Marketing Interactions

Redefining Gratification for B2B Marketers

Personalized experiences, relevant content and instant gratification are what we all hope for when we visit our favorite search engine and type in a query. Marketers are people, too, so they also expect these results. But, during a complex B2B buying process, as marketers, we need to redefine what gratification means in the context of our marketing programs.

ROI and accountability are the watch words for today's marketers. We need to prove the impact our marketing programs are having on business objectives.

As a brief aside, I"ll never forget a statement David Meerman Scott made during a presentation on this subject when he asked, "What's the ROI of the landscaping around your building?" If my memory isn't failing me, David said this in response to a statement made by an executive he spoke with who insisted that every initiative marketers undertake produce ROI. Kind of adds some context, don't you think?

Before you start scrolling down to the comments to tell me that ROI is important, I got that. What I want you to think about is how we're defining ROI, AKA gratification. Otherwise it's likely that you'll be highly frustrated during 2012 - and that's not much fun.

Gratification is not:

• Instant - at least in regards to sales.


• Always measurable in a meaningful way - but the feedback from customers and prospects can be awesome! Are you using it?


• Always related to your expectations - ever had something you thought "so-so" go viral? Or the reverse?


• Based on perfection - or you'll never publish or launch anything. Test and refine, always.

Redefine Gratification based on the following (in no particular order):

• Relevance - how does the response vary from one segment to another? What can you modify?


• Engagement - does the audience find it compelling enough to pay for with their attention?


• Multipliers - how many different ways can you spin an idea to produce a variety of contagious content based on what you'd invest in time and money for just one asset?


• Conversations - can you sustain them beyond a single Tweet?


• Conversions - focus on one objective; perfect getting the desired outcome from each call to action, not offering a laundry list and praying for something to happen.


• Testing - prove your theories and distance yourself from arbitrary decisions based on gut instinct.


• Transitions - if you have #X contacts this month, how many become prospects next month? Measure the changes to each bucket/stage across the buying process.


• Share of committee - Instead of marketing to a "decision maker," how many people on the buying committee do you influence? If your prospects' average buying committee is 7 and you have the mindshare of one of them, you need to expand your reach.


• Experience - Are all the marketing channels within your marketing mix working well together? Are prospects and customers gaining a higher quality experience when they interact across channels, or is there a disconnect that diminishes interest?


• Revenue - Are your marketing initiatives tracking to closed deals? Is the deal size higher?


• Timing - Is the buying cycle shorter for prospectswho have engaged with your marketing programs?


• Sales Enablement - are salespeople using resources provided by marketing to create more value during interactions with buying committees? 

Sure, the holy grail for marketers is quantifying contribution to revenues. But with a complex sale, you can't wait for 9 or 12 months to pass to report on your progress.

There are many ways that marketing programs can provide gratification to your company based on business objectives. Concentrate on incremental gratification that will roll up to the ultimate end result. All of these factors will work together to help you get there.

Relying on clicks and lead volume doesn't get to the depth of insight you need to keep refining and improving the ways in which your content marketing programs drive pipeline momentum. Get creative and consider how you can use each of these definitions to evaluate the impact of "landscaping" for your company. Everything we do as a company should be designed to impact business objectives. How are your marketing strategies and initiatives contributing to the end goals?

Content Marketing Hubs Deliver ROI

Last week I was part of the panel for the Marketing Superhero webinar hosted by OnPath where we discussed how to create demand generation strategies for 2012. I chose to make my tip about Content Hubs.

A Content Hub is a content marketing program that takes full advantage of a bigger content asset to combine lead generation with lead nurturing and gain optimal value from your investment in content development.

A Content Hub serves to:

• Generate leads and/or engage prospects by providing a valuable, extended experience.
• Presents the topic in a variety of ways through a variety of channels that all lead back to the hub.
• Keeps marketers on point by focusing everything around one topic important to buyers.

Here's what a content hub looks like:

In this example, I've used a webinar as the anchor content in the center of the hub. You can also use a white paper or other "big" content asset. Most marketers don't gain the true value of their most meaty content investments. In the case of webinars - the usual campaign includes:

• Send webinar invitation emails to your database.
• Promote through social media.
• Send a reminder email the day of the event.
• Hold the event.
• Send the archive link and file the webinar away as completed on the task list.

