Marketing Interactions

The Myth of the Magic Bullet for Content Marketing

I'll just come right out and say it. There is no such thing as a magic bullet for B2B content marketing. This was a question brought up recently during a B2B Year in Review roundtable where I was one of the panelists over on Focus.com. I've been thinking quite a bit about it since then.

Carlos Hidalgo (@cahidalgo) posed the question:

Why are so many vendors & consultants making it sound as if B2B Marketing (technology, content development, etc.) is simple & should be done in weeks?

The simple truth is that none of this is, well, simple.

I know this is probably not what you wanted to hear, but as you head into the New Year you need to set the appropriate expectations for the evolution of your B2B marketing programs. For the purpose of this post, I'm only taking on the content marketing challenge.

Content marketing is a practice that it takes time to learn and, face it now, you'll never master it because it changes along with technology, tools, channels, buyers, preferences, trends, the economy, markets, industry evolution, and more. Heck, I've been a practitioner of content marketing for a few decades and I learn something new every single day.

But that's what makes it so vibrant, exciting and worthwhile. When you've put in the effort and you get it working well, it's about the best thing, ever. Yes, I'm a content wonk.

Here's the thing about content marketing. Where you start is important.

If there's a chance that I'm wrong and there is a magic bullet for content marketing, this first step is the closest to magic you're going to get.

Start Here >> Build Buyer Insights

That's right. What you don't know about your buyers will tank your content marketing programs before they even begin to roll down the runway.

When I work on projects, this step sometimes takes the most effort (depending on how many segments, profiles, personas — whatever you want to call them — are identified) And, in B2B marketing, there is always more than one. Research shows that most companies average at least three. I'm working on several projects right now that each have five.

What gets really interesting is when you dig deep enough to start seeing the real differences between them. Priorities shift, orientations are different, social behaviors vary and even career paths follow different patterns.

Why You Must Build Buyer Insights

Without buyer insights, you have no idea who you're developing content for. Remember that last high-level white paper that you read? The one where the focus was so broad that it was basically useless to you. The writer had no clue who the readers were. This is also usually when content devolves back into solution speak, because that's what IS known. Oh, sure, the writer may have been told to target the content to IT executives in global manufacturing companies with revenues of one billion or more.

What the heck does that mean?

Compare that to this instruction:

Target the content to "Ed," the Director of IT in a global manufacturing company. His latest challenge is to help distributed product development teams collaborate seamlessly to shorten time to market.

He not only needs to address allowing personally owned mobile devices, tablets and laptops on the network, but to make sure that the company's data stays secure. But his legacy infrastructure is giving him fits and starts as the complexity of managing it increases with each new service his team must deliver.

Ed craves simplicity, but he can't get approval from the CIO and the CFO for the hefty price tag a "rip and replace" would cost, nor can he afford any disruption to end users while he straightens out the mess — not if he wants that promotion he's in line for when his boss retires next year.

Would the content you write for Ed be positioned differently than the content you write for an IT executive in a company with one billion or more in revenues?

You bet it would.

Where do you get this information?

• LinkedIn profiles of people like Ed (don't forget to review the groups they've joined)
• Interviews with customers
• Interviews with salespeople
• Job boards
• Annual reports from companies with similar firmographics
• Twitter streams for specific #hashtags
• Blogs written by or for people like Ed

Building buyer insights takes a bit of time, but it's worth the effort. It's not a magic bullet, but it is the first pill you should swallow if you want to form a solid foundation upon which you can create contagious content that your prospects want to read and use to take next steps.

And that's the whole point, isn't it?

What Questions Will You Answer for Prospects in 2012?

I love this time of year. The New Year is stretching out infront of us, an open book ready for a story. That story will be fleshed out by the content you create and share over the next 52 weeks. Seems like a long time, but it will go by in the blink of an eye - just like this year.

One of the reasons that questions are so important is because they drive the curiosity to find answers. In a best case scenario, the answers to your prospects' questions will be found in your content.

So how do you find the questions?

Some resources include:

• Trend and prediction reports for the industries you serve. The analysts are out in force right now and many reports based on surveys of the types of target markets you serve are being published with an eye to what's coming.


