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8 B2B Social Media Tips to Boost Holiday Engagement [INFOGRAPHIC]

December 13, 2018/0 Comments/in Social Media Marketing /by Rebecca Matias

Last year, sales during the holiday season represented up to 30.1% of annual revenues in some consumer-focused segments. That’s why Q4 tends to be a make-or-break quarter for B2C companies.

But the holiday season isn’t only for B2C firms. It’s also an ideal time for B2B companies to proactively engage prospects at a critical point in the sales cycle.

One channel where B2B marketers can effectively connect with current and potential customers is social media. Social media remains a key part of the B2B decision-making process, with 83% of executives using it in their buying journey and 92% of purchases being influenced by this channel in the last year.

To effectively leverage the power of social media during the holidays, B2B marketers need to take a few things into consideration. We compiled a handful of expert advice on holiday social media tactics and included them here in this infographic.

Let’s go over these eight tips in detail:

#1 Understand the impact of social media seasonality

Decision makers’ use of social media varies throughout the year as prospects’ priorities shift from one period to another. During the Christmas holidays, overall social media activity can pick up or drop.

For example, Social Media Today notes that some B2B industries typically experience reduced activity in the final weeks of December as potential buyers focus more on closing out year-end projects and less on researching new solutions.

But this may not be the case for your industry or your target customers. That’s why it’s crucial that you carefully study past social media performance to uncover seasonal trends.

Learn about the five biggest social media trends in Canada and find out how each of them potentially impacts lead generation.

#2 Keep sharing useful and relevant content

We’ve already seen that social media holds some level of sway over a majority of B2B purchase decisions. While your target audience’s social media activity may drop during the holidays, this channel’s impact on the sales process remains undiminished.

Since the holidays are a perfect time for people to catch up on their reading, it’s also an ideal time for you to continue sharing content that resonates with your target audience.

Your holiday social media posts can include both original and curated content. The main thing is to share useful and relevant resources.

#3 Make sure your holiday social media activities stay in context

Many B2B purchase decisions are finalized in Q4 and implemented in January. This highlights the need to place your holiday social media activities in the context of your buyer’s purchase process.

According to the Buyersphere Report, B2B decision makers gravitate toward different social media platforms at different stages of the buying cycle: Facebook and blogs in the awareness stage, LinkedIn and blogs in the consideration stage, Twitter and Facebook in the decision stage.

Daniel Kushner from Octopost mentions that using buyer personas in your holiday social media campaign allows you to segment your audience into different social streams, create targeted messaging strategies, and gather separate analytics.

Learn about content intelligence and how you can utilize data, insights, and AI in your content marketing strategy.

#4 Sprinkle the 3 R’s into your holiday social media mix

During the holidays, marketing resources can become stretched too thin as teams focus on project completion and staff starts heading out for vacation. This often leads to a drop in the amount of original content you’re able to publish and share on social media throughout the season.

To help you maximize the meager resources at your disposal this time of year, MediaPost suggests applying the 3 R’s of content marketing:

Reuse – Find an existing content piece and repackage it in a different format
Refresh – Update an old resource to make it more relevant
Reimagine – Revisit an earlier topic and look at it through another angle

#5 Tweak your social media posting schedule

The holiday season also brings a change in the way your social media audience spends their workday. This affects the level of engagement your social media activities can generate, so it’s good practice to adjust your posting schedule accordingly.

When modifying your social media schedule for the holiday season, the tweaks you make shouldn’t negatively impact the quality and value of your posts. Again, past social media analytics should serve as your best guide:

What are the times of day your target audience is online?
What are the days and times your audience tends to view and interact with your posts?
How do different metrics (reach, impressions, engagement, etc.) vary throughout the day?

Check out a list of practical ideas drawn from B2B companies that pulled off successful March Madness-themed social media campaigns.

#6 Maintain a high level of community engagement

Dialing back on social media posts doesn’t necessarily mean you have to engage less with your community. There’s still plenty of ways for you to stay engaged during the holidays:

Create themes around topics that your audience is interested in
Curate the latest industry news and trends
Post quizzes, polls, and contests
Showcase notable community members
Respond to inquiries and questions promptly

Since you’re probably working with lesser staff during the holidays, you also need to assign flexible schedules to the people in charge of social media in your team.

#7 Start way before and continue long after the holidays

Depending on how much the holidays impact your social media engagement, it’s good practice to start your holiday campaign a few weeks before and after the peak holiday season. This gives your campaign enough traction to generate results.

A lot of B2B marketers, for example, divide their holiday social media campaigns into different phases, spanning early November to mid-January. Again, your previous social media experience should be your guide when planning the duration of your campaign.

#8 Humanize, don’t just personalize your social media activities

The holidays offer a great opportunity for you to showcase the people behind your brand and your customers. These types of posts blend well with the season’s festivities, and they help your audience connect with the faces and stories of key people in your community.

Here are a few ways to humanize your holiday social media activities:

Share stories about people in your team and company, and don’t forget to showcase customers and prospects
Relate your company’s vision and purpose to events your community cares about
Join in the celebrations and get into the festive mood

Let’s look at the various practices that will guide you toward making a more thoughtful campaign when marketing your technology business.

Conclusion: If there’s one piece of advice to take away from this post, it’s that the holidays are all about having fun. That’s what you should aim for in your holiday social media campaign; everything else is just a bonus.

Happy Holidays!

Author Bio:

Rebecca Matias is a Business Development Manager at Callbox. She is a proactive marketer who is willing to share her passion, leadership principles and craft in marketing. Follow Rebecca on Twitter, Facebook, and Google+.

