Modern Lead Generation for a B2B Healthcare Company

Modern Lead Generation for a B2B Healthcare Company

by | Apr 29, 2020 | Case Studies

Modern Lead Generation for a B2B Healthcare Company

Business Challenge Summary

Our client, a rapidly growing B2B healthcare services company, was struggling to generate new clients, due to low brand awareness and minimal marketing. This client had excellent service delivery (high retention and an industry-leading NPS score), but was not meeting growth goals. They recognized the immediate need to implement a strategic lead generation approach, but lacked the time and resources to execute it in-house.

They turned to &Marketing as an outsourced marketing department to:
  • Generate insight on their audience (segment their targets, understand their pain points, determine where they go for information, etc)
  • Determine which lead gen tactics would yield results in the short-term, while simultaneously positioning them to sustain long-term business growth
  • Build broad brand and category awareness among B2B decision-makers through a coordinated marketing strategy
  • Deliver qualified leads to their sales team

&Marketing’s Approach

Based on our client’s desire for a “flexible yet affordable” approach, we implemented our &Marketing B2B Lead Generation Framework, using a two-pronged strategy:

B2B Marketing Playbook

Following a thorough audit of the client’s existing marketing efforts, as well as research on their target audience, we built a marketing playbook to serve as a strong foundation for monthly lead generation. This included:

  • Identifying key decision-makers across industry verticals and their unique pain points

  • Refining the client’s value proposition and messaging for each decision-maker

  • Updating several pages on the client’s website to improve the customer journey

  • Developing new landing pages for digital advertising

  • Running a series of digital marketing pilots on Google Ads and social media

  • Developing a strategic plan for monthly marketing execution based on new insights

Monthly Marketing Execution

Following the playbook period, we developed a monthly marketing plan and executed the following tactics:

  • Developed and implemented a new email marketing program

  • Executed a comprehensive, integrated digital marketing campaign

  • Developed and executed a data-driven content strategy to support lead generation and drive awareness (this included 12 new blog posts, five eBooks, and two infographics)

  • Refined organic search capabilities through technical SEO

  • Strategized and executed a targeted public relations campaign to drive further awareness

  • Created a reporting and analytics process to measure marketing effectiveness

  • Provided senior-level advice and coaching, including board and investor presentations

Results

With a sharpened focus on lead generation and brand awareness, we were ultimately able to deliver qualified leads to the sales team. Through our integrated marketing approach over a three-month period, &Marketing generated the following results (as compared to the previous quarter, where the client had minimal marketing investment).

Nearly 10X increase in leads (49 vs. 480 leads), which required a corresponding 2.4x increase in out of pocket marketing spend

%

Reduction in cost per lead

%

increase in website engagement (i.e. contact us form fill-outs, content downloads, page visits, etc)

%

Increase in web traffic

PR hits from influential media outlets (vs. zero in the previous period)

Are you facing challenges of your own in generating leads and meeting your business’ growth goals?

We’d love to learn more about your challenges and how a coordinated marketing approach might help take your organization to the next level.

About the Authors:

As a Marketing Director at &Marketing, Paul Ferguson uses his 16 years of B2B marketing experience to help clients develop fully integrated marketing solutions that make impressions and drive results. Whether it be design-oriented campaigns or digital market execution, Paul skillfully creates strategies backed by data, to effectively reach client’s desired audiences. Paul graduated from La Salle University with a Bachelor of Arts in Communication and a double minor in Marketing and Business Administration. Visit Paul’s LinkedIn.

Marketing Manager and Copywriter Emily Valeo is a creative storyteller specialized in public relations, copywriting, and project management. With five years of experience working with both large and small businesses, Emily has a passion for helping clients succeed through her close attention to detail, strong work ethic, and creative writing skills. Emily graduated from Lafayette College with a Bachelor’s degree in English and Women’s & Gender Studies, and holds a Master’s in Marketing Management from Durham University in the UK

About &Marketing:

&Marketing provides the robust outsourced marketing department growing companies need without the high overhead costs of big agencies or full-time employees. Our variable model empowers businesses to reach their growth goals through access to the guidance and expertise of senior level strategists and a flexible execution team.

