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Fulvic Xcell

Lead-Generating

In the world of B2B digital lead generation, the design of your website is crucial for attracting and converting potential customers. Here are six design tips to keep in mind when creating a B2B lead generating website:

## Use Bold Typography

Today’s website users skim and scan. They don’t stop to read every word. Call out important information with big, bold typography and short, to-the-point content. 

Bold and attention-grabbing typography can help draw the eye to important information and calls to action (CTAs) on your website. Use font sizes, colours, and styles to highlight key points and make them stand out from the rest of the content.

## Take a Mobile-First Approach

Mobile traffic accounts for more than 60% of all web traffic worldwide. If your site isn’t mobile-friendly, you could be losing up to half of all prospective customers!

This means ensuring that your website is easy to navigate and read on smaller screens. Test your website on various devices to ensure that it looks and functions well on all of them.

## Focus on Speed-Related Performance

Every second you leave your customers waiting is an opportunity for them to leave your website! If your website takes too long to load, visitors are likely to click away and go to a competitor's site. Faster websites are proven to generate more leads and experience better SEO performance.

Optimize your images, minify your CSS and JavaScript files, and use a content delivery network (CDN) to improve loading times.

## Make Navigation Easy

Visitors should be able to find what they're looking for quickly and easily. A clear and intuitive navigation menu can help with this. Use clear and descriptive headings, and consider including a search function to help users find specific pages or products.

Focus on getting them to your most valuable pages in two clicks or fewer, no matter where they land on the website.

## Use Scroll Effects

Smooth scroll effects, such as parallax scrolling, and scroll-triggered animations give websites a polished look and feel. They can also add visual interest to your website and make it more engaging for visitors. Keep your customer’s attention as they read your content with visual cues that trigger as they scroll!

Just be sure to use them in moderation and make sure they don't slow down your website's loading times.

## Use White Space Effectively

White space, also known as negative space, is the empty space around and between elements on your website. Using white space effectively can help draw the eye to important content and make your website look clean and uncluttered.

Great designs aren’t afraid of white space. Don’t clutter your website with unneeded graphics and menus. Let your content do the talking. Design should support your messaging, not the other way around!

By following these design tips, you can create an industrial B2B lead-generating website that is attractive, easy to use, and effective at converting visitors into leads. Checkout our [Elements of Modern Day B2B Web Design Infographic](https://blackbeanmarketing.com/assets/images/BlackBean-Elements-of-Modern-Day-B2B-Web-Design.jpg) for more tips below!

Design Tips for B2B Lead-Generating Web Design

2023

Writing a “top trends” article feels like a home run until you actually sit down to do it. Most articles featuring marketing trends cover the same old things. While researching for this article, I saw others claiming that mobile design was a top trend for 2023. That might be a good trend to feature… in 2013. Today, it’s hard to see how mobile web design is a trend rather than an expectation.

So it goes for so many trend lists. We’re trying to do better. This article covering top marketing trends for 2023 will focus on genuine emerging trends and game-changers that *will* impact you throughout the year ahead. If it’s not disruptive, if you won’t notice its impact… it’s not on this list. Let’s get started!

## Meet the new Twitter… same as the old Twitter?

Before you say “we don’t even advertise on Twitter!” let me explain. I’m not *just* talking about Twitter here. The social media landscape is changing in ways we haven’t seen since the early days of web 2.0.

### The downfall of Twitter?

The troubled acquisition and restructuring of Twitter by Elon Musk has been covered ad nauseum already. I’m sure it will continue to make waves in the news for months and years to come.

What will be most interesting for marketers in 2023 is how brands and companies respond to the shifting digital landscape. As of writing, Meta (née Facebook) has lost over $700 billion in net worth this year, dumping money into a VR play that users haven’t embraced. Depending on who you ask, Twitter is either in the midst of a free speech Renaissance or it’s breathing its last.

On Twitter, companies fear attaching themselves to a political lightning rod. A return to pre-2016 content moderation standards has many users in an uproar, and many applauding Musk’s opinionated moves. Some companies will be happy to swim in these less-moderated waters. Many — particularly those with a large audience of younger, more progressive customers — will see the risk as greater than the reward.

That is, if Twitter’s even a thing by mid-2023. News stories about mass layoffs, developers quitting in droves, and generally chaotic operations since the Musk acquisition have many wondering if the platform is long for this world. Now, there are unfounded rumours that Twitter may be removed from the App Store and Google Play over its new content moderation policy. If this happened, it could spell the death of the platform.

### The end of the Facebook era

For the first time in the Facebook’s history, the social network [lost users year-over-year in 2021](https://www.insiderintelligence.com/content/facebook-hit-2-billion-users-growth-slowing/). Particularly concerning is Facebook’s contraction in North America. While the platform continues to grow throughout the developing world, its lucrative North American user base is on the decline.

Facebook’s ad platform only makes business sense if its customers can expect ROI. Fewer Western users means less overall purchasing power among Facebook’s user base. The economics for most advertisers become less enticing.

### Out with the old: social marketing in 2023 is about what’s new and exciting

One of 2023’s top marketing trends will be a sea change in social media marketing. New platforms will be tested, old platforms neglected. More than ever, savvy brands will be aware of what their use of each platform says about *them*. As Meta’s hegemony erodes and Twitter continues to be a wild card, expect newer platforms like TikTok to fill the social media power vacuum — even as American politicians debate banning the app altogether. Learn about emerging platforms that claim to be a “Twitter replacement”. Keep an eye out for which ones grow and which ones falter. Clever marketers have a chance to be part of a rare social media land rush, staking their claim before the general business community catches on. Monitor changes to public perception, track ad spend carefully, and plan accordingly.

## Video’s day in the sun has *finally* arrived

Is this a case of a stopped clock being right twice a day? People have predicted the importance of video as part of your marketing mix for years now, but it’s always been a tough ask for SMBs. For many years, video marketing was an expensive proposition. Renting or purchasing equipment, videographers, and editors put video marketing out-of-reach for many companies.

### Video content is easier and more cost effective than ever

For several reasons, the cost of producing effective marketing video has plummeted.A good setup for live video streaming might run as little as a few hundred dollars, including camera, microphone, tripod, and accessories. In a pinch, a cheap microphone and a smartphone tripod can work wonders. The technology has improved such that (semi) professional quality video recording is possible on a shoestring budget.

While there’s no doubt that sophisticated editing requires skill and effort, today’s editing software allows novices to produce engaging content with ease. More and more video editors target the hobbyist and pro-sumer market, offering out-of-the-box features aimed at productivity and ease-of-use over technical sophistication and granular control. For example, Adobe’s Premiere Rush application for desktop and smartphone allows users to record and edit video all in one app, then publish directly to connected social media channels. Then there’s the TikTok editor. For personal or casual marketing content, TikTok’s editor offers all the tools needed to publish polished content directly to the platform.

Worried that TikTok will be banned in America? It’s certainly possible. Fortunately, tech giants love “borrowing” each others’ ideas. YouTube’s new shorts feature is essentially a TikTok clone, complete with a similar editing experience. Even if TikTok dies tomorrow, this new era of accessible video editing is here to stay for good.

Finally, infrastructure. Hosting live video streams and posting edits to multiple platforms used to be a complicated undertaking. Now, every major social media platform offers an easy-to-use (and free) method to livestream to followers. It’s often as easy as tapping the record button. For more specialized video content like live or pre-recorded webinars, many paid platforms are available.

### Enhance existing strategies with video

Today’s internet users expect video content. Many prospective customers choose to go straight to video, eschewing blogs and articles entirely. Those who do still read articles and blogs tend to be skimmers looking for quick details. An embedded video can get your message across more quickly for today’s low attention span audiences. Given its relative affordability, video must become part of your marketing strategy for 2023.

## Google Analytics is dead. Long live Google Analytics?

Change may be life’s only constant, but that doesn’t mean change is always welcome. New software often comes with benefits — and a steep learning curve.

This is the case with Google Analytics. By July 1, 2023, Google’s long-time website analytics software will go offline. Its replacement, Google Analytics 4, has been met with tepid distrust by many marketers. Google Analytics 4 is intended to offer marketers similar tools while offering better privacy to users. In practice, it’s proven tricky to test and confusing to navigate for users who have deep knowledge of the previous (current) platform.

The steep learning curve of the new platform — everything from implementation to the underlying model for tracking goals and conversions is brand-new — has resulted in frustration from agencies and confusion from clients.

### Why are they doing this to us?

Reading between the lines, part of the reason for Google’s aggressive push to implement their new platform is the slow death of cookie-based marketing. As cookie-based tracking becomes more and more unreliable (and less and less legal), Google has a great incentive to transition to a cookie-less model. GA4 is that cookie-less model.

About 80% of Google’s revenue comes from its various advertising services, which are driven forward by web analytics software like Google Analytics. Legal challenges to cookie-based data collection put their entire business model at risk. Therefore, you and I must learn to use their new tool. Hail corporate.

### It’s not all bad

I grudgingly admit that some of GA4’s tools are neat. Once I wrapped my head around the idea of standardized conversion actions and dug into the fancy new reporting and data exploration tools, I began to see the value of the new platform. AI-powered predictive metrics may prove to be a marketing game changer. It also has the potential to be an underperforming “black box” where marketers no longer have granular access to their data. We must trust the machine to show us the way, for better and worse.

![The machine knows, Dwight!](https://files.benecms.com/blackbean2022/media/dwight%20(1).png)

### Ready or not, here it comes

If you’re marketing and advertising online, you almost certainly use Google Analytics. You and everyone else.

I am both dreading and looking forward to July 1st, 2023. Let’s workshop some names for it: the Big Blip? Bloody Saturday? The Cookiepocalypse?


> 💡 Top tip: get GA4 set up *right now*. The powerful new machine learning features need to collect up to a year of data to make accurate predictions. The sooner you get started, the more data you’ll collect before Google shuts off the taps for GA3.

Many marketers will be prepared for the day GA3 kicks the bucket. Plenty won’t be. Make sure you’re in the former camp. When GA3 stops processing data, a tidal wave of accounts that failed to set up GA4 well in advance will starve for fresh conversion data, and their advertising/marketing performance will suffer as a result.

If you’re one of the marketers who bites the bullet early and adopts Google’s gross new system — sorry, I’m still grappling with my aversion to it — you’ll be positioned to succeed at their expense.

## AI is about to make things weird

The general public is increasingly familiar with AI. Apps like Siri and Amazon Alexa are visible examples of AI tools integrating with society, though these tools are downright rudimentary compared to what’s coming.

This year, marketers around the world had the chance to test the beta version of ChatGPT, an AI-powered chat bot that writes informational content for its users. This may be the most intuitive human to machine interface ever built. Here are some of the queries my team has sent to ChatGPT that were accurately answered:

- “In less than 300 words, summarize the death of Julius Caesar.”
- “Simply explain the concept of textualism as it relates to constitutional law.”
- “Generate a class in Ruby that I can use to scrape website content.”
- “Write five headline variations for a blog post about search advertising performance.”
- “Generate an ideal Tinder profile”
- “Generate the worst possible Tinder profile.”

This handful of queries demonstrates the range of ChatGPT’s capabilities. That Ruby class? It works. The blog headlines? Totally useable. Ideal tinder profile text? Well, maybe the bot still needs a bit of work. I don’t think I’d swipe right, anyway.

### The impact of AI on digital marketing

All kinds of marketing systems already use AI. Think of automated bidding in Google Ads, for instance. A machine learning system adjusts bids based on behavioural signals that suggest a particular user is more likely to convert than their peers.

AI’s impact on digital marketing will ramp up significantly in 2023 and beyond. I think of Jarvis, the digital butler from early Iron Man movies. In many scenes, Tony Stark would think out loud about some feature for his Iron Man suit. Jarvis would dutifully make adjustments to the design in real time, incorporating Tony’s feedback immediately. He could do this while also acting as a general virtual assistant: scheduling meetings, placing calls, etc.

We’re nowhere close to Jarvis-level AI, but we’re a lot closer in 2023 than we were last year. The power of emerging AI tools is their breadth of applicability. Tools like ChatGPT showcase the capacity for AI to disrupt internet search, as informational answers generated by the chatbot are equal or superior to top results in Google — and don’t require leaving one interface to engage with another.

