{"id":23519,"date":"2025-01-11T23:44:19","date_gmt":"2025-01-11T23:44:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/peraltafinancing.com\/advertising\/industry-trend-reports-part-2-promotion\/"},"modified":"2025-01-11T23:44:19","modified_gmt":"2025-01-11T23:44:19","slug":"industry-trend-reports-part-2-promotion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=23519","title":{"rendered":"Industry Trend Reports PART 2: Promotion"},"content":{"rendered":"


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This article first appeared in my marketing newsletter.\u00a0Subscribe here<\/a>\u00a0to be the first one to read new posts.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u2026<\/p>\n

Are industry trend reports worth the marketing investment?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Last week, I wrote about\u00a0<\/strong>creating a 30-page industry report<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0for a B2B brand I\u2019m working with.<\/strong><\/p>\n

It took me ca 55h<\/strong>\u00a0to research, write, design, and promote it, plus report on results.<\/p>\n

Was this enormous undertaking worth it?<\/p>\n

Many\u00a0B2B software behemoths<\/strong>\u00a0(HubSpot, Adobe, Salesforce), by launching and promoting \u201cX Year Trends in X\u201d reports seem to validate the strategy.<\/p>\n

But\u00a0what about the\u00a0<\/strong>small<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0B2B brands<\/strong>\u00a0just entering the market?<\/p>\n

Based on my experience,\u00a0the strategy indeed\u00a0<\/strong>does<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0work. But there are also many caveats<\/strong>, lots of IFs.<\/strong><\/p>\n

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\"moomin<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

Before you decide whether trend report is something to test out in 2025<\/strong>, there are many aspects to take into consideration. By the end of this newsletter, you\u2019ve read my two cents on the subject.<\/p>\n

But first, let\u2019s continue from where the previous newsletter stopped. We covered the full creation process from initial idea to final design.<\/p>\n

Now, we\u2019ve ended up with a\u00a0PDF-format 2025 Sales x AI Trend Report.<\/strong><\/p>\n

What\u2019s next?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Before kicking off the promotion strategy, there\u2019s an important question to answer\u2026<\/p>\n

\u200b<\/p>\n

What\u2019s your end goal?<\/h2>\n

Let\u2019s start by what should\u00a0<\/strong>not<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0be the end goal:<\/strong><\/p>\n

1) Having a beautiful trend report to add to the blog \/ website.<\/strong>\u00a0Nobody will find it unless you go out of your way to promote it (the same goes about your blog articles, guides, and case studies\u2026)<\/p>\n

2) Spending $0 on getting new leads from downloads.\u00a0<\/strong>Calculate your team\u2019s salaries and agency fees for 100h+ work hours.<\/p>\n

3) Getting leads from downloads to add to your blog newsletter list.<\/strong>\u00a0There are many many cheaper (and efficient) ways to do it.<\/p>\n

Ugh, so what\u00a0is<\/em>\u00a0the goal of investing in a trend report? Or let me rephrase\u2026 What is the goal of any marketing activity?<\/p>\n

Getting new customers and $$$,<\/strong>\u00a0ideally at a positive marketing ROI.<\/p>\n

Perhaps it helps to see this graph I stole from the internet.<\/p>\n

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\"marketing<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

Getting new leads won\u2019t matter if you\u2019re unable to convert them into customers.<\/p>\n

Getting lots of readers (if not gating the trend report download) won\u2019t matter if you\u2019re unable to convert them into customers.<\/p>\n

Getting lots of LinkedIn engagement won\u2019t matter if\u2026 Wait, this actually turned out alright for us. But there\u2019s also a\u00a0but<\/em>\u00a0here which we\u2019ll get to later\u2026<\/p>\n

Just be honest with yourself here<\/strong>, and\u00a0focus your marketing resources on things that drive growth<\/strong>, i.e. revenue.<\/p>\n

This\u00a0could\u00a0<\/em>be a trend report! This could also be paid ads or\u2026<\/p>\n

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\"mooming<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

\u200b<\/p>\n

Trend report promotion strategy: the goals<\/h2>\n

Let\u2019s start from the\u00a02025 trend report marketing strategy\u00a0<\/strong>we took with\u00a0<\/strong>Sera<\/strong><\/a>\u2018s team.<\/strong><\/p>\n

As we\u2019re in\u00a0marketing experimentation stage<\/strong>, the project was one of our experiments. And it wasn\u2019t just a whim: I\u2019ve seen it work for other B2B brands over years.<\/p>\n

So, our initial strategy was to create an attractive industry report on 2025 sales x AI trends that:<\/strong><\/p>\n

1) Helps to establish Sera as an industry thought leader<\/strong>\u00a0in the AI SDR space.<\/p>\n

2) Have an endless resource for 20+ future<\/strong>\u00a0blog posts, guides, and social posts<\/p>\n

3) Get new leads\u00a0<\/strong>from downloads to\u00a0convert into paying customers.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The third one, of course, is the most important one.<\/p>\n

\u200b<\/p>\n

Trend report promotion strategy: the channels & budgets<\/h2>\n

As our ICP (ideal target customer)<\/strong>\u00a0was decision-makers in small to mid-size B2B companies, the obvious channel for promotion was LinkedIn.<\/p>\n

Note that you should already know who your ICP is, although you can also use an e-book promo campaign for ICP discovery. A rather expensive way to acquire the knowledge that founders should have knows from Day 1\u2026<\/p>\n

