Marketing Interactions

LoopFuse Removes the Budget Barrier from Marketing Automation

I had the distinct pleasure of speaking with Sean Dwyer, CEO of LoopFuse yesterday. Matt Quinlan, VP of Field Operations joined us to give me a preview of FreeView - a fully-functional marketing automation platform designed to meet the needs of SMB marketers. [Hint: FREE is the key word.]

The folks at LoopFuse [watch the 5 min demo] believe that marketing automation is the future of digital. They want to help B2B small-to-mid-size companies adopt the technology they need to compete effectively with eMarketing programs. What they've done that I think is very unique is to create a Free Forever model.

The Free Forever model includes the tools a marketer needs to score leads, create and execute lead nurturing programs (lead flows in LoopFuse ease), send leads to sales via CRM transfer (and take them back), create alerts, rules and even harness pre-existing lead capture forms.

Yes, there's a catch. FreeView is limited to 2,500 prospects, 5,000 emails per month and 100,000 page views. But, the really cool part is that you can have it forever. No more trying to prove value and ROI during a paltry 30-day trial. Marketers can actually create a nurturing program for a target audience and run it across the entirety of the complex buying process—tweaking and refining as they go to build the business case for expanding the program.

There are a couple of really useful things I should mention:

• Salesforce.com integration is about a 3 click process. But even better, marketers can choose to import leads during that process and have them all transferred into the FreeView system so they can be up and running fast.


• No charge per seat. You want to expand visibility into nurturing progress to your salespeople? No problem. 


• Build extensive behavioral dossiers on companies, not just individual prospects. I've been preaching for a while that marketers need to reach beyond decision makers. Now you can do so easily by monitoring your reach inside companies, as well as their activities as a group, or drill down to the individual level.


• Scoring overview. In addition to summarizing all activity for a lead and ranking explicit demographic information, marketers also see how many times each activity is performed during the course of building the score. This insight can be really useful for evaluating interest levels for content formats, topics, etc.


• Gain access to the system about 120 seconds after creating your account.

LoopFuse FreeView is definitely worthy of consideration for SMB marketers. The company has spent a lot of time creating a system that is intuitive and arming marketers with instructive how-to videos within the system to ensure they have what they need to get up and running fast. If you've been trying to figure out how to prove the value of marketing automation to build the business case for implementing it in your company, this may be the perfect opportunity.

As you know, there's just no way to brilliantly execute a primarily digital marketing process without the technology to support it. Now, there's no excuse left about why you don't have it.

Can Sales Finish Marketing's Sentence?

I'll bet that most of you have a best friend, spouse or assistant who can finish your sentences, or whose sentences you can finish. This happens most often through familiarity bred from shared understanding and perspectives. Given this, I'm also going to bet that the answer to the title question is most often a resounding No.

B2B companies need to get that answer to be an emphatic YES!

Here's why:

Buyers are pushing sales conversations to the late stages of the purchasing process. On average, it's likely that marketing spends a longer period of time with your leads than sales does. (If you're not requesting sales pursuit until they are sales ready, that is.) 

If marketing has a content strategy that's enabled them to tell a consistent problem-to-solution story over time and then a sales rep shows up with an unexpected agenda - the lead has to re-start, instead of simply taking the next step in the path they've been following.

If marketing has consistently shared valuable insights, ideas and information that your prospects have come to rely on and then the salesperson shows up to take an order without adding the normal dose of value, there's a disconnect. Your prospect starts to wonder if they were mistaken in their evaluation of what your company will be like as a partner they can rely upon.

McKinsey & Company conducted a study of 1,200 IT purchasing decision makers across the US and Western Europe and found that 55% of them said salespeople were derailing themselves with two factors:

1. 35% said salespeople contacted them too much (email, phone, in person)
2. 20% said salespeople lacked knowledge about their products or those of their competitors.

The first one indicates to me that those contact attempts were more about the salesperson than the prospect. They were likely void of recognizable value for the prospect or trying to push them faster than they were ready to move. Otherwise the perception would be different.

