Marketing Interactions

Robotic Email Campaigns Miss the Point

In addition to learning that lead generation is the top marketing priority for tech marketers, IDC's 2012 Tech Marketing Barometer Study asked them about their perceived effectiveness at lead nurturing. In reponse to the 22% who said they use regular nurturing touches geared to buying stages that include more than email and web-based multi-step campaigns, Kathleen Schaub, VP-research, CMO Advisory Service at IDC, said:

“I don't believe this, or people don't understand what nurturing means,” Schaub said. “I talk to a lot of our clients and people in the industry, and I know for sure that people are not nurturing well.”

Based on what I've seen, I agree with her. Kathleen also made the comment,

“A lot of people look at nurturing as, "Now we can program our campaign system to deliver six emails in a row.'"

Hence the need for this post. Yet again.

Lead nurturing is not about sending out emails on a regular schedule just because you can. Or just because you think that constant communication (regardless of relevance) will help you sell something. It won't.

And it's evidence that marketers have missed the point.

Lead nurturing is about providing education, expertise, and evidence that help prospects learn what they know during each stage of the process and build the confidence to make a buying decision in your favor — or to gain the consensus from those involved in the decision to get the deal done. It's about positioning your company as an expert that can bring more value to the project than the product would alone.

Let's face it, perceived value, expertise and credibility are the true differentiators in today's marketplace. Otherwise it would just be a price war.

Stringing together 6 emails as a set-it-and-forget-it program won't do this. Don't misunderstand. It's not about the number 6, but the laziness behind the robotic campaign that sets my teeth on edge. Based on the length of the buy cycle, 6 touches may do the trick — if they're relevant and build the right story.

The problem with robotic email campaigns is that they:

• Lack the consistent provision of relevance and value
• Irritate your prospects (based on the above)
• Don't build your credibility
• Are likely focused on feeds, speeds and products
• Don't take into account buyer behavior during the campaign
• Are a campaign, not a strategy
• Have no progression of story that builds momentum
• Have no cohesive story
• Do not differentiate your company
• Are more about timing than context
• Do nothing to stimulate dialogue
• Create another marketing silo
• Don't integrate with programs in other channels
• Probably push the sale for lack of anything better to do
• Are instantly forgettable
• Train your prospects to achieve speed records in clicking delete
• Are about you, not them
• Let you check the box without achieving objectives
• Put you squarely in the marketing fluff camp
• Usually aren't tied to revenue
• Make your company irrelevant
• Don't provide ideas worth sharing (or even pondering)
• Lack the ability to stimulate curiosity
• Repel engagement

I can probably think of more, but you should get gist.

Please understand that this has nothing to do with marketing automation. I think every marketer should have it. It's what you do with it that counts.

Lead nurturing is a process. It's the unfolding of a story that helps the buyer understand why they need to solve a problem, options for solving it, why they should change and why they should choose you to do so. It's never about buying a product. At least not overtly.

This takes thought, planning and the establishment of a lead management process that's managed to goals and objectives.

And it takes the chops to develop outstanding content designed for buyers.

It also means that you need to think outside the Inbox. Lead nurturing happens with every asset your prospects come in contact with in whatever channel they're using. Whether they see a Tweet and click to read a blog post or receive an email with a link to an article or white paper, or find your infographic using search, the result should be the perception of value and time well spent.

So before you go hook up 6 emails in a row to send out on a schedule, take some time to think about the experience you're creating for your buyers. If you need more motivation, review the list above highlighting the consequences of using robotic emails.

Picture courtesy of Robot Pictures

Designing Calls to Action for B2B Marketing Content

During my keynote at the B2B Content 2 Conversion conference on Tuesday, one of the questions the audience asked was about a slide I used when discussing how to create a content flow. To sum it up, I suggested that each "touch" should be based on three components:

• The question your content will answer for a persona.
• The answer to the question that becomes the content asset.
• A call to action (CTA)

I was asked to elaborate on what I meant by a call to action.

The normal response to the "call to action" mandate is inserting a "have a sales rep call me" or some other version of pushing the sales conversation. But, this is not helpful during much of the marketing process.

Marketers need to reframe the way they think about the CTA, flipping it from what they ultimately want (qualified leads that will buy from their sales team) to what will be helpful to their prospective buyers. But what's even more concerning is that much of the content used by marketing doesn't even nod in the direction of a CTA - demonstrated nicely by a post written by Eric Wittlake — New Research: B2B Content is a Dead End — which he telepathically knew to publish today so I could link to it!