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Appointment Setting: 4 Steps to Boost Sales Meetings with Prospects

A Guide to Smarter Lead Generation for IoT Solutions

In-house and Outsourced Lead Generation: Getting the Best of Both Worlds

ABM Best Practices: Selecting and Profiling High-Value Accounts [INFOGRAPHIC]

October 30, 2018/0 Comments/in Growth Hacking /by Rebecca Matias

If we peel back the many layers of an account-based marketing (ABM) strategy, we find that ABM simply means identifying a handful of potential companies that will likely have a huge impact on revenues, and then applying marketing programs uniquely suited to each individual account.

But how exactly do you decide which accounts to target?

The success of ABM programs greatly depends on proper account selection and customer profiling. In fact, most ABM experts consider account selection as the single most important step in the ABM process.

Without an effective account selection procedure, the other ABM components (like engagement strategy, content plan, etc.) simply won’t work.

We recently put together a quick visual guide that maps out the key ideas behind account selection, so that you can develop and refine your own approach:

Account selection is the set of activities for identifying and prioritizing potential companies to include in your ABM program, while account profiling is the procedure for finding out which decision makers are involved in the buying process and determining how each decision maker influences the purchase.

Account selection and profiling cover a lot of details (and these vary from one ABM plan to another), but the main things to take into account include:

Size of Market Opportunity

ABM is all about narrowing down your marketing and sales focus down to a few high-impact potential customers. But, before you can identify your ideal accounts, you first need to get a good grasp of the total opportunities available in your target market.

In an article for B2B Marketing.net, Mike Boogaard recommends paying attention to two critical numbers:

Total Addressable Market (TAM) – the total number of companies in your target market
Minimum Viable Accounts (MVA) – the minimum number of ideal target accounts needed to reach your ROI objective

Find out the difference between enterprise sales vs. SMB sales in this quick infographic and learn how to tailor your selling strategy accordingly.

View infographic

Ideal Account Profile (IAP)

An ideal account profile (IAP) outlines the characteristics of a company that perfectly fits your solution. It describes what your ideal account looks like so that you’ll unmistakably know which organizations to target and which ones to avoid.

While IAPs can be as simple or complex as you need, the best approach for defining IAPs for account selection is to focus on firmographics (company-level information that determines fit) and technographics (details about an account’s tech choices).

Additional categories like predictive and behavioral attributes can usually be included in later ABM stages.

Segments

Segmenting potential accounts into tiers allows you to prioritize candidates and customize your engagement strategy accordingly.

In a full-fledged ABM program, you need to give each account in-depth research, personalized content, tailored campaigns, and one-on-one touches.

But not all candidate accounts require this level of attention. In fact, it makes sense to provide the full ABM treatment only to your “best” target accounts.

That’s why you also need to segment accounts into tiers (e.g., Tier 1 for high priority, Tier 2 for medium priority, and Tier 3 for low priority).

One way to determine which tier a target account belongs to is to gauge how well the company meets the Ready, Willing, Able, and Success Potential criteria outlined by Sixteen Ventures:

Ready – The target account is currently facing an urgent problem or opportunity that your solution can address.
Willing – The company is open to exploring possible solutions to the problem or opportunity.
Able – The target account can make the needed commitment to implement the change.
Success Potential – There’s a high level of fit in terms of technical, functional, resource, competence, experience, and culture.

Section 2 of our Targeted Marketing Handbook includes checklists and worksheets for building more sophisticated lead scoring/segmentation models.

Download Ebook

Buyer Roles

A Typical B2B purchase decision now involves an average of 6.8 stakeholders. These decision makers often fall into one or more of the following buyer roles:

Champion (or Coach) – This role is your biggest advocate in the target company and can provide you with insights on the process and the people involved.
Influencer – Because of his/her authority or experience in the solution in question, this decision maker has a huge impact on how the rest of the buyers will decide.
Economic Buyer – This role gives the final decision in a purchase and typically holds the exclusive authority to commit funds for the purchase.
Technical Buyer (or Ratifier) – These are decision makers with special concerns (security, compliance, legal, etc.) in a purchase.

Knowing which decision maker fills what buyer role forms only one step in account profiling. You also need to understand and map out the relationships between these decision makers.

Check out our guide on how to identify and qualify B2B decision makers and start building solid vendor-client relationships.

Read guide

The Takeaway: Account selection isn’t only the first step in the ABM process. It’s also the foundation of ABM success. So, be sure to build a solid account selection and profiling plan before anything else.

Author Bio:

Rebecca Matias is a Business Development Manager at Callbox. She is a proactive marketer who is willing to share her passion, leadership principles and craft in marketing. Follow Rebecca on Twitter, Facebook, and Google+.

Master lead management in 6 easy lessons delivered straight to your inbox!

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Appointment Setting: 4 Steps to Boost Sales Meetings with Prospects

A Guide to Smarter Lead Generation for IoT Solutions

In-house and Outsourced Lead Generation: Getting the Best of Both Worlds

The 3 C’s of Selling to the C-Suite and Closing Large Deals [INFOGRAPHIC]

July 25, 2018/0 Comments/in Growth Hacking /by Rebecca Matias

The C-suite remains a key audience for B2B sales, despite the massive shifts in the business buying landscape we’re experiencing lately. Around 64% of C-level executives (versus 24% of non-C-suite employees) act as the final decision maker in B2B purchases. In situations where CXOs don’t directly make the buying decision, they still wield a huge influence over a large portion of the purchase process.

But the average executive’s role has also changed alongside how CXOs deal with marketers and salespeople. To effectively reach and engage today’s C-suite decision makers, B2B companies need to rethink their approach at selling to this crucial segment.