• Customer interviews. Not necessarily formal surveys, but one-to-one conversations that help you hear the phrasing, concerns and opportunities voiced in your customer's words. If you can't do this, ask your salespeople to help out. Outline some goals for what you're interested in learning and let them run the conversations. If you can sit in, all the better.


• Social Media listening posts can also help to pinpoint interests. If you've created a list of prospects on Twitter, for example, what are they sharing with their networks? Which prediction posts do they find worthy enough to forward on? What are the trending topics you can identify and how do they line up with what the analysts or top industry bloggers are saying? (You are following them, right?)


• LinkedIn Discussion Groups are also a good source of industry-related topics that are gaining traction. With many of the groups now sporting open membership, you can often gain access where you might not have been been able to gain entry before. You'd be amazed at what you can learn.

You may also take a look at the end goals your customers have stated and then back into the questions they needed to answer to arrive at the decision to buy. LinkedIn profiles and job descriptions for roles your prospects fill can also provide insight to goals people in their positions are responsible for achieving.

Questions can also be indicative of which buying stage your prospects are in.

For example, a question that's equivalent to "Why should I care?" indicates that a prospect is in status quo. They are not actively pursuing solving the problem your products address or they wouldn't respond to that type of question. They would already care. These people are at the very early stages of the buying process and your content's job is to answer that question well enough to get them to assign their attention to learning more.

If the question is the equivalent of "Who can best help me solve this problem?" then it's likely that your prospect is in the options stage where they are in the process of selecting their short list. If this is your first entree to the party, you'd better come in fast and strong with information that will make them stop and consider learning enough about your company to consider adding you to their list.

The beauty of structuring your content to answer your prospects' questions is that you've designed the content to help you learn more about which stage of the buying process they're in. Once you've got an idea about that, you can increase the relevance, and thereby the level of engagement you can establish with them, through subsequent interactions.

To begin generating a list of questions for your prospects:

• Start with the problem they are trying to solve. 
• Narrow your focus to one persona or profile.
• Based on what's involved in solving the problem, what do they need to know?
   - what are their concerns about risk?
   - who else will be impacted and at what perceived level of cost or effort?
   - who do they have to convince to gain consensus for the purchase decision?
   - what could derail the deal?
   - what impact could their decision have on their career?
   - why should they trust your company and solution to deliver?
   - what do they need from a vendor that they don't already have? (beyond product)

Those are just a sampling of questions to ask yourself to get to questions your prospects will have. But hopefully enough to get the juices flowing.

Once you have your list of questions, how will you answer them? The answers will define the content you'll develop.

As you go through this process, you will start to see the order or flow that makes sense for publishing. (You can find more indepth instructions on this process in my book - excuse the self promo)

When it's all said and done, how well you can anticipate your prospects' questions and answer them in a helpful and relevant way will serve to determine your success with content marketing in 2012.

You ready?

Why B2B Content Marketing Themes Fail

Themes for B2B marketing programs are not a new concept. They're used to "organize" marketing programs and create a rallying cry around a market trend that will (hopefully) drive business momentum.

The problem with themes in marketing, as I see it, is that they're used as temporary marketing constructs — generally for the term of a campaign or perhaps a quarter. Themes generally do not originate based on a context that resonates with buyers.

Themes should be used as umbrellas that tie together the brand story with unifying and dominant ideas or motifs. A theme should weave through all of your marketing programs in relation to the brand's promise to customers.

What happens when themes are used as marketing constructs is that they:

• Change — sometimes wildly, confusing our target markets' perception about the company's promise.


• Lack Consistency — once your theme changes, those interested in your past theme may not follow along in your new one.


• Become Repetitious — when themes are used as marketing constructs, they are often too narrow and the content and messaging becomes boring and repetitive because there's no space for new ideas. Or not enough creativity to develop them.


• Lack Relevance — because they're focused on what the company wants to say rather than what the buyer wants to know.


• Become Anti-Social — With the rise in social media, if you're talking about your theme and then suddenly you're not, you appear a bit schizo (technical term) to those who followed you and now can't quite figure out who you are.