The second one should be corrected, quickly. It did surprise me that, additionally, only 9% said that salespeople lacked business or industry knowledge about the usefulness of their product to the prospect's business. Forrester's research a year or so ago showed response to that situation about 3X higher.

The gist of it is that sales needs to competently finish what marketing starts. In order for that to work well, the two departments should collaborate in order to coordinate the story based on prospects and their specific situations. This way marketing can work toward building to a sales conversation that is a natural extension and seamless transition from the prospect's perspective.

Webinar Q&A Part 2: How to Build an eMarketing Strategy to Drive Sales

Yesterday, I posted round 1 of the answers to questions submitted during the webinar. This is round 2. Unbelievably, I still have a few more, so stay tuned.

Q. Does marketing have the right to unplug a prospect from a nurture sequence or is that the responsibility of sales?

This depends on your lead management process. The responsibility for “unplugging” a lead from a nurture sequence could swing either way, depending upon how consistent the messaging and content sales uses is an extension of marketing content. If you’re telling/sharing a consistent story across the entirety of the buying process, they may not need to be removed at all, depending on where they are in the sequence when they convert to a sales opportunity.

For example, the prospect triggers a conversion by watching an online demo, indicating they are ready to talk to a salesperson now when your nurturing sequence is still focused on early stages. Once sales confirms, then it would be prudent to move the lead to a later point in the sequence to align with their stage in the buying process.

If sales is not aligned with marketing, then sales should remove the lead from the nurture stream once they agree to pursue it. The one thing you do not want to do is have a prospect receiving mixed messaging from marketing and sales. That can derail the purchase because the prospect will no longer believe your company is as competent as they desire.

Always think about what the impact is for the prospect for all messaging and communications they will receive from your company.

Q. How can I keep the familiar feel of customer relations without ever being in the same room?

The best way to do this is to share ideas that your customers will discuss amongst themselves even without you. Content written to help them think through issues, get more value from your products/solutions and address new industry trends will stimulate conversations as long as it’s written to match their perspectives. Keep your content closer to them by using second person point of view. As long as you remember it’s about them, not you, this will happen.

The other component that enables this is the interactive dialogue made possible via social media. If you don't know which of your customers is using social media, it's time to learn. Make sure they know you are out there and available, as well.

Q. How do you turn hits on your website to contact leads? Another person asked, Do you have suggestions for increasing click-through rate?

Compelling content with offers for them to get more of it.

For example, share a great article about a topic of interest. Along with it, showcase an offer for a series of articles on the X Things you need to know to do it, or X Factors to consider when… The X number indicates the number of articles they’ll receive – or perhaps the resource is a white paper. The point is that you have to prove to them your content is valuable first, then ask for the opt in with another offer that extends from the interest they’ve expressed. Help them connect the dots. No sales offers, no product pushing, etc.

Think carefully about how much information you really need for an opt in. Every field you add decreases a website visitor’s willingness to complete your form. Do you really need to know their street address, city, state, country and zip code right now? Do you need to know it badly enough to risk losing opt ins that could become leads?

Q. How to promote business through social media (ie Facebook, Twitter, etc)?

I’d suggest that the focus changes from “promoting business” to “attracting interest.” Social media is not about promoting business as much as it’s about sharing information people want to read, respond to and pass along to their networks—whether it’s yours or not. The more interesting they find what you share, the more attention they will pay.

The rule of thumb I’ve seen is to share 10 links/references to other people’s content to every one link/reference you share of your own. This means you need to cull a list of people to source your sharing. If your company writes one or two blog posts per week, hosts a monthly webinar and produces a quarterly white paper, then you’ll need to source a lot of content to remain active and become a valuable source of information.

Consider analysts, leading bloggers and non-competing companies that are using social media. Creating lists on Twitter can also be a way to gain recognition from those you include. Building a following is easier when you’re helping promote others who will then be more inclined to help you. Also, instead of simply re-tweeting or “liking” something on Facebook, start commenting. Comment on blogs, too. Share your thoughts on Linkedin discussion groups.

