Marketing Interactions

Ambiguous B2B Content Won't Cut It

You hear it from all over, including from me. It's not cool to talk only about your products because your buyers don't care about them, they care about achieving their business objectives.The platform for accomplishing the objectives is secondary to the value add from the company providing them.

So you go out with the best of intentions and try to write about problem-to-solution scenarios and educate your prospects about outcomes they can get should they choose to buy from your company.

And this is often the result:

    "[generic term for solution] will help you increase efficiency, streamline cumbersome processes and boost your employee productivity so you can achieve shorter time to market."

Huh? Yep - that's your prospect shaking his or her head and thinking, "yeah, that's what they all say. Means nothing to me." Delete. Move on.

What's happened is that in trying to sound more impressive than our competitors, we've stacked vague phrase upon vague buzzwords and achieved mediocrity. Um, maybe worse. In trying to steer away from what we know best - our products - we've landed in this nowhere zone of ambiguous statements.

Let's just say that your prospect reads that statement above and tries to have a conversation with a stakeholder involved in a project where your solution could be a perfect fit.

Prospect: "Hey, did you know we can increase efficiency by implementing this kind of solution?

Stakeholder: What exactly becomes more efficient?

Prospect: "Um, I don't know, but whatever it is, it also boosts our employee productivity, so it must be good, right?"

Stakeholder: "How does it do that? In comparison to what?"

At your prospects shrug, the stakeholder eyes him with concern about mental instability and disappears down the hall muttering under his breath.

Okay - perhaps a bit dramatic, but go grab a piece of your marketing content and scour it for vague terms and see how many you find.

The reason for all this vagueness in content is because we forget about context that matches our prospect's worldview. We've forgotten how to tell a story of interest to our prospects, that engages them based on interest and needs, not product features.

Efficiency is fine and dandy. It means to get things done faster and with less effort.

Context might look like this: When you use this type of solution you can increase production on the line by up to 5X what you're achieving today.

A statement like that is not only easily understood, but it generates ideas for the prospect based on their unique situation. They may grab onto that 5X improvement and apply it to the possibility that they can eliminate the need for that costly expansion project to add another line to the plant. Is that appealing? Yep.

The point is that the more real you can make the value your solutions deliver, the easier it is for prospects to insert themselves into the story you're telling and relate that idea to a goal they need to achieve.

And here's the kicker - unless you can afford to create 1-to-1 content based on research into each prospect's reality, it's highly unlikely that your content could actually address that exact justification and remain relevant to everyone in that market segment.

For someone else, the 5X increase might mean they don't need to staff up to meet increasing demand, saving them additional overhead when compared to the solution's total cost of ownership.

Replacing vague terms with contextual examples gives your prospects:

• a way to equate value against their specific situation
• credible talking points to influence stakeholder conversations
• increased interest in learning more to validate their idea

And those points all help build higher levels of engagement that move prospects toward becoming qualified sales opportunities.

So where do you find the fodder for context?

You find it in the ways your customers use your products and in the business results they achieve. You can use customer insights in content articles without the need to identify the customer. In fact, by leaving the customer out of it, you give the prospect more freedom to imagine the possibilities than if you named the customer.

For example, if I'm working for a midsize IT company, I may perceive that an outcome achieved by IBM isn't possible for my situation. They have more resources and a heck of a lot more money to throw at the problem. But without that preconception in the way, I very well may see how to apply that context to my own situation.

So, remember that context is great, but also be aware of how perception can be affected based on the layers of context you choose to use. Make those decisions based on the market segment your content is designed to engage.

Applying context in place of vague terms and buzzwords can transform the results your marketing content generates.

Taking Advantage of Leads = Marketing Fail

I received the email shown below. Take a look at it and tell me what's missing...

Yes, I tried to shield the vendor. That's not it.

Here's what I see:

1. They're offering me a white paper without telling me what I'll get. Do they assume that all analyst papers are of equal value to me? What if I've read it before?
2. Okay, so they want me to put my colleagues on the hot seat. Not just any colleagues, but those in the "applications area."
3. And, unless at least one of them responds, I've gone to all this effort for NOTHING.

