Worried About Over Marketing? Here are 3 Ways to Fix It

Amanda Retzki
Posted by Amanda Retzki on December 29, 2017
overmarketing.jpg

overmarketing.jpg

Do you ever feel like you’re bombarding your prospects with too much marketing content? Whether it’s with emails, social posts, new blog posts, or advertisements, it can be hard finding that happy medium where you maintain an active online presence and contact with prospects, but without being annoying or oversaturating your message. That being said, reaching that tipping point of “too much” marketing requires a really committed effort from your team, and shouldn’t be a worry for most companies, as the majority of B2Bs are worried about not doing enough with their marketing efforts. You always want to be maximizing your lead opportunities, but if you feel like you might be doing too much, here are three key things to pay attention to your marketing mix:

Importance of Content + Context

Content + Context = What you’re saying + Who you’re saying it to + When you’re saying it

If you think you’re over marketing to your audience, the first thing you should consider is the content that you’re sharing and the context in which you’re sharing it. Is your over marketing a problem of sharing the same content piece or the same type of content too frequently? Or is your over marketing a problem of targeting the same audience with that content too frequently, sharing the wrong content with the wrong audience, or not spacing out your marketing efforts properly? Maybe it’s several of those issues. If you believe this is the case, here are a couple of things to consider as you’re planning your marketing strategy:

Do: Send the right message to the right contact at the right stage in their buyer’s journey. Make sure you approach your contacts with a targeted strategy and think about what types of content would be most helpful for different prospects at different stages of their buyer’s journey. If the information you’re sharing is considered helpful and valuable to them, it will strengthen your relationship—even if you’re sending multiple messages throughout the week. As long as it’s considered useful, it won’t be considered spammy.

Don’t: Blast your entire contact list with generic messages promoting your company instead of addressing each persona’s specific needs and pain points. Sending the wrong type of content, content that doesn’t apply to the recipient, or consistently sending the same type of message are the types of things that will cause your audience to stop paying attention to you. Likewise, non-stop self-promotion is another way to get your audience to tune out. Don’t just target your entire contact list for maximum reach; target the contacts that will actually benefit from the message to maximize your impact.

Listen to Your Contacts

The most sure sign of over marketing is very easy to see. In fact, your audience will simply come out and tell you that what you’re sharing isn’t helpful, is considered spammy, or if you’re sharing something too frequently. The important thing is, you have to listen to them. If a contact unsubscribes from your email list, first and foremost, make sure you honor that contact’s desire to stop receiving the messages. After that, go back and monitor the opt-out rate of each message you send to see which communications fell flat with prospects. Likewise, if someone comments “stop talking about this” on one of your social media posts, for example, take note and see if you can diversify your marketing mix a little more.

Before you even start sending marketing communications to a contact, make sure you’ve gained their permission through something like a permission pass email and make them aware that they’ll be receiving email communications or more. Just because you have a contact’s email address doesn’t mean they should automatically be added to your database, as sending unwanted messages to those contacts will only hurt your reputation with them. Always keep a close eye on the results of the messages you send, and experiment with different ways to improve, such as:

  • If there are contacts who are consistently unengaged with your email communications, consider trying to re-engage them though a special campaign, or stop sending to them altogether
  • Run A/B tests on different components of your email campaigns, such as subject lines, CTAs, or different offers, to uncover what best resonates with your contacts and optimize conversions
  • Enter yourself into different workflows and email campaigns to experience as to how your prospects are receiving your messages. Get a better understanding of the frequency and cadence, as well the creative feel. If you feel that messages are being sent too frequently or the order of the messaging doesn’t make sense, chances are that your contacts are feeling the same way

Coordinate Your Efforts

If you’ve lost your audience’s attention through uncoordinated blasts of marketing content, now is the time to grab the reins and re-coordinate your strategy. Review all the different marketing content you have running in your workflows, as well as anything scheduled for publishing (emails, social media, blogs, etc.) to make sure there aren’t any repetitive or conflicting messages. Your blogging efforts, email, social media, and sales strategy all can’t operate in their own silos; you need to have a unified plan that maximizes the impact of your content across all marketing channels. What you share on your blog should impact what you share on social media, what you promote through email, and what your sales team uses when contacting prospects.
For many B2Bs, sharing too much marketing content is rarely a problem, but sharing the wrong mix of content to the wrong audience happens all too often. Instead of pausing or halting your marketing efforts out of fear of oversaturation, spend time developing your primary buyer personas and strategically plan your content and messaging with their needs in mind. Our Inbound Marketing for Industrial Manufacturers Page can help you get started if you aren’t sure where to look.

Read the The Ultimate Guide to Inbound Marketing for Industrial Manufacturers

Topics: Inbound Marketing

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