🏠 Build or Buy an Audience?
It's a question of intent
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In The B2B Bite, I break down the most effective strategies and tactics to help B2B companies do better marketing.
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Audience Building
🏠 Build vs. Buy?
It's a bank holiday here in the UK which means that those of us lucky enough to work the 9-5, Monday to Friday circuit have a day off to (sun)bathe, booze and barbecue - at least that's what I'm doing.
BUT I just don't have it in me to let a week go by without popping my head into your inbox to say hello, so here I am.
I also wanted to share something I've been thinking a lot about this week; is it better to build or buy an audience?
At face value, the latter seems more appealing. Especially in the early days of building out a marketing programme in a startup.
Paid media. Big booth trade shows. Advertisements. Cut a cheque and you're in front of people. And it makes you feel good because you 'see' something happening.
But this comes at a cost. Literally. And when all is said and done you may have little to show for it other than a high number of "impressions" that yielded next to no revenue-based results.
Sure, people probably saw your logo. Perhaps they even skimmed that piece of advertorial you penned while waiting in line for their matcha latte with rice milk, hold the syrup.
But they won't remember you.
Why? Because they were never there for you in the first place. They didn't intend to see your message. It just... appeared in front of them. And maybe they kinda dug it. But then the next interesting thing came up in their feed and they moved on.
Building an audience through your own content, organic social and employee advocacy is an investment that pays far more over the long-term than simply paying to be shoved in front of someone else's.
You own the IP. And you can do whatever you want with it.
You set the terms. You're not relying on someone else to interpret your value.
You have intent. Folk are with you because you earned it, not because you paid for it.
Is it hard to build an audience? Hell yeah. It takes time, commitment, energy, buy-in, budget - and it may be months before you start to see that it's working.
But the trade-off is that 95% of B2B companies aren't thinking like this. They're still paying-to-play and putting their reputation and reach into the hands of a third-party. It's a race to the bottom where anyone without the biggest budget loses.
When you own your audience, you benefit from the last competitive marketing advantage there is left - earned attention.
So that's it from me this week. Enjoy the long weekend.
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🎙️ Should You Pay for PR? w/ Michelle Garrett
In the latest episode of B2B Better, I sit down with Michelle Garrett, Public Relations Consultant and Writer.
We talk about:
Should B2B start-ups pay for PR in the early days?
What the first 100 days of building a communications strategy should look like
The difference between a 'trade story' and a 'New York Times' story
Michelle also shares some amazing insights the difference between reactive and proactive PR PLUS whether there's such a thing as a quick media win.
Listen to it here:
This is real advice for the everyday B2B marketer who wants to be better.
You can follow Michelle here: @PRisUS
And I highly recommend checking out her Twitter chats - #FreelanceChat and #CommProsChat
Previous episodes:
Building a Marketing Strategy When Budget is Tight w/ Bethan Vincent
The Founder's Guide to B2B Content Marketing w/ Melanie Deziel
You can also find the B2B Better on Apple Podcasts and almost all other podcast directories.
And that's it! See you next week.