It's ALL ABOUT THEM:

1. This email offers me no discernible value whatsoever.
2. They get leads in a specific role that they will likely pursue relentlessly.

Here's what's strange:

1. I'm not in the applications arena. I'm a B2B marketing strategist who was doing research on subject matter for which they had content that I wanted to read. So I signed up for a white paper download.
2. They're asking a marketing strategist to recommend IT colleagues.
3. They don't even clean their own database to make sure offers are relevant. Why? Because it's all about using their database to get what they want.

I wonder how many people actually did this? Would you be a bit disconcerted if one of your colleagues signed you up?

Which leads me to wonder if "my colleagues" would actually get the white paper or if they have to submit 5 people from their network in order to retrieve it. Hmm. Big miss on the delivery of value, don't you think?

Finally, what kind of lasting impression do you think this company is making? The next time I see something from them hit my inbox, I'll be wondering just what they want this time...surely it won't be to give me anything I need.

Or, maybe this will be the straw that has me opt out...

How to Use Existing Content in B2B Demand Generation Programs

Many of my clients don't have content suited for all stages of the buying process. Some of them have lots of content, but are stumped about how to use it effectively. So they think they need to start from scratch. Sometimes this is true, but often there's no reason you need to reinvent the wheel.  When it comes to designing nurturing and demand generation programs, it's smart to begin with your goals in mind.

This post is inspired by a comment left on Brian Carroll's blog post, Lead Generation Checklist Part 1: The Mindset: Conversations - not campaigns.

Commenter Barrett Coakley posted:

"Great idea. For our coming FY (July-June) we are trying to generate awareness of who we are and how we can help. Past has been more about product announcements as we released a number of products last year.

Now the goal is to show how these products can be a solution.
We have a ton of content, it is just hard to determine how to use it in a systematic way. How do you design a coherent and consistent program with a plethora of content?"

This is a great question. I'm really glad to see the shift from product announcements to demand generation. At least that's how I'm reading this.

Here's what I'd suggest to get you started:

Set Goals
It goes without saying that if you don't know what you want to achieve, you likely won't get anywhere. I see a few goals in your comment:

• Generate awareness
• Show how you can help
• Prove your products can be a solution

All good.

Start with that last one and work up to tighten your focus:

• What value does the solution provide that the stand-alone products don't?


• Who will gain the most benefit from that value?


• How does it help them? (what's the problem-to-solution scenario?)


• What's the urgency level of solving the problem?


• What successes have your customers achieved using the standalone products or several in combination that can be rolled into evidence in support of the value?


• Who do you want to know about you that doesn't?
  
  • Where are they? (how can you reach them? e.g. lead database, referrals, social communities, industry portals, events, etc.)

And finally, what kind of process do they go through when they buy your type of solution? What do they need to know to make an informed decision?

Evaluate Your Content
Create a content inventory, if you don't have one. Include the following:

• Title
• Description
• Type (educational, expertise, evidence)
• Format (article, white paper, video, customer story, etc.)
• Buying stage (what question would your buyer be asking that a specific content resource would answer? Is it an early stage question? Mid-consideration or final validation question before purchase?)
• Distribution - is it publicly available or reserved for nurturing? How is it being used today?
• Refresh - is it current, or does it need to be updated?

Based on what you see, are there any gaps or questions your prospects may have that your current content doesn't answer? How does your content play against the work you did during goal setting?

Often I find that content is weighted more toward the product side and less toward the education and awareness side. This is natural due to your focus on selling your products. But it's imperative that your content work across the buying process, matching answers to questions your buyers have to resolve so they can make the best decision for their companies.

Identify gaps and make notes about what may be needed to fill them. This could be re-purposing some existing content or developing some new resources to add to your mix. Also pay attention to segmentation. If your solution solves multiple problems, it's wise to assign content to the appropriate storyline.

Next, define context
Look at the style of your content. Is it written to address buyer's needs or as a showcase for your company? Remember that you know a ton of stuff your buyers don't. Make sure that your content isn't making leaps your buyers won't follow. The context will evolve as your content builds the value story. So make sure your content does, as well. Most importantly, make sure there's a takeaway for your prospect from each piece of content they view.