That same tool can generate working code in any programming language from a simple prompt. It can give you ten possible headlines for your next article before a human could type out one. Some content marketers and SEOs think that AI-generated content will ultimately win out versus human-generated content. For informational content, it’s close enough to human quality that the average reader will struggle to tell the difference. If AI can generate a dozen informational blog posts every week for pennies on the dollar versus a human-led content team, what’s the point in retaining the content team?

### The AI war is upon us

You may already see some of the challenges posed by an AI-empowered internet. First, authorship and copyright. No matter how impressive an AI tool like ChatGPT is, it’s not truly *creative*. It draws on human-researched, human-written, and human-published ideas to generate its content. Without thousands of years of “real” writing to draw from, the bot would be useless.

So if AI-generated content takes off, who owns it? Not the AI, of course. At least not until it gains sentience and demands equal rights.

Is it the one who wrote the prompt? It seems odd that I should be given credit for the answer if I merely asked the question. Then it must be the ones whose ideas were drawn from to generate the content! But those people aren’t attributed. It is not possible to work backward from an AI answer to its source, at least not at present. That leaves AI-generated content in a weird legal grey area.

This isn’t just an academic question. If ChatGPT rolled out a free app for the general public tomorrow, it would be a worthy replacement for nearly any informational search. Imagine what such a tool would do to information-based websites? These websites typically rely on advertising or affiliate marketing to generate revenue. If chat bots can replace the value provided by their websites, they will have no incentive to keep publishing. Thus, the informational internet dries up.

For this and many other reasons, tech giants like Google seek to limit AI content. They pit their bots and algorithms against tools like ChatGPT, fighting to identify (and de-platform) bot generated content. The bot services may fight back just as hard, trying to dupe Google’s systems. The end result is an AI-powered information war.

### Living in a Wall-E world?

The emergence of AI, with all its conveniences, reminds me of the Pixar classic Wall-E. In Wall-E, humanity destroys the earth (naturally) abandoning the planet in care of a fleet of robots intended to clean up their mess. They live for centuries in a space station, their every need catered to by machines.

When Wall-E debuted in 2008, it was a critique of emerging smart phone/social media culture. Today, the critique is no less relevant. As we get closer to Wall-E style automation, seemingly abstract concepts like content rights and labour value come into focus. In a vacuum, an AI can generate hundreds of times the content of a human writer in a tiny fraction of the time — but it requires a human prompt. How will the economy value the worth of the human worker doing the prompting? Equal to if they’d created the content themselves? If not, where does the money go? Back to the AI platform, in the pockets of businesses that slash their content departments, or somewhere else entirely?

AI offers immense value, so much so that it will disrupt the information economy entirely. With that disruption will come a need for transformational change in our economy and society. New regulations will be required, new jobs will be created — and many other jobs will be destroyed.

The advent of convenient access to generalized AI is the biggest trend for 2023, in marketing as in life.

## Embrace the weirdness

One way or another, digital marketing is going to get weirder in 2023. As a discipline, it’s grown more accessible, but also more opaque. The mechanisms of digital marketing have always been obscure to the general public, but now marketers themselves may experience that same obscurity. How many of us are true AI experts? What does it mean when one of the world’s biggest communication platforms is owned and operated by one guy and his controversial opinions? Once an outlier, Trumpian meme-speak seems almost routine among some of the world’s most powerful and influential figures — and it seems to work very well. Are memes and marketing truly one and the same at this point? Does conventional marketing wisdom about controversy and professionalism really matter in the TikTok era?

Businesses and marketers must be agile and flexible in 2023. Our communication paradigm is radically different today than it was a decade ago. It’s different than it was pre-pandemic, even. In 2023, we’ll swim in weirder and murkier waters than ever before as humanity grapples with transformative new technology.

Our advice? Keep your head up and your eyes open, embrace change, but never forget your fundamentals. Customer experience, brand visibility, ROI. The way we deliver on these fundamentals may change, but for marketers, the goals remain the same as they ever were.

Top 4 Digital B2B Marketing Trends for 2023

Google

Are you a B2B business that currently advertises on Google? Maybe you’re planning to in the near future. Regardless, how well do you *really* know Google Ads?

Many businesses launch Google Ad campaigns as an afterthought. They will “set and forget” a campaign with a small budget and hope the leads start coming in. We’ve worked with companies whose Google Ads accounts haven’t been updated in years!

![https://media.giphy.com/media/7xZAu81T70Uuc/giphy.gif](https://media.giphy.com/media/7xZAu81T70Uuc/giphy.gif)

Every business has a long list of priorities. Managing Google Ads may be near the bottom of that list for many. But what if you’re throwing money away? What if you’re neglecting what could be one of your most valuable lead generation tools?

This article is intended to catch manufacturers and B2B business owners, managers, and marketers up to speed with the Google Ads ecosystem. It will focus on fundamentals like account structure, bids and auctions, and keywords. 

Our goal is to provide basic concepts for you to get started with optimizing advertising performance on Google. Consider it a primer on search engine marketing: Google Ads 101.

![https://media.giphy.com/media/3ov9k01Y5IKizNmC7S/giphy.gif](https://media.giphy.com/media/3ov9k01Y5IKizNmC7S/giphy.gif)

Let’s get started.

## Account Structure

First, we’ll look at appropriate account structure. Many users misunderstand how to structure an advertising account. Great advertising performance starts with the very basics. If your account structure is in order, you’re ready to move on to more advanced concepts.

Fortunately, there is no ambiguity here. **There’s one way to organize an account, and it will work for any business.** Follow along and we’ll make sure your account is set up to succeed.

Every account has several organizational layers: campaigns, ad groups, ads, and ad elements/extensions.

**Campaigns** are the largest organizational unit and should be used to collect ad groups by topic or intent. Campaigns are also where we set our budgets, bid adjustments, and location targeting. We can also set campaign-wide negative keywords to filter out bad traffic — more on that later.

**Ad groups** are the second-largest organizational unit. Each ad group can have one landing page, so ad groups are organized by offer, product, or service. Each ad group has an associated **keyword list** used to target relevant search terms. We may apply bid adjustments to ad groups as well as to campaigns.

**Ads** are contained within ad groups. An ad group can have one or more ads. Each ad should be directly relevant to the singular topic of its ad group. If you have ads discussing multiple topics within one ad group, it’s an indicator that you should restructure your campaign.

**One topic per campaign, one specific product or service per ad group.**

![https://media.giphy.com/media/6UFgdU9hirj1pAOJyN/giphy.gif](https://media.giphy.com/media/6UFgdU9hirj1pAOJyN/giphy.gif)

Each ad is composed of **assets** and **extensions**. An ad asset is a headline or description, or in some cases an image.

An extension is an enhanced feature that may show alongside your assets, such as a phone number, address, sitelinks to related pages, or other features that make your ad more prominent.

### Checkpoint: Account Structure

![https://media.giphy.com/media/l0HlKrB02QY0f1mbm/giphy.gif](https://media.giphy.com/media/l0HlKrB02QY0f1mbm/giphy.gif)

Before we move on, let’s make sure you’re following along.

If you’re evaluating an existing Google Ads account, does it follow the structure laid out above? If you’re preparing to launch a new account, are you able to structure it as described?

Let’s quickly review:

- Accounts contain one or more campaigns
- Campaigns cover a broad topic or product/service category
- Campaigns contain ad groups. Each ad group should discuss ONE product or service.
- Ad groups contain one or more ads. Ads should be directly relevant to the ad group’s product or service.

### Account Structure Example

Let’s say a company called ABC Plumbing starts a Google Ads account. A well-organized campaign structure might look like this:

**Campaign:** Residential Repairs and Maintenance

**Ad groups:** Sink Repair, Toilet Repair, Drain Cleaning, Maintenance Packages

**Campaign:** Residential Installations

**Ad groups:** Water Heater Installation, Toilet Installation, Bath and Shower Installation

If your campaigns look something like this, good job! Let’s cover the ad auction.

## Understanding Bids and the Ad Auction

Many Google Ads users wonder why they pay so much for each click. Some industries pay a dollar or less per click, while others pay $100 or more! What gives?

Supply and demand, my friend.

It all comes down to the ad auction.

### Breaking Down the Ad Auction

![https://media.giphy.com/media/xT5LMMoMiFvaRSRfzO/giphy.gif](https://media.giphy.com/media/xT5LMMoMiFvaRSRfzO/giphy.gif)

**The ad auction** is an automated system Google uses to dynamically set pricing for their advertising platform. Every time someone in your target area searches for one of your target keywords, you and all competitors in your area enter an auction.

Through the magic of technology, this auction takes place instantly. However, we can break it down into steps to illustrate what’s going on.

Before your ads get shown, Google analyzes them. They look at your landing page, your ad assets (headlines and descriptions), and your extensions. Based on your ad’s perceived quality and relevance to the search term, they assign a score out of 10 — your **Quality Score.**


💡 ***Note: Quality Score is important but not as important as conversions and ROI. Ads with low Quality Score can sometimes produce the best results for your business. Always optimize for your business metrics, not Google’s!***


When your ad enters the auction, Google compares your bid — the price you’re willing to pay per click — to your competitors. They use your Quality Score as a scoring multiplier. This means that high Quality Score ads get a competitive edge over low Quality Score ads.

For example, an ad with a 10/10 Quality Score will have its bid *effectively* increased by 50% in the auction. An ad with a 0/10 Quality Score will have its bid *effectively* decreased to as little as 25% cash value. This does not impact the actual price you’ll pay for a click. It only influences your rank in the auction.

Google does this for you and for every competitor. The competitor with the highest adjusted bid gets the top spot in Google. The second spot goes to second place, and so on.

This system is intended to reward advertisers with good quality ads and websites. High quality campaigns can leverage their high Quality Scores to pay less for the best placements.

Lower quality campaigns can still claim the top spot, but they must pay much more for the privilege. Check out this example:

![table of example ads auction data](https://files.benecms.com/blackbean2022/media/Untitled%20(1).png)

Company A has the lowest bid, but receives the second-best placement due to their high Quality Score. They pay $3 for a placement that would cost another company $4.50. Company B bids the most, but their poor Quality Score awards them the worst placement. They pay $6 for a placement that a better campaign could have for just $1.50.

### Digging Into Bid Types

Now that we understand the ad auction a little more, let’s look at bidding.

Google offers a variety of bidding strategies. Some are fully manual. Others are fully automated. Some fall somewhere in between. Depending on your situation, any of the offered strategies may be appropriate.

**Automated bidding strategies** work well IF they have consistent, accurate conversion and user data. They require several conversions per week or more in order to make intelligent bid adjustments. Examples of automated bidding strategies include “maximize clicks” and “maximize conversions”.

Let’s back up for a second. What does “automated bid adjustment” even mean?

An automated bidding strategy adjusts your bid limit up or down based on conversion and user data. Google makes invisible adjustments based on users that have previously clicked or converted on your ads. If Google notices that women aged 25-39 have the highest chance of converting, they will adjust your bids to prioritize similar users.

Some of the factors an automated strategy may consider include:

- Time of day
- Day of week
- Age
- Gender
- Interests
- Keywords
- Location

If you’ve ever seen some very expensive clicks mixed in among normal clicks, it is likely the result of automated bidding. Google perceived that click to have a much higher chance of delivering value to your business.


💡 ***Budgets are usually set on a daily basis. Google can choose to exceed your daily budget provided that they do not exceed your expected monthly spend.***

If our account doesn’t track conversions, or doesn’t receive enough conversion data, automated performance will suffer. Google goes from educated guessing to plain old guessing. It doesn’t know what kind of traffic is best, so its adjustments become erratic.

![https://media.giphy.com/media/1oJLpejP9jEvWQlZj4/giphy.gif](https://media.giphy.com/media/1oJLpejP9jEvWQlZj4/giphy.gif)

In cases where conversions are lacking, either due to poor performance or poor conversion tracking, we may consider **manual or enhanced CPC bidding**. Manual and enhanced CPC bidding are the two least-automated bid strategies. 

**Manual CPC** is just that: completely manual. We set bids per campaign, ad group, or keyword and, outside of Quality Score, those bids won’t change.

