Marketing Interactions

The Flip Side of B2B Marketing Ideas

I just read a thought-provoking post by Sharon Drew Morgen (@sharondrew) over on The Customer Collective. In Assumptions are costly with clients, Sharon Drew shares her experience during "an Ideation session in which an insurance company needed some new thinking about how to best serve customers with their website."

The kicker was that the client—although pleased with the ideas—was unsure the company would ever use them. Why? Technology costs to implement the ideas and other pressing priorities.

Then Sharon Drew asked others on the team how they knew their customers would use the new website if the ideas were implemented. What she learned was that they had a "build it and they will come" mentality. Never a great sign for successful change management.

This got me thinking about why many great marketing ideas deliver less than stellar results.

We all know our products are terrific. We're passionate about them. We get charged up by creating new ways to interact with our customers so they'll think so, too. But, even if we take the time to re-align our thinking to generate ideas about what we believe will truly serve our customers, we need much more than the idea to make it so. 

First, we need to look at the idea from all sides and determine how we'll bring it to life. Do we have the resources to do it well? Does the idea conflict with other programs and initiatives we're already implementing? If so, can we bring it into alignment or will that diminish the idea's value?

Second, if we implement the idea, how do we transition our audience from the status quo of what they're used to doing to the willingness to change and embrace the new idea? In essence, we need to figure out how to make our ideas seem like their ideas.

To do this, we need to forget what we know and find out what we don't know. What seems simple to us may not appear so intuitive to them. This happens all the time between technology developers and end users, for example. It happens when we think we're explaining the value of our feeds and speeds without realizing that we haven't established why our prospects should care in the first place.

It also happens when we get our ideas out of sync. We need to make sure we've established the foundation that will allow the new idea to be received as a welcome and natural transition rather than be perceived as an abrupt shift off course.

Third, we need to consider what purpose the new idea will serve. What will this new idea enable us to do for and with our customers and prospects that we were unable to achieve before? What end result will the new idea help to produce? For us, as well as for our customers.

New marketing ideas are critical. They're what keep us innovative and help us drive company growth and customer relationships. Without them, our companies can stagnate and lose momentum. But, to be successful, we have to consider the flip side when building our marketing strategies around them.

7 "Rs" for B2B Marketing Content Planning

Content is the fuel for eMarketing. With a majority of marketing efforts going digital, that means even more content is needed. The instant gratification mindset of B2B content consumers means they're demanding more content, faster. Not just any content, but ideas, information and expertise they find relevant and helpful for answering questions they have about problems they're trying to solve.

Designing content for 1X use is wasteful. Marketers need to create a process for content planning that helps them maximize the return from their investments in developing the content resources that fuel their online marketing programs.

To get the most from your content, embrace the 7 "R"s of B2B Marketing Content Planning:

1. Re-use - ideas for content development must be expanded to create multiple assets. See my post Rule of 5 for B2B content development. Additionally, when marketers create a nurturing program across the buying process, each new lead should start at the beginning of the program with touch 1. By feeding new leads into the beginning of a program (instead of just adding them to the list for the next send) you'll get much more use out of your nurturing program content and tell your leads a consistent story at the same time.


2. Re-purpose - The same content can be modified for use with different personas and verticals to increase relevance and personalization rather than relying on general, one-size-fits-all content to meet the needs of a variety of audiences.


3. Refresh - Content gets stale over time. Put it on a refresh schedule and spiff it up to keep it in tune with constantly shifting markets. For example, if you reference research conducted a year ago, is there a new source that will increase relevance?


4. Recycle - Don't toss out content that's no longer pulling the audience it once did. Change the title, heads and subheads and reword the bullets or key points. The theme is probably still appropriate, but consider how you might also use it in different ways. For example, if you have 3 or 4 articles on a related topic, can you now combine them into an eBook with a fresh take?


5. Re-route - Find new and interesting ways to use and distribute your content. If a nurturing program has run its course and the content wasn't publicly available, create a place for it on your website. If a video you used in a blog post relates, pull it through to the landing page for that content. Think about new "arrangements" of content as resource centers for prospects and/or customers.


6. Response - When a content asset provokes a big response, figure out why and create more content with those characteristics. Another way to consider response is to plan for content as a follow-up to other content. Give your company a reason to reach out continuously to those who find a particular topic relevant. Hold some in reserve to use as an offer during an inside sales call to follow-up. This gives the rep a business reason for the call (to offer the content) which is much better than, "Are you ready to buy yet?"