In an instructive HBR article titled “Salespeople Need a Strategy for Selling to CEOs”, Frank Cespedes, Jay Galeota, and Michael Wong offer up some actionable insights to help B2B sellers face the challenge of connecting and communicating with today’s CXOs. We put together a quick infographic based on these ideas and backed them up with current stats and practical tips from various other sources.

According to the above HBR entry, the C-suite has undergone a significant transformation in the past two decades. One key trend is that the number of executives in charge of integrating different business units and functions hasn’t been able to keep up with the C-suite’s rapid evolution.

While the ranks of CXOs reporting to CEOs have doubled, only 35% of Fortune 500 and S&P 500 companies employ a COO responsible for bridging different business areas in the organization together.

The lack of in-depth cross-functional perspectives at the top means that it can be challenging for both internal executives and outside sellers to align different stakeholders and departments toward a common action, such as a purchase decision.

That’s on top of the numerous disruptions that add to the complexity and uncertainty C-level executives face. A survey by Forbes Insights and KPMG finds that 69% of global CXOs are worried about the increasing number of mission-critical issues completely new to them.

It’s in this backdrop that C-level decision makers look for concrete ways to help their organizations meet these challenges head-on. That’s why, when CXOs deal with sales reps from vendors and providers, they’re not just looking for solutions, they also want business insights.

The HBR article talks about building a C-suite selling strategy based on three key points: context, content, and contact.

Context

Getting CXOs’ attention is all about framing your sales message in a way that fits the overall business picture. Your executive sales pitch needs to go beyond product details, pain points, or business benefits. It should also be set in the right context. To make sure your pitch fits the big picture, you have to keep the following things in mind:

Don’t just ask what keeps CXOs up at night; find out what gets them up in the morning.
Executives think of specific business outcomes, not intermediate steps.
CXOs worry about how decisions affect the entire business, not just a single area or department.

Content

The C-suite’s content preferences depend to a large degree on the time they have available for consuming the material. Compelling sales content supports and demonstrates the claims you’re making so that the executive can make an informed decision. Here’s how you enable your content to appeal the to a C-suite audience:

Carry out three levels of research: industry-level, company-specific, and executive-focused.
Speak the language of the C-suite and talk to CXOs like a peer.
Tie all your materials to specific business recommendations and options.

Find out how you can get your hands on enterprise leads and customers and how you can nurture them into repeat buyers

Contact

When connecting with today’s C-level prospects, gatekeepers form the least-pressing issue to worry about. There are far more challenging obstacles you need to clear first to make it into the C-suite:

CXOs consult at least 5 different pieces of content before reaching out to a vendor.
73% of executives prefer to work with sales reps referred by someone they know.
C-level decision makers want reps who can get their team behind the solution.

Conclusion: Selling to the C-suite continues to become even more challenging as CXOs themselves face greater complexity and uncertainty. But with the 3 C’s (context, content, and contact), pitching the C-suite becomes more manageable and consistent.

Callbox can help you put the 3 C’s into action with innovative outbound prospecting strategies tailored for C-level audiences.

Author Bio:

Rebecca Matias is a Business Development Manager at Callbox. She is a proactive marketer who is willing to share her passion, leadership principles and craft in marketing. Follow Rebecca on Twitter, Facebook, and Google+.

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8 B2B Social Media Tips to Boost Holiday Engagement [INFOGRAPHIC]

Social Media Marketing

ABM Best Practices: Selecting and Profiling High-Value Accounts [INFOGRAPHIC]

The 3 C’s of Selling to the C-Suite and Closing Large Deals [INFOGRAPHIC]

Enterprise Sales vs SMB Sales: A Side-by-Side Comparison [INFOGRAPHIC]

July 18, 2018/0 Comments/in Growth Hacking /by Rebecca Matias

In Sales 101, we learned that selling to SMBs vastly differs from enterprise sales. SMBs aren’t just scaled-down versions of their enterprise counterparts, in the same way, that large companies aren’t simply full-blown versions of small businesses. These are two very different creatures, each with its own unique characteristics, separate needs, and (consequently) distinct sales philosophies.

In today’s infographic (and in the rest of this blog post), we’ll compare selling to SMBs vs. selling to enterprise customers and find out how the two approaches contrast with each other in terms of pain points, business objectives, buying process, decision makers, messaging, and ideal tactics.

To make sure we’re on the same page, let’s first pin down what SMB and enterprise customers exactly are. Gartner defines SMBs in terms of employee size and annual sales as follows:

Employee size
Small business: fewer than 100 employees; Mid-sized companies: 100 to 999 employees
Annual revenue
Small business: less than $50 million; Mid-sized: between $50 million and $1 billion

So, for the purposes of this blog entry and infographic, we’ll consider any business that falls outside the above ranges as an enterprise.

With that out of the way, here’s a rundown of key differences when selling to SMB and enterprise customers:

Pain Points

SMB and enterprise customers face vastly different business challenges. For example, a survey of 1,000 U.S. and European SMBs reveals that two of the biggest pain points they experience are growing toward stability/profitability (47%) and increasing productivity through workflow improvement (47%).

Meanwhile, for large enterprises, common pain points tend to revolve around specific business areas such as prolonged sales cycles, unintegrated distribution channels, poor return on IT investments, shrinking margins, inadequate reporting, and accountability, etc.

Priorities

Business priorities hugely vary between SMBs and enterprise companies. SMBs tend to focus on near-term results since they’re usually looking at shorter time horizons. That’s why, in addition to ROI, SMBs also consider a project’s or solution’s time-to-value (TTV), which is the time elapsed between decision to deployment.

Enterprise customers, on the other hand, typically have the time and resources needed to carry out longer-term initiatives that impact their strategic position (market share, recurrent revenue, etc.). They evaluate how your solution’s benefits support this overall direction.

