Marketing Interactions

When Best Practices May Not Be Best

Many companies are obsessed with learing about best practices for their industry and creating a roadmap that mirrors those practices within their own strategies. We look to analysts, the tier 1 companies within our industries, vendors who solve problems we struggle with and whoever is getting the most media coverage on a subject we want to own. Based upon what they're doing, we think - Gotta get me some of that!

Best practices essentially have two parts:

• First is the theory, methodology and high level thinking that used to create and support the practice.
• Second is the execution of the first.

Best practices are appealing because they're usually based on something known to produce a desirable outcome. The downside is that those outcomes happen for the entity that developed and executed on that best practice.

Unless your company is exactly like that company, then adopting that practice as-is may not produce those results for you. But even more concerning is that your differentiation can be diminished if you're seen as a wannabe or imitator of the developer of the best practice.

When this happens is when we lose track of what we're trying to achieve and allow best practices to turn into hero worship. Imitation is not the best use for best practices.

Consider tossing out the 2nd part and focusing on the first. If you take a best practice and analyze the ideas and methodology behind them, what do you see?

Once you've done that, think carefully about how what you've discovered applies to you and your company.

Ask yourself a few questions:

Can you add in some of your own secret sauce to put a spin on a best practice that more closely aligns with what differentiates your company?

In what ways do your target markets differ from the source of the best practice? Based on those differences, how can you shift the best practice to align with what your company provides?

What's your company's distinctive value? Will adopting this best practice amplify or detract from that?

If you put the best practice into use, what will need to change? Culture, process, messaging, positioning, etc. Or what might change that you wouldn't want to change?

What do you expect to get from the best practice? Is that achievable? At what cost?

Another Way

Appreciate best practices for what they are and learn from them.

Figure out how your company's expertise can become a best practice and put that out there for others to learn from and model. That's part of being a thought leader within your industry.

We all have best practices, we just fail to recognize that when we're too close to them. Then we get sucked into thinking that the grass will be greener if we can just get what someone else has by doing what they do.

Best practices are great. I've even got a few of them up my sleeve. But, like everything else, they must continuously evolve to establish longevity as a best practice. How I do things today is not like how I did them a year ago.Today is better based on all I've learned in the last year and how I've incorporated those insights.

How are you building best practices for marketing your company?

What would you do differently?

Just a little something I've been thinking about lately.

Writing Content is Not a Job for Sissies

Ken Rosen wrote a terrific guest post over on Mark Schaefer's blog, {grow} - Five questions to help you choose your target market. It's thought provoking in several ways. If you haven't read it, make sure to take a spin through. It's seriously good.

The gist of it is that building a foundation is important and not to be taken lightly.

There are two things Ken said that I'd like to expand upon here.

"You have to convert someone who needs your product into someone who buys your product."

Although he meant this in a target market kind of way, I immediately think about marketing content - what else? - and how this shift is the main job a B2B marketer's content needs to help facilitate.

We'll get to more of that later, but Ken's post also provides the answer to how this shift is accomplished when he's talking about why and how he can get decision makers to speak with him for an hour at a time.

"Because they got to talk about their world and what matters to them."

If you change the word "talk" to "think" - you'd be pretty close to defining the effect that good marketing content can create.

To get to great content, leave it as is and consider how to create content that actually inspires them to "talk" about it with their peers and colleagues because the ideas are so in tune with their world that they can't help themselves.

This is actually a two-part bang for your content buck. First they think about the ideas you're sharing with them, then they talk about them. And that's what sets things in motion to shift from need to buy.

So, how do you get this to happen?

Here's one way to think about it.

Write about your target audience - not to them.

Sounds counterintuitive, doesn't it?

Here's how this mindset will help. In order to write about someone, you have to:

• Know them really well.
• Learn what interests them and what they hope to achieve.
• Discover what obstacles are in the way.
• Find out what motivates them to take action.
• Gain common ground.

If, instead, you write to your audience, you're tempted to:

• Talk about you, your company and products.
• Try to convince them you're the best thing since sliced bread.
• Miss the mark by relying on assumptions.
• Slide in that sales pitch, no matter how much you think you're not doing that.

