Approximately 402,000 new businesses were started in the UK in the first six months of 2022. And £35B were spent on marketing in 2022.

In such a crowded landscape, it can be tough for brands to stand out.

Growth Marketing is one of the more recent strategies B2B brands can harness to break through the noise and build a following of loyal customers.

Max van den Ingh, Founder of the B2B Growth Marketing Agency Unmuted, and a Leadinfo partner, shares what growth marketing entails. And reveals his favourite growth marketing tactics.

What is B2B growth marketing?

At its core, growth marketing is about growing your business.

Alright, maybe that was obvious.

Growth marketing revolves around data and experiments. It focuses on experimental campaigns. These aim to increase user acquisition and retention rates quickly and as cost-effectively as possible.

“Growth marketing is not about measuring the number of people you reach,” explains Max. “Instead, it looks at the impact of your marketing activities on your bottom line. How do your marketing efforts contribute to a company’s revenue? And how quickly can sales close deals?”

Growth marketers will use a process similar to the scientific method. You have a hypothesis based on customer insights and your desired growth goals. To test it, you set up a small experiment to observe potential improvements. The insights gained are then implemented to achieve strong yet sustainable growth.

Growth marketing versus traditional marketing

According to Max, growth marketing’s data-driven approach is quite different from traditional marketing. “Traditional marketing often involves setting up big campaigns and elaborate strategies and hoping for the best.” These strategies are a great way to attract top-of-the-funnel traffic, build brand awareness and generate engagement. But, growth marketing strategies seek to get more customers and keep them engaged using your offering.

That doesn’t mean you should throw your current marketing strategies out the window. Better yet, pair your current marketing strategies with growth marketing tactics. Because growth marketing is solely focused on growth. But you may also have other marketing goals and guidelines you’re working towards. So, combine traditional marketing with growth marketing for the best results.

Who can benefit from implementing growth marketing strategies?

Growth marketing is a powerful way for all B2B companies to achieve growth. However, the growth marketing strategies and implementation process you pick depend on your business model. According to Max, “if you’re selling a basic software for ten euros a month, you’ll want to spend less marketing euros per customer than if you’re selling a business solution worth 10,000 euros a year.”

Why? Because higher Annual Contract Value (ACV) means longer customer journeys and more decision-makers involved. “Sales teams within companies with high ACV need more support from marketing. Marketing ensures that the company is visible and that leads are nurtured throughout the sales funnel via content and campaigns.”

Therefore, any B2B company can implement growth marketing strategies. But the need, budget and opportunities to do so are higher for B2B brands which a high ACV.

A quick guide to growth marketing

In growth marketing, you can conduct endless tests across your sales funnel, to optimise processes. Here are some aspects to think about before launching a new strategy.

Have a clear buyer persona

Start by defining who’s buying from you and who you want to reach. Because to increase user acquisition, you need to understand your audience. “At Unmuted, we always start our Growth Program with an exercise to map out our customer’s buyer personas. Understanding your buyer’s persona allows us to spot conversion opportunities.” Unmuted helps its clients understand the following:

• Who are the decision-makers involved in the buying process?
• Are there other people who influence the deal?
• What stressors keep these people up at night?
• How can people best benefit from your offering?
• What software and technology are they already using?
• What other important characteristics should we be aware of (e.g. company size or preferred communication channels)?

Armed with a buyer persona, you can start implementing strategies. Within growth marketing, you have two different branches: demand generation and demand capture. The first is about increasing your brand awareness amongst your target group. Thus increasing demand for your offering. The latter aims to convert the demand into sales opportunities.

Growth marketing and demand generation strategies

As the name suggests, demand generation strategies aim to create demand for your company’s offering.

For example, “one demand generation strategy could be launching paid ads which don’t aim to convert leads immediately,” explains Max. “Many companies put out paid ads highlighting a unique selling point and requesting people to book a demo or contact the company. However, those ads aren’t often very successful.” The result? A conversion rate of 0.1%.

So rather than launching paid ads which aim to convert new leads on the spot, highlight your offering’s unique selling points or use cases. Emphasise one aspect per ad and invest in platforms which your target audience uses frequently. Whether that’s Google, LinkedIn, Twitter or Pinterest, optimise paid ads for consumption (so people see it) over conversion (people clicking on it).

Another popular demand generation strategy is creating content with your target audience. One of Max’s favourite tactics. “A general trend is sweeping the content world: as a company, you should not be the subject of your content, but rather the medium.”

When you create content, don’t talk about yourself and sell what your product does. Instead, “chat with your ideal customer. Ask them about their problems and challenges,” describes Max. “Let that customer tell their story and take notes as they talk.” Then, use what they say as inspiration to craft powerful content (whether that’s a blog or social post) that makes it seem as if you’re reading the mind of your prospective customers.

And as a bonus, you can leverage their network when you publish content featuring a client. “Hopefully, they’d share the content as well. Thus generating additional visibility for your brand in that industry.”

Growth marketing and demand capture strategies

Demand capture pushes potential buyers further down your sales funnel to generate a purchase.

So with all that demand and brand awareness created, it’s time to transform that into sales opportunities for your Sales Team.

Ideally, people leave their contact details via a lead generation form or chatbot feature. However, unfortunately, that doesn’t happen very often. So, here are three things you can do to boost your demand capture efforts:

• Using Google Ads, advertise on the high-value and high-converting keywords such as “best + product category” or “competitor name alternative”.
• Be present on comparison sites for B2B products, such as G2 and Capterra. The more customer reviews you have, the more credible you seem.
• Retarget the companies who have visited your website.

Using lead generation software, like Leadinfo, demand capture becomes a piece of cake. Why? Because you can see in real-time the companies who visit your website. We not only recognise your B2B website visitors, our software also automatically scores leads based on their browsing behaviour. And we’ll notify you via email, Slack, or Teams when a hot lead visits your website.

“Using the data from Leadinfo, Sales Representatives can be more proactive rather than reactive.,” comments Max. “For example, Sales Reps can connect with leads on LinkedIn or reach out to a company via email.”

Growth marketing’s return on investment

One of the most common questions Max gets asked is how growth marketing activities pay off. “However, when people ask us this question, they often refer to and benchmark my answer to B2C marketing. Where the decision-making process can take eight minutes.”

“For example, clients may ask us how much money they brought in through SEO-optimised blogs,” explains Max. “But nobody goes to Google looking for an answer to their question, comes across a good article and makes a $10,000 purchase. That SEO article is part of a long and complex journey.”

B2B marketing is not about instant purchases. The decision-making process can take months. “And there are more factors that influence a purchasing decision than simply your marketing campaigns.” So instead of calculating a hard return on investment number, Unmuted focuses on positive signals.

“If we target a company’s ideal customer profile with a campaign, and we see in Leadinfo that an acceptable proportion of website visitors fall within this profile, then we’re heading in the right direction, generating demand amongst the right people. Meaning that our experiment paid off. So we can further optimise and tweak these efforts to see if we can generate even more results.”