Q. What is the best way for a non technical person to get started on e message marketing?

I’m not sure what the descriptor “non-technical” person has to do with e message marketing. Unless you’re asking specifically about using the technology. If so, there are many eMarketing tools and platforms available that are built specifically with business users in mind. Your host for this webinar is one of them – Swiftpage. Figure out what you want to do and then search for the toolset that enables you to achieve that outcome.

Q. What is the role of market research in prospecting without violating integrity?

Common sense. Seriously, if you’re doing something that violates integrity you should know and stop…now. For example, just because you can track the behavior of your prospects doesn’t give you the right to openly stalk them. Be careful which information you know about them that you choose to share. Anything that would give you an “ick” factor if someone did so to you is a good indicator you’re out of line. And, make sure you have their permission to communicate with them. As Seth Godin reminds us, permission is a high-value asset. Do everything you can to respect it. (my words, his idea)

Q. What are the best strategies to use for content for asking for sales as opposed to educating the client about what you do or sell?

I think I’d recommend looking at this as not asking for the sale, but showing evidence of why your company is the best choice for helping them to solve the problem. This means evidence content such as, analyst reports that rate your company highly, customer stories, ROI tools and information about how to justify the spend, time to ROI, etc.

Q. What types of things in an e-newsletter gets the best response?  Articles?  News?  Offers? 

The answer depends on a couple of things. Is this an eNewsletter for prospects or customers?
What do you mean by response? Click throughs?

Articles: These are the best, in my experience. Equally valuable are customer spotlights – especially interviews. Get beyond the typical customer description, problem and here’s the list of products we sold them. For articles, focus on being helpful based on whether or not they’ve solved the problem. Hint: your customers solved it. So tell them what’s next. Your prospects are still working on that first problem. This is one reason why content cannot be designed to serve all audiences.

News: This typically means that companies want to share their latest press releases or Kudos. Occasionally, this is okay. But if your newsletter relies on this kind of chest thumping each month, I’d encourage you to remove it. News, from your prospects and customers’ perspectives is about industry trends that affect them, problems they need to address, government regulations that may affect their businesses, etc.

Offers: For customers, perhaps. For prospects, no. Here’s why.
Customers who are already using your products may have uncovered a need for additional services or add-on functionality. They already spend money with you. If you can make a “value” case beyond buy more from us, then offers to customers can be highly successful in creating up-sell and cross-sell opportunities. Instead of a sales offer, I’d pitch an online demo or in person executive briefing seminar which could lead to a sales conversation.

For prospects, if you begin pushing offers, you’ve assigned their consideration back to price. Companies can’t win in price-bound discussions because there is always a competitor who will sell for less. The whole point of content marketing is to prove value so well that price is not the consideration carrying the heaviest weight in the decision. Sell based on value-added expertise, not price. Unless you’re pushing a transaction sale based on volume. If your selling a more complex offering, show prospects what you bring to the table that they won’t get if they buy from anyone else.

If you'd like to watch the archive of the webinar, How to Build an eMarketing Strategy to Drive Sales, you can find it here as well as download the presentation.

Webinar Q&A: How to Build an eMarketing Strategy to Drive Sales

Thanks to the attendees of today's Swiftpage Thought Leader webinar series - you were terrific. I've made an attempt to answer some of the questions submitted during the webinar. There are more, and I'll try to get to them later this week.

Q. But you would agree that without very tight database management by sales the step backs "step" could lose it all for the buy totally?

Someone has to monitor for Step Backs. Whether it’s marketing or sales will depend on the technology and visibility available for monitoring prospect behavior across the buying process. This said, you’re absolutely correct about Step Backs. If we don’t catch these instances when buyers start “what-iffing” themselves and hesitate, we can lose the sale to a competitor or a no decision.

Q. Can you give a quick definition of WHITE PAPER?

A white paper is a formal, in-depth exploration of a topic that includes research to back up the author’s assertions—usually 8 – 12 pages in length and presented in PDF format. White papers are quite often “authored” by companies without a byline to support the company’s message. They can also be written by a third-party expert and sponsored by a company, or bylined by a company executive.

