Marketing Interactions

Extend Your Content's Reach within the B2B Buying Committee

B2B marketers know there are a number of people involved in a complex buying decision. What often goes overlooked is understanding not only who the marketing programs can reach and engage but how content gets shared among the group. It's common sense that the more people within an organization your content gains exposure with, the more opportunity your ideas and expertise has to gain sway.

But, it's not as simple as we could hope for. The CMO Council report, The Content Connection to Vendor Selection, finds that there are three nearly equally weighted scenarios for content sharing among B2B buyers:

• 35% from the middle out
• 30% from the bottom up
• 29% from the top down

While the study arrived at definitions for 6 "personas" - two for each type of researcher, influencer and decision maker - for how people source content and what types they favor, the problem I have with establishing "grazers" or "authority leaders" is that they're nearly impossible to identify through online behavior in a way that's meaningful.

Rather than aiming for one type of content sharing, B2B marketers need to take into account all three, as well as all the different types of content people choose to source. From the projects I've helped my clients develop and run, there are a few things I've found to be helpful for getting content into more hands of the folks in the buying group:

Suggestive Prompts:

Present ideas that are relevant to one buyer persona along with why another persona in the group would find the idea valuable. Prompts can be subtle influencers that become conversation starters and promote content sharing. Make sure to do this without breaking the context of your content.

Statements along the lines of: "While [persona 1 - your target audience] will find value in this capability, [persona 2] will appreciate this outcome as it helps them to achieve objective X."

Content Asset Balance:

Hat tip to Shelly Lucas (@pisarose) for this term.

While marketers tend to focus on pre-sales content that builds awareness and informs short-list selection, they need to focus on an asset balance that addresses all stages of the continuum buying experience. People on the buying committee will come in and out of the process depending on how the decision will impact them, their role and their workflows.

Different levels of depth and formats of content are more valuable at different times. By relegating marketing content to the pre-sales or even to the very earliest stages of the buying process, we're leaving a lot of opportunity to impact the decision up for grabs with our competitors. Map the entire process for each persona, as well as the overlays that may drive further interaction.

For example, in the case above, if Persona 2 becomes interested and comes looking for more about how your solution can help her gain the outcome mentioned in the content that was shared with her, will you have it? Will your salesperson know where to find it if she asks the question?

Assess Access First

During the development of buyer personas is when you find out how easily you'll be able to reach a specific persona. In every project I work on, one or more of the people marketing needs to engage and influence for sales conversations isn't an easy target. By figuring out who invites the most open access, you can then tailor your strategy for how to ensure your content is spreadable once access has been granted. Think of it as a Trojan Horse approach.

The whole point is to get your company's ideas and expertise used to set the agenda for how to best solve the problem. And it is doable. It just takes a little finesse.

Shameless plug: One of the main concepts of my new book, Digital Relevance is The Continuum Experience. If you'd really like to understand its value, the book will help. It comes out on January 6th.

The B2B Funnel is Now a Sieve

The buying process has gotten messy for B2B marketers. This easy access to information means that engagement one second can turn into disinterest in the next. Every new channel puts a hole in your funnel. (Although I've never liked the funnel construct, it's appropriate for making the point.)

Marketers who don't integrate new channels into their content marketing strategy will find they have a very leaky funnel. I'm not talking about using them, I'm talking about considering how they all work together.

If you want to plug the holes, it's time to consider:

Consistency of Story

Given that only 32% of enterprise B2B marketers consider their content marketing effective, they need to pay attention to what they're doing with the 17 tactics they use, on average. Forty-one percent are creating more content than they did last year but the question remains as to what it is and why they're creating it?

Many of them don't have a documented plan which leaves me to wonder how they manage it all. But I'd wager that this is an indication of why consistency across channels is lacking. If you're relying on memory or hoping that everyone is publishing to the idea of the plan, good luck.

The problem I see is that in lieu of a strategy, marketers use different channels for different things. One example I've seen a lot is a really well done blog and a Facebook page that's about the company's favorite sports team and silly contests. If you're a buyer and you encounter a really thought-provoking blog post and then click through to the silly Facebook page, what are you left thinking?

The other is a conflict of personas. You may have a blog focused on IT professionals and a LinkedIn Group for line of business. But somehow there are cross links that make no sense but were done for SEO purposes. I've seen horrendous crimes done to content in the name of SEO. This can also happen with hyperlinks on phrases that link to product pages on the website with no context. Who do you think you're fooling? I just read a buyer research study that found buyers are hesitant to click on links when they don't know where they'll go. Why do you think this is?

