Marketing Interactions

Revenue Generation is Not a Trend

I'm hearing a lot of hype about revenue generation in B2B marketing. Color me strange, but I thought that revenue generation was always the goal, however indirectly. The increasing emphasis on accountability from marketing has put the responsibility to prove contribution to revenue on the table. And it's about time.

Some major changes shining the spotlight include:

• Marketing automation technology - marketers now have access to the technology they need to gain the visibility into buying behavior that can be used to pinpoint areas for improvement and levels of interest.


• Buyers taking control of how they want to buy - if we don't accommodate what buyers want and need, we're giving our competitors who do an advantage. Oh, and they all talk to each other now, too. They're no longer reliant on you as the main source of information about solving their problems.


• Information availability leading to overwhelm and friction - just producing content is no longer enough. Our content has to rise above the noise by providing recognizable value in the places where our prospects spend their time.


• Less salespeople making quota - another indication that we need to get to know our buyers better, but also that their buying experience must be fluid from one end to the other to get to purchase.


• Longer buying cycles - uncertainty and constant change, less people tasked with doing more and lower confidence that solutions to problems will actually work requires more effort on our part.


• More people involved in the decision - and every single one of them has to be convinced of the merit of your solution based on what's important to each of them. A tall order for many companies. Most of these people cannot sign the deal, but they can stall and/or derail it by saying no.


• An increasing number of channels - email is not enough. The monthly newsletter won't cut the revenue mustard. Marketers must become proficient at bloging, article development, community participation, micro-blogging, eBooks, infographics, video, search, and more. But it's not just about delivery, we need to integrate these channels strategically and fill them with great content to drive intent to purchase.


• The economy - nuff said.

The biggest shift putting marketers in the hot seat is the delay in buyers engaging with salespeople. If marketers are now interacting with buyers throughout 2/3 of the buying process, this is a major game changer. It means that rather than focusing on brand awareness and lead generation, marketers need to take on management of that middle zone of the pipeline that can go on for months in a complex sale before buyers invite salespeople into the conversation.

With all of these changes, marketers now have the opportunity to elevate the work they do way above all the fluff of the past and into the realm of business necessity by proving that what they do contributes to company growth.

Revenue generation is not a trend. Never has been. It's just that now marketers can prove the contributions their lead management programs make across the buying process with the tools that help them manage and measure that contribution.

Inbound Needs Outbound

New marketing strategies and tactics attract B2B marketers like moths to a flame. For some reason, marketers think that in with the new and out with the old is what's necessary to get better results. One example is the notion that inbound marketing can be used as a replacement for outbound marketing.

How do you figure? Even Hubspot, arguably the creator of the inbound concept, uses outbound marketing to enhance their engagement with inbound leads. Anyone who receives email from Hubspot is getting outbound communications.

The difference is in how outbound marketing is defined and executed.

Inbound marketing is the concept of integrating content, search and social media to help prospects find your company through the sharing of information they consider valuable and choose to engage with.

If we consider the challenge of being found by prospects, what's really changing is the approach. With inbound marketing, we're working to attract prospects to our content through the optimization of search and the use of social media. Without the content, there would be no inbound marketing.

Outbound marketing—done well—is an extension of that concept. In fact, I'd argue that the defining difference is pull vs. push, which can also be stated as choice vs. interruption.

What we really want is to create extended engagement that manifests itself with the results of more time spent with our content vs. that of competitors and is considered valuable enough for prospects to share with others.

Take a look at a few approaches that rely on a combination of both approaches for success:

• Lead Nurturing - Continuous engagement with prospects who have demonstrated interest in specific topics by opting in to download a white paper or attending a webinar, for example. Instead of random email blasts to our databases (or even worse, purchased lists), we're honoring their expression of interest by creating and sharing content that addresses their preferences.


• RSS Feeds - Once you've enticed a lead to subscribe to your blog post, technically, each and every blog post that is relayed to them via the feed is outbound. Comments are inbound. Readers who share your blog posts are a source of inbound.


• Twitter - when we post Tweets leading back to our content, we're engaging in outbound marketing. Done well, each Tweet is an invitation to share information designed to be of value to our target market. Done old school, it's a megaphone blast screaming "look at us!" The first way is engaging and the other is noise. This said, others who Tweet about our content are truly a source of inbound marketing.


• Conferences - Participating as an exhibitor or speaker at a conference is an outbound activity. Whatever you deliver to those you interact with at a conference will determine its inbound capacity. Everyone who subsequently chooses to engage with you based on that experience can arguably now be considered inbound.

The true definition of inbound is creating the interest and engagement that keeps prospects choosing to continuously access your content because they've come to know that whatever you publish has a high likelihood of being valuable to them.

Inbound is definitely critical for marketing in today's overwhelming informational environments. But I'd argue that inbound doesn't actually work without outbound. It's all in how you incorporate the two disciplines.

What do you think?

Create Content with Context

People have no patience for things that don’t impact their right-now reality. If a flood is happening across the world, they may spare a compassionate moment, but are soon refocused on their daily priorities. If that flood is 2 miles away—and closing—they're riveted, intent on learning more about how their reality may change.

A bit dramatic, perhaps, but very true.