Here's an example using common themes for Technology Companies:

Q1: Do More With Less

Q2: Green IT

Q3: Align IT with Business

Q4: Mobility

There's nothing wrong with any of these. In fact the themes here can relate to many IT product offerings on the market today. The issue is the construct of sandboxing the ideas based on time periods.

Themes like this assume that prospects will only be interested in the theme during its assigned quarter. Well, unless you've got telepathic powers, this isn't likely to be true. But, yes, it's much easier to group your marketing efforts and programs based on ideas in a box than to think more holistically about building a storyline that engages prospects continuously and consistently.

Unfortunately, easy isn't the goal. Progressive engagement is.

I hear a lot of reasons for using theme constructs:

• It's the only way to coordinate marketing and sales messaging.
• We need something to present at the budget planning meeting.
• Our CEO wants to know what the themes are for next year.
• These themes match our product-launch roadmap.

I could go on, but you get the gist.

Here's the question that must be answered:

Are any of the reasons for using themes based on what's known about our target markets and what they care about?

I'm not saying to toss out the themes. What I'm challenging you to do is to weave them together into a story that builds a comprehensive business case to help your prospects solve their high-priority problems. It's not whether or not you use them, but in how you do so.

Instead of thinking, "I need another content asset based on Theme 1" - you should be thinking, "Based on the content our prospects expressed interest in, what will they want to know next?" Think "pieces of the big jumbo puzzle" not "4 different puzzles."

A story told over time focused on your prospects highest priorities will drive more pipeline velocity than the stop and start of themes based on what your company wants to say, when.

Is Gaming Your Customers Okay?

I've had a number of conversations lately with B2B marketers who are becoming concerned with, hmm, let's call it the overzealousness of some B2B marketing practices that are emerging. In the quest to gain what should be earned referrals and testimonials, some companies appear to be pushing the boundaries of ethics and standards by paying for them.

A bit of a disclaimer before I begin. I don't claim to have the answers, but I do think this is a conversation we need to have as an industry. I hope you'll chime in and contribute to the conversation. I'm all ears!

Also, I'm purposely refraining from naming or linking to any examples because my intention is not to reprimand vendors, but to honestly explore the ramifications possible to the industry from a practice that I see gaining traction that may become damaging to brand reputations.

For a bit of background, let's start with the FTC guidelines for endorsements in advertising [PDF]. *Statements below pulled verbatim from the guide linked to above.

• Endorsements must reflect the honest opinions, findings, beliefs, or experience of the endorser. Furthermore, an endorsement may not convey any express or implied representation that would be deceptive if made directly by the advertiser.


• Advertisers are subject to liability for false or unsubstantiated statements made through endorsements, or for failing to disclose material connections between themselves and their endorsers.


• A young man signs up to be part of a “street team” program in which points are awarded each time a team member talks to his or her friends about a particular advertiser’s products. Team members can then exchange their points for prizes, such as concert tickets or electronics. These incentives would materially affect the weight or credibility of the team member’s endorsements. They should be clearly and conspicuously disclosed, and the advertiser should take steps to ensure that these disclosures are being provided.

A situation that has surfaced recently with several vendors is the offering of prizes for the submission of use-case stories to the vendor or testimonials posted on social media in regards to a product or service provided by the vendor. The third bullet above is the closest I can find in the FTC guidelines, but it is essentially the same situation.

My question is, if the testimonials or stories do not disclose the enticement of prizes, is the information reliable, transparent and an honest representation of the experience had with that product or service?

Some vendors have stated that they have a clearly posted disclosure notice and that the people participating in the program or contest should know to follow it. But they don't. After all, 140 characters on Twitter doesn't leave a lot of room for disclosures. But does the posting of the notice absolve the vendor of responsibility? Not according to the FTC.

What if the collection of stories predicated on the opportunity to win a prize is done outside of public view? When the stories are used, if disclosure isn't made the vendor may be at fault, but who will know?

If you were submitting a story and wanted to win the prize (many of them are pricey and very nice), would you submit a critical story or a story about a bad experience?