Enhanced CPC is a fusion bidding method. We set bids per campaign, ad group, or keyword. Google will raise or lower these bids based on the same signals that a fully automated strategy would. This gives us more control over bids while allowing Google to optimize as it sees fit.

Most rookie account managers will want to select an automated bidding strategy whenever they can. Unless you have the time and energy to regularly evaluate and adjust manual bids to optimize performance, automated strategies tend to perform best.

### Checkpoint: Bidding and the Ad Auction

![https://media.giphy.com/media/8TweEdaxxfuElKkRxz/giphy.gif](https://media.giphy.com/media/8TweEdaxxfuElKkRxz/giphy.gif)

As we move on to keywords and match types, let’s make sure we’re on the same page.

The ad auction determines who gets the best spots on the search page. Advertisers with high Quality Score receive better placements for lower bids. Advertisers with low Quality Score receive worse placements for higher bids.

Quality score bid adjustments affect placements but not price: if you have an effective bid of $3 but an actual bid of $2, you’ll pay $2 for a click.

Bid strategies may be automated or manual. An automated bid strategy will attempt to reach your most valuable customers by increasing bids based on signals like user age, gender, location, and interests.

Automated bid strategies rely on quality data to train them. If you do not have sufficient conversion data, they will not perform well.

Clear as mud? Let’s move on to keywords and match types.

## Understanding Keywords and Match Types

Keyword strategy is a whole thing.

Choosing the wrong keywords is probably the most common (and costly) mistake rookie advertisers make.

We’ll get into keyword strategy in a second. First, let’s learn about…

### Keyword Match Types

We know keywords belong to ad groups. Each ad group can have one or many keywords. Each keyword may be one of three match types: broad, phrase, and exact.

**Broad match keywords** are keywords that will match any related topic or close keyword variant. A broad match keyword like “shoes” may trigger ads for any of the following:

- Shoes
- Ladies tennis shoes
- Blue suede shoes lyrics
- Best boots 2022
- Comfortable hiking socks
- Sandal store near me

…and many more. You can see how anything remotely related to shoes might trigger an ad.

Phrase match keywords will match any close variant. They are less open than broad match, but not by much. A phrase match keyword like “buy shoes” might trigger ads for any of the following:

- Buy shoes
- Ladies tennis shoes
- Where can I buy vintage sneakers
- Tap dancing shoes for sale

Phrase match will more closely preserve word order and keyword intent than broad match. It’s still very broad.

Finally, we have **exact match keywords**. These keywords match exact duplicates and paraphrased keywords. An exact match keyword like “buy trail running shoes” will trigger ads for any of the following:

- Buy trail running shoes
- Where to buy trail running shoes
- Trail running shoe store
- Shop for trail running shoes

While the terms can vary quite a bit, each matches the intent and phrasing of the original keyword quite closely.

You may be wondering why exact match keywords are so vague, given their name. They used to be much more precise. In recent years, Google has leaned into their AI-powered advertising automation. The old exact match model didn’t play nice with automation, so match types were broadened to accommodate Google’s evolving tech.

### Choosing a keyword match type

![https://media.giphy.com/media/l0ErP9g08SzG1QNlS/giphy.gif](https://media.giphy.com/media/l0ErP9g08SzG1QNlS/giphy.gif)

The right match type for your keyword depends on the nature of our campaign. Some services are *so niche* that exact match keywords won’t generate enough traffic volume to get results. In this case, we’d need to use phrase or even broad match.

A good rule of thumb is to lean toward exact match and expand as needed. Google’s Search Terms Report can help you find the phrases your customers search for most often. It’s better to add these as exact match than to use broad match to capture the same traffic. The more control we have over our ads and keywords, the better.

![https://media.giphy.com/media/YO3icZKE2G8OoGHWC9/giphy.gif](https://media.giphy.com/media/YO3icZKE2G8OoGHWC9/giphy.gif)

We can modify keyword match types at any time by selecting them in the Google Ads interface and updating their match type via the editor menu. We can also assign match types when we add new keywords by typing them like so:

- In between square brackets for exact match: **[plumbing company near me]**
- Inside double quotes for phrase match: **“plumbing company near me”**
- Without any additional punctuation for broad match: **plumbing company near me**

### Choosing the right keywords

Choosing good keywords is all about **intent**. Most of the time, we can’t read our customers’ minds. But with search advertising, we can read into what their search terms really mean.

A user that searches for “chocolate” probably wants to know about chocolate, right? We don’t know much more than that. They may want to buy chocolate, or research countries that produce chocolate, or they may be trying to look up mid-2000s hit YouTube video “Chocolate Rain”:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EwTZ2xpQwpA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EwTZ2xpQwpA)

Even if we sell chocolate, we may not want to bid on this keyword. It’s just too vague.

But a keyword like “bulk dark chocolate” offers a lot more intent. We can guess that this searcher is closer to making a purchase. They want a specific kind of chocolate, and they want it in bulk. This is more actionable, so we might bid on it.

A keyword like “buy bulk dark chocolate near me” is a home run! Provided it gets enough search volume and we sell dark chocolate in their area, it ticks all the boxes. They’re interested in our product, we can provide it, and they sound ready to buy.

We call this a “long tail keyword”. Long tail keywords have multiple words and are more specific and relevant than single word or short tail keywords. In almost all cases, we want to focus on long tail keywords, not short keywords.

Intent is the name of the game. Figure out which terms your customers use when they’re ready to buy, request a quote, attend a webinar… whatever your offer may be. Focus on those. Don’t get tricked into bidding on broad match keywords for general terms. Most of this traffic will be irrelevant.

### Checkpoint: Keywords and Match Types

![https://media.giphy.com/media/xT9KVmZwJl7fnigeAg/giphy.gif](https://media.giphy.com/media/xT9KVmZwJl7fnigeAg/giphy.gif)

Let’s make sure we’re caught up on keywords and match types.

Good keywords focus on **intent to take action**. Most good keywords are long-tail and feature purchasing intent words like buy, get, purchase, quote, bulk, wholesale, etc.

Keywords come in three flavours: broad match, phrase match, and exact match. It is good practice to stick with phrase and exact match when possible, as broad match can expand our keywords too far, causing our campaigns to lose relevance.

## Wrapping Up: Start Right, Finish Right

More can be said about Google Ads than can be contained in a single blog post. This introduction focuses on proper structure and basic best practices. A full digital marketing strategy goes well beyond the basics. If you want to truly level up your [digital marketing performance](https://blackbeanmarketing.com/industrial-marketing-services/b2b-marketing-strategy), connect with us today for a [free initial consultation!](https://blackbeanmarketing.com/b2b-marketing-consultation)

Marketing and sales perform their best when they work together as a team. Teamwork requires knowing who’s responsible for what. When does a lead get handed over from marketing to sales? Who is responsible for qualifying leads, and what does it mean to properly qualify them? These questions may be answered by defining MQLs, SQLs, and SALs: **Marketing Qualified Leads, Sales Qualified Leads, and Sales Accepted Leads.**

## What is a Marketing Qualified Lead (MQL)?

**A marketing qualified lead is a lead whose actions and behaviours show purchasing intent, as determined by marketing staff or technologies. Examples of marketing qualification criteria include demographics profiles particularly conducive to purchasing or tracked web behaviour that shows the prospect is highly interested in the product, such as repeated visits to a particular product page.**

Marketers may manually qualify leads for the sales team, exploring CRM and web analytics data to determine good fit. In modern digital marketing, automated systems will often determine a lead score based on a variety of factors. Prospects above a certain scoring threshold will be marked as marketing qualified.

![](https://media.giphy.com/media/Rd6sn03ncIklmprvy6/giphy.gif?)

### Examples of Marketing Qualified Leads

- Your CRM collects data about a user and finds that they have visited your website four times in the past week, exploring a particular product range and downloading a PDF resource. The user is automatically marked as marketing qualified and added to a list for further prospecting.
- A user arrives through a targeted social media advertising campaign. The marketing team have carefully set the targeting for the campaign to attract users similar to your best customers. All users that arrive through the ad campaign and engage with your website content are marked as marketing qualified.
- The marketing team uses LinkedIn Sales Navigator to prospect potential leads. They filter the contacts list based on criteria like industry vertical, sales regions, and estimated company revenue. Contacts that are deemed a good fit become marketing qualified.

## What is a Sales Qualified Lead (SQL)?

**A sales qualified lead is a customer who has entered your sales funnel. They have connected with your team via lead forms, live chat, phone, or email to request more information. Sales qualified leads include anyone who has explicitly demonstrated purchasing intent.** Marketing qualified leads become sales qualified once they take action to connect with the sales team in any manner.

![](https://media.giphy.com/media/3oKIPa2TdahY8LAAxy/giphy.gif)

### Examples of Sales Qualified Leads

- A user from one of your marketing qualified lead lists replies to a cold email from the marketing team requesting more information. The user is connected with the sales team and marked as sales qualified.
- After viewing your YouTube channel, a user visits your website and submits a lead form requesting a quote. They are marked as sales qualified and assigned a contact on the sales team.
- Head office receives a phone call asking about pricing for a specialized product. The operations team connects the caller with the sales team.

## What is a Sales Accepted Lead (SAL)?

**Sales accepted leads are leads that have been personally evaluated for fit by the sales team. If the sales team can confirm the prospect meets all criteria to purchase a product, they may be marked as sales accepted.**

Purchasing intent is a good start, but insufficient for evaluating leads. Many contacts demonstrate purchasing intent but are a poor fit as a customer. They may wish to purchase a product, but lack the budget needed. Or, they may have an appropriate budget but operate outside of your sales region, or in an industry you don’t service.

Sales accepted leads receive VIP treatment from the sales team. These are the contacts most likely to generate revenue for your business.

![](https://media.giphy.com/media/3ohze2m5cNyumzUMp2/giphy.gif)

### Examples of Sales Accepted Leads

- After submitting a lead form, a prospect receives a call from a sales rep. They demonstrate a keen interest in the product and meet all targeting criteria. The lead is marked as sales accepted and prioritized by the sales team.
- The sales team cold calls prospects from a list of marketing qualified leads. Several leads express interest in learning more. The sales team sends these leads product brochures via email and marks them as sales accepted leads.

## Why Do MQLs, SQLs, and SALs matter?

**Defining prospects by their stage in the sales and marketing funnel helps define roles within your business.** Marketing teams are responsible for feeding sales teams MQL lists, either through campaigns or direct customer research. Sales teams are responsible for further qualifying MQLs and connecting with SQLs to accept or reject them.

Prospects in each sales and marketing stage require different information and materials to push them down the funnel. MQLs may need to be presented with informational content such as product videos and case studies, as they are in the early stages of product consideration. These materials should help push them toward sales qualification by offering clear calls to action for the user.

SQLs need more granular information to proceed with their purchasing decision. These may include product demos, live Q&As and webinars, and pricing estimates.

SALs need personal care and attention from the sales team. They should be communicated with frequently and offered tailored content that directly speaks to their needs.

**By segmenting the customer journey, we can appropriately plan content and resources for each stage of the purchasing process.**

*Cover Photo by Leeloo Thefirst: https://www.pexels.com/photo/question-marks-on-paper-crafts-5428836/*

For a lot of businesses, SEO seems to present more questions than answers. From the very basics to more specific B2B-oriented inquiries, we collected some of the most searched SEO questions into one handy Q&A page. Have a question we didn’t answer? [Connect with us today for SEO consultation, SEO management, or content strategy services!](https://blackbeanmarketing.com/contact)

### How much does SEO cost?

SEO is a significant marketing investment on the same level as a digital advertising campaign or trade show exhibition. Expect to invest a significant percentage of your overall marketing budget each year if you wish to maximize your SEO.

SEO involves user experience and design, technical website performance, link-building, strategy, and content production. Performing all these services well takes time and expertise. Companies promising to boost your SEO for a few hundred dollars will take your money and run, leaving you with minimal gains. Consider SEO a full-spectrum marketing tactic that builds up and improves other digital campaigns. What’s good for your SEO is often good for overall user experience!