Calls to action should be used to build the best and most engaging buying experience imaginable. They can take many forms and accomplish the momentum needed to turn cursory attention into intentional attention directed toward embracing change to solve a specific problem.

Some of the benefits available from putting thought into designing calls to action:

• Extend engagement by providing additional information about a topic the prospect showed interest in.


• Showcase your company's expertise in solving the problem.


• Expose the prospect to content that they may have overlooked by linking to the previous touch in your nurturing program.


• Differentiate your company's expertise from the competition.


• Build credibility for your company as a valuable resource.


• Cement your ideas with prospects so they get used in conversations when your company is not "in the room."

I'd say those are some pretty good reasons to give CTAs some serious thought.

An additional consideration is to make sure that you vary the types of content you're linking together to create that interesting experience for your buyers. For example, all calls to action don't have to be links to other resources. A call to action can also be an embedded resource within a content asset, such as embedding a video or slideshare into a blog post or article. If the prospect reads the post/article and views the embedded content then you've achieved that extension on attention.

One note of caution: Just because you can add CTAs doesn't mean you should saturate every content asset with links, embeds and "see also" extensions. This is why designing CTAs takes thought.

What's the one thing you'd like for your prospect to learn next?

Give them that with each content asset. If you do this, you'll create connected pathways that thoughtfully engage prospects by offering them additional ideas that make sense given what they've just engaged with. Don't overwhelm them with choices or it will backfire on you by increasing the effort to choose.

Calls to Action enable marketers to serve as the guide to the buyer experience. Go out and build a great one!

Below is my presentation from the B2B Content 2 Conversion conference. Slide 19 is the one I mention at the beginning of this post:

10 Steps to Launch a Content Marketing Strategy from Scratch

View more PowerPoint from Ardath Albee

Why B2B Marketers Must Address Status Quo

When I do stategic planning workshops with my clients, we get into a lot of discussions about buying stages. Anyone who's followed me for a while or read my book knows that I always start very early in the process with the stage of Status Quo.

My definition of status quo is the buyer's current situation. We get to that by answering questions such as:

• How are they doing what your product enables today?
• What workarounds may be in place that could be escalating pain?
• Why should they care about what you're talking about?
• What would get their attention?
• What would they need to learn to become motivated to change?

In a recent conversation, a client voiced concern that we were starting too early in the process. Comments such as "this is a mature market, they know they need to change" came up as I probed deeper.

My response was, "If that's true, then why aren't they actively pursuing change?"

There's a big difference in knowing change is available and actually agreeing that change is needed and taking steps to do something about it.

Regardless of what you think your prospects and customers already know, they still have a status quo. If you can't motivate them to move from that position, you can't sell them anything. Period. End of discussion.

Heck, I "know" a lot of stuff, but I don't necessarily act on it. Even if I "know" it will be good for me.

But addressing status quo goes much deeper than determining their current position. It means you have to figure out why they aren't changing and what might make them reconsider their stance that status quo is good enough.

When looking for an approache to dislodge status quo, try applying some of these questions:

• What trigger event would cause them to pursue change?


• Is the way they've been offered the idea of change not aligned with their perspective?


• What business objective might they miss achieving if they don't change?


• What future opportunity might they miss if they don't start changing now?


• Is there a cultural "elephant in the room?"


• What move by a competitor might get them out of the gate?


• Is an industry development moving their market right while they're still going left?


• Is a regulatory or compliance change coming that they will need help addressing?


• Are they losing market share even while growing revenues?


• Are they meeting their KPIs, but still leaving revenue on the table they don't see?


• Will a looming merger threaten their market position?


• Is there a new market opportunity that they're missing due to their status quo?


• Who is an obstacle? (In B2B, there's nearly always a consensus that must be reached)


• What is an obstacle blocking change (process, legacy equipment, TCO, etc.)

Those are just a few ways to look at how you might position marketing content to catch your buyers' attention and arouse their curiosity about the costs of status quo. Just make sure you're creating a business-relevant dialogue, not a treatise about why your product is the best choice.

The goal in this stage is not to get them to choose a product, it's to get them to choose to pursue change. Big difference.

In today's market environment, good enough isn't a strategic growth plan, it's a recipe for obsolescence.

What will it take for you to reach buyers and make them reconsider their adherrence to status quo?

What other questions would you add to the list?

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.

Content Marketing Needs More Than Content

A lot of companies have embraced the idea of content for use in marketing. This being said, there's much more to the practice of content marketing than just cranking out content. B2B companies with complex sales that overlook the strategy and process will find themselves in the weeds in short order.