The biggest challenge for marketers today is determining how to create relevant, fresh content that catches and keeps potential buyers’ attention as well as that impending flood. The first part is getting noticed (favorably), the second is creating anticipation for what’s next—in consistently repeatable ways.

Often, it’s a matter of focus.

We've all repeatedly heard the phrase it’s all about the customer. The fact that it’s true doesn’t automatically shine a light on what that means for compelling content execution. That’s what Amplifiers help you do. But before you can do that, you need to know your target markets' situation in relation to the problem your offerings solve.

People assign relevance based on how the topic discussed relates to issues they’re dealing with right now. Knowing that “back story” helps your content immediately prove relevance by connecting with something important prospects are currently thinking about. That's the challenge of relevance.

What you need is a structure that will help you design context to attract and amplify buyers' attention.

Amplifiers serve as guides that help you tap into the natural ways buyers think. They make sure you have the best shot at addressing high-value issues with greater relevance. Since it takes multiple touch points to move a prospect forward in their buying process, Amplifiers provide a variety of ways to catch their attention and keep buyers focused on how you can help them solve their most pressing problems.

There are 7 Amplifiers that can serve as structures for developing value-driven content. They work best when marketing’s goal is to establish more than the fleeting attention that results from one-off messages. Moving prospects from attention to anticipation is the beginning of engagement. Amplifiers also help you build momentum that promotes the progression of your prospects through the buying cycle.

These 7 Amplifiers provide templates to create content that connects with buyers via their natural thought processes and relevance antennae.

1. Answer a Question - what is it your buyers need to know?
2. Relieve a Doubt - why would they think the solution won't work?
3. Confirm a Suspicion - what can you do to build their confidence?
4. Simplify Complexity - make an issue easy to understand.
5. Provide a Path - show them how to get to the end result they want.
6. Correct a Misconception - misinformation is everywhere - correct it and explain why.
7. Mitigate a Risk - show them why your solution is credible and build their trust.

If your content tries to use all 7 amplifiers at once, you'll lose their attention by introducing friction and confusion. Choose one amplifier to inforrm the context of a content asset. Content should be designed to do one thing. When you choose one amplifier to focus how you'll execute on the premise of your content asset, you have a better shot at extending engagement.

People have a high desire to know that their assumptions, beliefs and knowledge are correct. Industry advances happen quickly. Keeping up-to-date is vital to producing consistent, successful outcomes. By developing your content and communications to confirm, correct or expand understanding and knowledge buyers need, you’ll be seen as a valuable advisor helping to develop solution to problems they must address—or opportunities they need to explore.

Related articles

• One Content Asset Can't Do Everything (marketinginteractions.typepad.com)

DemandCon Video: Storytelling Turns Prospects Into Buyers

The guys from VisibleGains did a great job facilitating the video of my presentation at DemandCon. If you're interested in using storytelling to improve sustainable engagement wtih your content marketing programs, I hope you'll find some ideas that will be helpful.

 

Thanks to Joe Eldridge, Cliff Pollan and their team for shooting the video and to Steve Gershik and Shawn Elledge for putting on a great event! And special thanks to the audience for being fantastic!

Match Content to Buyer Value Perceptions

We all know the B2B buying process for IT products priced at $50k or higher is complex. There are more people involved with different stakes in the ground. BtoB's Lead Generation Guide wrote about how the Sirius Decisions 2011 B-to-B Buyer's Journey survey highlights just how important knowing about these perceptions can be.

The survey identified 5 types of buyers involved in the IT purchase decision:

• Champions - 42% are key sponsors of the purchase
• Influencers - 16% are trusted sources operating behind the scenes
• Ratifiers - 16% have the final purchase decision, signing authority
• Negotiators - 8% who manage price, term and conditions
• Users/Evaluators - 3% are those impacted by the purchase

Those of you who are solely focused on the gaining access to a buyer who can ink the deal (ratifiers) should take a second look at expanding your opportunities for engagement. Buying takes a village.

What I find interesting is that competitive impact is the highest factor for calculating return on investment (ROI) impact for end users and evaluators. Champions and influence rated money saved as more important. Additionally, ease of use is important to end users, but not so much to champions and influencers.

Interestingly, increased revenues wasn't in the review of the report I read. And time saved - which usually translates into efficiency - only came in at 10% with champions and 14% with influencers.

Given this insight, does the story you're telling fit the perceptions of the leads you're trying to engage?

For those of you finding it difficult to engage buyers, pay attention to search which is one of the top methods, word of mouth through industry peers also ranks high and 11% across the board say they use social media as a research technique.

The fact that industry analysts ranks right behind search and peers can also be seen as a validation that buyers are looking for ideas and insight - thought leadership - more so than product feeds and speeds.

Once again, we're seeing that the best way to connect with buyers is to address what's important to them. Even a small shift in messaging can make the difference in the amount of engagement your marketing content will receive based on the buyer type you're engaging with.

This said, ensuring that your content and company can be found when buyers start to look is critical. Reputation is as important as ever given that discussing needs with industry peers comes in second. But don't overlook work colleagues as recommenders. Expanding your contact ratio within companies is just as important as finding new companies to engage.

You might also find value in a post I wrote a few months ago:

Related articles

• Do You Know What Tech Buyers Want? (marketinginteractions.typepad.com)