Marketers need to think about the impression made by all the channels in use where prospects and customers may encounter their company. What will the overall impression be if they run into your company on the channels you publish in most? When's the last time you looked at it from the outside, from this perspective?

Depth of Relevance

I was reviewing content for a potential project the other day. The content was solid, focused on industry trends that mattered to their prospects, but it felt off. It took me a bit to put my finger on it, but I finally figured it out. The company had taken the idea of journalism to an extreme. They were trying to be so unbiased that their content was dry, it was like straight reporting and it was stiff because they weren't actually taking a stand or speaking directly to anyone.

The company is actually really interesting and has SMEs galore that are willing to contribute content. But they don't know how to talk to their prospects with any tone, voice or personality. If you stripped away the company brand, the reader would think the content was provided by an association or news publisher. And that's not the lasting impression you want to leave.

To get to depth of relevance you not only need to know your buyers intimately, but your brand's personality. Instead of brand guidelines, why not create a brand persona that can help your company become more relevant in information, as well as in style?

Formats Don't Matter More than Information

One of the first things I hear in a lot of content conversations is about the type of content the marketing team wants to create. We need a white paper or an eBook or an infographic, etc. This is the wrong place to start.

Start with the idea. What topic and for whom? What will they get from it? What do you want to accomplish? How will it work within your storyline?

These are the questions to answer. Then you can define a suite of content to develop around the idea complete with a distribution plan and how you'll connect the dots across channels. Remember that the expectations in channels also vary. Instead of one content asset, start thinking in terms of content hubs.

If you don't want to lose your audience, you need to move format to the end of the list. It's not the most important element. The information is.

Social Does Not Mean Broadcast

I think we've forgotten how to actually "be" social. There's a big difference between broadcasting and engaging. The lazy way out is to post title and link...repeatedly. Or to post title and link when channels including LinkedIn, Facebook and Google+ allow you to add much more narrative. Yet, we tend to treat every social channel with the brevity required by Twitter. Why?

What a missed opportunity. Although this would also mean we'd need to think about how to be meaningful - and who has time for that?

The Point

The point is that marketers are putting a lot of investment into channels they don't own, but they're not applying the effort to make them pay off. Buyers have a choice. It's often represented by the back button and then the ignore trigger that has them scan right past your post. Once they start avoiding you, will you be able to win them back? If their experience with your brand across channels is reminiscent of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, you've got work to do.

The best approach is to think of everything you publish as a form of Natural Nurturing. I wrote about it in my book, eMarketing Strategies for the Complex Sale, in 2009. This is not a new concept. Every time your content comes into contact with your audience you have an opportunity. Squander it and your funnel becomes a sieve.

 

B2B Buyers Choose Their Own Adventures

I was reading this blog post interview with Paul Greenberg over on Hubspot's blog about defining customer engagement and one of his examples stuck out to me. The essence of it was "don't make decisions for your buyers." Instead, let them choose.

Regardless of how much research you've done, the number of personas you've created, you can only know so much. Each buyer is an individual, a human. While your content marketing programs lay down the bread crumbs they can choose to follow, it's what happens next that's critical.

Paul Greenberg defines customer engagement as:

“the ongoing interactions between company and customer, offered by the company, chosen by the customer”

The point is choice.

While marketers plan out their content strategies and map content to buying stages - which they must do - they need to also realize that these are starting points...that flexibility and agile response are the keys to becoming truly relevant.

One of the biggest complaints I hear from marketers today is that content isn't necessarily resulting in prospects choosing to "do" something. Most of the time it's because the choice of what to do next isn't obvious, or if it is, it's not relevant given how they interpreted what they just viewed based on where they are in the buying process.

So your audience either clicks around trying to find something that extends the dialogue they embarked upon, or they move on.

The problem I see is is caused by the way marketers have decided to align content to buying stages. Rather than introducing flexibility that more than one choice could exist, we've ended up trying to dictate what's next by offering content that we think is a logical and linear progression.

Marketers remain under the illusion that they control the informational exchange.

This is a big misconception. In an informational environment now driven by choice, why do we think limiting choice is the way to go?

I get that marketers have budgets and that developing content has its limits, but we need to make decisions about how we'll offer our audience options. We also need to pay careful attention to what their choices in relation to those options can tell us.

There are a variety of ways in which choice can manifest. Here are a few examples.

Option 1:

• Prospect engages with an article about a topic
• The "see also" options include a video, a link to register for a webinar, and an infographic

Offering choices based on format can help you discern which type of content the prospect prefers and how much more time and attention the person is willing to invest, should all three be versions of the next topic on your list. Sometimes it's the format that matters.