I'm working with a lot of companies who are really trying to evolve the practice of content marketing, but I'm also talking to a lot of companies who just want content and quick-fire campaigns. Which defeats the point of sustainable marketing performance that optimizes the buyer experience for complex sales.

There's a reason why nearly 80% of marketers have said that they'd "better prepare their organization by building better processes and content offers to feed the automation system" if they had it to do over again. - DemandGen Report

Content is indeed the fuel for today's marketing programs (in all its forms), but if marketers are actually going to generate high-quality leads, nurture them in a way that drives pipeline momentum, and produce demand that turns into closed business, there must be more.

This often means that skill sets need to evolve, as well as thinking. Just take a look at an off-the-top list of my top ten (in no particular order) for what else is needed to make content marketing a high-performance practice:

1. Buyer personas - this is more than just title and industry. They're only helpful if they help you to identify the priorities, needs and interests of your target audiences. Yes, that includes influencers.


2. A clean database - this should be obvious, for so many reasons


3. Segmentation capabilities - content marketing is NEVER one-size-fits-all


4. Lead scoring - you must monitor profiles and behavior to judge interest and quality. This process can also help you refine your cadence and assess what's working and what's not.


5. Content strategy - what overall story are you sharing across markets, where should your company be represented, what will you accomplish and how will you measure it, etc.?


6. Editorial calendar - how does that story roll out with content? Who's developing the assets, how will it be distributed, where are the overlays, what are the calls to action, etc.? 


7. Lead management process - what defines a lead in different stages? What defines a sales-ready lead? How will the handoff to sales be handled? What are the rules of engagement? Etc.


8. Performance metrics - how will you prove the value contribution of marketing programs as related to revenue and customer acquisition?


9. Testing and optimization - you won't be right the first time and, even if you are, things will change. What's the process for the testing and refinement of messaging over time? Your "gut" doesn't count.


10. Sales enablement - how will you help salespeople step into the conversation gracefully? If buyers are spending 56% of their time with content (IDC), salespeople need to know just what that means so they can adjust accordingly and provide more value in the conversations they have with buyers.

Of course it should go without saying that all of this cannot be accomplished without marketing automation.

I'm not trying to make content marketing hard. In fact, I've helped companies successfully get started with a few core elements and layer on more of these as they develop competence they can build upon. Keeping it simple is a good rule of thumb for getting started, but failing to realize the importance of any of these components and plan for their development and integration into your content marketing practice is not a wise choice.

I'd be curious to know which of these you think are the most difficult to accomplish - and why?

Update: To Christa who asked for links to the IDC statistic - It came from a webinar I attended in July. The link to the archive is here. I also wrote a blog post about the webinar here.

Content Marketers' Great Expectations

With the advance of content marketing as a mainstay strategy for B2B marketers comes the inevitability of great expectations. But, I often encounter B2B marketers who are recounting their experiences with content marketing as not living up to expectations.

I hear things such as:

"Other email campaigns generate much higher click through and open rates than our lead nurturing program is achieving. It's just not working."

To which I inquire: What kind of email campaigns are you comparing with your nurturing program results?

The answer is usually related to eNewsletters or sales discount offers. These are two very different vehicles.

• An eNewsletter will generally have multiple offers and links with a variety of information. The recipient list can include both customers and prospects. I'd expect response rates to be different.


• A sales discount offer is one of urgency with a deadline/expiration date. Sure more people will click and look - just to be sure they're not missing out on anything. Or perhaps because they've been waiting for a sale to buy.

Nurturing programs are based on soft-sell, educational and thought leadership content - hopefully matched with stage in the buying process. They are also designed to engage over the long haul of a B2B buying process.

In other words, are you really suprised that early stage leads aren't replying to ask for a demo or submitting an inquiry on your website? Seriously?

One of the things that continues to confound me is the obsession with quantity. Based only on the number of what's considered a low-volume response, many marketers will equate that to an unsuccessful campaign.

Here's a challenge to marketers who think that way - or those under pressure to produce quantity based on ill-perceived corporate expectations:

How many of those leads or "opt ins" are actually ideal prospective customers?

How many of them actually close?

If your campaign produces 150 leads, but only 20 are quality matches to your ideal customer profile, is it better than a program that produces a solid 20 high-quality leads?

Here's a hint: Everyone is NOT your customer.

When your programs produce higher quality leads, you're actually providing better service and enablement to your sales team based on higher marketing effectiveness.

