts, businesses can reach a wider audience and evaluate interactions across different channels.

   
   This integrated approach ensures consistent messaging and optimizes the conversion funnel.

   
   Marketers can now track comprehensive metrics to assess campaign effectiveness better.

4. Strategically invest in trade shows by measuring ROI
   
   Instead of participating in all the trade shows, companies now select trade shows based on potential ROI and alignment with business goals.

   
   New B2B marketing leverages analytics to evaluate each event's effectiveness in lead generation and brand exposure.

   
   This leads to informed decisions about future investments.

Conclusion

The new era of B2B marketing highlights the importance of collaboration between marketing and sales. 

It underlines how data-driven strategies and integrated approaches provide greater value than traditionally solely on sales efforts.

The new B2B marketing formula should be: 

Marketing + Sales > Sales

• Drafts: Where Text Starts 

• The Rotring 600: Legendary Mechanical Pencil

Before you go: Here are 2 ways I can help

1. B2B Digital Marketing Solution — We help B2B companies grow business through proven B2B digital marketing approaches.

2. China B2B Digital Marketing Solution — We use China-specific digital marketing approaches to help B2B companies grow in China market.

Until next time,

— Stephen Tseng

(My LinkedIn Profile)

dminorstudio.com