Q. Can you use eMarketing to individuals who have not opted in?

It’s not a good practice to email to anyone who has not opted in. This said, eMarketing affords many opportunities to connect with prospects beyond your database. Some examples include:

• Using Twitter to pull prospects back to articles on your website or posts on your blog.
• Guest posting on another blog in your industry with a link back to yours.
• Commenting on other blogs on relevant topics (creating back links to your blog)
• Posting a blog post as a news link in relevant LinkedIn groups where prospects belong.
• Updating your status on LinkedIn with a brief snip and link to a blog post.
• Participating in discussions in LinkedIn groups.
• Submitting content to article sites (e.g. ezinearticles.com, biznik.com)

Q. Email Subject Lines. Any tips? Are they any specific 'action words' you recommend?

For action words, here are a few to get you started:
Get, Create, Design, Develop, Learn, Drive, Reduce, Increase, Stop

Tips include:

• Limit to 50 characters.
• Aim for provocative.
• Hint about what they’ll get – (hence the action words)

Q. What is a good conversion rate from start to finish?

I’d love to say 100% - but I won’t. Instead I’ll ask you a question back. What’s your baseline conversion rate? If it’s 5% and you’re able to double it, is that enough to grow your business reasonably? A “good conversion rate” is about what works for your company. If your baseline is 5% and you ramp your conversion rate to 30%, are you prepared to deliver? Just some food for thought.

Rule of thumb via research on B2B complex sales is that, on average, about 20% of the leads you generate will be short term opportunities. Three-quarters of the other 80% will likely buy within two years from someone. If you want that to be you, solid lead nurturing is one way to get that to happen.

Q. What is ROI?

Return on Investment

Q. What is your experience combining offline direct mail with online? Do you recommend online ONLY as a strategy? Why/Why Not?

I only work in online marketing, so my experience is limited. However, I know of a number of companies that use direct successfully to connect offline efforts to online ones. It depends on your prospects and customers. Find out what their preferences are and give them what they want.

This said, “online only” can also work well in today’s business environment as long as your strategy is comprehensive. Planning, measurement, process and consistent follow-through are all critical to success.

Q. Address e-Marketing strategies for selling consulting services. Do the same strategies and tactics work for any size B2B? What about professionals like Dr's and Lawyers?

If you’re creating content designed to help a prospect solve a problem, then your strategy is often the same across services, professions and product/solution companies. What I mean by that is you want to educate them about the issues, share the expertise you bring to the project and prove you walk your talk with evidence content.

It’s not about the products or services. It’s about what they enable people to do that they couldn’t do before. It’s about helping them understand why they need your company (whether consultant, doctor, lawyer or other type of company). It all begins with your buyers and how well you know them. That’s what dictates your strategies and tactics. Give them information they find valuable, in formats they want to consume, in places where they spend their time.

Q. How do you use email marketing for small retail stores without annoying customers and driving them away?

Just as in B2B marketing, give them information they value. In retail, sometimes an offer is enough. Other times it’s not about the price, it’s about the convenience, cache or need. Mix it up. If possible, don’t send offers for things they’ve already purchased.

In fact, if you know this, design offers to complement what they’ve already purchased. For example, these headphones will allow you to enjoy that U2 CD, even if your wife wants to watch TV. Or this blazer will nicely complement that blouse you bought last week.

Be creative based on your customers’ needs. Driving them away often happens (for all of us) if we send too often or communicate with nothing relevant to say.

Q. What is a good frequency of e-blasts?

Depending on length of buying cycles, during a B2B complex sale, I’ve seen clients build nice momentum with once or twice per month. The key is to get a clear picture on all the other communications your prospects may receive.

For example – are they also getting your monthly eNewsletter? How about additional emails for other topics they’ve expressed interest in? What about webinar invitations?

If you add them all up, you could be sending much more than you think. You need to get a big picture view to determine the best scheduling for your situation.

