Focus on optimizing the website and implementing basic digital marketing tactics to capture and nurture leads. This phase addresses critical digital infrastructure that will support lead generation and nurturing.
Website
Your website is the primary way that you will communicate with the rest of the world in the digital age. Accordingly, there are a variety of things we need to ensure the website has or does so that it’s effective:
User Experience: Ensure the website is user-friendly, easy to navigate, and mobile-responsive. Generally, this requires that you have a third party design the site and the information architecture of it.
Sign Up: The website needs to have some basic functionality on it allowing users to quickly sign-up for your solution utilizing third party authentication services – most commonly LinkedIn, Google Workspace and O365. While you should also offer native sign-up functionality – the classic e-mail and password – the reduction in friction from enabling sign-ups with third parties is well worth the cost of implementation.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO): All website content should be written in a way that is optimized for your intent keywords. The structure and technical aspects of your site should be optimized for search engines.
Educational Content – In conjunction with content marketing offer the buyer resources that support them in researching the business problem space. This content can be aligned around your research keywords and is about building the size of your database.
Legal and Regulatory – Ensure all common policies (terms of use, MSA, privacy policy) are present on the. Ensure that privacy opt-in options are fully implemented. Ensure the site is accessible to the WCAG 2.1 AA standard.
Content Marketing
Define Content Pillars: As noted in Marketing Basics, you should have already identified the key topics and themes that resonate with your target audience and align with your brand. These should be extensively informed by the set of keywords that you have selected and the content present on the sites that your various personas visit. I like breaking out content pillars by Persona and defining what content you should generate for whom accordingly.
Content Calendar: A plan and schedule for content creation and publication across various channels.
Build the Content: Produce engaging and informative content, such as blog posts, white papers, ebooks, case studies, webinars, videos, and infographics. The content generated in this fashion should always be optimized for SEO with a clear persona(s) audience in mind.
Content Promotion – Promote and share your content widely. Social sharing includes sharing out the content on your social media network and encouraging your network to repost if they like it. E-mail sharing can be one off e-mails to the relevant subset of your database or through your e-mail list. Paid advertising promotes your content via content syndication networks such as Outbrain or Demand Science. In all content promotion – knowing your audience is key as the narrower you can focus the more likely you are to create compelling content and have it connect with your audience.
Analytics – Now that you’ve created and deployed the content you’ve got to track and measure its efficacy. This means looking at things like website traffic, engagement rates, and lead generation to see if it’s getting traction, to assess the effectiveness of your content.
Digital Ads
- Budget – How much are we willing to spend each month?
- Channels – What channels do we want to run ads on?
- Search Engine Marketing (SEM): Google Ads, Bing Ads
- Social Media Advertising: LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter
- Display Advertising: Google Display Network, programmatic advertising
- Retargeting: Re-engage website visitors with targeted ads.
Landing Pages
A landing page is a standalone web page specifically designed to convert visitors into leads or customers by focusing their attention on a single, clear call-to-action (CTA). Unlike typical website pages with multiple navigation options, a landing page eliminates distractions and guides visitors toward one primary conversion goal, such as signing up for a newsletter, downloading a resource, registering for a webinar, or purchasing a product. Typically created for specific marketing campaigns, landing pages use persuasive copywriting, compelling visuals, social proof like testimonials, and a prominent, action-oriented button to maximize the likelihood that a visitor will take the desired action. Effective landing pages are strategically crafted with a deep understanding of the target audience’s needs, pain points, and motivations, and are often used in conjunction with paid advertising, email marketing, or social media campaigns to drive targeted traffic and improve conversion rates. Each digital marketing campaign and content syndication campaign you launch will have its own landing page with its own unique call to action that ties back into the marketing campaign.
Landing pages can have a variety of different “calls to action” in the context of B2B technology companies, here’s a few of the common ones:
| CTA | Description | User Action |
| Get Started | Encourages the user to begin the process, often with a vague but intriguing promise. | The user is typically directed to another page with more information or a form to fill out. |
| Sign Up | Invites the user to register for an account or service. | The user is typically taken to a registration form where they provide their information. |
| Subscribe | Encourages the user to join an email list to receive updates, promotions, or exclusive content. | The user is typically added to an email list and may receive an immediate confirmation message. |
| Download | Prompts the user to obtain a resource like an ebook, white paper, or software. | The user is usually presented with a form to fill out in exchange for the download. |
| Order Now | Urges the user to place an order for a product or service immediately. | The user is typically taken to a checkout page to complete their purchase. |
| Buy | A direct call to purchase a product or service. | The user is typically taken to a checkout page to complete their purchase. |
| Add to Cart | Allows the user to temporarily save an item for later purchase. | The item is added to the user’s shopping cart, and they can continue browsing or proceed to checkout. |
| Try | Encourages the user to experience a product or service with a free trial or demo. | The user is typically directed to a sign-up page for the trial or a page where they can access the demo. |
| Learn More | Invites the user to explore more information about a product, service, or company. | The user is typically taken to a new page with more detailed information, such as a product page, about page, or a blog post. |
| Get a Demo | Offers the user a personalized demonstration of a product or service. | The user is typically directed to a form where they can schedule a demo with a sales representative. |
| Claim Offer | Encourages the user to take advantage of a special offer or promotion. | The user is typically taken to a page where they can redeem the offer, often by entering a code or providing their information. |
There is a lot of information out on the web about how to create good landing pages so I’ll spare you all of that here. Suffice it to say creating good landing pages is both art and science and you’ll want someone experienced in creating and refining them to just work on this piece.
Email Marketing
Build and Segment Your Lists – Most organizations will include in any lead capture form, login process or other registration a checked box that says something like “can we send you marketing?” That’s a great first step. After you may want to further segment the list based on demographics, behavior, interests, and stage in the customer journey.
Create Engaging Email Content: Design visually appealing and informative emails with clear calls to action.
Automate Email Workflows: Utilize marketing automation platforms to automate email sequences for lead nurturing, onboarding, and customer engagement.Track and Analyze Email Performance: Monitor key metrics, such as open rates, click-through rates, conversion rates, and unsubscribe rates.
- Site Rework:
- Redesign and develop the website to align with a B2B SaaS company look and feel, improve user experience, and optimize for lead generation.
- Plan website structure and content based on personas and customer journeys.
- Design wireframes and visual mockups.
- Develop the website with a focus on clear messaging, strong CTAs, and lead capture forms.
- Ensure mobile responsiveness and fast loading speeds.
- Success is a redesigned and functional B2B SaaS-focused website.
- Basic Retargeting:
- Re-engage website visitors who didn’t convert by showing them targeted ads.
- Implement all tracking pixels (e.g., Facebook Pixel, LinkedIn Insight Tag, Google Ads remarketing tag).
- Define initial retargeting audiences (e.g., website visitors, specific page viewers).
- Create basic retargeting ad campaigns on relevant platforms.
- Functional retargeting campaigns running on at least one platform.
The website rework is the absolute priority in this phase. If your site doesn’t *feel* like a real enterprise SaaS company, shocker, people won’t buy from you. Retargeting can be implemented once there is sufficient website traffic.