7. Retire - Even if you do 1 - 6 above, there are times when content should be retired. For example, if your company's positioning changes and your content doesn't match. If the market has shifted and it's no longer relevant. There could be a number of reasons. The point is that if content is no longer appropriate, leaving it hanging around sends a mixed signal to your audience. If it can't be re-purposed, refreshed or recycled, take it down.

To manage all of this you'll need a content inventory and a schedule for when each of the "Rs" should come into play.

This is only the beginning of the "Rs" we can use for B2B marketing content planning. The sooner marketers start thinking about content as strategic assets that must be managed accordingly, the more traction they'll start to gain from the ways in which they use it.

Who has more "Rs" to add to the list?

The Difference Between B2B Leads and Personas

B2B marketers have relied on lead definitions to define their marketing programs for years. Some definitions are more complete than others. The biggest disconnect for companies is that a marketer's definition of a lead can often be quite different than how sales defines what they need to accept a lead as qualified for follow-up.

This said, a company's lead definition in this form has nothing to do with customers or prospects. It relies on mostly demographic information that we've culled to decide whether or not we want to pursue the lead as an opportunity for customer acquisition.

A lead definition generally includes things like:

• Job title
• Company size (revenues, employees)
• Industry
• Geographic location
• Technology environment
• Number of locations
• BANT (Budget, Authority, Need, Timeline)

These are all things that are important to us. A lead definition is a bridge between marketing and sales. It's what we use to justify that we're in pursuit of the right targets.

A persona, is the flip side. A persona uses the lead definition as the foundation for the research and development of a composite "character" representative of a segment of our prospects in real-life circumstances. A persona is a bridge between your company and your prospects and customers. 

A persona can include things like:

• Role
• Responsibilities
• Threats
• Priorities
• Influencers
• Motivations

In case you're unsure of a few distinctions, here's an abbreviated example:

Title: Director of Change Management

Role: Developing processes for the roll-out of new solutions across the enterprise.

Responsibility: Achieving a minimum of 75% end user adoption rate within 3 months of implementation of new solutions.

Threats: Disruption of work flows can jeopardize project deadlines resulting in deferred revenues and lower employee morale. Our top competitor is undertaking a major initiative to improve productivity and we'll lose market share if we don't keep up. Our mobile workforce is growing and we've got to get them better access to information and colleagues so they can do their jobs as if they're in the office.

Priorities: Need to ensure the company has the tools and processes for sustainable growth. In order to meet the CEO's strategic agenda, productivity must increase by at least 35% without adding headcount.

Influencers: Line of business managers whose staff will be affected and end users resistant to change. Executives focused on specific productivity initiatives. The CTO who must implement the solution with resources already stretched thin.

Motivations: Desire to work for a company on the cutting edge. Others who have successfully accomplished an enterprise-wide roll out have been promoted. If our company stock increases by X points, my net worth increases exponentially, reducing my time to retirement. A similar company has achieved goals like ours. It can be done. But, I also need to make sure it can be accomplished in our specific environment and circumstances. No risk, no reward. But I need to make sure it's a controllable risk.

Can you see the difference? A lead definition can help you identify the prospects you'd like to pursue. A persona can help you connect with those prospects on a personally relevant basis.

You need both.

B2B Buyers' Use of Social Media - BUYERsphere Report

There's a new B2B Buyer survey hot off the presses from Base One and B2B Marketing Magazine. Marketers will find a view of the big picture as the report shows an overlay of both online and offline informational sources in comparison to social media use. The report also breaks out the differences in informational use and reliance between buyers under 31 and those more mature. Some of the differences are not what you may think.

Although web searches and vendor websites remain two of the top methods for finding information, word of mouth holds a lot of influence throughout the buying stages. What's interesting is to note that although some of the sources drop off in influence as the buyer progresses toward purchase, social media remains influential from start to finish - for those who have embraced its use in their buying process.

You can download the report (direct link to PDF) and see the charts and breakouts for yourself.

I'd like to point out a couple of findings that B2B marketers should pay attention to:

"There is a notable decrease in the influence of supplier websites after the early stages of the buying process. At the need identification stage 58% described websites as influential or very influential, a figure that dropped to 43% by the final supplier selection stage."