Q. How do I create a sustained drip marketing campaign and how long should each campaign last?

First of all, it will be easier if you stop thinking of it as a campaign and start thinking of drip marketing as a consistent publishing process. This said, the minimum length of time for a drip program is the average length of your buying process. To sustain drip marketing over time the following tools can help:

• Create an editorial calendar to guide your content development. This way you don’t end up struggling to create some kind of content just because a send is due to go out.

• Create a style guideline based on the prospects you are marketing to in the drip. Include:

• Phrases they use around the problem/challenge.
• Pronouns – you, (type, like retailers, marketers, etc.) This reminds you to write content that gets close to customers vs. content that’s company focused (using we, or the company name) and puts distance between you and them.
• Keywords – both long-tail and short. Using the same keywords in your content can help you to “own” the front page of search results. For example, query Marketing Interactions and you’ll see that I currently hold the top 4 results on Google, Bing and #1, 2, 5, 6 and 10 on Yahoo!.
• List of words not to use.
• Value you provide.
• Proof points that you deliver.

A style guideline will help you to maintain consistency in how you address your audience     over time.

Part 2 of the Webinar Q&A is now posted

How Catchy is Your Content?

Information overwhelm. We all suffer from it. Our job as B2B marketers is to create contagious content that catches—and keeps—the attention of our prospects across the entirety of a long-term complex purchase. That means your marketing content has to work even harder than you may have thought to rise above the noise.

Seem daunting? Doesn't have to be. Not when you use Catch Factors.

How many times have you heard that your content has to be relevant? Probably a lot. The word relevance is used so much that it's a bucket term. It's simply too bottomless to be helpful in guiding the way to ensuring that your content is worthwhile to your prospects.

Catch Factors break down relevance into digestible bites so you can systematically improve your content—from concept to finished piece.

Catch Factors are the preferences and aversions that form a prospect's gut reaction to your content and communications.

Take a look at what your content must convey to be catchy:

• Urgency - does it apply to a real business problem they have right now?
  People are busy. Content that's nice to have, but not immediately applicable will be ignored until the time is right. You need to learn what your prospect's top priorities are and address them.


• Impact - is your information on a topic critical to their professional success?
  When your prospect engages with your content, do they perceive it to be valuable enough to help them take next steps toward addressing their priority issue?


• Effort - how much energy do they have to expend to access and understand it?
  Is there a form? Is it too technical for a business audience (or the other way around). Is it scannable so they can determine value, or do they have to hunker down and dig in to figure it out? How many clicks does it take to get to it?


• Reputation - what's their immediate perception of your company?
  Have they ever heard of you? If they Google your company, what will they see? Is your content written in a way they will perceive credible? (About them more than you.)


• Intent - what will they think you want from them?
  Will they think you're selling or helping?

Now, a few things you need to know. No one goes through a check list in their heads when a message arrives in their inbox or they follow a link from a search result. Catch Factors are split-second assessments that happen naturally when a person is confronted with information.

Depending on their immediate situation, prospects can rank some factors higher than others. You don't have to have all the Catch Factors in play at once, but the more of them you do have, the "catchier" your content will be.

According to Deidre Wilson and Dan Sperber’s Relevance Theory, an individual draws a conclusion based on the first relevant meaning recognized, and the one that requires the least effort. This is where our millisecond attention spans come into play and why your marketing content needs to be compelling—at first glance.

Leveraging Catch Factors helps marketing content catch attention and accelerate your prospects’ buying behavior. Put yourself in your prospect's shoes and go evaluate your content against the 5 Catch Factors. How many do you find? Can you refresh your content to include more of them?

Marketing Automation Must Support a Business Process

Manticore Technology and Bulldog Solutions have released a new white paper that addresses some misconceptions that B2B marketers may have about marketing automation. As they point out, it's terrific when an application is intuitive and easy to use, but marketing automation must be used in support of a business process if it's going to produce the desired results. More sales and revenues.

Process and skillsets are holding marketers back:

"Recent Executive Benchmark Assessment data from Bulldog Solutions and Frost & Sullivan, the Growth Partnership company, shows that process is the number one roadblock BtoB marketers face in implementing marketing automation, with skillsets and content right behind."

