Marketing to prospects on the basis of occupation and profession

It was in 2014 when Facebook took a shot at LinkedIn by adding Job-Title Ad Targeting, which was a welcome news for B2B marketers who were trying to reach prospects on the platform. Facebook knew how effective it’ll be for B2B marketers to further narrow campaigns to the specific occupation & profession, believing that the factor can influence their buyer decisions. The new functionality had the power to change the dynamic then & it also opened up the door to recruiters. This is a clear example of powerful segmenting on the basis of occupation & profession can be in the art of marketing.

Occupation or profession

Yeah…in general sense, both occupation & profession are understood in the same meaning but they have minor differences between them. For example… constructing a building is an occupation while the designing of one would be a profession. While a profession needs specialized knowledge & extensive training but an individual need not have specialized knowledge about the trade. Confusing…read on it. Now since that’s established let’s look into how marketers can take full advantage in their marketing campaigns by segmenting their prospects on basis of occupation & profession.

Occupation & profession in the marketing process

In today’s world, LinkedIn Ads is considered as the undisputed king for targeting professionals in the world of B2B advertising but still, it doesn’t go beyond a scale. This is because in an ideal world it would have been easy to target based on job titles. This is not possible in the real world because of the issue of profile incompleteness based on occupation & profession, which comes into play. But it ain’t just LinkedIn facing the issue with lack of data in regards to occupation & profession. B2B marketers all over are struggling to convey their marketing messages to prospective customers which can be solved to a limit if the exact information on occupation & profession exists. The information on occupation & profession is part of who the prospects are which is crucial for the proper execution of sales & marketing campaigns. Also, marketing based on occupation & profession has been part of the gameplay for a long time. Even in the modern aspect of marketing, it is one of the main ways while targeting B2B prospects while using account based marketing.

So, how to know your prospect’s occupation or profession?

Sometimes, it doesn’t matter how good we are or what we know because we will get stuck. The same goes for the process of marketing also. But as always we marketers find solutions. Primarily because – it’s part of the job & this is where we learn new stuff. In the case of attaining information on occupation & profession about your prospective customers, there are certain aspects which marketers should take care.

More advanced research

We, marketers, are no strangers to research. From researching on which content will be apt for social media marketing to allocating the best pricing structure, we do research. Majority marketers even complain that they got overwhelmed with research & eventually lagged in their actual tasks. But tweaking your research in a more smart & advanced manner is the trend & the most efficient approach especially in attaining information on the occupation & profession of your prospective customers. LinkedIn & other platforms have the option of Advanced Search Filters which will enable you to do research on the specific job titles, level of seniority etc. on your prospects. You can also search on Groups in the social media channels which are great for engaging prospects via industry wide discussions rather than direct marketing messages. You can also use the help of keywords that are apt for attaining information in regards to your prospect’s occupation & profession. Brainstorm with your SEO team on this & you will be seeing brilliant results. Also, do not forget your existing database. There might be hidden treasures in it that you might have missed earlier.

Make use of Surveys

To connect effectively with your prospects it’s necessary for you to have a customer persona in mind. Send survey questions to your current customers along with members of your target market, will solve your troubles regarding customer persona along with identifying the occupation & profession of future prospects. Cast your net in a wide enough manner to catch those you think might be interested in your particular products or services & use that data for better marketing & sales campaigns.

Get good Database providers

Earlier, being a marketer meant doing all the jobs by oneself. But as times have changed so did the ways of work. There are a number of Database providers in the current market who can help you out by providing information on occupation & profession. We also help out marketers of various organizations providing marketing information with Occupation Contact Lists & Professionals Contact Lists. Just make sure that the database provider you are employing validates & refresh their data on a regular basis, at least every 3-6 months.

Smarter SEO & content

Craft your content with the aid of SEO & present it in such a way that will attract the prospects with the customer persona that you have in your mind. Copywriting is salesmanship but without knowing whom to target the task becomes a challenge. Make use of keywords, SEO copywriting & other techniques to push your content in the most effective manner to target prospects based on occupation & profession. Also, ensure that your SEO executives are pushing the content that’s crafted for targeting prospects based on their occupation & profession to business listing sites, directory submission sites & blog submission sites. Bonus: JOIN CONTENT MARKETING AND SEO IN 2018

Now, start working & hit the bull’s eye!

Targeting based on occupation & profession is one of the major marketing techniques in today’s B2B world. It enables B2B marketers to achieve significant ROI with their marketing & sales campaigns. Using these key strategies can aid you in saving your time, money & efforts and will enable your sales reps in spending more time on outreach & less time trying to track down contact information. Also read on: CONNECT WITH HARD-TO-REACH TECHNOLOGY USERS WITH CONTENT MARKETING