Define the Stakes (Lead Your Hero to Their Happily Ever After)

Define the Stakes (Lead Your Hero to Their Happily Ever After)

by | Jul 8, 2019 | Insights, Storytelling & Branding

Define the Stakes (Lead Your Hero to Their Happily Ever After)

Written By Matt Vincent

On

In our first post in the Narrative Marketing series, we looked at this roadmap from Building a Story Brand:

We’ve already covered sections one/two and three/four in our last articles, so let’s now focus on sections five, six, and seven: 5) And Calls Them to Action 6) That Helps Them Avoid Failure 7) That Ends in a Success. There’s a lot to unpack in these last three steps, so let’s dive in.

And Calls Them to Action

After you have settled into your role as a guide and given your customer (the hero) a clear game plan, the rest is up to them, right? 

Hardly.

Imagine a story where Frodo just wakes up one day and decides, “it’s time to head to Mordor and destroy the ring.” Frodo packs his bags, leaves a note for Gandalf in case he stops by, and takes off for Mordor by himself. 

In any good story, the hero NEVER acts out of their own volition. The reason why is that everyone instinctively knows the hero doesn’t make major life decisions unless someone or something challenges them. It’s like Newton’s First Law of Motion: a body at rest tends to remain at rest until an external force acts upon it.

Your customer needs you to provide a clear and direct call to action (CTA), or else they won’t act. If a customer visits your website, do they know what you want them to do? Your website needs one button in the top right with a clear CTA and another front and center so they can see it before they even begin scrolling. Some examples of a direct CTA are:

  • Order Now

  • Call Today

  • Schedule an Appointment

  • Register Today

  • Buy Now

You might be afraid to be that direct with your customer, but by failing to have a prominent and direct CTA you are indirectly communicating a lack of belief in your product or service.

Paired with your direct CTA, you also need a transitional one. If the direct CTA is asking “Will You Marry Me?” then the transitional CTA is asking “Will You Go on a Date with Me?” Some examples of transitional CTAs are:

  • Download our PDF

  • Attend our Webinar

  • Get a Free Trial

  • Try a Free Sample

Transitional CTAs allow you to show your expertise and generosity, while also creating an opportunity to follow up with a potential customer. Both your direct CTA and transitional CTA need to appear prominently on your website, as well as on any piece of collateral.

However, in order to truly get your customer to act, you also need to clearly define what is at stake.

That Helps Them Avoid Failure

To be clear, communicating the consequences of a customer not doing business with you is not fear mongering. Instead, it’s answering every customer’s subconscious voice that asks, “so what?” 

In Building a Story Brand, Donald Miller writes:

Prospect Theory, as it was called, espoused that people are more likely to be dissatisfied with a loss than they are satisfied with a gain. In other words, people hate losing $100 more than they like winning $100. This, of course, means loss aversion is a greater motivator of buying decisions than potential gains. In fact, according to Kahneman, in certain situations, people are two to three times more motivated to make a change to avoid a loss than they are to achieve a gain.

– Miller, Donald. Building a StoryBrand (p. 111). HarperCollins Leadership. Kindle Edition. 

What loss are you helping your customers avoid? Remember the four main resources people don’t want to lose:

  • Time

  • Money

  • Health

  • Status

That Ends in a Success

Once you’ve clearly communicated what resource your hero stands to lose, the next step is to articulate what they have to gain from using your product or service. You need to paint a clear picture of the ‘happily ever after’ your product or service can provide.

One way to think through this is to imagine your customer’s life before and after they use your product or service. Here are four good before/after questions to consider:

  • What do they have?

  • What are they feeling?

  • What’s an average day like?

  • What’s their status?

Here are three of the most common happy endings in stories:

  1. The hero gets a new power or position (Neo becoming “The One” in The Matrix).

  2. The hero is reunited with someone or something that makes them whole again (Frodo reunites with Gandalf to sail to the Gray Havens and be at peace in Return of the King).

  3. The hero has a moment of self-realization that provides inner peace/wholeness (The panda Po discovers how to do kung-fu his own unique way in Kung Fu Panda).