This is because you're being you and saying what you think is important without realizing that it's grounded in your world, not theirs. You've still got in the back of your mind what's important to you, not what matters to them.

Create a Cheat Sheet

When I create content for specific target audiences, I make myself a cheat sheet. It includes things like what matters to them in relation to the topic and what factors in their lives/companies impact the thing that matters, along with a few other things like what I want them to do next. If I have that next action in mind, I can tease it into the content so that when I get to the end, I'm not just tacking on a link to contact the company for a demo or some other action that comes out of left field.

I keep my cheat sheet open in the background on my computer and refer to it often while I'm writing to make sure I'm on track. Sometimes when I don't do this often enough, I find that I've veered off course and have to delete a bunch of work and restart. This usually happens when I start writing to them instead of about them.

To write great content requires a lot of attention, effort, stamina, creativity, research and tools - to mention just a few things. It's definitely not a job for sissies.

26 Ways to Screw Up Your Content

I work with a lot of writers. Some work for my clients, some are freelancers I hire to help me complete project work and some are colleagues and peers who want a quick editorial take on something they've written.

I wrote a blog post about how B2B marketers need to tune and hone their writing skills. In fact, when I come across a marketer today who doesn't write, doesn't want to write and thinks that content writing is something other people do, I wonder what their next career will be...

This said, there are a number of things that screw up content. Sometimes they're obvious and sometimes they're not. But, they are all issues that will impact your content's effectiveness in doing the job you've given it.

Here's a sampling of 26 issues I've seen lately:

1. The hook is buried somewhere farther than the 1st paragraph. In fact, sometimes it's missing altogether.


2. Paragraphs are too long to be read comfortably on a web page.


3. The writing is stiff, with a lot of big words that make you feel like the writer thinks they are important. Anytime the writing distracts from the point it's making, you've lost your reader.


4. There's no structure to the piece to help the reader build the ideas into a meaningful takeaway with the addition of each new sentence or paragraph.


5. The company is speaking to you like it's an individual, only there's no byline. Companies should not speak in first person. A human does that.


6. The content is focused on getting what the company wants more so than providing what the reader wants.


7. The content talks down to readers, emphasizing how stupid they are and how badly they will fail if they don't do what the company is telling them to do.


8. FUD - similar to the above but focused more on scaring people with fear, uncertainty and doubt as the motivator to get them to take action.


9. Acronyms that are never explained.


10. Acronyms that have different meanings depending on industry orientation that are never explained.


11. No call to action.


12. Misleading calls to action. This happens a lot on Twitter when you think you're going to get one thing, but land somewhere that has nothing to do with what you expected.


13. No takeaway big idea or impression.


14. Too long for the format - like a 1,500 word blog post.


15. Titles that make empty promises.


16. Commercial breaks within content to push your product. Just because you gave me 2 paragraphs of good information doesn't mean you've now earned the right to give me 6 about your product.


17. Chest thumping and bragging about yourself. The leading provider of... kind of crap.


18. Defensive content that tries to protect your position on something. Either stick with your position or don't, but whining about it doesn't help.


19. Offensive content that goes after a competitor. Really? Stop it. Do you think it makes you look better? Microsoft vs. SFDC comes to mind. Although it can be entertaining for the rest of us.


20. Content essentially "borrowed" from someone else. Imitation is not the best form of flattery in some cases...nuff said.


21. Content that tries to do too much all at once.


22. Monotonous content that has no change in rhythm or repetitious sentence structure.


23. Grammatical errors and typos. I know you know this, but if I didn't include it, you know someone would say something.


24. No source attribution for statistics. Research shows that... Come on, inquiring minds want to know that you're not making it up.


25. Too many cooks in the kitchen. I'm sure you've seen this happen. The piece is pretty good, on its way to being solid when the powers that be start adding their 2 cents. Pretty soon you've got a big mess on your hands and it ends up in the trash (hopefully).


26. The 49-word sentence. If you have to stop and take a breath when reading a sentence, it's too long.

I could go on, but you get the idea. One of the best ways to fix a lot of this is to actually read your content out loud. First to yourself, then read it to others or have them read it to you. Watch for eye rolling, stumbling over the words, too much alliteration, etc.