Considering that Sirius Decisions predicts that 50% of B2B marketers will have marketing automation within the next 5 years, it's imperative to go about deploying it the right way, the first time. As we're hearing more and more - companies who implement marketing automation successfully can achieve stellar results.

What I like about this paper is that for each "truth" it presents, marketers are offered action points and links to related resources so they can hone in on the areas where they need the most help.

To whet your appetite, the 6 Truths addressed include:

Truth 1: Marketing Automation ISN’T Easy

Truth 2: While Lacking Sex Appeal, Marketing Process Is the Key to Marketing Automation Success

Truth 3: The Buying Decision Is Well Under Way by the Time the Prospect Gets to Your Web Site. Act Accordingly

Truth 4: Content Is King — And Not Necessarily a Benign Dictator

Truth 5: Think Beyond Lead Generation: It’s Not Quantity, It’s Quality

Truth 6: You Don’t Know What You Don’t Know

Download Your Copy
[fairly painless registration is required]

In B2B Marketing the Sum is Greater than the Parts

BtoB Online published a collection of data charts revealing a variety of input from marketers around lead generation and management. When I reviewed the charts, a couple of them pointed to what I see as a conflict in goals, or perhaps understanding of dependencies.

This chart shows how marketers rate the importance of a variety of goals:

*Note that column 5 indicates the most important.

The number one spot, according to 52%, is driving qualified leads. No real surprise there.

But look where lead nurturing came in. Dead last behind raising awareness and serving as voice of the company.

How do you drive qualified leads if you don't nurture them? Especially in a complex B2B sale.

I see two possible interpretations for this response. Either marketing has a very low threshold for what constitutes a "qualified lead" or they're focused on scraping the 20% that are sales ready off the top of the database and then searching for more new leads - letting the others languish in lead purgatory. Not the best choice considering that a majority of those leads are likely to buy in the long term.

Now take a look at the chart that measures proficiency gaps:

I find it curious that marketers assign their highest proficiency to lead management with marketing automation, yet all of the other categories impact the quality of lead management and marketers say they're less effective at each of them.

The good thing I see is that there's a desire to raise proficiency levels. But I'm still confused about how marketers will reach nearly a 9 in lead management when all the other categories that play a role the process and success of lead management are considered less important...

Relevance and Email are Like Reese's Peanut Butter Cups

Marketing Sherpa's Chart of the Week shows the results of asking marketers to rate the effectiveness of email tactics. I was happy to see that the delivery of relevant content came in at #1:

 

This said, the drop in the effectiveness of email sent to house lists for B2B tells me that delivering relevant content to segments is more of a concept than a reality.

In the summary write up, Sergio Belegno, states:

"In this chart we see that "delivering content relevant to a segment" ranks highest in terms of tactical effectiveness, but it also requires a great deal of effort -- a barrier to adopting this tactic. "Email campaigns to house lists" offers the greatest value because the high level of effectiveness comes with a much smaller price tag in terms of effort required."

I have a lot of respect for Marketing Sherpa, I really do. I've found their research and advice to be valuable for years. But, this statement about assigning the greatest value to emailing house lists because the tactic requires less effort than delivering relevant content makes me a bit peeved. (Okay - a lot, actually)

Relevance applies to every communication a marketer ever exchanges with a prospect. Period.

This idea that marketers should give up on relevance in favor of expediency is why so many marketing programs aren't successful. More emphasis is placed on tactics than on strategy.

What marketers need to do is make learning how to efficiently design content that's relevant to their prospects' needs a priority. Not give it up in favor of blasting out email because it's easier to hit the send button than to write good content.

I'm sure I'm pushing this beyond what Sergio intended, but I'm trying to make a point.

Just as a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup wouldn't work without both peanut butter and chocolate, an email sent to your house list that lacks relevance for your audience won't work, either. Hence the drop in effectiveness.

Is Your B2B Marketing Content a Filter or a Vortex?

The amount of information available is staggering. So much noise is created on a daily basis through content publishing that it's a real challenge to find anything meaningful. We've all created our own personal filters to help us sort through the mess to find content we consider valuable and, most important, relevant to our interests.

