This series will focus on the various elements of building your PropTech marketing machine: People, Tools, Strategy, and Execution. This is Part 4, Execution.
Now that you've got your resource base of skills, tech, and strategy ready to go, it's time to get executing! The key principle here is to start relatively small and simple, so that you can "fail fast" and find out what works, and what doesn't.
Stage 1: Testing
One of the simplest ways to test your messaging is by building a target list. This can take the form of a mailing list (which is great for testing initial brand awareness messaging) or a targeted data list which can, for example, be used in running paid LinkedIn campaigns. The basic data you're after will be the company name, the contact name, their job title, and their company email address. It's important (under GDPR legislation) that you have a legitimate business interest in contacting these people, so please ensure you're only gathering data for relevant contacts. This is also important to protect your sender reputation and your brand. Once you have a list pulled together, be sure to run it through a list cleaning tool to remove any stale addresses that will bump up your bounce rate. Never assume your list is clean. I worked with a client who got their target list from an investor - they assured me it didn't need any cleaning. Unfortunately they were dead wrong, and the extremely high bounce rate that resulted took weeks to repair. It only takes a few minutes and a small fee to clean your list, so don't skip this step!
One of the most effective testing grounds is good old-fashioned email. You can push out a set of marketing messages to a cohort of contacts at the same time, and effectively contrast their performance within minutes. I like to start with a simple tool (like ActiveCampaign, for example) when working with a client who does not currently have an email marketing platform. Set up simple tests: batch your contacts, try different subject lines, and make sure your messaging is always customer-centric. You're not here to tell them about you, you're here to help them.
A free (and easy!) way to test content and messaging is on LinkedIn. Use your company page, posting at a cadence that is regular enough to compare performance on posts. Come up with your posts first, then schedule them in for automated release. That way you don't need to keep checking on it... just set it and forget it, then come back and compare once all your content for the testing period has been posted.
If you don't yet have much of an audience on LinkedIn, it's hard to get a good idea of comparative performance based on a small dataset. A great way to expand your dataset is to use LinkedIn ads. As a general rule, they are "more expensive" (pay-per-click) than other channels, but they're highly targeted. You can even upload your target list (mentioned in Point 1) and use the Audience Expansion tool to find similar contacts with which to target your content. I've seen some exceptionally good results using LinkedIn ads.
As touched on above, with all channels you should be aiming to test things at a consistent cadence. For example: to compare like-for-like, you can batch and send your test emails at 9am on a Monday and every following Monday, but if they were to all go out at different times, this may skew your results.
Stage 2: Scaling
Now that you've run your tests, it's time for the fun part - comparing performance metrics! Look at email open rates to get an idea of what subject lines work best, or clickthrough/reply rates for an indication of what body copy performs best. Which LinkedIn posts got the most engagement? How does that compare to the number of impressions? Remember: the results may differ by channel, or by audience segment. Keep these in mind as you pick your winners.
Now it's time to re-run your winning campaigns, targeting any contacts who haven't yet seen your winning content. You may like to give your contacts some breathing space (like a week or two) before scaling up your campaigns.
Re-use different versions of high-performing content on different channels. Do you have a series of articles that performed really well? Turn it into a downloadable PDF guide that can be gated for contact details in a LinkedIn ad campaign.
Ramp up paid activity once your tests have proven their worth. When you have a couple of paid campaigns that are bringing in quality leads, put some extra cash behind them, and iterate on the messaging to keep improving it.
Did you find this post useful? Would you like some support in making it all happen? Book a call with me today - I'd love to chat with you!
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