Don't depend on spell check to find all the issues. Different versions of words will pass muster, but may not be the correct usage (there vs. their, for example).

Refer back to your premise for the piece. Does the content actually address what it's supposed to? Is every sentence on point? Is it focused on addressing a specific audience in a specific stage of buying?

Look at each sentence to make sure it's necessary. If you removed it would your content suffer? Would the point not be made? Tighten your writing and eliminate superflous words that aren't necessary - adjectives and adverbs love to sneak in. A few is fine, but often there are way more than are necessary.

Did I miss any pet peeves you have about content? Let's hear them.

7 Recipes for Lead Nurturing - The B2B Cookbook

I have to tell you that this is one of the freshest projects I've worked on in a while. The Lead Nurturing Cookbook, published and produced by Manticore Technology combined entertainment with expertise and recipes for creating lead nurturing programs which will be useful to marketers with or without marketing automation systems.

Of course, you know I'm a huge supporter for companies embracing the technology. But what I think is critical is that if you can "cook" with these recipes, even using a wooden spoon, you'll begin to see the processes for a strategic execution that will help you see the value in investing in the gourmet tools.

Each recipe tells you why you should use it, what you'll get and how to entice your leads to engage with you. You get a list of ingredients, step-by-step instructions and pointers from expert chefs.

Now for a tantalizing preview of these tasty recipes:

• Delectable Demand Generation with Seasonal Fresh Leads
  Expert chef, Craig Rosenberg aka @funnelholic


• Inbound Lead Qualification with Sweet Sales Optimization
  Expert chef, Michael Damphousse aka @damphoux


• Extended Lead Nurturing with Succulent Results
  Expert chef, Brian Hansford aka @Zephyr47


• Sales-Driven Lead Nurturing with Buying Cycle Reduction Sauce
  Expert chef, Tibor Shanto aka @Renbor


• Tantalizing Tradeshow Lead Follow-up with a Revenue Demi-Glaze
  Expert chef, Jeff Erramouspe aka @jefferramouspe


• Classic Customer Education with Retention Remoulade
  Expert chef, ME aka @ardath421


• Revival Lead Nurturing stuffed with Sales Leftovers
  Expert chef, Carlos Hidalgo aka @cahidalgo

As you can see, there are recipes for all tastes and nutritional needs in this collection. You'll definitely find a recipe that suits.

Download The Lead Nurturing Cookbook today and start lining up your ingredients to create some gourmet lead nurturing of your own.

Relevance is Not an Option

B2B marketers are focused on lead generation more than they are on lead nurturing. The problem is that without the nurturing, generating leads is merely an exercise in trying to scrape the 10% who may be ready to buy and then dumping the rest into an afterthought category.

Likewise, 78% of marketers say that they're ramping up their social media use this year. One of their main metrics is the number of followers, likes or RSS feed subscriptions they can amass.

The problem with all of this isn't the number of people who click to follow, it's how marketers are going about engaging them.

Take a look at what happens when your messaging isn't perceived as "relevant":

• 49% unsubcribed to email streams they'd opted into previously
• 43% have "unliked" a company on Facebook, 38% due to irrelevance
• 52% have unfollowed a brand on Twitter

[See the report The Social Media Breakup]

Part of what causes this is that companies make assumptions about what customers want via a relationship on social media. A new study by IBM found that the perception gap is likely wider than you think:

 

The study recommends that, "Instead of asking why your company should engage in social media, ask why a customer would choose to interact with your company in a social platform. Recast social interaction strategies to focus on giving customers the value they seek and the customer intimacy will come."

In other words, whether social media, email, blogging, articles, white papers, eBooks, videos, podcasts, etc., the perceived value of the content is what you're being judged on every time. In all cases, just showing up is not going to work.

Before you set your expectations too high, consider that many customers in this study said they chose to interact with brands that they already had a strong relationship with. Perhaps the ramp up strategy for social media should actually be customer nurturing instead of new lead generation. Or, maybe it means using it later in your lead nurturing programs to create cross-over between channels once you've started building that relationship.

Those are just a few things to think about.

But the gist is that we do need to think about them. We need to listen and plan before we engage. We need to decide on which goals are the most appropriate for our company to pursue, given what we hear. And we need to make sure that the experience we offer across all our channels is consistently, well, relevant.