### Does Squarespace built-in SEO work?

Squarespace built-in SEO tools work well enough, though other options may work better. More and more companies choose to use managed website platforms like Squarespace and Wix to host their websites. These platforms offer a consistent and secure experience to content editors and users alike. This comes at a cost, as Squarespace websites are less configurable than custom websites. In some cases, Squarespace’s platform will limit your ability to optimize or adjust web pages for maximum SEO performance.

For a point of comparison, think of a high performance race car versus a reliable family sedan. Both can get you where you need to go, but the race car has much more power. However, the race car may be harder to drive and more prone to failure. Squarespace is like that reliable family sedan: limited in some ways, but easier to work with and less likely to break down than some custom websites.

### How to find good keywords for SEO?

There are many free and paid tools that can help you find good keywords for SEO. One of the best free tools is [Google’s Keyword Planner.](https://ads.google.com/intl/en_in/home/tools/keyword-planner/) Since the data comes straight from Google itself, it’s one of the most accurate tools on the market, though its features are limited. [SpyFu](https://spyfu.com) and [SEMRush](https://semrush.com) are two paid tools worth considering.

To find good SEO keywords, you must understand what makes a keyword good for SEO. There are two main factors that make for a good SEO keyword: intent and volume. Good keywords have high purchasing intent, meaning people searching for them want or need your products and are planning to make a decision soon. They also have high enough search volume to deliver traffic to your website. Keyword competition is also important. Keywords with very high competition may be expensive or difficult to rank for.

### How long should a blog post be for SEO?

Content length is not a direct ranking factor, though very short pages usually do not have enough information to rank well. More than ever, Google rewards content that accurately answers questions for users. Focus on the acronym “EAT”: **Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness.** Ensure your content is unique and useful to your users rather than chasing a specific word count!

### Does SEO work?

Yes! SEO done properly will increase your rankings on Google and deliver valuable traffic to your business. Doing SEO right means frequently developing high quality content. An “SEO strategy” that doesn’t involve content production will not be effective.

### Is SEO dead?

SEO is not dead. For as long as search engines exist, SEO will matter. What works best for SEO is always evolving. SEO in five years may look completely different than it does now, but it will still matter as long as users search for information online.

### Is SEO more important on the homepage?

No — in fact, the opposite is often true! Users often search for a specific product or service. A homepage may be too general to rank well for their query. Often, the most valuable SEO page on your website is a product page or blog post. That’s why it’s important to also optimize your website for conversions. You want customers to be able to easily take action from wherever they land on your website.

### How does Google prevent users from “cheating” at SEO?

Because Google’s search rankings rely on an automated system, it is sometimes possible to “cheat” at SEO using what are called “black hat” techniques. The name black hat comes from the old Spy vs. Spy comics, where two spies — one in a black hat, one in white — try to outsmart each other. Black hat SEOs are search marketers who find exploits and workarounds to make their websites rank best. These strategies are very risky. Google is constantly analyzing and fixing exploits. If they are able to tell your website used underhanded tactics to rank, they may penalize the website in a future update. This can damage your SEO for years to come! In short, cheating at SEO is possible in the short-term but dangerous in the long-term.

### How long does it take SEO to work?

SEO performance increases must be measured in months rather than days or weeks. Businesses should not expect positive ROI on SEO for 6 months or more. In order to improve SEO, content must be produced consistently over a long period of time. New content may take days to become indexed by Google, and weeks or months to climb the search rankings. On the other hand, SEO provides long-term value for money. SEO is an up-front investment that may pay dividends for years to come.

### Is SEO free?

SEO doesn’t need to cost money, but it will always take time. There are many free resources online to learn SEO theory. To properly implement SEO, some basic web development skills are required. Strong writing skills are also essential. It may be impractical for business owners or in-house marketing managers to complete their duties while also supporting a time-consuming SEO strategy. This is why SEO is often outsourced to a professional or agency.

### Does search advertising (PPC) help SEO?

Search advertising is different from SEO. The two are opposite sides of the search marketing coin. While PPC can provide the benefits of SEO by paying to rank first overall for target keywords, it does not affect your organic search rankings in any way.

### Does page speed affect SEO?

Yes! Since Google’s move to mobile-first search indexing, Core Web Vitals (CWV) are a ranking signal for SEO. Core Web Vitals are measurements Google takes to analyze your website technical performance. You can use [Google’s Pagespeed](https://pagespeed.web.dev) test to analyze your website’s CWVs. A low score may be impacting your search performance.

### What is my “SEO score”?

Many SEO companies offer some kind of analysis tool that will give you a score, ranking, or grade for your SEO performance. In reality, no single score can accurately express your search performance. Such scoring systems are usually marketing tools to persuade you to purchase an SEO tool or service. The only “SEO score” that matters is your search rankings! A tool like [Google Search Console](https://search.google.com/search-console) can help you monitor rankings over time.

### Does SEO work on drag-and-drop websites?

Good content and a strong strategy will allow SEO to work for almost any website on almost any website platform. Drag-and-drop website builders may struggle with technical performance and limited SEO features. However, they are fully capable of ranking first overall for your most important keywords.

### How to use SEO for lead generation?

Turning SEO traffic into business can be tricky, especially for B2B companies like our clients. A good SEO strategy will prioritize content with high purchasing intent rather than broad informational searches. As an example, a plumbing company would not want to produce content for a keyword like “DIY sink repair” because, while informational and relevant to plumbing, the searcher wants to avoid paying for their services! Ranking for this term would deliver low value traffic. 

Optimizing your website for conversions is critical to maximizing SEO performance. Ensure that your top SEO pages feature calls to action that encourage users to engage with your business. By focusing on business intent and conversion rate optimization, we can maximize SEO’s ROI.

*Want to learn more about SEO? Check out our [SEO explainer article for B2B manufacturers](https://blackbeanmarketing.com/insights/industrial-manufacturing-seo-what-you-need-to-know-about-seo-for-b2b)!*

Who is the scariest movie monster of all time? Traditionalists might say Dracula, or the demon from the Exorcist. Slasher fanatics might point to any of the big three: Freddie, Jason, Michael.

You know what's scarier than any of them combined? How about our list of the top five worst marketing tactics for 2023? Read on and discover how these marketing mistakes can massacre your lead generation, slash your efficiency, and kill your marketing momentum!

## 5.  The Curse of the Purchased Lead List

Like unsealing the tomb of an Egyptian mummy or gazing upon the long-lost Ark of the Covenant, purchased lead lists are face-meltingly bad news for your business.

Email marketing and remarketing display ads are potent tools for capturing new clients while maintaining existing ones. The only challenge is building a big enough list for all your marketing efforts to be worthwhile.

You know what’s easier than organically growing an audience? Buying one! Depending on the quality (or perceived quality) of a lead list, you can purchase thousands of qualified contacts for anyone from a few cents to several dollars each. Compared to the time and resource investment required to build an audience, this is incredibly cheap.

So what’s the catch? There are two problems with purchased lead lists.

First, you aren’t really allowed to use them. Most reputable CRMs and email automation services (like MailChimp or ActiveCampaign) require [explicit permission](https://knowledge.hubspot.com/email/understand-opt-in-consent-for-email#:~:text=Explicit%20consent%20is%20given%20when,confirming%20through%20double%20opt%2Din.) from each contact to send emails to users on your lists. If you’ve purchased a lead list, you don’t have that permission. You’ll be violating your email platform’s terms of use, and [in many jurisdictions you’ll be violating the law!](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CAN-SPAM_Act_of_2003)

Even if you *could* legally send emails to purchased contacts, you’ll struggle to turn them into customers. Purchased leads are ice cold. Typically, they’ve never heard of your business, never engaged with your content, and often *don’t want* to hear from you. Blasting these frigid users with promotional emails can even result in long-term consequences. If enough users lodge complaints about your unsolicited emails, email platforms may mark you as spam. This can be difficult (and expensive) to fix!

Don’t succumb to temptation. Purchased lead lists are black magic that would be best left alone.

## 4. A Nightmare on TikTok

Social media marketing promises dreamy results. By reaching customers where they live online, beyond the Google results page, you can influence their purchasing decisions and support other marketing initiatives with paid and organic placements — without waiting for users to find you.

But what if that dream turns into a nightmare?

Social media marketing isn’t all fun and games. It requires a clear strategy, plenty of time and resource investment, and a large library of content and visual assets. Many businesses are unprepared to compete in a crowded social media arena.

The number one challenge our clients face when they attempt social media marketing is trying to be everywhere all at once. Many businesses try to maintain a Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn, and Pinterest account — and fail at each one.

Social media marketing is hard work. Trying to do them all well is a massive undertaking. Doing just *one* is tricky enough. If nobody on your team uses TikTok, you shouldn’t either. Invest in the platform or platforms that your marketing team understands and enjoys. Expect to spend more time and effort on fewer, better posts for your best-performing platform.

## 3. Night of the Living Dead (Website)

Is your website a zombie? **Kept alive beyond its natural lifespan, a zombie website repulses your visitors.** Its putrid interface and decaying content tell them to move on to a competitor with a pulse. We have the facts to prove it.

- [According to Adobe](https://hookagency.com/blog/web-design-statistics/), 38% of users will stop engaging with a website if the content or layout is unattractive.
- [89% of consumers](https://www.webfx.com/blog/web-design/user-experience-matters-marketing/) go to the competition if they have a poor user experience on your website.
- Another study found that [57% of users won’t recommend a business](https://socpub.com/articles/the-5-mobile-marketing-mistakes-infographic-14849) with a poorly designed mobile website. Spooky!

You may think you’re a brick-and-mortar, personal touch, firm handshake kind of business. That’s great! Traditional sales and marketing has a place in the B2B world. Just don’t discount the potential of digital marketing. Across the industrial world, more and more purchasers and decision-makers are internet-savvy millennials. If they’re searching for a new provider and find your zombie website, they might just keep looking.

## 2. Not Using a CRM: Your Marketing Sixth Sense

*"I see dead leads."*

**A long list of abandoned contacts is buried at the bottom of many CRMs.** A CRM is like a marketing sixth sense, reminding you of when and how to follow up with leads to keep them fresh. If we don't configure our CRM to help us out, or if we don't put in the work to follow up, we're leaving serious money on the table.

According to a [study conducted by Invesp](https://www.elasticpath.com/blog/customer-acquisition-vs-retention-infographic), acquiring a new customer is five times as expensive as retaining an existing client. The same study found that increasing customer retention rates by 5% increases profits by anywhere from 25-95%!

Loyal customers are the real secret to your business’ long-lasting success. Using your CRM to its full potential keeps clients top-of-mind. Be sure to schedule follow-up emails and reminders to re-engage with leads before they cool off. Take note of personal details for each lead. The more info you have about their interests, purchasing influences, and business requirements, the better you’ll be able to keep the conversation going from initial interest to final sale.

## 1. The scariest of all: marketing without a plan.

Let's set the scene. You're on a camping trip with friends when you take a wrong turn, then another, then another. Suddenly, you don't know where you are or how to return. Do these hills have eyes? Does anyone else hear banjo music?

**Marketing without a plan is a great way to end up in places you don't want to be.** Without a good plan, we may not realize we're off track until it's too late to turn back. It’s tempting to charge ahead, especially with a new and exciting idea, but taking the time to plan your route ensures you don’t get led astray. Set your goals and expectations, budget, and each step along the way. 

Don’t know how to start the right way? Fear not: we have prepared a free marketing template to get you started.

Have you ever heard the phrase 'big tent politics?

It's an easy-to-grasp metaphor for politicians and parties with broad appeal. Compared to their opponents, big tent parties try to include as many people under their 'tent' as possible.

At their best, big tent parties are jack-of-all-trades, masters of none. For instance, they may throw a bone to right-leaning moderates with tax breaks for business while enticing left-wing moderates with investment in green transit or some other widespread social issue.

At their worst, big tent parties tend to speak out of both sides of their mouths. They're seen as non-committal, power-hungry, and ideologically bankrupt.

Compare big tent parties to little tent parties. These are parties that unabashedly represent one point of view. They do not attempt to woo voters from 'the other side,' whichever side may be. Their strength is in their conviction — and that of their voting base.

### Not better or worse, just different

Big tent parties tend to struggle to get their followers to the polls. If they do, they can win in a landslide.

