Inbound marketing for B2B lead generation has now become a science for marketers. The shift towards continuous improvement using data means that marketers, who are often thought of as creative types, are now being called upon to apply a certain amount of science to their art, in order to create an efficient lead generation machine. Effective inbound marketers are taking on an analyst role and, they accept and embrace their responsibility for generating revenue, not just leads. They examine and interpret the results of their efforts so they can make strategic business decisions. They adapt their marketing efforts where needed and then measure those changes to see if they’re having a positive impact.
At g2m Solutions we think, that if you’re a marketer or about to hire a marketer, you should be looking at a set of skills to develop or for your potential employee to display in order to be successful. Find our top 5 skill list below.
1. Knowledge of social media platforms
It’s hard to get a job as a B2B marketer these days without knowledge of how social media platforms work in order to help build engagement with potential and existing customers. For example:
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Twitter provides the opportunity to share the headlines and key points of your business blog as well as other key influencers within your industry.
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LinkedIn establishes a more in-depth, professional connection, which we’ve found yields more conversions than any other social platform.
An effective marketer will develop an in-depth social media communications strategy. This will achieve multiple things including determining the messages and the tone with which the business will communicate to their buyer persona; finding out where their personas ‘hang out’; and identifying influencers to engage with in order to build up a following and create opportunities for sharing content.
2. Writing and editing skills
The single most constant requirement in inbound marketing is content. Creating remarkable, educational, compels-a-stranger-to-hand-over-their-contact-details content. Content is not necessarily a 600-word article on your business blog, it can range from ebooks, videos, webinars to slideshares or infographics. But for the purposes of getting my point across within this blog post, I’m referring to creating the written word, namely blogs and ebooks.
Through effective and well planned out SEO, remarkable content is what will bring visitors to your website, drive up your website ranking in Google and attract links from other sites. An important skill is being able to write well and be a good editor. Marketers need to be able to produce highly engaging and locally relevant content for their targeted buyer persona that will convert visitors to leads and leads into customers.
3. Analytical skills
With inbound marketing everything is measurable but it’s what you do with all of this data that makes you different from your competitors. A key skill is to understand how all marketing tactics tie directly into a company’s revenue. Marketers will:
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Invest in the right technology to assist them with analysing data and use it to respond dynamically to strangers, prospects and customers.
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Have a structured change process in order to incrementally improve their campaigns.
4. Matching marketing strategy with business objectives
Transforming strategy into action is a skill that takes practice. Knowing the importance of aligning a marketing strategy with the business objectives, and actually doing just that, is an even greater skill. This allows you to develop a set of tactics and create a methodical plan to not only generate sales qualified leads but convert them into customers.
5. Always wanting to learn
Lastly, NEVER stop learning. At no point should an inbound marketer ever think “I’ve learned everything there is to know about inbound marketing.” The digital world is forever evolving and marketers need to evolve with it. An effective inbound marketer will take time, whether it’s every day or every week, to read and learn what’s happening in the world of inbound marketing and apply it to their daily work life. There will always be something new to learn...always.
An excellent inbound marketer knows the importance of measurement and will have a rock solid process and methodology that aligns with their business’ objectives to help drive real change. With the right resources, they will be able to plan, design and build a cost effective B2B content and lead generation engine that converts visitors to leads and leads into customers.
There are plenty of skills that we haven’t covered here as there’s only so much you can say in 1 blog! Do you think we’ve left out any important skills an inbound marketer needs to have? We’d love to hear what you think, so please leave your comments below.
To enter the next phase and learn the critical steps you should take to build a powerful lead generation engine that will deliver a consistent stream of quality leads for your salesteam, download our free ebook ‘How to Win the Race for Quality Leads’ by clicking on the button below.