Getting back to the title of this post, I'll bet most of you would choose to have your marketing content serve as a vortex, sweeping across the Web and attracting "leads" at unprecedented rates. 

Not so fast.

Marketers need to stop thinking about lead generation from a quantity perspective and start focusing on quality. Marketing content needs to be designed to help you do just that. Time is one of our most precious resources. We need to maximize our efficiency if we're to generate the sales-ready leads that our sales teams clamor to pursue.

If we get better at designing content to attract leads who are both a cultural and a buyer fit, then we save time sifting through the shale to find the gold. This is only possible if we truly know who our ideal buyers are and what they want/need to take next steps with us.

Everyone is not your buyer. So get over it right now and let those who aren't go.

I hear repeatedly that marketing has limited resources, but yet they still charge out into the marketplace trying to attract as many "leads" as they can. Then they end up passing unqualified leads to salespeople and wonder why sales isn't so interested when marketing tells them the lead they're sending over is a hot prospect.

You've likely heard a lot about creating buyer personas. A persona is definitely a key component in helping you to create successful content marketing programs. This said, with this information you should also be able to recognize who is not a potential customer for your company - regardless of whether or not they downloaded your white paper or attended your latest webinar. What we forget is that personas not only define who our customers are, but they also serve as a reminder of who is not our customer.

Now, before you start groaning at the injustice of it all, consider this:

If your content is written to truly engage a specific niche, persona or target segment (however you define this) it should naturally repel all those who aren't a fit as time goes on. That's because it won't be relevant to them as the story unfolds during nurturing.

By using content as a filter, marketers can focus on and prioritize their efforts to meet the needs of those who will buy at some future point.

If we don't eliminate those who won't ever become our customers we can find ourselves watching their behavior and modifying our programs to address what they're telling us they need. It would be a shame to make those changes all because we jammed our databases with people who will never become our customers and then allowed them to sway our programs because their behavior indicated we should do so.

All I'm saying is to be careful of the feedback you follow. Using your content as a prospect filter can be a good thing. Instead of worrying about the volume number for lead generation, start focusing on showing pipeline transitions, sales accepted leads and closed deals. That's what leads to marketing accountability.

Webinar Q&A: Content is Marketing Currency

On Wednesday, I answered a question that had been asked during the webinar about how to improve a content strategy you already have with the post Take Your Content Marketing Up Stream. Today, I'd like to address some of the other questions that were asked during the Content is Marketing Currency Webinar sponsored by GoToWebinar.

Q: Beyond Linked in and Facebook, do you have recommendations for using other third parties to further distribute content?

Off the top, here are a few ideas:

• Content syndication is a great way to get your content out.
• Guest blog posts on blogs read by your potential prospects.
• Guest articles contributed to group eBooks or niche websites.
• Using Twitter to promote your own blog posts.
• Inclusion of one of your articles in a partner's newsletter sent to an appropriate audience.
• Joining the panel in a Webinar discussion that can use your expertise.

Q: Can you point to some good public B2B examples of this kind of integrated content marketing that we can look at online?

One of the best examples around is HubSpot. In addition to their website, they publish a blog, use Twitter and Facebook, host the Inbound Marketers group on LinkedIn, put on HubSpot TV, sponsor the Inbound Marketing Institute, provide widgets like website grader, and more. Everything they do is connected in some fashion. They've taken the Hub concept and multiplied it. And it's paying off. You can see just how well in their case study in my book. If you don't have it, you can download the chapter with their case study.

Q: Do you have a marketing automation technology you recommend.

Not to downplay this question, but it's not that easy. Marketing automation technology is not one-size fits all. I can say fantastic things about Genius.com, Manticore Technology, Marketo, Eloqua, Silverpop, Neolane and even smaller players like LeadLife and Genoo - to mention a few.

Selecting the right MA solution for your company depends on a few things:

• The process you've designed for lead management.
• Whether your company is sales or marketing driven.
• The components and purpose of your content strategy.
• The quality of your lead database.
• Your ability to respond to prospect behaviors.
• How easily you can update your website.
• How well marketing is aligned with sales.
• and more...