Small tent parties face the opposite problem. Getting their followers to the polls is easy, but they may not have the raw numbers to win. They tend to be more strategic about creating their voting bloc since their biggest challenge is getting past the post to seize victory.

**The 'tent' model of marketing**

Your website has a tent, too. Is it a big or a small one, and does it matter?

In marketing, a big tent is a broad audience with low engagement. You've got the numbers in terms of raw traffic, but your conversion rate may be lacking. A small tent is a narrow audience with high engagement. You reach a few people but convert a high percentage of them.

It's unlikely you're a pure example of big tent or small tent. You're probably medium-small or medium-big. Nonetheless, I bet your audience skews one way or the other. The real question is: should you widen your tent or shrink it?

### Big tent marketing

Big tent marketing is everything to everyone. Rather than owning a niche, big tent marketers try to influence the public, maintaining a high brand awareness among a large cohort of customers. This doesn't mean they aren't tailoring messages and strategizing outreach to specific groups. Instead, they've chosen to target many kinds of audiences at once. This has the obvious benefit of reaching a broad segment of the general population — and the obvious drawback of being resource intensive to do well.

What often happens with big tent marketing is that each target group receives a less tailored, less effective campaign than a small tent marketer can provide. This is simply a matter of division. Even given a much larger initial resource pool than a small tent marketer, the complexity of running a big tent causes inefficiencies and dilutes the effectiveness of each channel. The war fought by these marketers is against this inefficiency.

We would tend to see low conversion rates but high traffic from big tent marketing campaigns — at least relative to small tent strategies. This works really well for some business models. You may have encountered popular sponsors for podcasts and YouTube videos like NordVPN, Fresh Box, or other subscription services. Often, these are products that appeal to a broad audience anyway. Their lifetime value per customer is relatively high and predictable due to their subscription model. This means that casting a wide net via sponsorships and display advertising can be profitable in the long run. Even if it takes a year of advertising before they hook a potential customer, they can expect to make their money back in a few months via the subscription. At scale, this kind of marketing works well.

The American Democrats are an excellent example of a big tent in politics. They position themselves roughly at the centre of American political discourse. Generally moderate while also allowing space for American progressives (big tent, remember?), the party tries to reach voters across economic, cultural, and racial lines. They tend to win the popular vote but may not always win the election — their base is less efficient at getting to the polls.

### Small tent marketing

Small tent marketing is about reaching the right group at the right time with the right message. That message may be utterly ineffective at reaching other groups, which is okay. The philosophy of a small tent marketer is that there is as much opportunity within small audiences as within big audiences. The smaller the audience, the more effectively we can reach individuals. It is a low-waste philosophy. Efforts and resources are spent on planning, strategizing, and targeting *right* users. A small tent marketer sees no reason to please the crowd if they can please the most potent or valuable members within that crowd. They may even produce messaging intended to *shrink their audience*, pushing away members they perceive as low value or unlikely to convert.

Small tent communications can court controversy or present offers that exclude fringe audiences. In marketing, we might see small tent businesses openly promote their services as more expensive than their competitors while preaching quality and custom-tailored service. It won't be for everyone; lower-income people may be unable to afford their services. Thrifty customers may not feel the quality or customization is worth the cost. That is to the business' benefit: lower-income people can't afford their services, so spending sales resources on them isn't efficient. Especially thrifty customers may try to nickel and dime them, so it may be better to avoid the potential conflict of working with that customer. If their customer base is big enough, turning away less efficient leads is worthwhile.

A real-world example of this would be Apple and the iPhone. Although iPhones seem ubiquitous, they only represent a minority share of the global smartphone market. As of 2021, less than 30% of smartphones run iOS. The remainder runs Android. Despite this big gap in market share, [Apple recently ranked as the most profitable company in the world.](https://www.foxbusiness.com/markets/apple-most-profitable-company-world) They do this by selling primarily to wealthy Western markets, prioritizing product and customer experience over affordability and utility.

In politics, we'd typically see small tents represented by evangelical, environmental, or more radical parties to the left or right of the spectrum. American Republicans are (relatively speaking) a small tent. They pursue a traditional voting base, a smaller coalition of rural, evangelical, and business interests that skews older and whiter than their Democratic counterparts while typically demonstrating high engagement at the polls.

### What size tent is right for you?

Of course, everyone wants big and engaged audiences. Best of both worlds, right?

The problem is that we have limited resources. If we expand our messaging, we may end up diluting it. Suppose we tailor our messaging very carefully to reach one audience. In that case, it may not be effective at all for a secondary audience. For most businesses, we have to choose. Big tent or little?

The size of audience you choose to pursue has strategic ramifications. You should always play to your strengths.

If your team values personalized one-on-one communication with clients, you should shrink your tent. You're probably good at closing leads when you have the resources to give them care and attention. Work on account-based marketing, schedule a high cadence of communication prospects, and lean into your strengths!

If your team is better suited to the volume play, that's okay too. Focus on building a wide funnel, automating communication, and providing a deep pool of resources to nurture your broad base of prospects.

Like an election, you can win the marketing game either way. All it takes is a little strategy.

Big tent or small tent? How your audience size affects your marketing strategy

It’s unclear who first uttered the words “lies, damned lies, and statistics”, but the meaning of the phrase is clear. Statistics, even those derived from trustworthy and reliable data, are easily manipulated to support any argument. Abuse of data allows untrustworthy parties to mislead their audience, particularly if that audience isn’t data-literate.

We see it all the time. The graph on a news program that purposefully removes context to support a political position. The sleazy investment pitch that focuses entirely on the upside while downplaying the risks. We’re all familiar with the ways that unscrupulous people sell us bad intel.

Although there is such a thing as bad data — small samples, bad collection methodology — typically, the data itself is blameless. Data doesn’t care to tell one story or another. It just is. Humans, however, require a narrative to wrap their heads around complex data. Our brains are wired for narratives. It’s how we organize and preserve knowledge — how we’ve done so since the earliest days of human civilization.

This is the role data analysis plays within an organization. Data analysts are the storytellers who present insights in a digestible way. Their power is the ability to influence critical business decisions by pointing leaders in the right direction. Their responsibility is to do so honestly, accurately, and without undue bias.

Let’s take a look at the role of storytelling in business: why it matters, how it works, and what can go wrong if it’s done poorly.

## What is business storytelling?

First, let’s define what we’re talking about. Business storytelling is the practice of turning facts and figures into a narrative for yourself, your team, or your clients. It matters because humans learn through stories better than they do by looking at a spreadsheet.

To be clear, business storytelling should be non-fiction. It’s not about making up a story that doesn’t reflect reality in order to appease a client or ignore a problem. The storyteller’s goal is to uncover truth, then present that truth in a compelling way.

While business storytelling shouldn’t be frivolous or overwrought, it can be entertaining, funny, eclectic, stylish… whatever it needs to be in order to engage its audience and successfully confer its message. Basic business memos and lengthy text-based reports have a place in the working world, but they tend not to tell a very good story.

When we talk about business storytelling, we’re often referring specifically to data storytelling. There are other kinds of business storytelling as well. How do you present your training materials to new staff? What does your quarterly strategy meeting look like? These business units can also benefit from good storytelling.

## Why does data storytelling matter?

You may not yet be convinced of the importance of a good story when presenting information. The facts and figures are already available in a spreadsheet. Why spend more time (sometimes much more time) to make it look pretty?

Stories are how people communicate ideas. Imagine if history class consisted only of list of names, dates, and statistics. We might be able to conceive of the scale of WWII’s Ardennes Offensive, where a month of fighting combined for 200,000 casualties. But would we remember those names, facts, and figures without the first-hand accounts from servicemen? Can we fully appreciate the devastation of war without primary sources from reporters and civilians? Film footage and photography?

A story is more than a list of events or a summary table of data. Stories provide intellectual and emotional context that make the information presented memorable. They allow us to do more than merely report information — analysis itself is storytelling.

Ultimately, a good story should help a decision-maker make smart choices. It should facilitate access to information without requiring the kind of data literacy or specialization that a raw data dump might. It provides an artifact that can be stored, shared, and reflected upon by team members of many disciplines with different levels of data sophistication.

## The do's and don'ts of data storytelling

There is a wide range of acceptable practice in business storytelling, but there some definite do’s and don’ts to consider.

### Do’s

- Ensure the story you’re telling is valuable. Before you embark on a storytelling journey, plan out how this story will deliver value to you, your team, or your customers. It can be easy to get in the weeds and lose sight of the objective if we aren’t deliberate.
- Verify the quality of your supporting data. If the information you’re presenting is inaccurate, your story will be too.
- Empathize with your audience. Craft your story with a specific audience in mind. Don’t be too general, or develop a story that resonates with *you*. You already know what’s up.

### Don’ts

- Don’t overreach your grasp. Keep stories short, direct, and digestible. Ensure you have the time and resources to do justice to your subject matter.
- Don’t fight the data. Sometimes the picture we hoped to paint just isn’t supported by the facts. Honesty is our responsibility as analysts. Interpret and contextualize, but never hide or misrepresent facts.
- Don’t take things at face value. When we develop business stories, we’re doing the leg work to understand a challenge, then communicate our understanding to others. If things don’t add up, look into it. If the data suggests something shocking or unusual, verify it.

## Getting started with story-based analysis

Telling a story with data is a lot more work than simply generating a report or exporting a spreadsheet. There are many formats in which we can tell a story, ranging from powerful data visualization tools like Tableau and Google Data Studio to slideshows, custom infographics, or even microsites. Regardless of the tool we choose to use, the initial process is the same.

### Setting an agenda and collecting your data

The first thing we do is set the agenda. If we try to tell a story without having a sense of the beginning, middle, and end, we’re going to get lost in the plot immediately. Communicate with the intended audience for the report: what questions do they have? What business metrics do they wish they could understand at-a-glance?

Starting with a question or two sets the plot for our story. A good report should be concise and answer one question or a set of related questions. Don’t try to broadly explain everything at once. The narrower the scope of the story, the better crafted it will be.

Once we have a question, we pursue answers. Start by planning out where the answers may be. Often, we’ll need to compare information from multiple data sources. Figure out which tools you’ll need to do so — how do you export, combine, and clean up your data? In many cases, Excel or Google Sheets will do. If your needs are more complex, there are hundreds of tools that can help you connect and combine data sources. Google Data Studio is a good (and free) place to start.

### Check yourself before you wreck yourself

Before we dig into the data, carefully consider the potential pitfalls and challenges posed by the questions you’re trying to answer. Where might your biases mislead you? What gaps can you identify in the data set? Critically, how can you address those gaps and mitigate those biases? Write down a framework of considerations to guide you through the process. Once we’re neck-deep in data, it can be hard to maintain an unbiased and rigorous process.

### Find the right answers

You’ve surely heard the phrase “there are no stupid questions”. That may be true, but there *are* stupid answers. As an analyst, arguably our greatest concern is truth. We know that statistics can be manipulated to say almost anything. We can’t succumb to the temptation to deliver the easiest answer, or the one that makes our department look best. This will *feel* like delivering value for everyone involved — at first. But if our reports are used to make business decisions, and our reports are flawed, the decisions will be equally flawed. Eventually, those shortcuts and boastful claims come home to roost. Stay humble, and be committed to truth.

### Write for your audience

When reporting information, there is no single right way to best reach an audience. Just as small children enjoy picture books while adults prefer novels, our tone and format must adapt to the one receiving the report. Everybody has different abilities, strengths, and weaknesses. Great analysis involves empathy and emotional intelligence as well as rigorous data skills. Do your best to present your findings in a format that is both digestible and enjoyable for your primary audience. If they are visual learners, emphasize graphs and include colours and imagery. If you know their hobbies and interests, you could even include references or design elements that mirror said interests.

Don’t get *too* cute with it, but be willing to play. It makes the job more fun, and may make your end user more receptive to the insights you’re sharing.

### Plan for a sequel

Often, when we present one report it will pave the way for another. By answering one burning question, we help our team identify more questions — hopefully, *better* questions. It’s good to consider where a report may lead you. You may end up taking note of other metrics that may support the topic of your initial report, or set aside useful views and data blends anticipated to be used in the future. While you’re digging through the data, it makes sense to plan for eventualities.