Create Connection Points
Content should not be standalone. It's really important to determine what someone who just read one piece might be interested in next. You need to create a plan to guide your prospects to more content on a topic they've expressed interest in. You need to build the story over time.

It's important to remember that if you bring your prospects to a content article on your website without offering any extension opportunities for engagement, you've missed an opportunity. Make sure your navigation and content groupings are clearly related to solving a problem.

Having a lot of content is nice. But, if it doesn't work together to help your buyers learn what they need to know to buy, it's just text on a Web page. Examine the way your content is displayed and determine how to improve the orientation for your buyers.

***

There's a lot more involved, but once you get this far, you'll have a great foundation for creating a framework that incorporates the content you have with the demand generation programs you need. And your buyers will thank you by making purchase decisions in your favor.

Customer Content vs. Marketing Content

There's a big difference between the information that will engage your customers and that which will engage your prospects. If you're trying to "kill two birds with one stone," the result may be just that literal.

Your customers already know you. They're using your solutions to gain business benefits that contribute to achieving their company's objectives. Just as you wouldn't walk up to someone you already know, extend your hand and say, "Hello, My name is Jane. It's nice to meet you," neither should the content you share with them.

Your prospects are a different story. They may not know much about you just as they may not know enough about the problem they're grappling with to decide they should solve it, or even how to go about doing so.

Using the same content for both types of people is just plain silly. It will miss with one audience, or the other.

This does not mean that your customers are now as enamored with your company as you are. They likely don't care that you just sold to another 250 other companies. They don't care about your latest press release, and they don't want to be educated about a problem they've already (hopefully) solved.

What they do care about is improving on the success they've already achieved. They care about what comes next. They care about moving smoothly into the future in parallel with their evolving business goals.

Customer content should be designed to:

• Expand the value they already receive from using your products
• Introduce new features that can take their success to new levels
• Show them continuous appreciation, care and listening
• Share "war" stories only they can appreciate
• Ensure satisfaction and build loyalty
• Promote "future" thinking

Your potential customers need that educational content. They need to know that your company possesses the expertise to contribute way more to their project outcomes than if they decided to buy from the guy down the street. Prospects need help building a business case. That type of stuff is old news for your customers.

Prospects need the confidence to choose your company. You may have 375 product features, but if solving the problem only requires 9 of them, those are the ones they care about. And it's not just having those features, but how the way they work together produces the outcome they need. Anything else is off the radar.

Prospect content should be designed to:

• Provoke extended interest
• Present business value
• Provide elements needed to build a business case
• Educate about the problems prospects face
• Invite interactions across the buying cycle
• Reduce risk perceptions
• Share expertise

When you compare these two lists, do you see the difficulty you'll face if you use the same content for both?

There's a lot to be said for mapping content to buying stages. But don't stop there. Continue to extend your content map beyond purchase and across the customer life cycle. Marketing doesn't stop just because your prospect becomes your customer.

What will your customers do?

As marketers, we're all used to looking at historical data and trying to extrapolate that into an equivalent of future behavior. Well, there is a better way. Predictive analytics is the new black for marketing decisions.

You may be familiar with the concept in relation to scoring credit worthiness or even targeting demographics, but using analytics to forecast into the future—based on what's happened in the past—with predictive accuracy puts a new spin on getting that ROI we're all charged to deliver.

If you want to know the probability of a customer to:

• respond to a direct mail or email offer
• spend a certain amount on a specific purchase
• become an advocate for your product
• buy into the next level of your solution
• and more...

Then you should plan to attend this webinar:

The Details:
Free Webinar: Putting Customer Value to Work: What Predictive Analytics Can Do for Your Bottom Line
Date: September 9, 2009
Time: 1PM Eastern, 10AM Pacific

Featured Speakers:
James Taylor, CEO, Decision Management
Korhan Yanak, Global CRM Business Analyst, Vodafone Group
Anne Miley, Sr. Dir. Technology Product Marketing, SAS
Mike Rote, Dir. of Teradata/SAS Center of Excellence

Register Now

Marketing in this continuously changing environment based on intuition, alone, is not the wisest choice. If you have big-time ambitions to do business more competitively, predictive analytics can help you achieve sustainable growth.

