B2B Marketing Systems need to be so much more than just a simple ad that asks a viewer to book a call.
In most cases, that style of advertising stopped working a couple of years ago now.
So in this era you need to be a lot more strategic about the way you show your cold audience content and then take them through a buyer’s journey to becoming a lead, becoming a prospect for your sales team, becoming a customer, and then even to becoming a raving fan.
And that’s not easy.
So one of the ways that we do this at Visionary is through our 4 layer Theory.
Referencing the diagram, you can see at the top layer there, that’s a cold audience who doesn’t know who you are and then they go all the way down through that buyer’s Journey to the bottom where they’re a raving fans.
So let’s go through each layer in a lot more detail.
The phenomenon of “Dark Social” is well understood and leveraged by experienced B2B marketers. Such a fancy term… But what the hell is it?:
It’s the tangible business growth results that come from running strategic content marketing campaigns, using layers of retargeting to engage the audience.
More specifically – the term “Dark Social” refers to the growth results that are NOT visible by the standard automated marketing exports or “cost per lead” reports you might be used to.
Hence the term “DARK Social”.
But “Dark Social” results are often the most impactful in the business:
Higher value deals. Easier sales cycles. Larger customer values.
Sudden record months that aren’t directly correlated with “cost per lead” or clicks.
So… in this vid I’m teaching you the concept of “Dark Social” and, more importantly, how you can measure it.
Once you are able to measure it, your marketers can start optimising towards it (instead of unconsciously optimising away from it).
That means real growth that actually shows on your P&L.
Not just lots of “leads”, clicks and followers that look good on an automated report but go nowhere.
Most businesses are producing content. But 90%+ of them see no real-world measurable business results like revenue, lifetime value or qualified pipeline. That forces their marketers to use “marketer mental acrobatics” to justify all the activity and effort. And that results in even more confusion.
So, in this vid, we’re giving you some insights on how to think about content marketing. We cover:
🟣 Your content has to give PROFOUND levels of insight, inspiration and information that really moves the needle for the target market you serve.
🟣 Content marketing is a long-term game. So if you don’t have a real way to measure the impact your content is having on REAL business results (revenue, lifetime value, qualified pipeline), it’s a huge invisible time-suck. That’s a real opportunity cost and a compounding problem when your competitors have experienced marketing teams.
🟣 If your content is ChatGPT rubbish, or simple “tips”, you’re just adding to the ignorable noise. You’ll need to get your SMEs involved so they can give real-world advice.
🟣 High Quality content is time-consuming to create. So you must be a master-repurposer to get enough value from each piece
🟣 Most smaller B2B companies will need to use strategic ad spend to amplify the impact of their content and beat larger competitors who dominate the market with larger budgets
🟣 Everyone says they are a “thought leader”. It’s trendy. But the $$$ results produced by your content show you the truth
🟣 Look… you have to really care about the people you serve to educate them effectively. Trying to automate this way too much or getting an unskilled junior to just put “anything” up on the newsfeed is moving your business backwards. Social audiences are very skilled at picking up “content for the sake of it” and ignoring it.
Good content marketing creates measurable results like:
Customer retention improvements
Customer happiness increases
Sales effort decreases
Prospects specifically mention your content
Word of mouth increases
Lucrative partnerships appear
If you’re not experiencing it, it’s a sign your content marketing hasn’t got the right strategy or depth behind it.
In this age, it’s possible to produce strategic, highly engaging video messages and put them directly in front of targeted decision-makers, at scale.
Yet most B2B businesses aren’t leveraging this effectively.
And when they do create videos, many fall into the trap of focusing on entertainment — vague “stories” or humour that mimic B2C-style TV ads built for much simpler audiences.
The real issue? Most video producers overlook the critical factors needed for true B2B marketing outcomes:
🧿 Mapping content to the 3–12 month buyer’s journey
🔵 Creating 3–10 tailored versions to continually nurture prospects
🧿 Crafting strategic messaging that drives real decision-making
🔵 Differentiating YOU from competitors with laser-sharp clarity
And here’s the kicker:
80% of a video’s success comes from its distribution strategy, NOT just production.
At Visionary Digital Studios, we approach B2B video marketing differently.
Take a glimpse at how we do it:
🔗 https://lnkd.in/gHjKRehn
In a B2B company, often most of the customer lifetime value is earned AFTER that initial deal is signed. So it’s important you’re effectively marketing to CURRENT customers too.
But at this stage, you’re no longer “selling”. Now you want to use Digital Marketing to:
🔹Continually educate clients and users so they get the most value possible from your services
🔹Turn one-off customers into lifelong customers & evangelists
🔹Ensure they continually progress into the higher value services that you know will bring longer-term results
At Visionary, we call this “LAYER 4” marketing – check out the video.