## In conclusion

They say data is the new oil, an infinitely valuable resource waiting to be tapped. If so, analysts are the refineries that turn it from black sludge into useful material. We’re the pipelines that distribute information throughout a business so that it can be used effectively.

From solopreneurs to industry titans, data is central to the operations of a modern business. By telling the right stories, we ensure that data is useful, accurate, and honest.

An Introduction to Data Storytelling

There's a dirty word that we're hearing a lot lately.

It's the R-word: *recession*. While we aren't officially in a recession — a recession requires two consecutive quarters of economic contraction, which we haven't yet seen — there's no doubt that we're in a state of low consumer and investor confidence. **Despite relatively strong employment numbers in many parts of the world, global markets are bleeding gains and much of the world struggles with explosive inflation.**

Recessions demonstrate the psychological side of economics. When people believe they're in hard times, they tend to start saving more. This means less money circulating in the economy, which means economic slowdown.

Regardless of whether we're officially in a recession, we're definitely in a period of economic pessimism. From our clients and partners to our own business, we see the impact. Belts are tightening. Budgets get re-evaluated. Ambitious and risky projects get put off or have their scope narrowed.

[![Photo of calculator with coins by Breakingpic](https://files.benecms.com/blackbean2022/media/money_photo.jpg)](https://www.pexels.com/photo/gold-colored-coins-near-calculator-3305/)

One of the first taps many business owners look to turn off is marketing spend. Production, operations, and sales are tangible business units. Cuts to these areas are felt immediately. Marketing is less tangible; slashing spending has a harder-to-measure (or easier to obscure) impact on the day-to-day operations of the business.

The message we want to share is that marketing is essential during hard economic times, but it may not look the same as it does during an economic boom. **By mitigating risk, focusing on fundamentals, and investing in the right prospects and customers, marketing can be a tool to keep you afloat during economic uncertainty**.

## This too shall pass

**One of the most impactful ways we can recession-proof our marketing is by adjusting our mindset.** Before we get into the nuts and bolts of recession marketing, let's consider the view from 10,000 feet. The big picture.

In Spring of 2020, many of us watched the world around us change in rapid and concerning ways. Within the course of a week or so, the world went from wide-open to shut down. Air traffic practically stopped. Schools and offices closed. We sat in our living rooms and home offices, transfixed by an influx of bad news. Everything seemed to go from bad to worse.

Then it got better.

I'm not calling the pandemic over. Cases are surging in many areas. Experts forecast another wave this fall. The situation continues to evolve, and 'normal', defined as 'the way things were without COVID', may never fully return. But we learned to live with it. We got vaccinated, managed our risk, and in much of the world can live life as we did pre-2020, for the most part.

The point I'm getting at is this: **when things are bad, it's easy to lose sight of the fact that they will likely get better.** A recession looms, but it will pass. It's a normal part of a global economic cycle that expects highs and lows over time. Successful businesses will weather this economic storm by keeping an eye on the upswing. **Instead of despairing, they're preparing: getting ready to make a splash when the good times come again.**

## Three burning questions

Before we dig into some specific recommendations, we have a few questions you should ask yourself to understand your position as we slide toward recession. By understanding where you are, you'll be able to tailor your approach to suit the unique needs of your business.

## What's on your horizon?

[![Photo of sunset and horizon. Credit Abdullah Ghatasheh, Pexels](https://files.benecms.com/blackbean2022/media/sunset_horizon_photo.jpg)](https://www.pexels.com/photo/calm-body-of-water-during-golden-hour-1631677/)

Just like people, businesses have a life cycle. New businesses tend to be scrappy, energetic, and motivated to fight for market share. However, they may lack financial and human capital to accomplish their goals. Their situation tends to be more precarious.

Older businesses tend to be more conservative in their approach, better established within the market, and more financially secure, often at the cost of agility and hunger.

Where your business is at in its life cycle is an important consideration for how you approach marketing during a recession. If you're a startup, this may be the first big macroeconomic hurdle you face. This is a time to prepare your business for the struggle ahead, focusing on efficiency gains and securing your position in the market.

Established businesses may approach the problem from another angle: how can they best throw their weight around when their younger competitors are vulnerable? **Marketing initiatives that exploit the precarious situations of less-established companies (competing on price knowing startups can't afford to match, or promoting speed of service when other businesses have to lay off service staff) will be a better fit for businesses with the resources to stay the course and outlast their competition.**

### How does a recession affect your product?

**Different industries experience a recession in different ways.** An alternative finance company offering title loans and invoice factoring will benefit tremendously from economic contraction, assuming their capital reserves are intact. Their clients experience the exact kind of squeeze that pushes them to make use of an alternative lender.

Many other businesses benefit. Resellers of used vehicles and equipment tend to experience an uptick in business in hard financial times. Ironically, luxury brands often find themselves immune to recessions. High-income purchasers of their products tend not to experience the brunt of an economic downturn. The people whose purchasing habits are most impacted aren't the ones buying Chanel perfume and Rolls Royces.

Tourism, hospitality, and retail-centric businesses tend to struggle most, as do the manufacturers and resource industries that directly support these verticals.

Purchaser perceptions can either be a boon or a pox on your marketing performance. Understanding the impact on your industry vertical is essential when planning your marketing through economic hardship.

### How stocked are your cupboards?

Although saving for a rainy day is good practice for both people and businesses, many companies operate with sparse resources in reserve. Especially for younger companies, a healthy rainy day fund may be difficult to maintain as staffing and supply costs continue to balloon.[ If your business has a healthy financial buffer](https://blackbeanmarketing.com/insights/spend-money-make-money-how-much-should-i-spend-on-marketing), the coming months are a good occasion to dip into that reserve. It may be a competitive difference-maker for you.

For example, if other businesses in your vertical don't have the resources to continue their advertising efforts, they will stop purchasing advertising inventory. This has a deflationary effect on the cost of that advertising inventory. **Because you saved for a rainy day, you get to buy ad inventory at a discount and actually *increase* your reach compared to pre-recession times.**

[![Rainy day photo by Markus Spiske](https://files.benecms.com/blackbean2022/media/rain_photo.jpg)](https://www.pexels.com/photo/water-rainy-rain-raindrops-110874/)

If you don't have a healthy rainy day fund, don't despair. You won't be able to take advantage of the situation, but you also aren't alone in that regard. **What you must focus on is doing better than companies in the same situation.** Your biggest opportunity to succeed is in fostering better marketing efficiency. Seek out and excise wasted ad spend, campaigns with poor ROI, and initiatives that are risky. Double down on safe and consistent channels.

## Recession Marketing's Golden Rule: Don't Stop!

The easiest thing to do when facing an economic struggle is to panic. Shut off the taps! Slash the budget!

Budget management does become essential during a recession, but a full stop is never the right answer.

Consider this article on the relative performance of consumer goods giant Procter and Gamble and Coca Cola during the first year of the COVID pandemic. [Coca Cola blinked](https://www.amazon.ca/Other-Guy-Blinked-Pepsi-Cola/dp/0553051776) (again). They halted advertising campaigns, believing that marketing did little to help generate sales 'right now'. They reported a net 11% revenue reduction year-over-year. Pepsi, which did not halt its advertising, reported a net 5% increase in revenue YOY. P&G saw a similar net 4% increase in revenue.

### Delayed reaction, momentum, and the marketing funnel

Though there are valid criticisms of the marketing funnel — that it's too linear, not representative of contemporary decision-making processes, that it over-simplifies people into purchasing units — it is a fundamental concept that underpins so much of our understanding of marketing. If you aren't familiar, the marketing funnel is a visual concept for understanding the customer journey. Customers enter the top of the funnel, often labeled 'awareness', then progress down the funnel through interest, consideration, intent, evaluation, and finally to the point of sale. It's used to conceptualize campaigns for each stage of the purchasing process. How do we generate awareness? How do we turn awareness into interest, or intent?

One concept the marketing funnel illuminates is that a lot happens between product awareness and final sale. All those stages take time. **When we halt marketing campaigns abruptly, we're severing a stage of our funnel. We'll see the outcome on net sales in the weeks or months to follow.** In some cases, it can feel like a business saves money by cutting their campaigns short. Dollars that otherwise would have been spent on the campaign remain in the company coffers.

But what happens next month, or next quarter? How many fewer sales might you accrue for halting your marketing?

Many businesses struggle to answer that question, which is why…

## Evaluating ROI is critical

[![Photo of test taking by Pew Nguyen](https://files.benecms.com/blackbean2022/media/pexels-pew-nguyen-239548%20(1).jpg)
](https://files.benecms.com/blackbean2022/media/pexels-pew-nguyen-239548%20(1).jpg)

Without a[ full spectrum accounting of your marketing performance](https://blackbeanmarketing.com/insights/measure-digital-marketing-roi-optimize-for-the-right-metrics), mapping marketing spend to sales outcomes, you're guessing.

Your guesses may be educated, but they are still guesses. Marketing can be counter-intuitive. The flashy print ads you're running in trade publications may feel good, but what do they do for your bottom line? Meanwhile, maybe that [long-forgotten blog post](https://blackbeanmarketing.com/insights/industrial-manufacturing-seo-what-you-need-to-know-about-seo-for-b2b) on some niche problem tackled by your industry drip feeds you a few leads per year, unseen and unheralded.

Knowledge is power, and marketing ROI is *knowable*. **Before hacking and slashing your marketing budget, develop a deep understanding of what's working and what isn't.** Try to reset your understanding of your own marketing to view the challenge with fresh eyes. Make no assumptions about what works and what doesn't. Between CRMs, analytics trackers, and marketing platforms, the data is there. Let it show you the answer.

## Know thyself

A business that doesn't understand itself is one doomed to mediocrity.

**During hard times, marketers should be especially deliberate about playing to their strengths, mitigating their weaknesses, and embracing their opportunities.** A living SWOT document, adjusted regularly as conditions change, is essential to your recession marketing performance.


> 💡 Do you need support with business analysis, positioning, or business strategy? We can help you identify your strengths and weaknesses, evaluate your market and competitors, and position you for success. [Connect with us today!](/contact)


Client composition is another facet to be explored. Knowing specifically what each of your customers is worth to you can inform your marketing strategy. As you analyze your clients, you may identify that some are unprofitable. **This is a good time to consider moving on from these unprofitable clients to focus on those that deliver value.**

Clients that require a lot of care but aren't very profitable may share attributes that you can strategize around, steering campaigns away from generating these low-value, high upkeep customers. Conversely, the attributes of particularly high-value clients may be identified and targeted by your campaigns.

## The training montage

![Rocky running through the streets of Philadelphia](https://media.giphy.com/media/1wXberbwfS4rKW8Uxo/giphy.gif)

If you've ever watched any of the Rocky movies, you'll remember the iconic training montages. Rocky gets beaten down in the first couple acts, then grits his teeth and trains himself back up, better than ever.

He throws logs around, punches meat, runs through the snow... whatever it takes to come back stronger, meaner, and leaner.

A recession can be your chance for a training montage. Our recommendations require that you develop strong attribution, look inward and analyze clients and competitive strengths, and carefully monitor money in and out.

If your business is impacted by a recession or slowdown, don't let idle time go to waste. **This is your opportunity to build up marketing best practices and institutions within your business.** When the cycle turns and we're back to the boom times, you'll be prepared to make a big splash.

## The uptick

We've mentioned several times that recessions aren't forever. In fact, they happen like clockwork. **In the past 90-odd years since the Great Depression, the United States has seen fifteen recessions, averaging one every six years.** With the exception of the sharp drop in spring 2020 as the world temporarily closed down, we've been in an extended period of growth for over a decade.

Like a wildfire brings renewal to a forest, a recession cleans house in the economy. Stagnant and inefficient ventures fail, sending their human and financial capital to new ventures and more valuable sectors. Humans and businesses alike learn better financial habits.

**Although keeping afloat during a recession is tough, those that survive the meltdown emerge to a brighter future**. The months after a recession are among the most creative, innovative, and exciting times to participate in the economy. Customers reject their previous dogma and embrace new products, new brands, new ideas. This is why getting organized during a recession can prove so valuable. **If you invest your time wisely, you will be in the best position possible to benefit from post-recession goodwill and opportunity.**

## The bottom line

In the end, a recession will mean something different to your marketing department depending on the current health, life stage, and industry sector of your business.