Here is a 5-step approach that is guaranteed to give you enterprise leads and customers.

Buying Journey

SMBs arrive at a buying decision much quicker and more directly than their enterprise counterparts. While it can vary widely from one industry to another, SMBs typically complete a purchase within 2 to 90 days from initial contact.

By comparison, enterprise companies follow a longer and less linear path to purchase, with well-defined steps and identifiable buying stages, which can span anywhere between a couple of months to several years.

Decision Makers

In small businesses, purchase decisions are often made by only one person. In fact, CEOs make 98% of all tech buying decisions in SMBs, although some key steps in the buying process are delegated to others in the company.

In contrast, it takes an average of 6.8 stakeholders to arrive at a buying consensus in enterprise companies. Each stakeholder represents a specific business area or department with his/her own interest and expertise in the solution being evaluated.

Messaging/Content

When evaluating a purchase, SMBs do their research in a way that’s similar to consumers. For example, at least half of SMB buyers choose top brands and the vast majority of SMB decision makers rely on Internet searches and review/recommendation websites. SMBs also want vendors to clearly explain how their solutions translate into business value.

Enterprise customers use multiple pieces of in-depth content during the purchase process. Around half of enterprise decision makers involved in the buying cycle consult between 2 to 5 content materials, including whitepapers, case studies, webinars, blog articles, etc., to evaluate a solution.

Sales Tactics

Tactics which are effective at reaching out and engaging SMB customers include a combination of inbound and outbound channels. Paid and organic search closely match how SMB decision makers seek information and thus are effective channels, especially when combined with the scale of email marketing and the personalization offered by targeted one-on-one calls.

Similar inbound and outbound channels apply when selling to enterprise customers. But the tactics need to lean toward nurturing enterprise sales opportunities through multiple touches with a rich content portfolio.

There’s more to the SMB vs. enterprise comparison than just sheer size alone. That’s why selling to either segment isn’t as simple as scaling down or scaling up your sales strategy. Both require a hugely different approach.

Speaking of sales approach, Callbox’s flexible multi-touch, multi-channel marketing strategy helps businesses reach and engage their target buyers (SMB or enterprise customers) in key B2B industries. Learn how you can leverage our award-winning marketing solutions for improved sales performance.

Author Bio:

Rebecca Matias is a Business Development Manager at Callbox. She is a proactive marketer who is willing to share her passion, leadership principles and craft in marketing. Follow Rebecca on Twitter, Facebook, and Google+.

Master lead management in 6 easy lessons delivered straight to your inbox!

Take our FREE Lead Management Bootcamp today.

8 B2B Social Media Tips to Boost Holiday Engagement [INFOGRAPHIC]

Social Media Marketing

ABM Best Practices: Selecting and Profiling High-Value Accounts [INFOGRAPHIC]

The 3 C’s of Selling to the C-Suite and Closing Large Deals [INFOGRAPHIC]

The Math Behind A/B Testing: A (Simplified) Visual Guide [INFOGRAPHIC]

June 26, 2018/0 Comments/in Growth Hacking /by Rebecca Matias

$The Math Behind A/B Testing: A (Simplified) Visual Guide$

Just off the top of your head, can you explain what p-values are and what they tell you about your A/B test results? If reading that question almost made you close the current tab, you’re not alone. In fact, according to FiveThirtyEight, even scientists themselves can’t clearly explain what p-values really mean.

While your testing tool probably does most of the number-crunching under the hood, it’s much better to gain a solid understanding of how the math works out than simply running the test and waiting for the results to flash on your dashboard.

Without a good grasp of the math and statistical concepts behind A/B testing, you’ll simply end up guessing rather than actually experimenting. Knowing the underlying technical details helps you make better decisions in your testing and sampling design, as well as gives you a sound framework for interpreting results.

That’s why we put together this quick infographic that visually summarizes the ideas behind key mathematical/statistical concepts you typically encounter in A/B testing.

Don’t worry if you’re allergic to equations and arcane Greek symbols. We won’t be dealing with any of those here. We’ll only focus on building the intuition needed to make informed testing decisions.

Also, the rest of the blog post gives a more in-depth discussion of what’s on the infographic, so you should definitely check that out as well.

$The Math Behind A/B Testing: A (Simplified) Visual Guide [INFOGRAPHIC]$

Let’s say you wanted to see if changing the color of your call-to-action (CTA) button on your whitepaper landing page from red to green would impact the number of downloads. You then randomly split your traffic 50-50, with one half assigned to the page having the red-colored CTA (the control group) and the other half assigned to the page which has the green-colored CTA (the variation group).

After recording 500 unique visits for each page, you observe that the conversion rate (number of downloads as a percentage of page traffic) for the control group was 7%, while the conversion rate for the variation group was 9%. You may be tempted to conclude that changing the CTA’s color has a real impact on conversions. But before you accept the results as valid, you first need to carefully answer a number of questions about your findings, such as:

Do I have enough samples (page views) for each of the two groups?
How likely is it that I got the test results simply by chance?
Is the difference between the conversion rates big enough to justify making the change?
If I ran the test again and again, how confident am I that it’s going to give me similar results?

These are only a few of the things you need to think about when planning and carrying out A/B tests. Below, we’ll go over the mathematical/statistical tools to help us objectively answer each of these questions.

The Very Basics

ConversionXL says the three statistical building blocks of A/B testing are: the mean, variance, and sampling. Let’s now gain a more intuitive feel for these concepts and understand what the numbers really tell us.

Mean

We commonly refer to the mean as the average. But what does the “mean” really mean? You can think of the mean as the number that represents a collection of numbers really well. That is, knowing the mean gives you a rough idea of what values a sample tends to have since most of the numbers in that sample will tend to cluster around the mean.

