Once upon a time, I wrote an infographic on the 7 moments that matter within content syndication for demand generation. I touched upon various crucial aspects to help create an effective demand generation campaign.
The infographic delved into aspects such as supplier selection, defining your audience, campaign requirements, and measuring what matters; the goal was to create a top-level guide to simplify the complexities within building a demand generation campaign. However, I recognise that the infographic only scratched the surface, so I am writing a series of articles expanding on each point.
Today, let’s start with the Supplier selection.
Exploring Opportunities Beyond the Obvious
When it comes to selecting suppliers, there’s no one-size-fits-all solution. However, certain strategies can significantly enhance your decision-making process.
You shouldn’t be afraid of small and unknown suppliers – they could be the workhorses behind some of the bigger, well-known brands. So, putting some of your budget towards testing new partners is always a great strategy, as they can become the main driving force behind your campaigns.
Navigating Through the Hype
Be aware of overselling and overpromising from suppliers, and always proceed with caution…, a small trial budget to test the waters; we see overselling a lot and have learnt, through experience, what to believe and what to not believe.
Diversification for Resilience
Don’t feel obliged to book a campaign with a partner only because you have been working with them for some time and their performance is kind of OK. There are a lot of different players in this space that can provide value, so don’t limit yourself.
Mitigating Risk through Diversification
The lead gen landscape changes constantly, and a lot can happen in a short period. Therefore, you shouldn’t rely too heavily on a single partner. I’m not saying that things will definitely go wrong. Still, it is always better to consider the worst-case scenario and plan accordingly.
More to consider
- What differentiates each publisher you are considering? Which ones will work best for you? Why will they work for you?
- Deciding the optimal number of publishers to use for a campaign: Diversifying reduces dependency and increases your workload but using only 1 or 2 partners or the same ones consistently means that you’re not effectively A/B testing to find the best value.
- Price – why aren’t all CPLs the same for a brief? Why do some publishers charge vastly different rates? How will the leads be measured so you can start buying leads on a value basis instead of cost?
- Price isn’t always indicative of value – what factors should be considered when assessing publishers? (channel, vertical, geo, job function, data sourcing)
Quite a few things to look at there before you even get the campaign going.
Send me an email or add me on LinkedIn, and I will be more than happy to help you.