Established businesses may look to maximize their reach by purchasing discounted advertising inventory and investing in marketing channels their less established competitors cannot afford. More vulnerable organizations may be better served by turning inward, streamlining operations, and preparing to make an impact when the good times return.

*Whether you’re established, an up-and-comer, or something in between, we can help you realize success — whatever that looks like to you. [Reach out to us](/contact) to learn more about how a marketing consultancy engagement can support your revenue goals and safeguard you from economic turmoil.*

Change is the universal constant. Whether we act or not, everything around us changes all the time. We change — sometimes by our own volition and in ways we can control, but not always. Most of the ways we change are out of our hands.

But can change be directed? Can we shape change to suit our needs? Unless we live in a purely deterministic world, the answer is yes. We direct change all the time, choosing this or that, influencing outcomes to suit our wants and needs.

Yet when it comes to business change — organizational change — teams tend to struggle. Change stalls in its infancy, or comes with unintended consequences. Groups often fail to overcome inertia, returning to safe, established habits rather than embracing new ones.

How do organizations embrace positive change effectively? The answer is change management.

Change management is an interdisciplinary practice that facilitates directed, lasting change for individuals and teams. Combining elements of business management, philosophy, and psychology, change management is the missing piece between where your team is now, and where you know they need to go.

## Three basic principles of change management

Originally developed and proposed by psychologist Kurt Lewin in the 1920s, the “Three Step Change Model” continues to influence change management thinking to this day.

The three steps in this model are:

- **Unfreezing**, where processes become destabilized and teams grow energized for change;
- **Changing**, where new processes are introduced and explored collaboratively;
- **Refreezing**, where processes are set and confirmed.

Taken as a whole, it’s a process that dissolves rigid organizational structures, builds up potential energy to facilitate change, then re-shapes and solidifies the organization once the changes have been put in place.

This process has been expanded upon, edited, critiqued, and otherwise modified into dozens of new models over the past century, but in most cases the principles remain the same.

## The science of change

Change isn’t limited to humans and organizations. Our universe is always in flux, experiencing chemical and physical transformation. In fact, many of the reactions we may have experienced in high school chemistry class mirror the three principles of change management. We’ll use science as a framing tool to explore change in more detail.

### Unfreezing: energy transactions and state change

Quick! Name three phases of matter!

For those who skipped elementary school science class, the answers are solid, liquid, and gas. When we teach kids about matter, we usually start with the safest and simplest chemical available to us: water.

Water can be liquid, solid in the form of ice, or gaseous in the form of vapour. Each time water changes state — transitions to a different form of matter — a transaction occurs. An energy transaction.

To melt ice into water, we introduce energy. There are plenty of ways to measure energy; in a lab setting, you’d probably express it as joules/gram or some other metric measure. My background is more trade school than engineering class, so I’ll use BTUs, or British Thermal Units, defined as the amount of energy required to increase one pound of water by one degree Fahrenheit.

Clear as mud? Good.

We know that water freezes at 32F. Did you know that 32F is also water’s melting point?

The way it works is this. Raising the temperature of a pound of -10F ice by one degree only takes a single BTU. But melting one pound of 32F ice takes 144 BTU. Liquid water is much more energetic than frozen water, so the water won’t change state until it’s acquired enough energy to do so.

Likewise, to turn water to ice we need to remove 144 BTU of energy from each pound of 32F water, but only one BTU for each subsequent degree by which we cool the water. To turn water into steam is even more energy intensive: it takes 970 BTU to create one pound of steam, assuming the liquid water is at its boiling point of 212F. This is actually the reason why steam burns can be so dangerous: steam has a massive amount of energy to transfer, much more than the equivalent amount of 212F water. When it touches skin, it releases that energy into your body very quickly as it condenses.

**What does this tell us about organizational change?**

Now let’s tie things back together. In change management, we have three steps: unfreezing, changing, and refreezing. If we frame this three step system as a physical state change, from ice to water to ice again, we see two major energy transactions: adding energy to facilitate melting, then removing energy to refreeze.

This is exactly how change management works. Instituting change doesn’t happen without an expenditure of energy. When significant change occurs, the most difficult obstacle tends to be inertia — inability or unwillingness to make a change because of how easy it is to continue the way things have always been. As managers, we need to find the energy to facilitate change. This might mean freeing up team resources to focus on the internal challenge, planning change cycles for times when the team is rested and operating under capacity (ie, your slow season), or even adding temporary staff or contractors to allow permanent staff to adapt to the new process. After changes are completely integrated, we can remove the added energy to freeze things back in place.

Once your organization is unfrozen, you can enact change. Think of it like dissolving another chemical into your water — adding something useful to the composition of your organization before you re-freeze it to lock in the changes.

### Solution and dissolution: the change phase

“Like oil and water.”

It’s a well-known phrase meaning ‘incapable of mixing’. In chemistry, two chemicals that cannot mix are called immiscible. The molecular structure of oil and water are incompatible: rather than blending together smoothly, the oil sticks to the oil and the water sticks to the water.

Instituting change can be a lot like mixing oil and water. The new ideas, processes, and technologies are fundamentally different from the old ways. It’s not enough to throw them together in a vessel and hope that when you come back, everything’s nice and blended.

If you try it, you might find that people fully bought into and advocating for change adopt the process readily, while less informed or more skeptical staff stick with what they know. You’ve got oil and water.

The good news is, there are ways to make oil and water mix.

For example, we know milk has fat — oil — in it. But it’s primarily water-based. It stays blended due to emulsifying agents found in milk. These chemicals create a bridge between fats and polar molecules like water, allowing them blend — and stay blended. Mustard can do the same for your salad dressings. Eggs do the same in your mayonnaise.

**Solvents and solutes**

In change management, we’re integrating something new into an existing organization. We can think of the organization as a vat of solvent — that which we will dissolve our changes, our solute, into. This is how we produce a solution.

Solutions are homogenous blends of two or more substances, meaning that the solute becomes integrated with the solvent. When we institute change, we do it to last. Our solution must not dissolve the moment we stop stirring!

**Change and emulsification**

For this reason, we may need an emulsifier to join our ‘old’ water with our ‘new’ oil. If we merely introduce new ideas, ask our teams to adopt them, and leave it at that, we haven’t really facilitated change. There are a variety of ways to ease the transition from old to new.

What we need to introduce is a binding agent that bridges the old and new. This may come in the form of expertise, like a consultant or process expert who can help team members see the value of change and provide a path of least resistance. It could involve an intermediate period of less radical change, allowing workers to adapt more slowly to the new paradigm. Maybe it’s a reward system that encourages adoption of a new process by offering prizes and incentives to early adopters.

In any case, there are techniques to reduce the challenge of blending old and new during the change phase.

### Refreezing: solid but not static

The notion that we can control change, or that if we’re not actively changing we’re standing still, is overly simplified. It’s useful to imagine it this way, as we can break down change into components we understand.

Change is a constant. We can control some types of change in some ways, but we can never fully remove chaos from the equation. Change happens intentionally and unintentionally, at all times, to all things.

I say this because the idea of ‘refreezing’ implies that, once change has been implemented, the organization becomes totally static. It’s solid bedrock, immutable and fixed until the next unfreezing. That isn’t totally true.

Once an organization refreezes, it continues to change and evolve, albeit more slowly. Managers ought to watch for any cracks that may form once an organization freezes — is the change we implemented gradually coming undone? What internal and external supports can keep everything locked in place for the long term?

Ultimately, a frozen organization ought to be like a copper statue. It still reacts to its environment, but the patina of its exterior protects the core of the organization from radical change. Like waves on the surface of a deep ocean, change in a frozen state should be fleeting and surface level.

## Preparing for organizational change

Knowledge is the enemy of fear. When we understand something, be it change management, marketing, or anything else, we’re no longer filled with uncertainty. Where we had doubt, we instead find resolve — a path toward whatever goal we’re seeking to accomplish. Hopefully, this article helps you and your team understand change from a new perspective.

This is an introduction to the concept of change management. It’s a century-old discipline, so there’s lots more to learn! If you’re interested in discussing change management for your organization, [reach out to us today. ](https://blackbeanmarketing.com/b2b-marketing-consultation/)We can help you realize transformation in sales, marketing, and business intelligence.

BlackBean Marketing is a marketing agency for blue-collar innovators. Our expertise is in marketing and sales enablement for industry and manufacturing -- from metalworking to biotechnology. Industrial businesses have unique sales and marketing challenges. We aim to solve them with you. \
Whether you need sales document design, strategic consulting, content development, or a powerful new website, our interdisciplinary team can service your request. We're personable, agile, and creative. We're BlackBean Marketing.

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CaraGreen Marketing Support

Green building materials supplier CaraGreen came to us with an advertising problem. Their search advertising campaigns delivered clicks in spades — thousands each month. What they didn’t do was deliver value.

Lacking in strategy, conversion tracking, and product focus, their ad campaigns failed to deliver on metrics that really matter for businesses: leads, sales, and revenue.

We worked with CaraGreen to scope out and implement a new campaign, develop landing pages, and improve lead attribution. The result? More leads — *way more leads* — for less money.

We began our advertising engagement with CaraGreen by conducting a campaign audit. The first step to fixing a problem is to understand it. Through our audit, we identified the following key issues:

- Conversions were improperly tracked. According to Google Ads, nearly 100% of users converted. In reality, less than 1% of paid search users took action.
- Ads sent users to low-value web pages. Rather than sending users to a lead generating landing page, many users arrived on blog pages without a clear path to converting.
- Target keywords were vague and low-intent. The campaigns were structured to focus on click volume, not performance metrics like lead generation rate.

The audit revealed a fundamental lack of campaign direction and intent. Our job was clear: structure a campaign that focused on delivering leads, not clicks and impressions.

Through keyword and competitor research and user behaviour analysis, we identified two product categories that were ideal candidates for paid advertising: recycled countertop materials and acoustic wall panels. We developed two landing pages for each product category. One page for each included a quote request form. The other was a click-through page, intended to funnel users toward valuable pages on the main CaraGreen site. The new pages include accurate conversion tracking. We also installed a live chat application on the website and landing pages to offer another path for users to connect with CaraGreen.

We developed a new ad campaign with an ad group for each targeted product. Based on our keyword research, we selected a tight group of exact match keywords for each ad group. Paired with an extensive negative keyword list, we knew the updated campaign would generate fewer clicks of far greater quality.

Engagement metrics from advertising traffic immediately improved when the new campaign and landing pages launched. Everything from average time on page to average pages per session improved dramatically. But page views aren’t revenue. What about business metrics?

Lead generation conversion rate improved from less than 0.5% to over 7%. The campaign consistently delivers leads at a cost per acquisition of less than $25. Based on the client’s estimated closing rate and average customer value, the campaign offers up to 7.5X return on marketing investment.

By focusing on advertising fundamentals and business outcomes, we implemented an efficient, cost effective, and profitable ad campaign, transforming paid search from one of CaraGreen’s least efficient marketing channels to its most efficient.

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Improving Key Areas

EMC Canada Marketing & Website Development

They say a rising tide lifts all ships. When EMC Canada engaged with us, their dated website left campaigns marooned, hurting conversion rates and dampening user engagement. Working with EMC, we identified several challenges that undermined the impact of their website for marketing important events and programs. By addressing these challenges, we were able to improve overall website visibility and campaign conversion rates, all through our easy-to-use proprietary content management system, Bene CMS.

We worked with EMC to identify several key areas for improving the website:

- The previous website was difficult to manage for content editors, often requiring developer involvement to make simple changes.
- The look and feel of the website was dated. Staff were concerned that prospective members may be turned off by the old-fashioned design.
- Content was poorly organized and hard to find. Users struggled to find important events and programs.
- Given Quebec’s large manufacturing sector, improving the user experience for French-speaking Canadians was paramount.

As EMC’s website serves as a portal for their programming and events, improving user experience would improve the efficiency of all active and future campaigns. The website itself would be our “rising tide”, improving marketing performance across the board.

