The marketing landscape is constantly and rapidly evolving. Using the same marketing tactics year in year out while the world changes around you might not generate leads or increase sales at the level your company needs.

At the same time, the fundamentals of marketing remain the same. For all the talk of marketing goals, buyer personas and competitive advantage, the foundations of good b2b marketing still lie in a simple understanding. Your organisation is a group of human beings, trying to communicate that you understand the problems and needs of another group of human beings and that you can help them find a satisfying solution.

So, with that in mind, let’s take a look at a few ways you can shake up the marketing mix and evolve your approach to get the results you want. But first, a couple of rules.

Rule #1: Change Is Inevitable. Resistance Is Futile.

Even if your marketing approach is paying dividends right now, read on. It never hurts to review your marketing efforts to see what you could be doing differently to connect with your target customer. The smallest of tweaks can sometimes produce a revolution in your long term results.

Just as the marketing landscape is always evolving, so too is your target market. Your business makes changes, perhaps hoping to capitalise on a new product or service or a trend in the market. Your customers are always tacking to stay on course too. Understanding their evolving needs on an individual contact as well as account basis can help you tailor your messaging so it is just right.

Rule #2: Change Is Not Just For New Year.

Or for Quarter 1. Or the end of the financial year. There are other times in business that invite fresh perspectives, new opportunities, and renewed interest in what’s 'better'. A change of leadership at senior management or C-Suite level, for example, can be revolutionary, prompting radical changes in how a company works with its clients and suppliers.

Do your market research. Pay attention to major changes in your customers' businesses. Listen on social media for clues that your contacts are engaging with ideas around strategy change. These are the ideal times for everyone to build up relationships based on evolving goals.

Create An Awesome Customer Experience

How do you work to make authentic human connections with the people you want to do business with? What level and type of emotional connection do you have with your customers? Do you promise hope? Do you create opportunities for assurance? Do you share in your customers’ enthusiasm for change, or does your marketing create more of a focus on the negative they fear?

If you don't know the answer to that question, it is time to refresh the way you engage. Do deeper. Build something more meaningful. By listening better, improving how you engage on social and providing better content and experiences based on what you hear, you’ll capture people's attention and dive deeper into creating a real connection.

Focus on creating an emotional connection in real life, not just a tech-based process in which to create the illusion of connection. You want to have a relationship with your existing customers and leads that builds trust.

In this schema, the online world and data constitute an extension of your ability to listen attentively to your customer's needs, not just a way to capture the information you can then apply to manipulative marketing strategies.

Challenge Your Culture To Be More People-Focused

Empower and motivate your entire company, not just your sales team and marketing and customer service departments, to provide excellence across the board in the experience you provide. Creating a strong people-focused culture directly impacts your customer success because people-focused professionals create results.

Be Proactive – Reach Out to Your Customers

Instead of reacting to your customers as they come to you with problems and concerns, be proactive. Work to solve problems in your buying journey. This shouldn't be a matter of guesswork. Implement tools for gathering feedback, such as social media listening or surveys. It’s that insight that’s going to change your operations moving forward.

There are many ways to create a proactive customer experience. Here are a few:

• After a purchase: Are customers coming back to your business? The answer, either way, can provide valuable feedback. If they are repeat customers, ask them why? And if they've lapsed, what should you be doing differently?

• Throughout the buyer journey: Take a look at where your people are falling off. What’s not working in that area? Check-in with people regularly after key interactions, such as downloading more information, having a demo, or requesting a quote. Ask what’s working and what’s not.

• Make contacting you easy: If someone’s on your site, a chat feature can help provide them with a seamless experience.

• Answer FAQs without being asked: Provide an onsite frequently asked questions that are actually based on what questions you receive often. Provide informative videos on how to install a product.

Personalise Marketing Material

You could use progressive profiling tools and dynamic content in a manipulative and creepy way. We'd prefer that you used them for good rather than evil.

There's probably a lot you want to know when you meet someone for the first time, but you don't want them to feel that they're being interrogated. The same is true when someone visits your website looking to get acquainted with your company. Asking people about themselves shouldn't be overwhelming. As your relationship with a prospect develops, intelligent and dynamic form design can support your efforts to get to know them better.

Using this information to understand what they're looking for so you can provide them with relevant and useful information is the equivalent of conducting polite conversation. Creating personalised and dynamic emails and landing pages gives them what they need instead of wasting their time.

Create “Choose Your Own Adventure” Customer Journeys

Marketing automation tools let you trigger workflows based on the interactions people have had with your organisation, the sales process, and the content you’ve created. They guide the customer along a customised, self-created customer journey and seeks to deepen your relationship more naturally than a linear sales funnel model.

Imagine, for example, that a prospective customer receives an email a few days after downloading a product guide from your website, asking them if they have any questions about what they'd read and inviting them to book a call with a product expert. Automated emails can also be used as part of your after-sales service, with a purchase triggering a thank you note and giving them some tips and advice on maximising their investment.

You're not only adding to their positive experience of your brand by taking the time to implement these small touches, but you're also demonstrating that you care and inviting people to keep the conversation going. It's this sort of attention to detail that makes all the difference and generates great word of mouth marketing.

Focus On Content Marketing

The deluge of content and the improved experiences enabled by intelligent marketing automation and social tools mean it is more essential than ever to focus on providing value.

Take a focused look at your editorial calendar and be critical. Are you providing what your customers really want and need? Does your content primarily talk about your business and put forward social proof like case studies, testimonials and reviews? Or, are you working to build relationships with your customers by providing them with interesting, actionable and relevant information?

Brand building and reputation management are key components of any marketing campaign. However, focusing on building relationships through quality content could help your conversion rates and may push your company further ahead financially this year.

Implementation, Implementation, Implementation

We’ve talked a lot about gathering information and insight from your customers. But what happens when you get that information? Are you applying it?

Take a moment to consider what you’ll do if a customer says they don’t like something about your product or your marketing message. Will you take that feedback and dive into it? Or will you brush it off as a 'valuable learning opportunity' or a 'good idea' but not something you can implement now?

Rising to the challenge of making these changes allows for growth within your business. Some of it focuses on bottom-line profitability. However, from a marketing perspective, analyse if you are targeting the right buyer in the right manner and at the right time during the buyer’s journey.

Data-Driven Marketing

Just because you're taking a people-focused approach doesn't mean you're off the hook and don't have to pay attention to the data. Data is powerful and impactful for all businesses so reaffirm your commitment to a data-driven marketing strategy.

Schedule a regular time slot to get together with your team to dig into the data from your marketing campaigns. Look at the specific types of campaigns or strategies you used.

What has worked the best? Determine why. Was it the timing, message, time of year? What key aspects make this campaign stand out from others you did throughout the year? Establish some new goals based on what worked. Using the same methodology can be beneficial again if you hit the same high points.

Don't forget to also review the bad. Which strategies didn’t work? Why? Again, be objective here and really look at what went wrong. Poor execution, a poorly-thought-out campaign, or the wrong buyer? Get rid of what didn’t work at all, or consider tweaks you could make to hone a near miss into a raging success.

Use this data in your marketing planning to help you create future evidenced-based campaigns and build out your editorial calendar. Don't forget to target new lead-building mechanisms. How can you be more creative and innovative with your lead generation?

Taking the time to refresh your marketing, both on an overall strategy and account by account basis can change your bottom line. You don’t have to do it alone. Allow 1827 Marketing to give you the tools, strategies, and insights you need to thrive. Book a demo now to see just how easy it can be to change things up.