Go register to learn how predictive analytics can take your marketing, customer acquisition and retention strategies to new levels of success. Delivering on business objectives means we all have to get smarter about how we go after achieving our company's business objectives.

[disclosure: affiliate]

Responding to B2B Prospect Behavior

In the webinar I did yesterday with Genius.com about B2B drip campaigns with content mapped to buying stages, a question was asked that deserves more response than I had time to give.

The attendee asked:

"...would you change your drip depending if someone responded? Do you  know if , eg, they opened Drip 2, THEN and only then would you send Drip 3?"

This question raises several points that can sway the answer, so I'm going to break this down based on some possible types of response.

• Open. To me, this response is the most iffy. Sometimes it's hard to tell if they opened the email intentionally or if their email program did so right before they deleted. I wouldn't rely a lot on this metric with the exception that you do want to see it increase over time.


• Click to content offer. This metric tells you that your email messaging worked well enough to get them to click. It's helpful to add your web metrics to this one and see how long they spent viewing the content, if that was the goal. If they click through and bounce (leave right away) you have a different insight than if they click and spend a minute or two reading. If the goal was a download with a form, then I want to know how many completed the form.


• Click to content offer plus views additional web content. This can be one of the most telling metrics that applies to the question above. If the prospect clicks through to the content offer, spends time reading and then views additional content on your website on the same topic, that tells you they're interested in that topic.
  
  If, however, they click on your content offer and then move on to web pages with a different theme, product or problem focus, that tells you the prospect's interest may lie elsewhere. In this case, I'd send a follow-up with more of whatever they showed the highest interest in and see if they bite. If they respond, this could be an indication that the lead would be better engaged by a different drip campaign.


• Reply with thanks. Yes, this does happen when you send relevant content. And it tells you that specific prospect has a higher interest than one who may click and then leave. If you receive a "thanks" reply, go check that prospect's individual activity history to see if their behavior matches that assumption. Sometimes, people are just nice.
  
  This said, what a grand opportunity. Reply with the offer of an "exclusive" article that extends the topic. Tell them you appreciate hearing from them and send them a link to more content they can't find elsewhere. Watch to see how they respond.


• Reply with question. I love these! This is a conversational opening that invites you to respond. With this one, you definitely need to take this opportunity to answer their question and ask one of your own. If you can establish a bit of two-way dialogue, and use the opportunity subtly, you can learn a lot that can help you fill in the blanks on their profile. You can also learn if the lead is not a good fit.

NOTE: Make sure you're monitoring the email address you're using for your sends. You'd be amazed how many companies use a "no-reply" email. Think about what that says about your company.

Now, let's tackle the second part of the question.

There are many reasons why a prospect might not respond to "Drip 2" (second touch in the nurturing program - for those who weren't at the webinar). They include:

• Their day was jampacked, so they deleted everything not critical.
• They were traveling when you sent it.
• The subject line just didn't catch their attention.
• They don't care and aren't interested.

Waiting to send the next touch in your campaign until they open the last send, means you may never get another chance to engage them.

Your leads are people and each of them will respond to your word choices in different ways. Somtimes it's the angle you take in addressing a topic and, sometimes, it's just a matter of how many hours they have in a day.

What's interesting about this is to use your analytics to see which titles, subject matter and messaging catch the most attention. Monitor patterns over time. You may see that the more provocative subject lines catch attention, or learn that your leads respond better to the more serious ones. Make sure you gather enough insight to establish a solid baseline before you start changing things.

This is yet another reason why segmentation is so important. The more aligned in needs and interests the recipients of your drip campaign are, the easier it is to create content that a higher percentage of them find meaningful.

Unless they tell you to stop contacting them, I suggest continuing with your campaign, as planned. Monitor behavior patterns and adjust when you see a trend developing that you want to mitigate or encourage. But make sure you have solid reasons to shift.

When Does Content Count Most?

This is really not a trick question. The answer is when that content is the right information delivered at the right time and provides a recognizable takeaway your prospects value.

That's the subject of the free webinar I'm doing tomorrow at 10AM PDT with Matt West, Director of Marketing Programs at Genius.com.