This high influence for vendor websites at the beginning of the buying process indicates a need for educational and thought leadership content prominently displayed and easily accessible. Take a good look at the content your website provides and make sure it's primed and ready for early stage buyers.

Because web search is so highly relied upon (we know this, right?) it's imperative for marketers to ensure the content on their website is being indexed for search by keywords and phrases early stage buyers will use. Do you need more of a reason to get to know your buyers better?

In addition to buyers' predictions about changes to their future buying processes, the report also includes commentary submitted by buyers during the survey. Here are a few snips of buyer perspectives that marketers would be well served to consider:

“Probably blogs and online community websites will play a bigger part in the decision making process.”

“Forums, panels and blogs are the way ahead, using Google for searches can be a tedious task, taking up too much time. Comparison websites are mainly useless and filled with unwanted information and supplier/manufacturer websites take up time. Going straight to user forums or specialized blogs saves time.”

“I will always sample new methods but it’s the reliability and context that is important in order to understand the accuracy of the information.”

“I will utilize more web areas but generally be careful and limit to particular proven sources.”

Download Your PDF copy of the Report

*"The survey was conducted online, administered and analysed by market research specialists McCallum Layton, among business respondents provided by online panel provider Toluna." The survey was conducted in March 2010 with buyers who had participate in the decision-making process for the purchase of a business product or service offering during previous 12 months of over £20,000.

How to Use Cliffhangers in B2B Marketing Content

During the Broad Reach + Intelligent Lead Nurturing = Increased Revenue webinar I participated in yesterday with Scott Mersy of Genius.com, Brian Carroll of InTouch and Andrew Gaffney of DemandGen Report, I talked about how content can help promote prospect responsiveness.

I presented 3 components that should be incorporated into your content to help you build engagement and progression with your prospects. After all, your content has a job to do, right? If it's not helping your company build pipeline momentum, then it's slacking off.

The 3 components that help drive momentum include:

• Calls to action
• The Takeaway (here's a post I've written about that)
• Cliffhangers

I received a question that we didn't get to during the event about providing some examples for how to use cliffhangers during a B2B complex sale. (See the other Q & A here)

For those of you who didn't attend, a cliffhanger is created when B2B marketers use a serial format for execution of a content program. It's that "to be continued" type of idea. Or "you won't want to miss what's coming" that sets anticipation for more of your valuable content.

Cliffhangers are about planting the the seed for your prospects to expect more of the great stuff you provide that they've come to rely on to help them solve their highest priority issues. It's all about motivating prospects to do something more than passively reading your content.

You want to give prospects every opportunity to tell you just how interested they are in the topic by opting in to be notified when the next installment is released or by bookmarking your site, subscribing to your RSS feed, or whatever other method you make available for them to keep up with your content. Don't just tell them something is coming, make sure you provide a way for them to get it.

Some examples of cliffhanger strategies include:

Series: Think about creating a series. This can be a series of articles, videos, webinars or blog posts based on a theme or topic of interest to your prospects. An example is the series of 3 webinars and eGuides that Genius.com used last summer to present components of marketing automation. Another example is the Buyersphere series of webinars and white papers that Enquiro did last year.
 
Event: Use an article or blog post on a topic of interest to your prospects and include a notice that you have upcoming research or a webinar or other related content coming and invite prospects to opt in for notification  when that content is available.
 
Next Steps: Let’s say you have a 10-step process your prospects find value in. Post an article discussing step 1 and then tell your audience that the next steps will be posted each Tuesday (or whenever) for the next 9 weeks. If possible, invite them to opt in for notification about the  the next installment. 

B2B marketers can incorporate a cliffhanger effect into almost any content if they think about it creatively. It also helps immensely to develop an editorial calendar.

No B2B Messaging Should Be Overlooked

I'm all for automation. Marketers can do so much more when they have it. There's no way we can manually respond to everyone in every situation. But we've got to be smart about how we use it.

I'll bet all of us have received the "do not reply" email. The one that gets sent based on a trigger asking you to do something, but only if you do so by following their process. The messaging is along the lines of - Click the link now if you want to talk to us in our structured way, but don't reply because we won't answer you.

Here's an actual example:

Please do not reply to this message. This email was automatically generated from an unmonitored mailbox. If you require further assistance [from us] please visit us at [help.company.com] where you may find information on frequently asked questions and how to contact us for support by phone, email, or chat.

