In 2022 I launched a project to define a paid publication strategy for Terminus’s growth marketing team, by identifying and testing various marketing publications with dedicated email send opportunities. As a Demand Gen specialist, I was tasked with creating a series of email campaigns that could generate more qualified leads through strategic paid placement opportunities.
The Challenge
As a thought leader in the MarTech space, Terminus needed to expand the marketable database by putting more Brand Awareness content in front of our target persona: C-level marketing executives and director-level growth marketers.
The Tactics
First I researched and identified Marketing Thought Leadership publications with paid placement and dedicated send opportunities, including MarketingProfs, Marketing Brew, DemandGen Report, MarTech, and others.
Through these publications, I launched different pieces of content marketing via email, newsletter placement, and banner ads. These pieces had already been marketed to our existing prospect database, so I took data from previous A/B tests (subject lines, CTAs, and messaging) to ensure high engagement.
Over a 10 month period, I launched dozens of campaigns across these publications. These content pieces included:
- New Marketing Collateral/ How-To Content
- Analyst Reports
- Virtual Event invites
Results
Though these campaigns varied in content and audience, overall these paid placement projects were a success. On the email side, these campaigns reached a combined audience of ~400K subscribers and achieved an average email open rate of 28% and an average click-through-rate of 12%, higher than industry benchmarks.
This immediately made an impact by generating hundreds of new leads into our marketing database, and a much needed boost to our top-of-funnel sales pipeline goals. Ultimately, these campaigns contributed to at least $500,000 in closed-won revenue, making for an impressive ROI.
Moreover, even the less successful dedicated sends were instructive on making data-driven decisions on the efficacy of each Marketing publication, and the quality of the audiences and leads that each could deliver.