After all, 75% of executives say they believe that reaching out to customers via social media will improve customer advocacy. Unfortunately only 38% of customers agree.

I'd say we have some work to do.

Considerations for B2B Email Frequency

This is a question that gets asked a lot; How often should we send emails during a nurturing program? And, yep, wait for it — the answer is — it depends.

Here are some of the factors to assess when formulating the answer to the frequency question:

• How long is your buy cycle?
  If it's 8 months, trying to increase the frequency to complete the program in 3 months isn't going to change that. Buyers will move at their own pace. Fatigue them and lose them. Being uber pushy also results in pushing them away. Instead of trying to use frequency to increase their urgency and momentum - focus on how your content can help do that. Trying to increase your buyers' momentum with frequency is really a demonstration of your urgency, not theirs.


• What volume of content can your resources produce?
  If it takes one month to get an article researched, written and to pass muster through the corporate editing process, you need to account for that in relation to the number of resources you can assign to the project. Map your processes to a timeline so that you can meet the frequency schedule you choose to follow. Being able to continuously publish content is important. Better to space it out and do it well than to rush to publish based on an artificial schedule you cannot maintain over the long haul.


• How will you publish the content?
  Can you publish blind (not on the site navigation) web pages quickly and easily to use their URL links in your emails? Or do you need to wait for two weeks once your content is ready to go for IT to get it loaded and published for you? Or, do you need to publish in PDFs which means more time for production with graphic design and layout?


• Who else is emailing to the lead list identified for this program?
  Is corporate marketing sending awareness pieces or a company newsletter out once a month? Are your leads also receiving invitations to webinars? What about new product announcements or version releases? What else? Unless you can isolate your targeted lead list, you need to look at the entire universe of email that they could be exposed to from your company and plan accordingly. As I said before - fatigue them and lose them.


• Are you able to segment your lists for better personalization or are you still using a one-size-fits-all approach?
  If you're segmenting - bravo! Your frequency should be slower with content offers matched to progression across buying stages based on the specific interests of that segment. Remember that your buyers are just as busy - if not more so - than you are. This said, responding to them when their behavior shows a pick-up in interest should be built into your frequency (touch point) plan.
  
  If you're unable to segment your list, I suggest selecting 3 possible themes/issues that may interest the different segments of your list. Identify the hook quickly so those who aren't interested can pass until they get an email with higher relevance. With this method, you will have lower response rates because your emails and content will be targeted to a specific segment even if your list is not. But, you'll have the opportunity to engage those interested in specific topics and can begin to identify with them based upon response. You may also spur pass-along as one lead may share or forward something they know would interest someone else on the buying committee.
  
  This said, don't start sending like crazy trying to meet all interests at once because you'll alienate your entire list. Rotate through the themes with one send every 10 days and that way you'll be delivering something relevant to the interests of your leads at least once per month - even while using one list for all. Not the best approach, but I've seen it work when planned well.

There are other things to consider in determining frequency, but I hope this helps you get started. Remember to look at the answers to the question in two ways. The first is  related to your internal processes, the second is related to your prospects' experience.

Frequency affects both sides.

Does Your Marketing Content Match Your Goals?

Part of the challenge that marketers have in creating B2B content marketing programs that deliver on the goals set for them is that it takes more than content + email to = results.

Here's an example of what I'm talking about:

Program Goal: Building brand awareness for your company, solutions and expertise with newly acquired leads.

Content Offers: Analyst research papers discussing topics of interest.

Do you see anything wrong with the alignment of the goal and content offers?

There's no relationship from one to the other. The analyst research papers promote the analyst's expertise and are likely not specific enough to address the way your solutions will help your prospects solve their problems with your company's help. At least not in any way that would differentiate you from your competitors.

[Unless, of course, you sponsored a paper that specifically covers your solutions. However, I'd advise that this is likely later-stage content that what's needed to address the premise of this program.]

Instead, try this approach:

• Write a series of articles that express your company's expertise in relation to a specific issue that your newly acquired leads may be addressing.


• Quote specific statements or statistics used by the analyst white paper(s) to support your perspective and align your company with an analyst that already has credibility with your target market.


