Why you Need to Rethink Lead Generation – with Tom Shapiro

Tom Shapiro is located in Boston and is the CEO of Stratabeat, a B2B marketing agency which offers services that include SEO, content development, content marketing, web design and account-based marketing (ABM).

Tom has worked with some major clients like Intel, GE, AT&T, P&G, HP and has published articles in Chief Marketing, Marketing professionals, CNN.Com, Forbes and Mediapost.

He is also the author of 2 books: Rethink your Marketing, 7 strategies to unleash revenue growth’ and Rethink Lead Generation: advanced strategies to generate more leads for your business’. 

In his second book, Tom starts with explaining how following best practices is one of the worst things a marketer can do. If everyone is implementing best practices, there is too much similarity and not enough differentiation. In order to be really successful in marketing, it is important to implement creativity in your marketing strategy, because creativity is the only aspect in your business which can not be copied.

In the second part of his book, Tom elaborates on the different types of marketing vehicles and how creativity can be applied to them. 

An interesting example which illustrates how creativity can boost your marketing comes from his own experience: when working for … Tom decided to organize hyper targeted events, instead of attending large conferences where you have to try to capture your client’s attention in a limited amount of time and share his attention with various competitors.

However, using creativity in your marketing strategy does not exclude the use of SEO: if clients realize the results of SEO do not happen overnight and require a long-term approach, it can be a very valuable tool, which Tom personally still loves to use.

In some occasions however, a company does not benefit from SEO and content marketing and needs a more outbound approach, which is presented in Account Based Marketing ( ABM). ABM allows a company to specifically target these prospects which are their best fit and to communicate with them directly. According to Tom, it is important to offer an added value to your prospect and try to be not too focused on the sales part.

For one of his customers active in a highly technical field, Tom set up a customer knowledge hub for every account his customer wanted to do business with, which resulted to more than hundred customized knowledge hubs, which were all rolled out on the same day.

Tom states that ‘a lot of marketing agencies would consider this rather crazy, but to us, the craziness is what makes us so powerful’

KEY HIGHLIGHTS

[01:00] Who is Tom Shapiro?
[02:22] What is your book about?
[06:29] Do you give tips for people to boost creativity? What are exactly the chapters in your book?

[14:00] Do you also use SEO strategies for your clients?
[18:21] Are you repurposing all the blogs in different channels?
[20:30] What are you doing with the old website? Are you still using that? Or are you just deleting data?
[26:06] When did you know that you're going to bypass? Is it also mentioned in your book?
[27:22] Where can people find your book if they want to buy it?

NOTABLE QUOTES

"The sad truth is that following best practice is one of the worst things that you can do as a marketer."

"The one thing that no one can steal from you is your creativity."

RESOURCES

Tom's latest book "Rethink Lead Generation: Advanced Strategies to Generate More Leads for Your Business": https://www.amazon.com/Rethink-Lead-Generation-Advanced-Strategies/dp/0999184741/

CONNECT

Twitter: https://twitter.com/TomShapiro

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tomshapiro/

About the author, JoeriBillast

Fractional CMO
Web3 Marketing Strategist
Bestselling Author on Amazon
Host of the Web3 CMO Stories podcast