How much differently would the story or testimonial be told if the person submitted it purely driven by self-motivation, rather than potential prizes or recognition?

Could it be that the desire for recognition from or "kinship" with a vendor or brand motivates people to post things they ordinarily wouldn't without prompting?

Is the offering of prizes actually gaming our customers? I believe can be.

Are vendors under the assumption that this is a form of earned media? In my opinion, that's not true. I see it as more of a form of paid advertising.

Some may argue that the people who participate don't know whether or not they'll win the prize, but this goes back to motivation to participate in the first place. Would they have done so without the incentive of a the possibility to win a desirable prize?

The FTC is very clear that if a product is provided along with a request for a review, that the blogger must disclose the relationship. This also holds true for endorsements.

The Word of Mouth Marketing Association (WOMMA) is also very clear on this subject as you can see in Standard 2 of their code of ethics:

"Disclosure of consideration or compensation received:  A WOMMA member shall require their representatives to disclose meaningfully and prominently all forms of consideration or compensation they received from the member, marketer or sponsor of the product or service.  In other words, WOMMA members shall not engage in marketing practices where the marketer/sponsor or its representative provides goods, services, or compensation to the consumer (or communicator) as consideration for recommendations, reviews, or endorsements, unless full, meaningful, and prominent disclosure is provided."

Are companies so zealous about online engagement that they're willing to pay for it, rather than earn it and mislead their prospects and customers along the way?

Another point to be considered is purpose or use. If companies want to reward customers to participate in  "social" focus groups within a community where opinions are shared and solicited for internal use and product/service improvement - and everyone knows the rules/conditions - that's one thing. It's when the information is used for marketing or advertising purposes or to sway brand opinion without disclosure that the problems arise.

What do you think? Overblown nonsense or a real issue that should be addressed?

The Difference Between Benefits and Features

One of the things I find in working with B2B marketers is that it's so dang easy to reference features rather than benefits in marketing content. Some of this is just because we know so much about our product and solution features. But, it's also because those dang features have a sneaky way of masquerading as benefits.

Feature or benefit?

• Customized reporting that enables you to pull data from a variety of sources with a few clicks.


• Instantly assess the insights from operational data through a visual representation to make better decisions in real-time.


• Segment your database by demographics or activity to create customized lists.


• Target the right message to the right customer at the right time to increase pipeline momentum.


• Streamline workflow with role-based assignments.


• Enable collaborative exchanges among product development teams to reduce time to market. 


• Ensure privacy of patient records in compliance with HIPAA regulations.

Features are what your product enables your customers to do.

Benefits are the outcomes your customers get that help them achieve business objectives.

The most relevant marketing content is focused on benefits. How you present them is a source of differentiation for your company. Features are a dime a dozen from a prospect's perspective.

Here are a few reasons why:

• Your prospects care about what's in it for them.


• Feature statements are often not intuitively understood by prospects in the early stages of trying to determine how to solve a problem.


• Feature statements often contain that "secret-handshake" lingo that prospects have not yet acquired.


• Understanding features takes more effort than visualizing benefits as applied to a prospect's specific situation.


• Features are difficult to evaluate until a prospect understands what it's possible to accomplish.

Education must happen in stages. When your marketing content focuses on showing your prospects that they can indeed solve their problem and potentially achieve more than they previously thought possible, they acquire the motivation to learn just how to get what they now want.

No one wants to be educated about features until they clearly understand why they should care.

Marketing content focused on sharing expertise enables your company to use marketing content to demonstrate and prove that what you promise can be done; that it makes solid business sense; and to substantiate that there's a reliable method or process to achieving the desired outcome.

Evidence-based marketing content proves that your products deliver that. (case studies, analyst reports, referrals, etc.)

Now it makes sense to speak directly to the features and why the way your features work makes your solution the best choice when all the other options are considered. Do so before your prospects understand what they can gain and you're likely to lose them.

Focusing on benefits is about answering all the questions your prospects have about solving a problem based on their self interest. Not yours.

Go look closely at your content. Have any features snuck into it masquerading as benefits?