Some of the benefits include:

• Sales spends less time sifting and filtering to find the "good" leads.
• Sales begins to believe in and rely on marketing to provide leads worthy of pursuit.
• Marketing can track cleaner ROI from initial contact to close - not to mention higher levels of sales accepted leads.
• Your marketing database stays nice and clean and is more effective for segementation and analysis.
• You can determine just where the best leads are coming from/found.
• Marketing can start to identify patterns in how your ideal customers buy, such as the frequency of messaging they respond to best, the types of information they prefer, which information is needed when (think mapping content to buying process), etc.

The upshot is that content marketing expectations must be calibrated differently than some traditional marketing tactics, batch and blast email campaigns, and sales-focused "marketing" campaigns.

Where the expectation really needs to refocus is from quantity to quality. I'd rather have 10 great leads any day of the week than 1,000 that I have to sift through to find the 10% that are actually viable.

If marketers can define, attract and concentrate on leads that have the highest potential to become customers, then the results they create for their company will not only contribute to downstream revenues, but become repeatable and consistent in delivering that impact.

If, instead, marketers continue to go after getting clicks from as many people as possible, regardless of who they are, they'll have to work twice as hard to identify patterns, determine frequency preferences and convince sales to follow-up.

I mean, it's got to feel good to tell your boss that you generated a gazillion leads from your last manifesto download offer. But what happens when you actually need to equate those gazillion leads to customer acquisition and revenue contribution? What do your percentages look like now? How are those numbers perceived by your boss and company? Impressive?

How do you think marketers' expectations from content marketing need to change to help better prove the value it can deliver for B2B companies?

The "Why" for Lead Nurturing

Lead nurturing is not a one-size-fits-all endeavor. I often hear lead nurturing talked about as an email campaign designed to turn prospects into buyers through the use of compelling content over the course of their buying process. And, they're correct. That's exactly what lead nurturing should accomplish.

This said, lead nurturing comes in more than one flavor. And, yes, it all starts with your buyers. The type of lead nurturing program you develop should be based on the "why."

Why are you nurturing a specific group of prospects?

The answers could be many, such as:

• They attended a webinar about problem X that our product solves.
• They downloaded a white paper on a new trend our solution addresses.
• They downloaded a trial version and we need them to opt to buy during that period.
• They're in a specific industry.
• They match a demographic that mirrors our ideal customers.
• They were interested once but have been dormant for a period of time.
• They're following us on Twitter.
• They used search term X to find our website.

Some people would say that nurturing is based on a marketer's goal such as building brand awareness or your company's reputation for thought leadership. I say those are integral parts of lead nurturing but that neither is valid as a standalone goal. The end-goal should always be focused on new customer acquisition or existing customer lifecycle extension, upsell or cross-sell.

In other words, we don't just want cursory attention, we want intentional attention.

For example, I subscribe to a number of newsletters. Not because I ever intend to buy anything from the company but because I value their content. It gives me ideas I can use for my own selfish purposes. I'm not their buyer and I won't ever be their buyer. I am, however, aware of them and consider them thought leaders on their topic.

That's not what marketers want from a lead nurturing program. It won't move the needle they're responsible for.

Once you've defined the "why" for a nurturing program, you have direction for how to construct it. The "why" will dictate your starting point. If your "why" doesn't include source then that information can also be helpful for identifying the appropriate starting point.

Here are a few examples:

A trial user doesn't need to be educated about the problem. They are a late stage buyer and need to quickly understand how to use the product to meet an objective. You have a limited period of time to influence their purchase decision. Think tutorials, tip sheets and directed use examples that will demonstrate quick wins.

A webinar attendee has told you what they're interested in by indicating they're willing to spend an hour with the subject matter. Based on what was covered in the webinar, what stage of buying do you think they're in and what information makes a logical extension. Note that all webinar registrations are not created equally. Those who didn't attend, or those who signed on and then left after 15 minutes are in a different place than those who stayed for the duration.

A lead working within a specific role or industry will find information that's personalized to match will be of higher relevance than general information without a specific application to their circumstances.

I hope you can see that lead nurturing is not just a cookie cutter program to put on your marketing checklist. Rather it is a construct dependent upon context in order to deliver the relevance needed to build engagement and motivate progression across the stages of buying. One size does not fit all.

Part 3: The Contagious Content Challenge

Those of you who are regular readers of this blog have likely been following The Contagious Content Challenge. I started this series to share with you the updates sent to me by a marketer who'd read my book, eMarketing Strategies for the Complex Sale, and started implementing the strategies I wrote about to create his company's content marketing programs.

