Marketing with the door open, part 2: A B2B marketing report framework

Just over two months ago we launched the first post of ‘Marketing With The Door Open’ — a series that promised you a ‘warts and all’ analysis of our campaign on the demise of the established B2B marketing playbook.

Now we’re super-excited to start the second phase with a dive into what we’ve achieved, learned and optimized along the way.

Why are we so excited? Frankly, we’re hoping for an enthusiastic crowd: The first Open Door post has been a campaign star with a strong LinkedIn CTR (6.5%) and web conversion rate (2.2%).

That tells us that you lot — the B2B marketing community — are an inquisitive bunch. You like dipping into data as much as we like to share it.

But if you’ve not seen the campaign or forgotten about it — like the guy who signed up for our workbook only to unsubscribe, on receipt, without reading it — here’s a quick recap.

• Our target — Ambitious, mid-sized B2B tech companies
• Content and Channels — Two marquee content pieces supported by 16 articles and influencer outreach, focused mainly on LinkedIn (organic and paid)
• Budget — $132,000 (including a modest $12,000 for paid media)
• Methodology — Following our own Blueprint process – now available to download in workbook form

We built a reporting framework prior to campaign launch for two (admittedly linked) data objectives.

• Prove the message — Show that building an engaged audience over the longer term beats short-term MQL building. You won’t just take our word for it.
• Show the money — Prove the campaign delivered ROI. No commercial edge? No point.

Let’s look at the money first.

 The commercial outcome

There are more noble ways to measure effort but revenue is our purest KPI. We’ll give a final total when the analysis period ends but, so far, we’ve hit:

• Directly attributable pipeline — $295,000 moving (slower than ever alas) through lifecycle stages, including revenue,  right now
• Sales Enquiry Boost — 15% increase in monthly enquiries (which can’t be directly attributed) and a 27% increase from ICP accounts

Now let’s look at the message. Did we succeed? Does building an engaged audience over time beat short-term MQL-ism?

The message outcome

For background on why we champion organic communities check out our “Content As Community” post. It’s another campaign best seller: Hitting the highest content engagement score (1552) of any article.

We need detailed metrics to show we can successfully acquire and engage people to grow our community. Here’s how they’re tracking now.

Acquisition

Success depends on finding more and better traffic. We set out to:

Increase organic social sessions
Result: +100.39%
Regular posting and engagement delivered significant increases in web traffic compared to the previous period. We’re happy here.

Improve SERP performance
Regular, authoritative posting (predicted by Big Search Secrets on LinkedIn) has driven us up the SEPRs for commercial searches across the UK and US. The results are pretty great:

“Keyword” | UK ranking | US ranking

• B2B Content Marketing Agency | 1 | 1
• B2B Marketing Agency | 1 | 5
• B2B Performance Marketing Agency | 1 | 5
• B2B Creative Services | 2 | 1
• B2B Digital Agency | 4 | 5

Generate influencer visits
Result: +3000 high intent visits
Working with influencers across the B2B marketing space has driven traffic and amplified the message. This is cool.

Achieve high paid click-to-web session rate
Result: 63%
Managing the friction of turning paid clicks on LinkedIn to web sessions is tough. We need to do more here.

Engagement

A community can’t just be acquired. It needs to be engaged for:

Strong Defined User Journeys
Result: 1.7%
Inspiring people to take journeys that deliver them to our most community focused pages. This is too low.

High content engagement scores
Result: 622 average score
Creating content that keeps people on site and returning for insights shows good experiences. And we’re scoring well.

Increased newsletter sign-up
Result: +22% average per month
Persuading people to sign up for our newsletter and content community is crucial. It’s better than okay.

Linkedin follower increase
Result: +53% average per month
If we can’t get people to the website then can we get them to follow on LinkedIn. An interesting comparison with newsletter sign-ups

ICP followers and sign-ups
Result: 18%
All sign-ups and followers are valued in our community, But how many fit into our ICP? This is a strong improvement.

So how do these results (good, bad and ugly) come together in our data narrative?

The emerging data stories

The initial reporting numbers throw up a range of campaign issues that need attention.

And we’re going to explore each of them in further posts in the coming weeks. Here’s a taste of what’s to come:

Highlights

So what do we plan to showcase as evidence we’ve got the message right?

1. Content engagement metrics: They are brilliant. Just what you’d want to see when building a community around your onsite content. 
2. Organic search: A significant benefit. A longer term commitment brings ongoing authority and high intent traffic.
3. Paid vs. organic: Our organic performance smashes paid. Go figure. A paid campaign with reach but no community doesn’t feel sustainable.
4. Influencers: This can be very hit and miss. But every hit feels like a home run when it goes right.

Learnings

But what have we learned that can get in the way of our message working?

1. Power of platforms: Many people like their platforms: platforms like their many people. How does that friction hurt your community goals?
2. Reach to cut-through: You can reach your ICP but how can you get them to cross the engagement threshold?
3. Running organic social: Our brand has a lot of strengths but it’s not (literally) human. What are the pros and cons of centralized social campaigning?

Optimizations

And what optimizations have we explored to boost the campaign as it’s moving?

1. Maximizing resources: How do you make sure your best resources get the maximum reach and engagement?
2. Generating feedback: How can you improve feedback loops on how well you’re doing?

There’s just a whole raft of stories waiting to be told. Watch this space.

Summing up

Running a marketing campaign about effective marketing is a bit of a luxury when it comes to reporting.

We’re not only measuring our performance as marketers. We’re also testing the narrative premise of the campaign — which is that building a community around your content and your brand reliably generates revenue.

So far, that premise looks true. But the aim of this series is to keep building and growing that community in public. It’s a scary thing to commit to. I’ll hope you’ll join us along for the ride.