Beyond Happily Ever After

So you’ve come to the end of this series. Now what? Donald Miller’s roadmap offers a heaping plateful of information to digest. In order to help you successfully lead your hero down the path to their own happily ever after, &Marketing has broken down this roadmap into easily digestible bites. Download our free guide to narrative marketing for a simple breakdown of each step of Donald Miller’s process along with the questions you should ask yourself in order to effectively lead your hero to their happily ever after.

Create Your Hero's Journey

If you want to create a journey that can lead customers to your product or service as their happily ever after, &Marketing can help. We love partnering with our clients to tap into the power of narrative marketing to engage their audience and experience success. 

“At &Marketing, we believe in the power of narrative marketing and its ability to craft an epic story that places your hero at the center. Our team works diligently to support our clients in creating and showcasing these stories. As the trusted guide, you can create the solution to your customer’s struggle to help them find their happy ending.

Let us handle the marketing in order to shine a spotlight on the incredible work your business is already doing so you can focus on what you do best.”

— MATT VINCENT

About the Author:

Matt Vincent is the Creative Director at &Marketing. He has worked in digital illustration and graphic design for over 6 years. During this time, he has worked for a variety of clients, including IGN Entertainment and Salesforce, and a host of smaller & medium sized companies. As a self-taught graphic designer and illustrator, he is constantly learning and growing his repertoire of creative skills, and sharing those with the world. His primary passion is equipping creatives to be storytellers; to see the narrative threads and archetypes that exist in all things, and to tap into them to get their audience to think, grow, and act.

About &Marketing

In today’s fast-paced world, many small and medium-sized businesses are struggling to modernize their marketing approaches because either they don’t have the expertise or the bandwidth to do it themselves.  

If you’re ready to dive into narrative marketing, why not let our team at &Marketing help you craft the unique story only your brand can tell? 

&Marketing (www.and-marketing.com) provides seasoned marketing strategy professionals and a nimble execution team to help our clients achieve their goals.  Our unique partnership model allows us to launch or augment our client’s existing teams in an affordable, flexible, and transparent way.

Be a Guide (Your Place in Your Customer’s Story)

Be a Guide (Your Place in Your Customer’s Story)

by | May 10, 2019 | Insights, Storytelling & Branding

Be a Guide (Your Place in Your Customer’s Story)

Written By Matt Vincent

On

In our first post in the Narrative Marketing series, we looked at this road map from Building a Story Brand (see right).

We’ve already covered sections one and two (read here if you missed it), so let’s now focus on sections three and four: 3) And Meets a Guide 4) Who Gives Them a Plan. The role of a Guide is an essential one in the hero’s (your customer’s) story. When facing external, internal, or philosophical and moral problems, heroes intuitively know they can’t fix these issues on their own. If they could, the problems wouldn’t exist in the first place.

Imagine Frodo getting the ring to Mordor in Lord of the Rings without Gandalf, or Luke teaching himself the force Star Wars without Yoda. Those relationships resonate with us because they reflect our own journeys and the mentors, coaches, authors, or brands who have helped us along the way.

AND MEETS A GUIDE

So, what does a guide do? In order to step into the role of Guide for your customer, you need to effectively communicate both empathy and authority. In other words, you need to show that you understand the strife and emotional frustration of your customer, while also asserting yourself as someone who has overcome those same obstacles, either personally or through your brand’s work with other heroes.

Empathy comes first because it creates trust between you and your customer. People innately trust those who can show that they see, hear, and understand their plight. Frodo’s trust in Gandalf deepened when he showed empathy toward Frodo’s lamentation over being chosen to carry the burden of the ring, Some common ways to express this are to create statements that use empathetic language, like “we understand” or “we care”. This empathy should be directed primarily at the internal problem your customer is facing and should be communicated clearly and concisely in your marketing.