So, LinkedIn ads it was.<\/strong><\/p>\n

And not just LinkedIn ads but LinkedIn Lead ads.<\/p>\n

I won\u2019t tell you the exact budgets but we tested on several markets, and started out rather small, planning to optimise \/ increase budgets after initial results came it.<\/p>\n

As to\u00a0LinkedIn Lead ad campaign setup<\/strong>, we tested both the new\u00a0Accelerate campaigns\u00a0<\/strong>and the good old\u00a0manual setup<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

The Accelerate campaigns, not to speak of horrible UI trying to push AI-written ad copy \u2013 not good \u2013 this campaign type took way too long to start delivering reach. So after 24h, I changes all campaigns to regular Lead Ad campaigns.<\/p>\n

\u200b<\/p>\n

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\"linkedin<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

As with any paid social ad channel (and display ads),\u00a0the campaign\u2019s success is 20% setup (keep it broad) and 80% creative.<\/strong><\/p>\n

As to the ad creative itself, it\u2019s success depends 10% on text 90% on image.\u00a0<\/strong>Nobody reads ad copy these days, unless it\u2019s\u00a0in the image<\/em>.<\/p>\n

So let\u2019s talk about\u2026<\/p>\n

\u200b<\/p>\n

Trend report promotion strategy: the ad creatives<\/h2>\n

How to design ad visuals that convert?<\/p>\n

The first thing I did was\u00a0spy on competitors\u2019 LinkedIn ad creatives<\/strong>, as well as see what well-established brands in other B2B industries are doing.<\/p>\n

As a result, I had my desktop full of\u00a050+ screenshots<\/strong>. After filtering out the best ones, we had a\u00a0Figma file with 15-20 ideas to copy<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

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\"linkedin<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

\u200b<\/p>\n

Good marketing isn\u2019t about reinventing the wheel<\/strong>\u00a0but\u00a0having enough experience\u00a0<\/strong>and knowledge (and common sense) to distinguish the best examples from stuff you know doesn\u2019t work.<\/p>\n

I designed 10+ different ad creatives for the campaign, and chose 6 final ones to experiment with. Below is one example.<\/p>\n

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\"sera<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

The must-have elements I wanted to have in all ad visuals:<\/strong><\/p>\n

1) Huge text in image,<\/strong>\u00a0immediately communicating the value and subject.<\/p>\n

2) Download CTA<\/strong>\u00a0with pointed arrows in the visual to draw the eye to the obvious action.<\/p>\n

3) Sneak peek visuals of the report<\/strong>\u00a0to convince the viewer it\u2019s insightful and has high-quality design >> is trustworthy.<\/p>\n

\u200b<\/p>\n

Trend report promotion strategy: organic social media<\/h2>\n

Of course, paid advertising isn\u2019t the only way to promote a trend report<\/strong>\u00a0(or blog post or e-book or newsletter, etc.)<\/p>\n

Perhaps, it\u2019s not even the most efficient channel\u2026<\/p>\n

The day we launched paid ad campaigns, I helped to create several LinkedIn posts for Sera\u2019s team to share.<\/p>\n

We tested LinkedIn posts with just one image, as well as a carousel-style PDF post.\u00a0<\/strong>See the full PDF post\u00a0here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u200b<\/p>\n

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\"linkedin<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

You\u2019ve probably seen some LinkedIn carousel posts get hundreds of likes, comments, and shares.<\/p>\n

However, the LinkedIn post by Sera\u2019s CEO didn\u2019t reach the viral effect.<\/p>\n

Why?<\/p>\n

Because building up a LinkedIn personal account with lots of followers and high engagement takes time.\u00a0<\/strong>We\u2019d only started working on this (an important project!) a few weeks ago and he had can 1,000 followers at the time.<\/p>\n

Now, compare this with the results of the LinkedIn post I did to hail the trend report \u2013 which received so much great feedback from my network. Thx you all you know who you are! \u0295\u2022\u0361-\u2022\u0294<\/p>\n

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\"karola<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

\u200b<\/p>\n

The post got 119 comments and reached 17,912 people.<\/strong><\/p>\n

I spent some good hours responding to all the comments and DMs from new and old contacts that wanted to get the trend report.<\/p>\n

And it was absolutely worth it<\/strong>. As to date, at least one lead that came via this post has become a customer.<\/p>\n

Also, another takeaway I\u2019d like you to, well, take away: One LinkedIn post about a quality report isn\u2019t all you can do.<\/strong><\/p>\n

You can reformat the content into 20+ posts over time, and keep the leads and reach coming.<\/p>\n

\u200b<\/p>\n

Trend report promotion strategy: landing page + newsletter<\/h2>\n

Sorry peeps!<\/p>\n

This is where I\u2019ll have to leave off this time.<\/p>\n

I had no intention to extend the trend report project into another newsletter but\u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n

1) I\u2019m on a Tartu-Tallinn train and it\u2019s hitting the station in 10 minutes.<\/p>\n

2) It\u2019s Thursday evening and I\u2019m on my way to Xmas dinner with my two most important people in the world: sister and mom.<\/p>\n

3) I really wanted to send the newsletter this Friday morning as promised.<\/p>\n

So after a Christmas break, I\u2019ll be back with Part 3\u00a0<\/strong>that covers the full landing page + automated newsletter setup process and advice, as well as the final results and takeaways.<\/p>\n

Have a lovely, giving, kind, surprising, restful holiday season! \u2606.\u3002.:\u30fb\u00b0\u2606.\u3002.:\u30fb\u00b0<\/strong><\/p>\n

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\"moomin<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n