For example, if you determined that your average monthly site visits was 70,000 for the last 12 months, then you’re saying that 70,000 is a fairly acceptable summary for your monthly site traffic. That is, most of the time, your monthly site traffic will be “close” to 70,000.

Variance and Standard Deviation

The variance measures how dispersed the values in a collection of numbers are. The higher the variance, the more scattered the values in our sample set will be.

As the variance increases, the mean becomes a less reliable representative of our dataset.

Let’s say you want to compare the average time (in seconds) spent on two different pages of your site. For simplicity, you only collect 8 observations for each page. Your datasets look like this:

```
[20, 22, 21, 20, 20, 19, 17, 21]
```
```
[14, 27, 31, 10, 11, 28, 2, 37]
```

Both sample sets have a mean of 20 seconds. It’s easy to see that the average summarizes the Page A sample really well. Most of Page A’s observations tend to stick very closely to 20 seconds. On the other hand, 20 isn’t a very good summary for the observations reported under page B. That’s because the values in the second set tend to be farther away from the mean. If we compute the variance for each of the two sets, we get 2.3 for Page A and 152 for Page B.

We see that it can be misleading to solely rely on the mean to describe a sample set. That’s why you always need to look at the associated variance as well.

But one problem with the variance is that its value can be a bit tricky to interpret and use. Just look at the variances we calculated earlier. They’re both expressed in “second-squared” units (whatever that means).

To work around this, we often include the standard deviation in our analysis. The standard deviation is simply the square-root of the variance (don’t worry, you don’t need to compute this yourself most of the time).

As shown in the next example, it’s easier to work with the standard deviation. The standard deviation of the average time spent on Page A is around 1.5 seconds. Now, we can measure how far a given value is from the mean by expressing the difference as units of standard deviation. For example, the value 17 is around 2 standard deviations below the mean of 20 (the difference between 17 and 20 is 3, and 3 divided by the standard deviation of 1.5 is 2).

The key thing to remember is that the variance tells you how spread out your observations are, and the standard deviation gives you the average distance of each observation from the mean.

Sampling

In our landing page split-test example, we use a sample of 500 unique page visits for each version. We select a sample that (hopefully) statistically represents the entire population of our landing page visitors. Since studying the whole population of page visitors is impractical, we settle for a representative sample instead.

Exactly how large our sample size should be will depend on a number of factors. Although you don’t need to know the formula for computing the ideal sample size, it’s important to understand that it uses the following factors:

Significance level (the probability of seeing an effect when none actually exists)
Statistical power (the probability of seeing an effect when the effect actually exists)
Effect size (how big the difference or change is)

We’ll dig deeper into each of these later. For now, the main thing to know is that generally, the larger our sample size is, the more reliable (unbiased) the mean becomes.

Null Hypothesis Testing

When running A/B tests, we’re actually applying a process called null hypothesis testing (NHT). We compare the conversion rates of the two landing pages and test the null hypothesis that there is no difference between the two conversion rates (meaning the 2-percentage-point difference between the control’s 7% and the variation’s 9% simply happened by chance).

In A/B tests, a null hypothesis typically states that the change (or changes you made on the page) have no effect on conversions.

We reject the null hypothesis if the p-value is less than the significance level we set (more on this below). Rejecting the null hypothesis means our test shows evidence that there’s a “statistically significant” difference between the 7% and 9% conversion rates we saw earlier.

Having a “statistically significant” result in our A/B test indicates that the change we made to the landing page probably had an impact on the conversion rate.

Significance Level and p-value

The significance level is the probability that your A/B test incorrectly rejects a null hypothesis that’s actually true (i.e., the chance that you conclude there’s an effect when there’s really none). In other words, the significance level is the probability of getting a false positive result (or a Type 1 error).

It’s up to you how much significance level to use, but this is typically set to 5%. Having a 5% significance level means you’re willing to accept a 5% chance of a false positive result in your A/B test.

A related concept is the p-value. Statistics textbooks define The p-value as the probability that the result would be at least as extreme as those observed, assuming the null hypothesis was true.

If you get confused by the “assuming the null hypothesis was true” portion, think of it as simply assuming you ran a test that’s only made up of the control group (i.e., you made no variation).

Let’s say that in our landing page split-test example, we got a p-value of 3.2% or 0.032. This means there’s a 3.2% chance of getting at least a 9% conversion rate for the green-buttoned landing page (the variation group), assuming that the variation’s conversion rate was the same as the control’s 7% conversion rate.

Since we set the significance level at 5%, the p-value lies within the rejection threshold. This means it’s very unlikely we got the 9% conversion rate assuming the null hypothesis is true. This is taken as evidence against the null hypothesis, and so we reject it.

In other words, the p-value simply tells us how surprising a given result is. If it’s very surprising (i.e., p-value is less than the significance level), then it’s most likely safe to reject the null hypothesis.

Statistical Power

Statistical power refers to the probability that your A/B test will correctly reject a false null hypothesis. In plain English, it’s the chance that your test detects a specific effect when an effect actually exists.

A low-power A/B test will be less likely to pick out an effect than a high-power test. The higher the statistical power, the lower the chance that your test makes a Type 2 error (failing to reject a false null hypothesis or false negative).

According to ConversionXL, A/B tests follow an 80% power standard. To improve your test’s statistical power, you need to increase the sample size, increase the effect size, or extend the test’s duration.

Effect Size

In order for your A/B tests to be actionable and useful, you not only need to determine if a given variation has an effect, but you should also measure how much is the effect. The significance level, p-value, and statistical power make up only the starting point. You also need to analyze the effect size.

