The Tactical B2B Marketing Gameplan

Marketing is often an after-thought to first-time entrepreneurs when in reality lead gen should be built into the startup’s DNA on day one. With that said, marketing is often more difficult for entrepreneurs because of its delayed gratification nature. You see, when entrepreneurs are on the phone selling or on their MacBooks writing code, there’s immediately feedback — the deal is/isn’t moving forward or the new feature is now in place. With marketing, yes, you can see that blog post that was just written but you likely won’t see results for months. Entrepreneurs are often ADHD and seek out the next shiny object.

The good news is that social media and PPC ads give more immediate results for marketing but that bad news is that marketing is much more involved and takes significant ongoing time and energy. Entrepreneurs need to have a marketing gameplan, and stick to it. Here’s a tactical B2B marketing gameplan:

• Blog Posts: Write three blog posts per week (one thought leadership, one industry commentary, and one varied)
• Twitter/Facebook/LinkedIn: Send at least one tweet/Facebook post/LinkedIn status update per day linking to industry content as well as any new blog posts, events, white papers, etc
• White Papers: Write one new 7-10 page white paper per month with accompanying slide show and make it available on your site, on a landing page, on YouTube, on SideShare.net, and social media
• Press Releases: Write one new press release at least every two months talking about a new release, event, award, etc and publicize it on the wire as well as social media
• User Conferences: Hold one annual user conference to engage with clients, partners, and prospects in person
• Books: Publish a printed trade paperback book about the industry and use it to educate customers, prospects, trade show attendees, and new employees

This tactical marketing gameplan doesn’t have anything groundbreaking but by sticking to it over the course of months and years you’ll see a significant return on investment.

What else? What do you think of this tactical B2B marketing gameplan?