The next step is to establish authority with your customer, because it isn’t enough to communicate empathy alone. Your customer doesn’t just want a verbal hug; they want someone who knows how to fix their problem and has a track record to prove it.  Luke isn’t fully invested in his training until he sees Yoda pull his ship out of the swamp with ease, right? Authority can be harder to communicate than empathy because, if communicated poorly, you come across as egotistical instead of competent. Some ways to effectively establish authority for your brand include:

  • Testimonials: Testimonials are great because they give people the comfort of being second in line to a customer who has experienced success.

  • Statistics: Statistics appeal to the left-brain side of decision-making and come across as objective, rather than subjective authority.

  • Awards: Awards are impactful when placed at the bottom of a website. You don’t need to draw attention to them, but their presence on the homepage or footer of your site adds additional authority.

  • Logos: If you are a B2B company, include logos of clients you’ve helped on your site, as well, to enhance credibility.

WHO GIVES THEM A PLAN

At this point in the journey, your customer is primed to buy, but still needs more from you as their guide. Even though you’ve established trust, the decision to buy requires a level of commitment from your customer that is risky for them. As they consider a purchase, they are wondering, “What if this won’t work? What if I am making a HUGE mistake?” In order to alleviate this anxiety and get your customer to follow through, you need to establish a plan they can follow that leads them to make the purchase.

The plan you create needs to do one of two things:

  1. Clarify how to make a purchase

  2. Remove the sense of risk the customer is feeling

Two different plans can accomplish this. Donald Miller from Building a Story Brand describes these as the process plan and the agreement plan. A process plan details the steps needed to make a purchase or use the purchased product/service. The main goal is to eliminate any confusion that could prevent a purchase, either in the pre-purchase phase (how do I buy?) or the post-purchase phase (how do I use this?).

An agreement plan is essentially a list of agreements you make with your customer to help them overcome their fear of doing business with you. A good way to craft this is to list the things your customer might be afraid of in doing business with you, and create a list of agreements that will alleviate their fears. As an aside, it also helps to create a title for these plans in order to increase their perceived value (examples: “easy installation plan” or “satisfaction guaranteed agreement”).

Even with all of this guidance, your customer needs one more thing: a call to action.

In our final post of the Narrative Marketing series, we’ll look at the last two sections:

  • Your customer’s (and your) happy ending

  • How to get there by a compelling call to action.

About the Author

Matt Vincent is the Creative Director at &Marketing.  He has worked in digital illustration and graphic design for over 6 years. During this time, he has worked for a variety of clients, including IGN Entertainment and Salesforce, and a host of smaller & medium sized companies. As a self-taught graphic designer and illustrator, he is constantly learning and growing his repertoire of creative skills, and sharing those with the world. His primary passion is equipping creatives to be storytellers; to see the narrative threads and archetypes that exist in all things, and to tap into them to get their audience to think, grow, and act.

About &Marketing

In today’s fast paced world, many growing businesses are struggling to modernize their marketing approaches because either they don’t have the expertise or the bandwidth to do it themselves.

&Marketing provides seasoned marketing strategy professionals and a nimble execution team to help our clients achieve their goals. Our unique partnership model allows us to augment our client’s existing teams or outsource the entire marketing function in an affordable, flexible, and transparent way.

Don’t Be A Hero (The Story Isn’t About You)

Don’t Be A Hero (The Story Isn’t About You)

by | Apr 26, 2019 | Insights, Storytelling & Branding

Don’t Be A Hero (The Story Isn’t About You)

Written By Matt Vincent

On

In our first post in the Narrative Marketing series, we looked at this road map from Building a Story Brand (see right).

This post will focus on the first two sections: 1) A Character (2) Has a Problem. The character in this narrative is the hero of the story, and this is where the majority of marketing agencies fail their clients. They place the business in the role of the hero by making the story all about them: who they are, how they were founded, what they believe in, and why they are awesome.

When companies make themselves the hero instead of their customer, they create direct competition for the lead role in someone else’s story. Remember, none of us feel as motivated when we’re sidelined to supporting roles instead of starring. Let’s break down how you, as a brand, can take control over who your hero really is and how you can be the solution to their problem.

A CHARACTER

Your customer is looking at your business and your product/service as something to propel their story forward to a happy ending, NOT become another obstacle or competition. We’ll unpack this more in the next post in the series, but the key takeaway is that your role is not the hero, so take a backseat to your customer in the story.