In our example earlier, the effect size is the absolute difference between the two group’s conversion rates (2 percentage points). We may also express the effect size as units of standard deviation.

It’s important to estimate and/or compute the effect size in an A/B test. Estimating the effect size at the start of a test helps you determine the sample size and statistical power while reporting the test’s post-experiment effect size allows you to make more informed decisions about the variations you’re analyzing.

Confidence Intervals

The 7% and 9% conversion rates from our earlier example are called point estimates (i.e., each of them corresponds to a single estimated number). But, since these values have only been estimated from samples, they may or may not coincide to the true conversion rates for each group.

That’s why you also need to build confidence intervals for your estimated conversion rates. Confidence intervals measure the reliability of an estimate by specifying the range of likely values where the true conversion rate will probably be found.

For example, here’s how we would most likely report a confidence interval for the variation’s conversion rates: “We are 95% confident that the true conversion rate for the green-colored landing page is 9% +/- 2%.”

In this example, we’re saying that given the test results we have, our best estimate for the tweaked landing page’s conversion rate is 9% and that we’re 95% confident that the true conversion rate lies within 7% to 11%. The “+/-2%” value is called the margin of error.

Since we’ve also made a point estimate of the control group’s conversion rate, we need to construct a separate confidence interval for it. If we find, for example, that a 95% confidence interval for the control group’s conversion rate overlaps with the other landing page’s confidence interval, we may need to keep testing to arrive at a statistically valid result.

Keep in mind that, in general, the larger the sample size, the narrower the confidence interval becomes (since more samples mean a more reliable estimate).

More Resources

Here’s a list of helpful resources and further readings on A/B testing statistics and inferential statistics in general:

A/B Testing Mastery: From Beginner To Pro in a Blog Post (ConversionXL)
Using Effect Size—or Why the P Value Is Not Enough (NCBI)

The Search for Significance: A Crash Course in Statistical Significance (InContext)

Author Bio:

Rebecca Matias

Rebecca Matias is a Business Development Manager at Callbox. She is a proactive marketer who is willing to share her passion, leadership principles and craft in marketing. Follow Rebecca on Twitter, Facebook, and Google+.

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February 18, 2019

A B2B Guide to Winning New Customers and Repeat Business [INFOGRAPHIC]

May 22, 2018/10 Comments/in Growth Hacking /by Rebecca Matias

Much ink has already been spilled on the topic of customer acquisition vs. customer retention. Conventional marketing wisdom holds that retaining current customers is way easier, cheaper, and better than attracting new ones. But the fact remains that you need to maintain the right revenue mix between new and existing customers to sustainably grow.

That’s what our latest infographic helps you achieve. In today’s entry, we compare how selling to new customers differs from targeting repeat business so that you’ll get a good grasp of how to tailor your marketing strategy for each group.

Almost all B2B marketers agree that the path to consistent sales growth starts with the right balance between new customers and repeat purchases, but most organizations follow marketing strategies which are heavily skewed toward customer acquisition. Surveys carried out by Econsultancy and Act-On found that:

33% of marketers plan to increase spending on customer acquisition vs. 18% on customer retention

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82% of B2B marketers prioritize lead generation, while 43% focus on customer retention

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Too much emphasis on new customers can leave your current customer base behind, which means you’re potentially racking up missed opportunities for upselling and cross-selling, not to mention losing out on customer loyalty and referrals. For businesses that provide subscription-based services (such as SaaS companies), the opportunity cost from overlooking current customers can be far more serious.

On the other hand, B2B companies also need to haul in a steady stream of fresh customers. Customer acquisition brings in the needed business to build a solid client base and counter customer churn. That’s why startups and other companies that have yet to establish their brand prioritize acquisition.

How should you balance finding new customers and keeping current ones? A study from Optimove partly answers this question. Their research looks at 180 brands in a variety of growth stages and compares these companies’ new:existing customer ratios. The findings suggest that organizations’ optimal revenue mix largely depends on business maturity and growth level:

Younger companies with stagnating revenue growth typically have 90% of revenues from new customers. This means new customers aren’t translating into steady, recurrent revenues, and they need to tilt this ratio more toward repeat business.
Young, fast-growing companies also tend to have a revenue mix that’s weighted more toward new customers, but they derive at least 30% of revenues from existing customers.
Established, steadily-growing companies generate 60% to 80% of their revenues from existing customers.
Older companies with stagnating revenue growth derive around 90% of sales from existing customers. However, this degree of dependence on repeat business indicates reduced spend levels on the part of their current customers.

All this means that companies need to find the sweet spot between new and repeat business. The first step is to find out how these two groups compare with one another.

The infographic uses seven essential qualities to help you determine how to engage each customer type: buyer profile, pain points/purchase drivers, outreach tactics, revenue potential, costs/profitability, and relevant metrics.

It’s clear that each customer group has its own set of unique qualities, which also means each customer type requires its own marketing approach. So, keep these characteristics in mind as you develop and refine your customer acquisition and retention strategies.

Author Bio:

Rebecca Matias

Rebecca Matias is a Business Development Manager at Callbox. She is a proactive marketer who is willing to share her passion, leadership principles and craft in marketing. Follow Rebecca on Twitter, Facebook, and Google+.

How do you balance gaining new customers and winning repeat business?
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What Dating Teaches Us About Face-to-Face Sales Meetings [INFOGRAPHIC]

February 12, 2018/1 Comment/in Growth Hacking /by Rebecca Matias

Meeting a potential customer in person for the first time is a lot like going on a first date. After coming across each other online and a lengthy back-and-forth through emails, calls, chat and social media, both you and the prospect finally decide to meet face-to-face to see if it makes sense to take your relationship to the next level.