What a waste of your investment.

Instead, consider all the ways you can use that content - both pre and post event.

From the Pre-event perspective:

In addition to the above usual stuff, pull out a couple of the topics that will be covered in the webinar and write several blog posts to give people a preview. Get them excited and include the link for registration.

Start a discussion in a LinkedIn group that will appreciate the topic. Don't just post an advertisement for the webinar. As a question or two that will be answered in the webinar and discuss why it's important to consider the ways various answers might affect whatever. Then invite people to attend. Also submit it to events on LinkedIn.

Issue a press release that includes a two-minute preview video with the presenter. Have them hit on the high points of what attendees will learn. Include the biography and picture of the presenter and perhaps a one-page checklist or cheat sheet that people can download that will encourage them to sign up for the webinar to learn how to use it.

After the Event:

Take the slide deck and spiff it up for SlideShare. If it's mostly graphics with not a lot of text - which most good presentation decks should be - add some brief text to clarify the graphics and ensure that when you flip through the deck, the story unfolds without gaps. Post it to SlideShare and embed in in a blog post.

Take all the questions that were submitted during the webinar and write a Q&A blog post. If you don't have enough questions, create some more that your readers will find useful and answer those too. Even if you answered them during the webinar, people won't remember. Those who didn't attend the webinar may be inspired to go watch it. Never forget that webinars have a shelf-life that needs to be addressed.

Have the recorded audio transcribed, edit it and turn it into a white paper. Use some of the slides as graphics or the information on them to create sidebars. Voila - you have another meaty content asset and perhaps a new lead generation vehicle. Add in some expertise that wasn't covered in the webinar to make it fresh and new.

Take several of the points made in the webinar and spin a new article series that you can use in a nurturing program. Cull out several two or three minute snips of audio and create short podcasts that you can embed on your website along with the other materials.

Remember to create a comprehensive display of all the resources so that your Content Hub is useful, rich and worth returning to repeatedly. Make it the destination for people interested in that topic.

Creating Content Hubs gives marketers a number of content assets all focused on a topic prospects have expressed interest in learning more about. It streamlines the creation process and escalates the ROI marketers can earn from their investments.

One of the biggest challenges marketers state is creating relevant content. Another is creating enough of it. With a Content Hub, you can nail both challenges with ease. A Content Hub is an excellent way to gain more traction with your content marketing efforts.

Frequency: All the time vs. at the right time

In the Focus roundtable I participated in last week with Lisa Horner, Lauren Goldstein and Craig Rosenberg, Lisa brought up the term "perpetual denamd gen." This concept is a paradigm shift for B2B marketers that can be a great opportunity or present fierce challenges — sometimes it's a combination of both.

The nature of publishing on demand and 24/7 availability of content has obviously changed expectations for all of us. It's not only increased our expectations for instant gratification, but it's raised those expectations about the kind of information we should have immediate access to.

As a result, many B2B marketers feel like hamsters on the perpetual content publishing wheel. We keep peddling faster and harder to crank out more content, fearing that if we miss one opportunity, our online influcence will tank, competitors will get their messaging infront of our buyers first, or, even worse, we'll be letting down those buyers we've been trying so valiantly to build relationshps with.

I'm guilty of feeling guilty about this. My last blog post was over a week ago. Due to project deadlines and work commitments, there simply was no time—or brain power—to write a blog post. It was on my mind every day. This little voice that kept telling me "go post, go post, think of something, go post!"

Interestingly, my blog didn't tank. Traffic kept coming because of the nearly 1,000 posts I've already written. I like to think that's because they provide something my readers find valuable and useful. Then again, they could be showing up only to see nothing new and think, "Crap - where's the new stuff?" Ugh.

Which is the point I'm trying to explore. How often is often enough?

I've spoken with marketers who are feeling the pressure. The capabilities of real-time publishing coupled with the mandate to generate more and better leads has morphed into this ridiculous idea that the more content we shove out the door, the better our results will be.

I'd like to say, not necessarily. Some of the consequences of hyper-frequency include:

• Becoming irrelevant because your content quality becomes "so so" instead of "wow" due to the rush.
• Irritating because it's just too much to try to keep up with - we're all busy, right?
• Your content becomes a commodity instead of being a welcome break to indulge and learn. Hey, if I don't read today's piece, there will be another tomorrow. No big deal.
• Channel fatigue happens because corners get cut as marketers post the same thing everywhere, checking off the platforms to show the task has been completed.