Every hero has an ambition, and your customer is no different. The key is finding out what it is, and how to succinctly describe it. Often, in an effort to expand their reach, a business will list out a myriad of products or services to potential customers that serve a variety of needs. While diversity isn’t a bad thing, odds are that there is an underlying need you fulfill. You need to make that need the primary focus of your marketing so customers can quickly and easily recognize your business and your product/service as the one that can best meet that need.

HAS A PROBLEM…

Like we discussed in the previous post, most of your customers’ desires will be relevant to their drive to survive and thrive. Some common desires are:

  • Conserving Finances

  • Saving Time

  • Building Community/Social Networks

  • Gaining Status

  • Accumulate Resources

  • Being Generous

  • Discovering Meaning/Purpose in Life

Imagine going into your local grocery store and discovering they’ve just renovated and moved stuff around. You approach the first available employee and ask where to find eggs. The employee then begins to tell you about the founding of the grocery store, the owner’s vision for the store’s impact, and their other store locations. You just want them to tell you where the eggs are! The goal for your business is that every potential customer knows exactly what you offer, from the first moment they engage with you.

…AND A VILLAIN

Every customer/hero has a problem. In a story, the problem manifests itself as a villain and the obstacles the villain places in the hero’s way. The villain needs to be the source of your customer’s frustration. The villain doesn’t have to be a person, but it does need personification. Let’s use eggs again as an example. If you sell organic eggs, the villain would be inorganic, genetically modified mutant eggs! Conversely, if you are selling inorganic eggs, the villain would be the higher cost of feeding your family the “so-called” natural eggs!

Next, we have the obstacles, or problems, the villain places in your customer’s path. Most businesses know the general problem but fail to recognize that it has three layers: external, internal, and philosophical. A business typically addresses the external problem facing the customer but fails to address the internal or philosophical ones. The issue here is that most customers make their decisions at the internal or philosophical level. Odds are, someone else is selling a product or service that is similar to yours. Why is someone choosing you over your competitors? It all depends on whether or not you can identify the internal or philosophical issue.

At &Marketing, the villain our clients often face is noise. They struggle to be heard, seen, and understood by potential customers in the sea of advertising. The external problem is that their potential customers are inundated with a myriad of ads and offers from competitors, some of whom are offering an inferior product or service. The internal problem our clients face is the question, “Do I have what it takes to succeed, or am I destined to fail? Is my product/service good enough to compete with the big dogs, or am I just delusional?” Finally, the philosophical problem our clients face is that the best product or service should be the one to succeed, NOT the loudest one or the one with the largest marketing budget.

When we speak primarily to the internal problem our potential clients face, we engage with them on the issue that keeps them up at night; the issue that makes them feel known and understood. When your customers hear you speaking to their internal and philosophical problems, they will want to do business with you.

In our third post in the Narrative Marketing series, we will look at the next two sections:

  • Your place in the story (the guide), and how to share your product/service as a solution to the hero’s obstacles.

About the Author

Matt Vincent is the Creative Director at &Marketing.  He has worked in digital illustration and graphic design for over 6 years. During this time, he has worked for a variety of clients, including IGN Entertainment and Salesforce, and a host of smaller & medium sized companies. As a self-taught graphic designer and illustrator, he is constantly learning and growing his repertoire of creative skills, and sharing those with the world. His primary passion is equipping creatives to be storytellers; to see the narrative threads and archetypes that exist in all things, and to tap into them to get their audience to think, grow, and act.

About &Marketing

In today’s fast paced world, many growing businesses are struggling to modernize their marketing approaches because either they don’t have the expertise or the bandwidth to do it themselves.

&Marketing provides seasoned marketing strategy professionals and a nimble execution team to help our clients achieve their goals. Our unique partnership model allows us to augment our client’s existing teams or outsource the entire marketing function in an affordable, flexible, and transparent way.