If this prospect only looks at infographics, then how serious are they about learning what they need to know to buy? Most infographics are lightweight data presentations that lack context and depth.

However, if this prospect registers for the webinar and attends, the behavior can tell you something quite different.

Option 2:

• Prospect engages with a blog post
• The hyperlinks in the blog post offer three different perspectives related to the topic in the post - all the links are to articles displayed on web pages, removing format as a factor in selection

In this case, the topic they select to click on can provide insights to the person's view on the topic and what the situation they are facing may look like (if you've written content based on depth of persona knowledge)

If they click on more than one, this could indicate they have a higher urgency for learning more about how to solve the problem or meet the objective that's the focus.

Choice is Also Insight for Marketers

It may seem like allowing buyers to "choose their own adventures" is a lot of work, but what you can learn by analyzing their choices can become input to improve the way your content addresses the buying process across stages. Offering more options can also result in speeding up the learning process, hence the decision cycle.

If marketers want to build higher engagement with buyers, letting them lead the way through how they use your content can transform your marketing performance.

It's definitely worth thinking about.

 

Curiosity and Context: Keys to Engagement for B2B Buyers

Many B2B marketers have jumped on the bandwagon about answering their buyers and customers' questions. There's a bit more strategy involved to do so in a way that drives momentum, but what I'm not seeing is marketers attempting to promote the curiosity that motivates their buyers to ask the questions they haven't thought of yet.

Campaigns are dead. Even Forrester says so.

Curiosity and Context are the fuel for engagement. And in B2B, you're going for the long-term - not the one-off. Consistency and longevity critical. The story must build across stages, pulling buyers forward by building anticipation for what's next - for them to understand how they get the outcome they want with your help.

So what drives engagement?

Curiosity. A desire to know more. Ideas that reshape the way people think about a concept, inviting them to ask new questions in exploration.

Context that uses stories based on how problems and priorities might be playing out for prospects and customers.

Perception of low effort that makes it stupid simple and appealing to create a dialogue with you.

A sense of empowerment that comes when buyers feel they are driving the conversation, not your agenda.

Anticipation to get what's next because your story (content) has motivated them to "turn the page."

Simply making a list of questions and answering them is not the solution to creating lasting engagement that drives revenues for complex sales. Why not? Because there are hidden questions, subconscious needs that buyers don't think to ask until their curiosity is aroused.

Reasons why content doesn't create curiosity:

There's no Open End.

Much of this has to do with corporations thinking that they need to be the definitive answer to prove their expertise. There's no room left for discussion without the risk of the buyer looking stupid or presenting an outright challenge. Let's just admit that we don't know everything - never will - and get it over with already.

It's not Novel.

A lot of content is a restatement of stuff other people have said so many times that there's nothing new. If this is a constant, these are the responses you can expect. People will either scan and see they've read the same stuff before and leave. Or they'll finally reach their breaking point and either mark your brand off their resources list or post a comment expressing their irritation. Either way, your value to them has diminished.

It's trying to talk to Too Many People at once.

When you don't know your audience well enough or you have limited resources, you try to do too much with one content asset. This usually means that it's so high level that it doesn't speak with meaning to anyone.

The Context is Skewed.

You are still using gut instinct to tell you what your audience cares about. But you've missed the points that matter to them. Perhaps you nailed the topic, but the angle you've taken tells them you really don't understand their situation or what they care about. In this scenario, there's just no motivation to engage because the buyer knows you don't "get" them.

It sounds Too Good To Be True.

You know your Whizz Bang solution is the next best thing to sliced bread. But you've emphasized so many upsides without the details, struggles or whatever else it takes to get them that the outcomes sound too good to be true. This immediately arouses disbelief about all the stuff that's been omitted or the veracity of what you're saying and results in diminished credibility - even if what you say is true!

I could go on, but I think I've made the point. What it comes down to is being human and highly relevant. But it's also a sense of mirroring - or being seen as a peer. No one likes to be lectured to by someone who thinks they're the smartest person in the room. If you want to create engagement with an upside, you have to be curious, too.

Buyers are looking for expertise, certainly. But they're also sure that their situation is unique - which it is. And they want to know that you're flexible and agile enough to adjust to it while still delivering what you promise.

B2B marketers need to tread the line between using their expertise to mentor buyers and curiosity that shows you're interested in them and what they need and want. Sometimes this means showing them that you didn't have all the answers when you started helping a customer, but that you helped them figure it out and overcome the unforseen challenges encountered along the way. In other words, revealing your humanity.