It's part 2 of our 3 part series on using marketing automation and lead nurturing to improve your pipeline in 15 simple steps. In the last webinar, Felicity Wohltman and I provided 5 steps for developing a lead scoring process. You can view the archive here and download the accompanying guide in Genius.com's new Resource Center.

In tomorrow's webinar, also co-sponsored by NetProspex, we'll be giving you 5 Steps for developing content mapped to buying stages and assembling drip campaigns that engage your leads.

FREE Webinar: When Does Content Count Most?
Date: Wednesday, August 19
Time: 10:00 AM Pacific

With the answers to questions like these, marketers can launch drip campaigns that improve the health of sales pipelines...

• How can we create enough content with limited resources?
• How targeted does my content need to be?
• What can we learn from the content leads read?
• How do we determine a lead’s buying stage?
• What types of content create the highest levels of engagement?
  

Register Now - and see for yourself. You'll also receive a bonus gift of a how-to guide to help ensure you're prepared to create content designed for buying stages.

Got Leads? Now what?

There seems to be a lot of frenzied activity around B2B lead generation. Well, it's one thing to get leads to opt in, but quite another to help them develop a predisposition to buy from your company. Considering that 78% of marketers say they need to improve the quality of leads they send to sales (Aberdeen), there's work to be done.

For some reason, many marketers of complex sales equate requesting a content download to requesting a sales conversation. This is a definite misconception. In fact, the 2009 Sales Performance Optimization Study by CSO Insights found that, "59% of companies with sales cycles longer than 4 months said their ability to qualify and prioritize which leads to pursue needed improvement."

Sales cycles are getting longer. Buyers are taking their own sweet time to research how to solve their problems and talking with their peers and colleagues about the pros and cons of options they may choose to consider.

This means you need a kick-butt nurturing program.

Nurturing does not mean sending out whatever content is at hand each month based on your company's agenda. Nurturing means providing content that helps educate your prospects about a problem they're trying to solve, regardless of whether they'll buy from you today, next month or even next year. It's also about positioning your expertise as the value add they need but won't get if they choose some other vendor.

Considering that it takes at least three exposures to get an idea to take hold, this means you need to go about nurturing from a strategic perspective. It does not mean sending the same, exact article, white paper or eBook to them 18 times in two weeks.

The sooner you understand that the same idea can be presented in numerous ways, the more likely your content will become interesting enough to gain the attention of your prospects.

Let's say that your product offering produces 3 benefits. Instead of rolling all three into one content article, write a series of articles about each benefit.

A popular theme—especially during the economic downturn—is do more with less. But what does that mean? It could mean save time, save money, save space, reduce loss, re-allocate resources, optimize processes, etc.

You'd write about each of those a bit differently, right? But, each focus would evolve around the same principles you want your buyers to recognize in relation to your company. The more they hear about the value in differing ways, the better it gets. And the more they attribute that value to your company.

It's almost a squeaky wheel type concept - except, please, without the squeak.

As you monitor responses, you'll begin to see the cream rising to the top. These are the leads who not only access the content provided via your nurturing touches, but explore more of your content on their own.

Check in with those leads every so often to see if you can provide anything else they need. Do not call and ask if they're ready to buy. Call only if you have a valid business reason for the contact. The trick is to make sure that both of you benefit from the call.

The point is that generating leads is only the beginning. Without nurturing all you have is a growing contact list.

B2B Marketing is NOT a Speed Sport

Since it's Friday, I figure I'm entitled to a bit of a rant.
I keep reading things like:

Achieve marketing success in 20 minutes a week.

Manage all your marketing in an hour a month.

Stupid stuff like that.

Are you buying it?
Don't.

Instead of looking at ways to minimize the time you spend, why not look at what makes your marketing successful and figure out how to do more of that. Anyone who thinks marketing in this day and age will be successful with a "set it and forget it" strategy is in for a big surprise. Not the good kind.

I'm a huge proponent of marketing automation systems. I firmly believe that marketers will never be able to share highly relevant communications that engage the right buyers across lengthening sales cycles and get them to the sales team at just the right time without technology.