• Offer the analyst paper(s) as bonus content in addition to your articles - this might also be a good time to ask one or two profiling questions to help learn more about the leads in exchange for the analyst paper download—after they read your article.

When you approach the construction of your marketing program in this way, your content offers will align with your goal to build awareness of your brand, solution and expertise. The added bump is the alignment and substantiation from the bonus offer of the analyst white paper.

Using 3rd party expertise can be very helpful to the achievement of your goals for marketing programs. It's all in how you go about using it in support of your goals.

Content is not just about sharing information. It needs to align with a defined purpose/goal in order for you to create content marketing programs that actually deliver the results you're after.

Now, here's the flip side that would make the offers of 3rd party analyst papers work:

If your goal is to become a source for valuable information or to drive download registrations you can then filter into a program like the one above, then use them. Just don't believe that the newly acquired opt ins are actually leads until you do more work on engaging with them with your own content, rather than someone else's.

B2B buying is still about building a relationship and proving that you can deliver on what you promise your solutions will enable. Your prospects aren't buying from the 3rd party analyst, so they're going to need you to put your cards on the table before they take next steps.

Do You Know What Tech Buyers Want?

As marketers, we like to think we know what our buyers need and want and that we give it to them across the course of their buying process. But, do we really? If we're only listening to what they say and not watching their behavior, we may miss a few critical nuances.

ITSMA recently conducted 486 telephone interviews with a pretty even split of business and technology decision makers involved in tech purchases across a variety of industries and discovered what they call the New Buyer Paradox.

Take a look at a few of the contradictions:

• Buyers act like thier first priority is cost cutting, yet they've also earmarked growing revenues and improving productivity in their list of top 3 priorities.


• Buyers don't want to engage with sales until they're ready, but insist that strong relationships with vendors are important factors in a purchase decision.


• Buyers admit they're short on time but want relevant content — lots of it. Only they're picky about how they want to access and consume it. 


• Buyers want unique, customized solutions, but they want proof you've done it before.


• Buyers want thought leadership and visionary ideas, but they want realistic solutions.

I think a lot of these are applicable to B2B buyers of other products and services than technology solutions...

And just to give you a bit more to think about and to justify that you should actually address what your buyers are thinking and doing, take a look at the following proof points:

Thought leadership is important to your buyers. In fact, 56% of them said they meet with their solutions providers regularly. The kicker is that only 9% say their vendors bring them thoughtful, relevant ideas about solving their problems. Do you see an opportunity?

As you can see, this is not only important for content marketing programs, but also for sales enablement and collateral development. With 58% saying that thought leadership is critical or important, conversations and dialogue must improve across the buying process.

Something to consider is that buyers want to partner with thought leaders than can count on to bring relevant and valuable ideas to the table. This doen't mean that supplying them with an analyst white paper will cross this off your list. They aren't forming a relationship with the analyst.

This said, that doesn't mean you can't use third party content. Just do so wisely in support of your own thought leadership efforts.

For those of you who always ask me how I know buyers are using social media during their buying process, here you go:

This presents a real need to be using social media to advance buying conversations. But not just with "hey, how ya doing" - but by providing links to relevant content. This should help dispel the argument that tech buyers aren't using social media. Then again, for those of you who continue to believe that, we'll take the advantage. Oh, and thanks!

Now, take a look at how buyers are sourcing other informational needs during their purchasing process:

That third one is the one you can impact now. If you're looking for a reason to whip your website into shape and start or gain support for your company blog, look at #3 on the list. But, even better, consider that becoming a thought leader can also impact #1 and #2.

If you're a tech marketer looking to move the needle with buyers this year, this should give you an idea of where to start.

Go here to download the ITSMA study.

 

Lead Generation is NOT IT

As the latest research, surveys and reports about content marketing begin surfacing, I'm wondering if  B2B marketers are really embracing change or if they're stuck in the past? Time and again, I see lead generation as a top priority goal while lead nurturing comes in at the bottom of the heap - behind web traffic and brand awareness for crying out loud.

Lead Generation is a hello and a handshake.

Lead Nurturing is the art of building a relationship with purpose.

