When it comes to enterprise marketing, the budgets, the goals, and the strategies are all larger than life. In the case of traditional marketing, resources might be more limited and the scale of things is generally smaller.
One might imagine that a big budget and a plethora of marketing tools at your disposal might make enterprise marketing a breeze. However, enterprise marketing isn’t without its own unique set of challenges.
How to scale your customer base and profits exponentially? How to get a large organization with hundreds of employees and opinions behind one unified idea? How to ensure you’re making the best use of enterprise marketing tools for your business?
These are all challenging questions that enterprise marketers seek to find answers and solutions to in the course of their jobs.
In enterprise marketing, the risks and hurdles loom characteristically large. But the rewards, if a campaign is successful, are immense.
Below we’ve rounded up eight tips and tactics for enterprise marketers to employ to make that success all the more attainable.
1. Have a Clear Brand Vision and Voice
In enterprise branding, consistency is key. This can sometimes be hard to achieve.
With so many different departments offering their opinions, it is important for a business’s voice and vision to come across in any and all marketing communications. Across different campaigns, channels, and market segments, the tone of voice and core message should remain congruent.
Your brand voice and vision should not only reflect that of the company’s founders, but of its employee base in general. It should also reflect that of the ideal customer and of your existing customer base as well.
2. Market Differently to Different Market Segments
It is a good strategy for your brand’s message and voice to remain consistent. However, this doesn’t mean that you should say the same thing to each and every one of your customers.
Often, large enterprises tend to have large audiences, the members of which are diverse in their backgrounds and interests. This is why a company creates more than one buyer persona.
Different audience members will respond to different marketing techniques. It’s important to cater to as many people as possible.
Take, for example, the way in which Netflix creates different social media accounts for its different categories and countries while maintaining a similar tone of voice across the board.
3. Use the Right Tools
One big advantage of a big marketing budget is the opportunity to use specialized tools and management systems that you otherwise might not have access to. The challenge here is to figure out which are relevant, and which one is best for your business.
Client relationship management, social media scheduling, lead scoring, and marketing automation; these are all things where it’s possible to get software or systems to assist. Indeed, the scale of enterprise marketing often makes it necessary to utilize one or all of these types of tools for the roll-out of effective strategies.
4. Leverage Data Analytics
You can create the best marketing campaign and most relatable brand voice in the world. But if your audience is having trouble using your service or your website, none of it will matter.
Another challenge of enterprise marketing is that established companies and big brand names are held to a much higher standard than startups or independent businesses. This is why your website must be optimized, easy to use, and provide an excellent digital experience for your customers.
One of the easiest ways to ensure that this is the case is through the use of data analytics tools. You can see more on this important point in this detailed guide at decibel.com.
5. Build a Community of Loyal Fans
Enterprise marketers will often find that there is already a relatively large audience or user base in existence at their companies. This sounds like a huge plus. But in actual fact, it can be a double-edged sword.
The trouble is finding ways to keep this customer base engaged while continuing to attract new customers, two things that generally require different marketing tactics.
One trick is to create a community that is borderline obsessed with your product or service. This requires community engagement, relationship nurturing, and a product you know you can stand behind.
Creating an avid fan base takes time and effort, but if you can achieve it, it’s absolutely worth the work.
6. Utilize Word of Mouth Marketing
Building on the previous point, one great tactic that can be employed in an enterprise is word-of-mouth-marketing. This is a marketing strategy almost as old as time itself, and there’s a reason it’s been around for so long: it works.
Think about Peleton users or iPhone owners. These customers are loudly loyal and positive about the brands they love.
Social media channels are the places brands most commonly encourage word of mouth marketing from their customers, as they allow access to a large audience and offer easy ways to share content and ideas. Many brands also partner with relevant influencers and affiliates for increased impact.
7. Multichannel Marketing for Maximum Results
The coordination of multiple channels is one of the cornerstones of enterprise marketing. With so many different avenues—email, social media, billboards—at your disposal, the opportunities are endless.
Again, the use of marketing automation and data analytics software can come in handy here to help precisely coordinate campaigns across channels, measure results, and gauge success. Brands that have seen success with this type of coordinated campaign include Starbucks and Under Armour.
8. Get the Whole Company on Board
As mentioned above, one challenge enterprise marketing strategies can encounter is the fact that there are various differing opinions. So many different departments have opposing opinions on what the strategy should entail. The different components of a large company can present a challenge, but they can also present an opportunity as well.
Use the different parts of the company to your advantage. Let the voices of your teams be heard, across social media channels and your company website. Oatly’s marketing team does a particularly good job of this by shining a light on and personalizing their CEO.
Enterprise Marketing: Major Takeaways
It’s clear that enterprise marketing has both drawbacks and advantages. It can be challenging at times, but it can also be thrilling to operate on such a large scale with such high stakes.
The most important thing to remember is that at the end of the day, marketing is all about the customer, whether you have 1 or 100,000. If you remember that, it will stand you in good stead.
For more compelling business content, please check out the rest of our blog.