Tale as Old as Time: Why Story Should Matter to Your Business

Tale as Old as Time: Why Story Should Matter to Your Business

by | Mar 27, 2019 | Insights, Storytelling & Branding

Tale as Old as Time: Why Story Should Matter to Your Business

Written By Matt Vincent

On

A popular sentiment in marketing today is, “stories sell.” But how? This directive is like the equivalent of a gym owner simply saying, “you should work out.”

Without the proper motivation, guidance, and game plan, most of us don’t know where to start with either of these. If you don’t have a trainer, an exercise plan, and a nutrition guide, you’re far less likely to succeed in your journey to fitness. The same goes with storytelling. We need a roadmap.

At some point in the life of your brand or business, you’ve probably tried using a story to sell your product or service and have seen little to no results. If that’s the case, you might assume that “story marketing” is just another fad that will fade out of style. However, if you discount the value of a story, your brand could be missing out on the opportunity to tap into one of the richest, most powerful forms of communication we have as people.

To demystify the use of story, let’s simply define it as a framework of communication. Humanity has been using stories to communicate since before recorded history. Storytelling is the road most often traveled to lead someone from ignorance and confusion to clarity and understanding, and when people understand something clearly they are more likely to act.

If you’re given a comprehensive plan for fitness, you’re more likely to embark on that health journey provided to you, right? In other words, if your customer can quickly and easily understand what you are offering them, they are more likely to buy it. Plain and simple.

In his book, Building a Story Brand, Donald Miller quotes a friend of his:

“There’s a reason most marketing […] doesn’t work […] The brain doesn’t know how to process the information. The more simple and predictable the communication, the easier it is for the brain to digest. Story helps because it is a sense-making mechanism. Essentially, story formulas put everything in order so the brain doesn’t have to work to understand what’s going on.”

He goes on to describe the way our brain prioritizes information through Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. First, we’re programmed to fulfill the needs we require to survive (think food, water, shelter). We seek these out instinctively above all else so that we have a sense of well-being and can avoid vulnerability. Once those needs are met, we can move on to our relationships with others. We search for friendships, romantic relationships, and other nurturing connections that will stick by us and help us face any outside threats. After we fill these cups, then finally we can concern ourselves with a higher level of psychological, physiological, and even spiritual needs that give our lives a more enhanced sense of belonging and purpose. First we survive, then we thrive.

Miller also describes two key areas where most marketing fails. The first mistake most businesses make is failing to emphasize how their product or service will help their customers survive and thrive. The second is that customers have to work too hard and burn too many calories to understand that product or service. These two mistakes lead to missed opportunities of engagement, because the customer is wasting precious resources trying to understand something that won’t help them in their own story. After all, none of us want a workout plan we didn’t actually sign up for.

So, how does the story come into play? Story provides a map that leads your customer from indecision: “Will this product/service help me survive/thrive?” to decision: “I NEED this to survive/thrive!” Here is the roadmap provided by Donald Miller:

At &Marketing, we work to leverage the power of story to make the biggest impact for our clients. The majority of our client partners have limited resources or team members to devote to engaging potential customers. The story framework equips us to generate more engagement with fewer resources. Not only does story increase engagement, it improves retention as our clients’ customers actively integrate the product/service into their own narrative.

We’ll dive deeper into this framework through a series of blog posts called Narrative Marketing. In this 3-part blog series, we will explore:

About the Author

Matt Vincent is the Creative Director at &Marketing.  He has worked in digital illustration and graphic design for over 6 years. During this time, he has worked for a variety of clients, including IGN Entertainment and Salesforce, and a host of smaller & medium sized companies.  

As a self-taught graphic designer and illustrator, he is constantly learning and growing his repertoire of creative skills, and sharing those with the world. His primary passion is equipping creatives to be storytellers; to see the narrative threads and archetypes that exist in all things, and to tap into them to get their audience to think, grow, and act.

About &Marketing

In today’s fast paced world, many growing businesses are struggling to modernize their marketing approaches because either they don’t have the expertise or the bandwidth to do it themselves.

&Marketing provides seasoned marketing strategy professionals and a nimble execution team to help our clients achieve their goals. Our unique partnership model allows us to augment our client’s existing teams or outsource the entire marketing function in an affordable, flexible, and transparent way.