Big difference. HUGE.

To be successful, marketers need to integrate them both into a lead management process.

In the 2010 B2B Content Marketing Trends report from Marketing Profs and Junta42 they found:

"Marketers report that content marketing supports multiple business goals, led by brand awareness (78%), customer retention/loyalty (69%) and lead generation (63%); the least widely employed goal for content marketing is lead management/nurturing."

And "Web traffic is the most widely used success metric (56%)"

In another recent survey completed last month by TechValidate, they found that the biggest reason marketers create content is for a lead generation campaign (60%), but only 2.9% cited the need for a lead nurturing campaign.

Interestingly, they also report that thought leadership content is more effective than lead generation content and that 3rd party analyst content is more effective than content written in house.

Does anyone see conflict in the way effectiveness of content is matching up to goals? And, I might add that, with 3rd party content, you don't know if the person is interested in your company or the analyst information that they'd have to pay $ for elsewhere.

First, let's dispel this idea that an opt in is actually a lead. Because they're not. They're someone who was interested enough in the offer presented that they chose to fill out a form to gain access to it. Period.

What they choose to do next in response to your content and communications is a critical pivot point. One that won't happen if marketing programs stop at "lead" generation.

The evidence exists that buyers spend more time self-educating via the Internet than they do in conversations with salespeople. There's also proof that, due to this change, sales is only invited into the last 1/3 of the buying process.

With a complex sale, there's a lot of knowledge transfer that must happen. If they're not getting it from you during a nurturing process, which competitor are they relying on? And why do you think you'll suddenly pop up on their shortlist if you haven't been there, being helpful, all along?

And, if salespeople are cherry picking all the "leads" you toss them, what's happening to all the others? If they were interested enough to fill out a form, they may eventually become buyers.That's up to what you do in an effort to build a relationship [read nurture].

After all, the subject is top of mind enough to cause them to pay for content with information. So, what's the benefit of spending all that budget to let non sales-ready prospects languish unattended?

Some of the problems that are cited with content development are that it's too time intensive, too labor intensive, too costly and that companies lack the expertise necessary to create great content. I don't think avoiding solving these issues is going to help. In fact, I'd wager that it would be a good idea to solve them before jumping on the social media bandwagon - which seems to be one of the top goals for marketers these days.

Content marketing is a critical skill set. It's necessary to get beyond the "lead" generation mindset to prove contribution to revenues.

What will it take to get this status quo focus on lead generation to change?

Marketing Automation Provides Tactic Validation

I was just reading a post by Mac McConnell, You've Got Marketing Automation. Now What?, and one of the points Mac made really resonated with me. He was talking about what could be referred to as throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

One of the things that marketers must get better at is the ability to measure the effectiveness of every element of their marketing mix. In the scenario that Mac shared, his client had stopped doing tradeshows because they didn't think they were as effective as other tactics.

According to Adobe's 2010 Analytics Survey, 44% of 1,000 marketers surveyed said they could not allocate sales and costs to marketing campaigns. Given this, it's not really surprising that 76% of marketers cannot measure full marketing ROI.

Which is why many marketers are still playing the intuition game.

So, back to Mac's story. What his client did once they had marketing automation to track lead disposition was to divide their spend equally across 3 demand generation initiatives:

• list rental
• content syndication
• one trade show

Guess which one is driving 2.3X more pipeline than the others after 6 months of tracking and measuring activity and results?

Yes, that would be the trade show the company had eliminated from their marketing plan because they thought the event wasn't successful.

There are a lot of new marketing technologies, processes and tactics available [read shiny new toys]. But this doesn't mean that the more traditional tactics aren't effective - well at least some of the time. The important thing is to gain insights to deeper data that can prove how close your intuition is to the truth.

Mac's post also provided a great chart showing the difference between engagement with content that prospects find valuable and that ridiculous "look at me" content that many companies are still cranking out.

The difference is striking - click over to Mac's post and see it for yourself.

Although I have to say that the customer story statistic surprised me. The questions I'd have for Mac would be during which stage of the buying process was the customer story used? And, was it a valuable story that showcased the problem-to-solution process or a glorified 2-page brochure that touted brand and product names without any meat on its bones?