If you need to catch up, here are the other posts in the series:

Part 1: The Contagious Content Challenge

Part 2: The Contagious Content Challenge

Today he sent me another email. I'm really excited to hear from him as this is his update after one year of sticking with the program he developed. Here's what he had to say:

I promised to provide you quick updates every now and then since you  inspired our content strategy.  One year ago I implemented the strategy.   It is amazing how much can be accomplished by staying at it.  A few observations:

1. User-concentric content works best for lead nurturing.  We use an online lead generation package that allows us to set up campaigns. Our lead nurture program has 12 pieces over 3 months. Educate, educate, educate. Every time we post a piece or release it to our email list - the phone rings. The leads are highly qualified.


2. Once a lead contacts us - it typically takes us 90 days to close a sale.   We have developed sales content.  First we aggregated 5 of our thought leadership "Strategy Briefs" into an e-book. We have also created case studies.  Plus we have all of the traditional product catalogs and stuff. When we are in sales mode - we tend to use the content on an ad-hoc basis. Whenever we check in with a prospect for a status check by email - we always attach one piece of content. We can use more ideas for sales content.


3. This week we had a new experience. In your book you talk about the continuum of 0 to 100.  0 is the start and 100 is the sale. It seems that content takes us from 0-70 … and then sales takes us from 71-100.  
   
   This week we got a call from a firm.  They told us they have been reading our stuff for months.  They had one key function they were looking for in a system that they concluded our product had.   The called - we did a demo - and had a sale in 2 days.   What was so interesting is this prospect knew almost everything about our product and the demo was about confirmation.  Throughout the demo they used our company vocabulary when asking questions - indicating they have been combing through our stuff pretty seriously.  
   
   So in this story - content took us from 0-98. This was unbelievable to us.

It is time for  you to write a second book!

[I included that last line for my benefit :-) It's nice to hear.]

I'm so proud of him for sticking with it. Just look at what's possible if you do! His success is based upon setting expectations and consistently delivering over time. By using content strategically, he's been able to position his company as an expert, help prospects understand exactly why they need what his company offers and shorten the sales cycle by a huge margin. Those are results I'd bet every company would like to have.

My reader also shared something he'd like some help with. He says he'd like to create a formal, automated sequence for a prospect once they enter the sales cycle, but he's using his best content an ad hoc basis during Step 2, above. He's concerned about being too repetitive.

Here's the dirty little secret about repetition: It takes 5 - 12 repetitions of an idea to make it stick. I'd recommend he re-invent some of his best content, change it up a bit so the repetition isn't obvious, maybe even switch out a point or two. That way he can create a series that reinforces the active sales end of the buying process with nurturing without having to reinvent the wheel.

And, consider that if salespeople are also interacting with the prospects at this point, that the touch frequency can slow down. You don't want to barrage them with communications from the sales rep and the nurturing program. So, slow the cadence.

An additional point to consider is breaking longer pieces in two. Use the first part as a nurturing touch and have the salesperson use the 2nd part when they call to follow up. This not only gives them a conversational lead in, but a way to extend the conversation. This would require a bit of coordination, but can be done.

It's amazing what can happen in a year, isn't it? What's stopping you?

Product vs. Solution vs. Perspective

The Sirius Decisions Summit is happening this week and I'm wishing my schedule would have allowed me to be there in person rather than absorbing the wisdom through Twitter #sds11 - but thankfully I have at least that.

In reviewing the Tweets from yesterday [Thanks to @sgersh for compliling] I saw a Tweet posted by Carlos Hidalgo (@cahidalgo) that caught my interest.

RT @cahidalgo: 57% of #sds11 attendees say their mktg/sales approach is Product-centric but want to move to solution centric.

As I'm observing from afar, I may be misinterpreting, but this makes me want to wave my arms and say - "Stop and think!"

Solution-centric may be a step up from Product-centric marketing, but most B2B companies approach solution marketing is as a way to sell more stuff by bundling it together, not so much to help buyers find the best way to solve a problem.

This is where perspective needs to play a bigger role. Instead of focusing on products or solutions, marketers need to focus on improving the buyer experience - from THEIR perspective. The only way this happens if if we make our buyers the pivotal point around which all of our marketing content revolves.

But perspective is also bigger than that. It must be dynamic because solutions to problems evolve faster than the nature of problems change. With the length of a complex B2B buying process, this can also mean that what was important to your buyers at the beginning of their journey has changed by the time they get done with their research, involve others on the buying committee, etc.