When publishing becomes about publishing rather than about sharing valuable information, marketing programs will tank.

Instead of embracing an "all-the-time" mindset, marketers need to consider the difference an "at the right time" approach can make.

The ability to do this well is dependent upon the amount and type of visibility you have into prospect and customer behavior. Data is becoming the holy grail for marketers. What we know can determine how we publish, as well as the type of information we choose to share and the places in which we choose to share it.

Getting frequency right is a balancing act that will obviously take some work to achieve. Determining the best ways to listen to and interpret our prospect's behaviors and respond accordingly is an important skill to master.

I don't have all the answers. It differs with each company I work with. Testing and refinements are part of the process. But with visibility into the right data, we can begin to discern patterns and schedule our programs accordingly. Some channels require more frequency, some less. Prospects will respond to frequency based on where they are in the buying cycle. We can't treat everything the same.

And, with the overwhelming amount of content available, I'd say that, once again, we need to focus on quality, not quantity.

As a conclusion to this post, I'll share with you an excerpt from a DMNews article with a comment from Dave Frankland, VP and research director at Forrester Research:

Despite the focus on real-time marketing, just because data and automation tools have made triggered messaging easier doesn't mean a brand should always market itself moment by moment. Rahter, brands should focus on marketing at the "right time.

"If a customer can only change a contract once a month, it might not be the time to trigger a message just because they visited your website. There is no use in sending them a message when the timing isn't right. It's about leveraging the data so that you can send the intelligent message at the relevant time."

What do you think about frequency? Can you share examples of hyper-frequency that have backfired? Or examples of how increasing frequency at the right time has resulted in better response?

Which data do you use to determine frequency?

 

The Secret to a Longer Life for Marketing Content

I work with a lot of companies that are limited in their ability to produce enough marketing content. I don't mean just any content, but content that resonates and serves as currency to buy prospect attention and actions. The truth is that the life span for marketing content is usually cut short prematurely.

The secret is rather simple, actually. It's repetition.

But, before you can grasp the power of the secret, you need to understand what repetition is not:

• Using the same piece of content over and over.
• Saying the same things everyone else in your market is saying.
• Using the same self-serving calls to action (schedule a demo today!)

For repetition to offer up a secret life to marketing content, it must be based on the ideas it shares, not on a content asset, itself. Contagious content (that which buyers love so much they can't wait to share it with others) is based on the quality of the ideas and the context in which they're developed.

The secret to repetition is to spin those ideas from a number of angles to create multiple content assets based on the strength of an idea. I often refer to this as the Rule of 5.

Here's a basic example:

Let's say the main idea is "The expectations of the new buyer." The original idea is to write an article about how the buyer has changed, backed up with industry statistics and examples that are relevant for the target market you've selected.

To put repetition into play, determine other ways to spin this main idea. Examples might include:

• 10 reasons you need to change what you're telling buyers
• Why your customer's trust level has declined
• How to have a conversation with today's buyer
• What sales needs to close the new buyer

Now you have 5 topics based on one main idea that you can develop into marketing content using the same research you'll do to develop the content asset around the main idea. All with a different take or spin. Now, consider if you spin these 5 ideas based on vertical applications...

Prospects who are interested in any of this content will likely be interested in all of it. Now your calls to action can be "see also" links connecting these ideas in a way that motivates the prospect interested in that topic to engage with more of your ideas, influencing how they think about the topic.

Benefits for you include:

• higher relevance with prospects
• extended attention from prospect
• a connected content storyline
• less time and resources to develop the content
• increased credibility and trust because you're tackling the issue from a variety of perspectives

Why wouldn't any marketer want to create a longer life for the content they develop?

One reason is we get bored. We know too much. We think that since we've written about it once, our prospects know the information and understand why they should do something (hopefully with us).

This isn't necessarily true. It takes repetition for ideas to take hold. Up to 7 times or more for new ideas. The trick is that for repetition to be successful, it must be focused on the ideas - not the content asset. A longer life for marketing content is based on giving your ideas a bigger platform.