The thing that's important is for you to determine exactly what you want to accomplish, how you'll do it and the resources you have to support the technology and the process - all before you choose. Technology won't solve the problem. Marketing automation is best used in support of a solid process.

Q: As an independent consultant, my "buyer" is my "client," not HR or buying staffer within a large company. Who  is actually reading and participating in twitter, blogs, etc? I doubt it's the VP or program team leader or IT  services company owner I might target, but maybe I'm wrong. What do you say?

I say you need to take a look. You might be surprised. In a recent Webinar, Peter Burris, VP and Principle at Forrester Research, said that 85% of decision makers they interviewed reported to use social media during the decision-making process.

As an independent consultant, myself, I can attribute at least 6 new clients to my engagement with them on social media - during the last year, alone. I don't work with HR or a buying staffer either. I work with marketing and sales executives, company owners, and product marketing teams.

But don't take my word for it. Sites like these are great places to take a look at who's active in social media:

www.twellow.com - search under categories

www.wefollow.com - enter search terms - for example, CIO shows 164 in the list of Twitter users.

LinkedIn - search for CIO there shows over 97K users. I belong to 46 groups and I see a lot of executives participating. For example, the Director of Content Strategy from Microsoft posed a question in one of my groups just last week.

Social media may be in the early stages, but I pretty much bet that your clients are involved in one way or another, even if they're reading blogs, watching videos or attending Webinars. Social media is not limited to Twitter and Facebook.

Remember that most people are passive participators. They're out there but may only be reading and observing. That means you could be missing a big opportunity to catch their attention or connect with them if you're not there. The trick is in diagnosing just which platforms are ripe for you and your company. Do a little research before you say that your clients are not there.

Q: I am a solo marketer working within a professional service business where the fee earners are also the subject matter experts and therefore are the guys who should be generating the content ideas.  Have you any advice for engaging my colleagues in the types of activity you advocate, so that I don't have to drive myself crazy doing it for them?

Yes. I find that it helps if you focus on the experts who "want" to contribute. Some people are not natural writers. Learn which topics your willing writers are highly passionate about and then suggest/outline an editorial calendar for each of them.

• An outline generally includes several sentences setting up a main idea and 3 bullets of corresponding points that can be applied to that idea to flesh out a content resource. There's nothing worse for many people than starting with a blank page. Hopefully, once they get the hang of it, they'll start submitting their own ideas for content development.


• Set parameters so they know exactly what they're aiming for. For example; 200 to 250 words is fine for a blog post, 500 - 600 words for an article, etc.


• Set deadlines they can agree to - like twice per month on specific dates.If they schedule the time to draft the content it's more likely to happen with regularity.


• It also helps to include a link or two to other articles on a similar topic so they can get their creative juices flowing.


• Offer to help them edit the content to take some pressure off their attempts at perfection.

The benefits of you, as marketer, guiding the process is that you can work toward creating a consistent storyline for your company, focused on your buyers' needs.

Q: how would you build up traffic from zero even if you have engaging content? Doesn't part of it have to be being out and about in the real world? As in not virtually or online.

Being out and about in the real world is always helpful. The catch is transferring people’s attention from interacting with you personally to motivation for them to go online “building traffic” after the fact. You’d better give them a good reason to do so. This said, direct mail that refers people to use links to access online content can also be effective from a “real world” perspective.

There’s ample opportunity to go from zero to found with online approaches. It takes time, effort and an ability to stay the course. From organic SEO to PPC, search engines can help drive traffic. Incorporating a blog with your website can help if you use keywords effectively and publish regularly. Social press releases can also gain exposure that builds traffic – provided you have something interesting and valuable to share.

Commenting on blogs that your prospects read can also prompt people to click on the link to your website or blog – driving traffic. Providing ways for people to subscribe to RSS feeds, email newsletters and other content can also build traffic.

Spreading your engaging content around in other places can help pull traffic. Post your slide decks to Slideshare, your videos to YouTube, and submit your articles to article submission sites – all with links back to your website. The opportunities are endless.