Like dating, in-person sales meetings involve a delicate balancing act of rules, norms, and customs. In fact, a lot of the best practices we follow in the world of dating also apply to the way we prepare and carry out face-to-face sales meetings. Here’s a neat little infographic that shows a few of these lessons.

Face-to-face meetings remain one of the best channels to nurture opportunities and to turn them into customers. A 2017 Harvard Business Review article says face-to-face requests are 34% more successful than emails.

That’s why, this Valentine’s season, let’s take a close look at some dating best practices to help us have better in-person sales meetings.

#1 There’s no such thing as over-preparation.

That old saying about first impressions is true. You don’t want to leave the wrong impression on your date or prospect because, in most cases, it’s going to be the only thing they’ll remember about you. That’s why, in dating and in face-to-face sales meetings, there’s no such thing as too much preparation.

So start your preparations by setting specific goals. Don’t just say “to learn more about the prospect”. Instead, write out what particular things about the prospect’s company or pain point you’d like to find out.

Also, your appearance matters more than you think. To make sure you’re properly dressed, think about the meeting’s setting and use social media to get a sense of the prospect’s style.

Always do your homework before showing up for a meeting with a prospect. Pull up the prospect’s CRM record, read up on relevant company/industry developments, or find a common personal thing you can bring up in your conversation. There’s a reason why 43% of singles google someone before their first date, and why 63% of B2B buyers start the purchase journey with an Internet search.

#2 It’s all about communication, communication, communication.

Recently, author Mark Manson shared the relationship advice he got from 1,500 of his subscribers. The survey showed that people in ongoing long-term relationships cited respect (not communication) as the number-one factor in a happy marriage.

But when you’re only taking the first steps in a relationship (such as when going on a date), it’s all about communication. You can say the same thing about meeting a sales prospect in person for the first time. Communication makes or breaks deals.

Communication takes on various forms in an in-person meeting. It’s both what you say and what you don’t say—as well as what you do and don’t do. For example, the time you arrive speaks volumes: too early, and the prospect might think you’re too eager; too late, and there might not be a meeting when you get there.

You already know that communication is 93% nonverbal, so pay attention to both you and your prospect’s body language. What about the remaining 7%? Let your prospect do most of the talking, but don’t appear uninterested or (worse) unknowledgeable.

#3 The first meeting is only the beginning.

Obviously, the first date isn’t the time to be making some serious commitment. Although you really can’t fit relationships into a one-size-fits-all timeline, some sources suggest that it takes 6 to 8 dates before couples become “exclusive”.

In today’s fast-changing B2B buying landscape, where purchase cycles are getting longer and more stakeholders make the buying decision, the first in-person sales meeting isn’t the time to be closing. In fact, for complex-sale products, there isn’t much to expect from the first few in-person meetings other than to make sure there’s really a good fit.

That’s why there’s no need for the hard sell or to offer your pitch on your very first sales meeting. If everything works out, it’s only just the beginning. Instead of “always be closing”, why not try “always be following up”?

Happy Valentine’s!

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February 18, 2019

10 Undeniable Ways Mobile is Reshaping B2B Marketing [INFOGRAPHIC]

February 1, 2018/0 Comments/in Growth Hacking /by Rebecca Matias

We’ve seen how the B2B buying process has changed and how the conversion funnel has evolved along with it. Mobile drives a huge part of this shift. It makes the nonlinear, self-directed buying journey possible by making information and engagement available at the times and places where prospects want or need them the most.

This infographic shows exactly how the move toward mobile impacts B2B marketing. From the sources we looked at, mobile is reshaping the B2B marketing landscape in 10 distinct ways, from both marketers’ and prospects’ points of view.

These 10 trends point to 3 main themes:

#1 Mobile contributes to business results

A 2017 study from the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) finds that mobile accounts for at least 40% of B2B companies’ revenues. That’s apparently only the tip of the iceberg.

Salesforce surveyed B2B buyers in 2016 and found that mobile was a crucial tool for practically all B2B decision-makers. In the study, 84% of millennials considered mobile as necessary for their work, while 76% of Gen Xers and 60% of baby boomers agreed with this.

Also, BCG points out that mobile shortens the time it takes to make a purchase decision by as much as 20%. This is because mobile keeps information within easy reach throughout the buying journey, and enables close collaboration among stakeholders.

#2 Usage and adoption continue to grow

It’s also clear that more and more B2B buyers do much of their pre-purchase research on mobile devices. According to the BCG report, around half of all B2B search queries are made on a smartphone. Meanwhile, data cited by eMarketer shows that 82% of B2B buyers access content via a smartphone and 56% through a tablet.

B2B prospects’ work-related usage of mobile devices is also seeing some significant uptick. The above Salesforce survey notes that time spent using mobile devices for work has increased for 63% of B2B buyers. BCG also predicts that by 2020, B2B employees’ daily use of mobile devices will reach 3 hours on average.

#3 Mobile-first, not mobile-only

Mobile’s growing importance for both marketers and buyers, however, doesn’t mean these two groups solely focus on mobile alone. In fact, mobile forms part of an “omnichannel” strategy that brings a seamless experience for B2B buyers across multiple devices and touch points, similar to what consumers encounter all the time.

That’s why, according to IBM, close to 80% of B2B buyers want a B2C experience, and 85% of B2B organizations are more than happy to deliver.

Delivering a rich mobile experience isn’t only a good idea, it’s a profitable strategy. BCG’s research also reveals that mobile encourages repeat business and builds long-term relationships when done right.