We broke the problem down into several distinct project phases: a design consultation, where we collected feedback from users across the organization; an in-depth wireframing and website architecture project, aimed at reducing website complexity and improving usability; a website development project, where we enacted our recommended changes; and a brand refresh, where we upgraded the organization’s branding to suit its new website.

We improved French language support on the website with an embedded translation feature. Our wireframing and website architecture project significantly reduced the number of clicks required to navigate to critical content. EMC staff communicated a desire to make the website feel bright and clean. The new website and accompanying brand refresh do away with dark, muddy colours in favour of a clean, modern aesthetic.

We were able to realize results for each identified core challenge. Our streamlined Bene CMS content management platform made content editing easy for staff. French Canadian user growth improved by 273% since launching the new website. The new brand delivers better marketing performance. Site-wide conversion rate improved by 26%. Conversion rates for their most important service offering, the WILWorks program, increased by 177%. Streamlined website architecture improves SEO performance, as well. Since June 2022, EMC Canada’s organic web traffic has increased by 19%.

A Rising Tide Lifts All Ships

Website

UI/UX-First Website Design

Skills Centre Website Development

Skills Centre is an employment and career services agency operating out of British Columbia's rugged West Kootenay region. As the largest provider of employment services in the region, thousands of people rely on Skills Centre services to upgrade job skills, find work, and access community resources. Skills Centre engaged with BlackBean in 2021 to rebuild their website in order to better serve their organizational objectives.

The previous Skills Centre website presented a unique UI/UX challenge. The website received tons of organic search traffic and high engagement from its many visitors, but not the *right kind* of engagement. Users arrived on the popular regional job board, leaving before exploring Skills Centre's training and employment services. These services are Skills Centre's core mandate, but remained underutilized by its prospective clients.

Our solution was to 'go with the flow'. Skills Centre successfully attracts dozens of viewers per day to its website, largely through its presence in Google for search terms like 'kootenay job board' and 'jobs near Trail BC'. Instead of trying to deflect users from the path of least resistance, we leaned into the job board. We developed a tagging system to highlight relevant Skills Centre services for each job. Is the user looking at a job that requires first aid certification? They'll see a call-to-action to register for first aid training through Skills Centre.

The Skills Centre job board was rebuilt to distribute traffic to relevant services. This technique supports Skills Centre's strengths in terms of user acquisition. The goal was to align with the wants and needs of their audience, adding value instead of imposing a different experience.

Before rebuilding the website, over 85% of website traffic visited the job board and went no further. On the new website, 43% of users engage with content other than the job board on their visit. Content engagement improved substantially. Users spend an average of over three minutes on-page on the new website, compared to just 1:29 on the previous version. Average search position and overall search volume also increased due to improved website quality and SEO. As percentage of traffic share, search traffic has increased from 45% to 60% since launching the new website.

Insightful design drives real results

 Background

Informing their audience

Okanagan Specialty Fruits Website Development

Not every marketing challenge is about lead generation or increasing volume. Okanagan Specialty Fruits is the parent company of Arctic Apples, a non-browning apple developed for retail and food-service applications. Their website failed to broadcast their values and service offering, instead generating consumer searches for information on GMO foods.

Rather than increasing traffic, OSF wanted to improve the composition and quality of traffic to the website, targeting prospective employees and businesses looking for services and partnership rather than consumers seeking information on GMOs.

The primary challenge for this project was to reframe the website's content to serve OSF's business objectives, while displaying the information in an appealing and professional manner. The goal was to reduce or eliminate traffic from consumers looking to learn about (or debate the merits of) GMO products.


To this end, we identified a set of content that primarily delivered consumer traffic. We redirected this traffic to the homepage or to relevant pages with B2B intent.

Our website design struck a balance between friendly, personal, and casual, and professional, technical, and capable. We worked to update their branding while retaining its original look. The new website features more strategic content including an upgraded job board and a streamlined, B2B focused sitemap.

OSF's results are best expressed by its organic search keywords. Once dominated by GMO keywords, OSF's search profile now largely consists of branded terms, informational fruit growing terms, and biotech related queries. Despite a significant reduction in overall search traffic due to elimination of low value keywords and content, search visitors spend 87% longer on the website now than ever before, finding relevant B2B information for their high-value queries.

Informational Website Development

Navigating a Marketing Minefield

Arctic Apples Marketing Support

Arctic Apples is a B2B producer of non-browning apples. Their focus is on serving the retail and food-service markets with individually-portioned, pre-sliced apples. As a GMO product, Arctic Apples face increased skepticism and scrutiny from their prospective customers. They struggle to educate end consumers on the safety and nutrition of their products while emphasizing selling propositions for their B2B market. Finally, Arctic Apples had minimal consumer awareness and brand recognition. They sought an execution partner to aide their internal marketing department with campaign execution.

Arctic Apples' biggest challenges pertained to messaging and communication. A key goal for this engagement was to increase positive brand recognition among consumers across the US and Canada, particularly among the USA's growing Spanish-speaking community. They struggled to balance educational information for a vocally negative anti-GMO consumer audience with a need to sell to organizations and retailers at scale across the USA and Canada.

Fundamentally, our engagement with Arctic Apples is about execution. We offer design and web development execution services to allow their internal marketing team to implement campaigns and strategies. We provided a range of marketing and web development services to Arctic Apples, including:

- Design and development of a sales and informational website featuring consumer content (blogs, educational articles, recipes) and targeted marketing content for retailers and food service organizations
- A full Spanish version of the website to improve accessibility for the growing Hispanic market segment in the USA
- Packaging design for their individually portioned apple segments
- Production of a wide range of sales and marketing resources (flyers, one sheets, technical documentation, etc).
- Execution of a North American giveaway campaign featuring an Arctic Apples branded YETI cooler

Our engagement has allowed Arctic Apple's internal marketing staff to execute more swiftly on a variety of campaigns including Amazon Shopping campaigns, giveaways, and B2B sales initiatives. With our support, Arctic Apples generated over 21,000 form submissions for their YETI cooler giveaway.

Our enhancements to the website resulted in an 8% improvement in overall pageviews and a 27% decline in user bounce rate.  Users visit 12% more pages per session. Key markets including cities across the American Southwest saw increased traffic, particularly in areas with high Spanish-speaking populations.

Evergreen Marketing for a Non-Browning Apple

Growing reach for a growing business

Fertilizer and Supplement Marketing

Diablo Nutrients

When we began working with Diablo Nutrients, they had little understanding of their own marketing funnel. While they had a general understanding of their target market, they wanted to take their marketing to the next level, especially online. In order to do that, they needed to understand their own brand's strengths and weaknesses and find a niche for themselves in a crowded cannabis growing market.

We identified a number of challenges for Diablo Nutrients during our research and consultation phase:

- Diablo has a positive reputation among experienced growers familiar with their product, but very limited brand exposure to the casual growing market at large.
- Due to the nature of their products, there were a variety of legal requirements and restrictions to be met for every marketing campaign.
- Diablo's unique branding cuts both ways. It resonates very well with the right audience, but the wrong audience may struggle to connect. "Finding their tribe" was an important strategic consideration.

Before we could make recommendations or put a plan into place, we needed to understand their industry and competition. We began by compiling a market research document, using customer information from their website and social media channels as well as data collected from a marketing survey we administered. This research helped us understand Diablo's target markets more deeply, identifying primary and secondary customer personas and the most effective channels to use to speak to each. We analyzed competitors large and small to identify opportunities for growth and establish a clear picture of Diablo's market position. This helped us develop marketing collateral that resonates with their audience and supports their team's marketing objectives. Our deliverables included:

- A new website featuring tools that resonate with Diablo's customers: feed calculators, location finders, grower's tips, and technical documentation.
- A wide variety of brand collateral including sales and technical documents, social media content, and trade show materials.
- Ongoing support and advisement on marketing investment and strategies.

Our market research helped Diablo's marketing team get on the same page and coordinate their efforts. It continues to inform Diablo's social media and newsletter content strategies and offers insight into their customer's needs as they continue to grow their market share.

Grab Marketing by the Horns

Cool Prices in a Hot Market

SWAN Heating and Air Marketing Services

When we began working with Swan Heating, they had a lot going for them: plenty of website traffic, hundreds of 5 star Google reviews, and a good reputation in their service area surrounding Denver, Colorado. What they weren't getting was results. Their advertising performance was falling behind as leads grew more expensive and harder to find. Our task was to optimize their digital marketing performance, ensuring that all that traffic didn't go to waste.


- Swan Heating, an established HVAC business in Denver, needed to improve the quality, quantity, and cost of their online leads
- Though their website received plenty of traffic, Swan felt their business had begun to fall behind their competitors, especially regarding their search advertising performance
- When we began working with Swan, their year-over-year leads from Google search advertising had fallen by over 40%, while cost per lead had increased by nearly 25%
- While their website received plenty of organic search traffic, it was out-of-date, lacked proper tracking conversion tracking, and was not optimized for lead generation

Swan Heating had plenty of potential customers *filling* their online marketing funnel, but that traffic wasn't transitioning into enough leads or sales to justify its acquisition cost. In order to fix this, we first needed to understand why this was happening. We knew the website needed an update, so we started there, designing a lead-generation focused WordPress site to replace their out-of-date website. We also configured proper conversion tracking to measure website performance more accurately. Finally, we sought to understand why the Google Ads account performance had decreased. We performed an audit on the account, then implemented recommended solutions, serving as Swan's advertising management team.

- A performance-first website was designed and built using WordPress. This website featured improve page load times and visuals, as well as improved calls to action intended to provide customers with more opportunities to connect with Swan
- An advertising audit was completed, revealing a number of inefficiencies and performance issues. These issues were corrected and an advertising administration strategy was put in place
- Website and landing page conversion tracking was implemented to improve attribution accuracy.

Positive results were seen both immediately and through the next year. Website users and pageviews both increased by over 20%. Recorded revenue attributed to the website increased by over 100%, while website lead volume improved by 85%. Advertising performance improved similarly, recording record year-over-year conversion volumes as well as up to 50% cost per lead reductions.

- In the year since our team began administering the advertising account, conversion costs dropped by over 15% year-over-year. Lead volume increased by 48%
- Since May 2020, lead costs have dropped to their lowest recorded value since advertising began in 2015 — a decrease in cost of over 50% compared to the all-time account average
- Since the new website launched, website traffic increased by approximately 50%. Unique pageviews increased by 36%, and bounce rates dropped by 5%

Finding Efficiency in a Competitive Market

Advertising

Solving for Success

ClearSolv Website and Advertising

When we first engaged with ClearSolv in 2019, they were a startup solvent distributor with an unfinished SquareSpace website and no means to collect online leads. ClearSolv had their sights set on attracting clients in the cosmetics, cannabis, and botanical extraction industries. They needed a marketing partner who understood their needs and could communicate their message to customers effectively.

Our engagement with ClearSolv led us to understand several key challenges impacting their marketing success:

- ClearSolv's client base was limited and they had no online marketing funnel to generate leads
- Their brand was incomplete. They required a new logo and a variety of branded materials including business cards and trade show materials
- Their sales team needed a lead generation website with targeted content that spoke to purchasing departments at extraction, cosmetics, and manufacturing businesses
- ClearSolv needed a strategy to generate website leads at a reasonable cost per acquisition

Our first steps were to research the solvent and chemical supply industry, identifying competitors and learning industry terminology. We then applied our research to the branding process, producing a brand identity that spoke to their audience. Once the brand was completed and approved, we developed a responsive WordPress website, writing content for each page intended to drive conversions. After the website was complete, a Google search advertising campaign was strategized and launched to drive traffic to the website.

While many businesses struggled through the early days of the COVID-19 crisis, ClearSolv thrived. Taking advantage of increased demand for solvents such as isopropyl and denatured ethyl alcohol, we proactively scaled up our advertising, focusing our campaigns on medical manufacturers and hand sanitizer production. Since March 15 2020, the advertising campaign has generated an average of 6.5 leads per day from businesses across Canada and the US. Leads from ads comprise over 80% of all recorded leads in 2020.

- Scaling the advertising campaign aggressively and early allowed ClearSolv to dominate paid search results through the height of the COVID-19 crisis, resulting in explosive growth
- The updated website generated nearly 700 combined phone calls and form submissions from January to May 31 2020, at an average cost per lead below $20 CAD

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