AMA: Pipeline360 Vice President of Marketing, Matt Hummel on Digital Marketing Strategy

Most often SMB sales cycles are both shorter and involve fewer people. So you'd typically want to target them in ways that focus on moving them quickly. Very similarly to ENT organizations, they still require the typical stages - they need to know they have a problem (or opportunity), they need to be aware there are solutions to help them, that you have a solution and/or that your company exists in this space (importance of brand), that your solution is the best, and that they have what they need to make a decision. In terms of targeting, it's important to engage and re-engage - think retargeting and remarketing. In a way, you can design it more like a B2C campaign. While it's not as transactional, the emphasis should still be on making it simple as possible. Remember though, not all SMB companies are the same - you can still sell 6 figure deals into SMB as much as you can have PLG motions that are free trials to purchase. It's important, when you can, to review deal cycles and understand how long it takes, how many touchpoints, who is engaging, etc. - and then always talk to your customers to understand what's important to them!

I've used a number of different tactics to progress early opps that aren't progressing. From a Marketing perspective, there are usually two overarching goals you can help with in this case - one is just creating continued awareness of your brand (be front and center / top of mind) and another is getting a meeting setup. Typically to drive awareness in these cases you'd leverage display advertising. If you have a way to do that at an account level even better - and if you can personalize it that's even better! For meetings, I've seen direct or dimensional mailers work, as well as getting face-to-face with a client. Take them to dinner or out for drinks. Go see them! It's a lot easier to get a deal done in person, especially in this post-COVID world where that just isn't happening at the same pace!

This answer depends on the setup of the new site. If it a site is more of a redesign (vs. a rebuild), then typically URLs are maintained. However, when a site is rebuilt, often times it involves new content or the way in which the content is organized (the navigation / site architecture). In this case, it's likely the site will have different URLs. If that's the case, a simple 301 redirect is all that's needed to create the redirect from the old page URL to the new page URL. That way if someone has that page bookmarked (direct traffic) they will land on your new page (or at least new URL). These are critical from an SEO perspective as well, essentially educating Google on your updated URL, and you generally won't see much of a lag if any around positions. However, positions are very fluid so you may see an impact, though not necessarily related.

A company should focus on SEM strategy if inbound has proven to be a meaningful channel to generate high quality leads. If setup and managed correctly, SEM programs can deliver highly qualified potential buyers. In addition, though Google's algorithm is constantly changing, SEO efforts have seen positive impact when supported with SEM programs. Another primary use case is when you are in the process of building out and implementing your SEO strategy. Unlike SEM, where you can see immediate results based on your setup/investment, etc., SEO takes time. There are also a ton of competing factors that will ultimately determine your organic rank. So often times companies will supplement paid efforts against their SEO keywords to essentially bridge the gap while their SEO programs take root. Whether or not you see high quality leads come through, you should see a lift in website traffic from your SEM efforts. While most SEM programs are setup based on conversion goals, more sophisticated attribution systems can take into account qualified website traffic as part of their overall conversion journey. Both SEO and SEM are effective in tandem. Like most things, it ultimately comes down to your goals, your keyword strategy, your budget, and how quickly you want to move.

That depends entirely on where the traffic is coming from. The key to landing pages is making sure it's not a bait and switch - in other words, don't set up an email or an ad that speaks to something and then have that take the user to a page with entirely different material. Beyond that, it starts to get into effective page design. Prioritize your content - be clear on what the objective of the page is - and rarely, if ever, have multiple CTAs on a single page.