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February 18, 2019

How the Callbox Team Spends the Holiday Season [INFOGRAPHIC]

December 27, 2017/0 Comments/in Callbox News and Updates /by Rebecca Matias

The holidays are once again upon us. That means it’s time to kick back, relax, and get into the festive mood. In the spirit of the season, we bring you this little infographic that shares how the Callbox team joins the celebrations.

Parties

This year’s company party is a fitting conclusion to an amazing 2017. But the year-end party goes beyond celebrating business successes. It’s about showcasing the Callbox culture and identity.

We always plan the party around maximizing team interaction. We’re a relatively big family, so this is one way of helping everyone get to know everybody else.

Charity

Charity has always been a part of Callbox’s holiday tradition. In fact, giving back to the community forms part of our calendar the whole year round.

Each year, we carry out feeding programs, help deliver relief goods, and conduct after-school learning projects. The holidays simply wouldn’t be complete without donations and volunteer work from the team.

Gift-Giving

Callbox is a family of generous gift givers. When the holidays roll around, everyone’s busy making their list and checking it twice (and sometimes even thrice).

The Callbox team has its own take on the Secret Santa tradition. Everybody gets little presents from their Secret Santas weeks before the actual gift exchange.

Contests

Nobody at Callbox shies away from a contest. That drive to compete and win makes Callbox the company it is today. It also makes the holidays really exciting.

Each December, different departments go head to head, showing off their skills in activities such as Christmas tree-decorating and choral singing.

Awards

Being part of the Callbox team means your performance doesn’t go unnoticed or unrewarded. December is the time for recognizing the great work that everybody’s been doing for the past 12 months.

We make the holidays even brighter by letting the Callbox team’s stars shine through awards and prizes.

Lookback/Look-Ahead

For most companies, the run-up to the end of the year is when annual reviews and planning kick into high gear. At Callbox, we turn these activities into a holiday staple.

We take a collaborative approach at planning and review. This means that we sit down as a team and work out where we’ve been and where we’re going.

Looking back, we’ve had a lot of fun and learned a lot in the Savvy Marketer blog. We really hope you’ve enjoyed and gained from what we had put out here in 2017. Looking forward, we’ll continue publishing great content for B2B marketers as well as try out new ways to share insights.

From all of us here at Callbox:

Happy Holidays!

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Read more stories, tips, and ideas, check out The Savvy Marketer’s Blog!

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February 20, 2018

5 Trends that Will Drive Tech Tradeshow ROI in 2018 [INFOGRAPHIC]

December 7, 2017/0 Comments/in Growth Hacking /by Rebecca Matias

Another year, another round of tradeshows. Whether it’s Dreamforce or a local industry meetup, tech marketers rely on live events to help them generate leads and drive revenues. But, like any other widely-used tactic, tradeshows tend to produce varying levels of success for different marketers.

To make your exhibits stand out in 2018, we’re bringing you this neat little infographic from our latest free eBook. The visual showcases the biggest tech tradeshow trends you need to take into account when building your strategy.

The infographic is based on UBM’s 2017 Tech Event Marketing Insights Report which summarizes the survey responses from 220 business technology professionals.

Three is the magic number

UBM’s survey finds that, on average, IT buyers attend three tradeshows each year. This means that tech marketers only get a few chances at meeting prospects face-to-face.

Tip: Make each opportunity count, starting with having the right event marketing ideas and an actionable tradeshow plan.

Prospects seek out vendors they already know

The key to getting the right quality and quantity of booth visitors all boils down to one thing. You need to generate buzz around the event early. That means you should connect with attendees well before the opening day, since 8 in 10 IT buyers say they prefer to visit booths of exhibitors they’re already familiar with.

Tip: Reach out to attendees months before the event. Use a combination of email, social media, and phone calls for your outreach. Also, try to leverage newer (but measurably effective) tactics for promoting your event, such as influencer marketing and native advertising.

Come for the offers, stay for the value

You’d be hard-pressed to find anyone who doesn’t like getting free stuff or discounts. That’s why exclusive offers remain a proven tactic for attracting event attendees. Around 92% of the respondents in the UBM study appreciate vendors who promote exhibits via discount codes.

But offers and discounts only haul attendees in. To drive conversations and conversions, your exhibit needs to deliver genuine value. UBM’s findings report that 77% of tech buyers rate product managers as the most helpful people in tradeshow booths. They want to meet subject matter experts, not just marketing and sales reps.

Tip: Use offers, coupons, and deals to give attendees a reason to visit. But make them stay by staffing your booth with people who understand your product and your target customers.

Follow up, follow up, follow up

Anyone who took B2B event marketing 101 knows the power of timely follow-ups. But how soon should you reach out to your tradeshow leads after the event? The UBM survey notes that 79% of IT buyers think 1 to 2 weeks is an appropriate time window.

The study also finds that more than a third of IT prospects want to receive further information after an event, while another 38% expect a post-tradeshow email from a sales rep.

Tip: Follow up, by all means, follow up. Use your past results and experience to figure exactly when and how to do this. But if you only have limited event marketing experience to draw from, start with UBM’s findings as your guideline.

One-on-one is still #1

If you need further proof that tradeshows work, then consider this: 56% of IT buyers contact a vendor after seeing them at an event, while 54% turned into customers following a tradeshow. Of course, tradeshow success comes in other forms, too. Marketers gauge events by new referrals/introductions, lead quality/quantity, won deals, value of sales, and upsell/cross-sell opportunities.

Tip: Take a look at the tactics we followed to boost our campaign ROI at Dreamforce 2016. With our strategy, the Callbox team was able to generate:

55 inquiries
12 signups
3 appointments scheduled
2 contracts signed

That’s the power of tradeshows done right. There’s no other marketing channel that brings you up close and personal with potential customers. No matter how digitally connected the world becomes, there’s just no substitute for an in-person handshake.

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