To create marketing content focused on the buyer experience, we must also look farther into the pipeline and create a plan for getting more than just attention and a bit of interest. True engagement takes time, education, the sharing of expertise and the ability to frame context to invite serious consideration.

There's a lot that needs to happen after lead generation and qualification to make that happen.

This is going to be a big challenge for many given that, of the 800 attendees at the Sirius Decisions Summit, 61% are focusing their lead nurturing programs on pre-marketing-qualified leads and another 18% are doing nothing with their leads.

Before marketers decide to trade in one approach for another, the first thing they need to do is figure out what their prospective customers need. If you address their issues from their perspective as related to what your offerings enable, product vs. solution will cease to be the choice.

The Job of a Lead Nurturing Email

I was reviewing a few email messages I'd developed for a B2B lead nurturing program with a project team when they said the equivalent of - Gosh, these are short. We should include links to events, products, etc. We're missing a big opportunity to give our prospects more choices.

Then there was a pause and one of them asked, "What if they don't like the one link we're including?"

And there you have the ultimate email challenge - being perceived as relevant enough to get the level of attention that motivates action.

This said, inundating prospects with more links and choices rather than improving the personalization, value and contagiousness of your email message is not the right answer.

The purpose of a lead nurturing email is NOT to:

• Be everything to everyone.
• Get any old click.
• Ask for a lot of time.
• Make a sale.

At the rate inboxes fill, you've got to pass the Catch Factor test. This means your email - within seconds - must communicate:

• Urgency - Do I need to know this right now?
• Impact - Is this subject matter relevant to my priorities?
• Effort - How easy will it be to get the information?
• Reputation - What's my perception of the sender?
• Intent - What do I think they want from me?

Attention spans are fleeting. Your email needs to get attention, motivate the action and be done with those two things really fast. At the outside, within 10 seconds. Bury your hook, use dense text not written in a scannable format and you're probably out of the game.

The only job of your lead nurturing email is to get the prospect to take an action that shows you their interest in the subject matter of your content offer. There's just simply not time for much else.

Instead of worrying about adding offers, start focusing on how you can improve relevance and create higher connection rates.

One of the biggest issues for gaining attention is uniqueness. The ease of publishing content has saturated the Web with redundancy - at varying quality levels. As a marketer, how many articles have you seen on the value of lead nurturing, or the top ten ways to use content? Repetition is great for creating awareness and acceptance, but how many times do you see the same words before you start tuning them out as so much blah, blah, blah that you assume you've heard before?

The same is true for your prospects. The challenge is often to say what you need to differently than others with similar messages. It's hard because you're also used to seeing all the same words used within your market.

Additionally, short is good. You should be able to compose an active email that does it's job in less than 150 words. In fact, aim for 100. Break it up so that it's easy to scan. Think about what it might look like in a mobile device. I often send emails to my smartphone just to see what they look like, how easy they are to read.

Dump the HTML and use text. Seriously. I don't download graphics if I can help it. Do you? I don't have time. Most business people I speak with don't either. In fact, if all I see is the emptiness of graphic boxes waiting to be downloaded in a preview, I just delete. Who has the time?

You may be proud of those gorgeous graphics, but if they impede your message getting through, are they worth it? At least do some A/B testing of text vs. HTML to see which perform better. I'd save them for your landing pages. That's where you want prospects to spend their time, right?

Now we're back to the job of lead nurturing email. Getting prospects to take the action you request of them.

After all - the metrics you can measure from an email are limited to clicks, opens, and bounces. But, get them to a landing page and you've got much bigger possibilities. You can learn about interest levels, topical interest, time spent, where they go next, if they share it with someone else, and what stage of buying they're in. [Much of that depends on the quality of your content offer, but that's another blog post.]

And, when your email message is confined to one focus, you're challenged to make it even more meaningful and relevant than you'd be if you relied upon throwing in the kitchen sink to try and just get any old click.

When your lead nurturing email is focused on doing its job, you're focused on doing yours.

Oh - and the thing about choices: More choices equals less response. It's too hard to decide what to do. Keep it simple and direct. One step at a time. Each thing you ask them to do is an added burden. If yourlead nurturing emails look like too much effort, the prospect deletes them and moves on to something easier to deal with.

I've done tests with email to prove just this to clients who've wanted to keep multiple links in their emails. The educational and thought leadership links got the clicks. The others were basically ignored. And the emails with many different links received higher unsubscribe rates - likely due to the scattered focus the emails presented.

What are you doing to make your lead nurturing emails more actionable?