How valued as a customer do you feel after that? What they're really saying is that they don't care what you want. It's all about whatever is easier for them. At the least, you'd have to really, really want to talk to them to jump through all those hoops to reach them.

My favorites in that messaging are "you MAY find" and the idea that I have to visit their support site to figure out how to email them when I'm reading an email from them.

What I wonder is if the company has ever read this message from the customer's point of view. It's easy to recommend that people put themselves in the customer's shoes when they develop content and messaging, but it's actually a challenge to remember that ALL parts of your messaging need that scrutiny.

In this example, the email message they communicated was fine. I was happy they wanted to know about my experience (so few actually ask). Until I read that warning text and realized how little they actually cared. Don't overlook the little stuff that can derail all that positive engagement you're trying so hard to sustain.

Companies should actually look forward to and encourage interactions with their customers. And they need to stop trying to control how they're willing to do so.

Unmonitored email box? Only communicate with us through sanctioned channels? I wonder how that's working for them...

Social Media is Not a Replacement

Why is it that when something new comes along we want to toss everything aside in favor of the shiny new object? Yes, I'm talking about social media. I've heard from several potential B2B clients in the last week that they're being told by consultants to dump email marketing and embrace Twitter. They're being told email marketing is dead, that they need to get social or their marketing efforts will fail to perform.

I've also heard it said that websites without social media integration are irrelevant.

I don't believe that one either. There's a lot more responsible for making corporate websites irrelevant than the lack of interactive capabilities.

What I do believe is that B2B marketers need to expand their content vision and strategic planning. All of it - social media, websites, blogs, email marketing, etc. is driven by content. Every Tweet posted is content. Every email sent is about the message. All of this content is either relevant to your audience, or it's not. 

If email marketing is not working for your company, have you considered that it's because your messaging isn't on target? Whether a company chooses to distribute content via Twitter, email, syndication, website or blog doesn't matter much if the content they're publishing doesn't catch and hold the attention of their audience.

Based on research by Marketing Sherpa's Email Marketing Benchmark Survey,  67% say their opt in email lists are growing and 30% say the losses and gains even out. These results indicate that email is still a preferred method of communication for your prospects. They're voting by opting in to hear from you. Prospect preferences should provide the evidence that it's worthwhile to work on improving your email programs, not discard them.

Now, let's return to the shiny new object for a moment. I'm not saying that social media shouldn't play a part in your marketing mix. Not for a moment. What I am saying is that it's not a replacement for other methods. Social media should be embraced as an integrated enhancement to your overall eMarketing strategy.

Social media is a great way to gain exposure, humanize your company and build additional traffic to more comprehensive content. So is email marketing. The challenge is more about doing them both well, not so much in choosing one above the other.

The Difference Between Features and Value

There are numerous articles, blogs, Tweets and discussion groups that talk about content marketing. The consensus across the web is that content needs to be highly relevant and engaging to break through the clutter. So, why is it that so much B2B content misses the mark?

I call it feature focus.

I do a lot of work in the IT realm where features are a dime a dozen. Companies are proud of their solution's features. They worked hard to create and develop them. They listened to customers (hopefully) and designed their interfaces and the ways in which the solution functions to address outcomes their customers value.

The issue is that your prospects don't know all that. In fact, they likely don't care much unless they can get information that applies to their perspective on the problem they're trying to solve.

Unfortunately, because they know them so well, many companies create marketing content focused on the features.

A feature is something your product or solution does.

Value is something your customers get because of what your product enables.

Here's a partial list of "Key Benefits" found on a web page designated for a "business champion." (I had real hope when I saw the company had pages for buyer types.)

• Single, universal index of all types of content, data and media
• Advanced search features including dynamic facet generation, tag clouds and multi-lingual support
• Sentiment analysis, concept clustering and classification
• Search with SQL or keyword-based queries
• Workflow and alerts to provide real-time updates to users and other applications

These are not benefits or value statements. They are product features. A business buyer will look at this list and click the back button in a flash. In fact, they might never even see this page as there's not a word included that a business user would be likely to use in a search query.

The company apparently expects the business buyer to know how to translate each of those statements into some kind of advantage. That's asking your prospect to expend way more effort than they're probably willing to do.

Whenever you get tempted to talk about your features, think about what they do and write about that instead. Just try it and see what happens. Tell your prospects a story that matters.