This said, what you put into your marketing automation systems is pretty much responsible for what you'll get out of it. The technology is a great enabler. It allows marketers to learn all kinds of things they never had solid access to before and look at that intelligence they gather in new ways. The systems enable refined distribution models that marketers probably couldn't create on their own. Scoring helps them to gauge when to pass leads to sales in a more effective way and it helps to reduce the wasting of leads by allowing sales to return the ones who need to mature back to you.

Great marketing takes time, thoughtful consideration and, well...strategy. And that's before you get to the execution requirements.

I'm not trying to make this harder than it needs to be, but 20 minutes a week or an hour a month is ridiculous. I'm a prolific writer and it takes me longer than 20 minutes to write a solid, valuable and relevant marketing article for a client. Often it takes hours to get it polished and tuned to give it the best chance at producing the highest levels of engagement.

Go ahead, try to write a white paper in an hour. I double dare you.

Try to analyze your lead scoring reports and determine exactly what's working and what's not in 20 minutes.

Does it take you more than 20 minutes to post a new content article to your website, write a blog post that links to it and then Tweet about it and share it with your LinkedIn groups? If you spend time thinking about how to make it relevant for each place you post it instead of posting the exact same thing everywhere, I'm guessing yes.

In an age where buyers are clamoring for relevant content (finding it less than 42% of the time), talking to others about your company and pushing sales interactions to the end of the buying process, it's just going to take longer than that to do marketing right.

Sorry. I'm just not buying the premise. What do you think?

Putting Customer Value to Work - Free Webinar

Quantifying the results of marketing programs is a priority for many B2B marketers. On this blog I've spent a lot of time talking about marketing automation systems and what you can learn from monitoring the behavior of your prospects' online behavior. The better you are at deciphering that data, the better you will be able to craft content, offers and messaging that generate prospect engagement.

This said, getting the most out of analytics is not yet a usual marketer's expertise. So, when my friends at the Smart Data Collective asked me to help them promote their upcoming webinar to shed some light on best practices, I jumped at the chance.

The Details:
Free Webinar: Putting Customer Value to Work: What Predictive Analytics Can Do for Your Bottom Line
Date: September 9, 2009
Time: 1PM Eastern, 10AM Pacific

Featured Speakers:
James Taylor, CEO, Decision Management
Korhan Yanak, Global CRM Business Analyst, Vodafone Group
Anne Miley, Sr. Dir. Technology Product Marketing, SAS
Mike Rote, Dir. of Teradata/SAS Center of Excellence

Register Now

Why You Should Attend

Analytics are not just about prospecting. They're also extremely valuable for gaining insights to your customers that enable you to forecast similar behavior for others like them. It's one thing to gain visibility into prospect and customer behavior, but completely another to effectively mine that data to discern significant relationships between variables that may hold into the future. Not to mention that these insights provide a foundation for making the best decisions about how to position your marketing and retention programs for best outcomes.

Marketing automation and web analytics are the first steps. You must gather data to use it, after all. This said, where we all can use a boost in expertise is in being able to extract intelligence from that data and use it effectively to gain the outcomes we're charged to deliver.

Imagine the difference if you can actually predict the likelihood of response to an offer before you ever make it.

I've talked about segmentation a lot on this blog. Yes, it's a challenge for many of us. Predictive analytics will give us new ways to address and implement segmentation strategies, getting us down to the nitty-gritty level to drive relevance higher than ever.

And that means shorter sales cycles. Now who doesn't need that?

Here's an example of what you can expect to learn more about in the webinar:

“In contrast to a traditional mass marketing approach, building analytical capabilities on campaigns that target specific customers based on their segments and scores provides a wealth of benefits to businesses,” says Korhan Yunak,  Global CRM Business Analyst at Vodafone Group Services.   “By mining detailed usage patterns, operators can micro-segment their customer base into hundreds of relevant segments based on usage characteristics and target specific customer groups that are most likely to be buy.”

Go Register for this webinar.

Bonus Gift: All attendees of the webinar will receive this new white paper, from Teradata and SAS - "Unlock the business value of enterprise data with in-database analytics."

[disclosure - affiliate]