B2B complex sales have inherent risk - both for the company and the buyer. In many of the interviews I do for persona projects, what I hear repeatedly is that buyers want to work with people/companies who they feel care the most about them. I've heard many customers say the equivalent of "They just seemed to "get" us."

When I probe deeper it comes back to an alignment with context and the quality of interactions that the buying team had with the vendor they chose to solve their problem.

What are you doing to show your buyers that you "GET" them?

 

Cut Through the Red Tape of Consensus for B2B Buying Decisions

This headline caught my eye - 53 Percent of B2B Fortune 500 Companies Use Marketing Automation - so I clicked through to read it. Mathew Sweezey wrote the post based on his research into the State of Demand Generation. Mathew presents three reasons for why this increase in the use of marketing automation foretells good things for the industry and his first one got me thinking.

Reason #1: Lots of Red Tape

Mathew makes the point that these enterprise companies are not light in the wallet, but that the process of getting through all of the red tape to get a deal done is exhausting. The fact that this obstacle is being removed bodes well for giving marketing automation the visibility it needs to gain more market share.

I agree. Even though I find it curious that only 53% are using it so far.

But what it made me think about is how many companies I work with where the sales team is convinced that losing deals is about price. We've all heard this argument, but we've also heard the repetitive push back that value overrules price considerations. Both marketing and sales are told to go prove the value.

And I agree with value playing an important role in the decision - perhaps a critical role.

But what if we haven't looked far enough?

When I think of red tape, what I think about immediately for a B2B complex sale - and marketing automation is definitely complex - I think about consensus.

Consensus is hard to get. With the growing number of people (43% increase in stakeholders per IDC) involved in a B2B buying decision, 34% say it's so, getting all of them to buy-in to a decision is requiring more effort.

But are B2B marketers tackling this? Or are they leaving it up to sales? It appears that neither are doing a stellar job as Sales Benchmark Index finds that 58% of typical pipelines are stalled or end up as no decision.

Here are a few reasons marketing needs to get the jump on this:

• 58% of buyers say they spend more time researching
• 53% rely more on peer recommendations
• 34% say purchases were initially unbudgeted
• 65% said the winning vendor's content had a significant impact
• Non-executives view more content than executives

B2B marketers are very concerned about reaching decision makers. This is primarily because this is who salespeople want to speak with. But we need to start thinking about consensus. For without it, we have no deal.

If your marketing content is focused on engaging the decision maker and/or economic buyer, what about the other 3 - 7 (or more) people who can argue against the decision and stop it cold?

What are we doing to convince them that making the decision is the best answer to their problem, issue or achieving their objective?

Context and Conversations

One-size-fits-all content won't get this done. The context, care abouts and decision criteria are different for every influencer involved. In order to promote consensus, marketers need to figure out what the "overlay" conversations are amongst the stakeholders and provide ideas and insights that can be used to aid in their discussions about solving the problem. The key here is that you want them to use your ideas.

By addressing the context of each of them, we can help them to understand the opportunity that exists for them, specifically, as well as how these all culminate to be the best way to solve the problem for the company as a whole.

Establishing value is of course important, but relevance will determine its impact and this means it needs to be "personalized" and based on context.

The shift required here is for marketers to think beyond trying to getting their salespeople into the conversation. By working to facilitate conversations among the stakeholders based on our ideas, we'll find that getting invited into these conversations follows more easily.

What are you doing to ensure your content and nurturing programs are stimulating conversations among stakeholders that build consensus?

Shameless Plug - Mathew and I will be co-presenting a charged-up session on Advanced Nurturing at Content Marketing World in September. I hope we'll see you there.

Are You Pandering to the B2B Lead Slave Trade?

I just read the State of B2B Lead Generation report from Buyer Zone and I have to say that my heart sunk a bit. That nearly 50% are sending inquiries directly to sales as "leads" was disheartening enough. But when asked where they'd spend budget if they had money to burn, the answer from 31% of B2B marketers was to buy more leads. The majority of marketers said that increasing lead quantity was the key to their success.

If you haven't guessed - the remainder of this post is a bit of a rant. Fair warning.

Have we learned nothing? Do marketers walk around with blinders on? Or is it wishful thinking that force feeding our funnels can solve all of our problems?

Somehow this notion makes me feel kind of slimy. Like marketers are pandering to a B2B Lead Slave Trade where buyers are bought and forced to endure marketing and sales hell until they can break free of the shackles of this inhumane treatment.

Okay, so I'm being a bit dramatic. But, do you like it when you end up on the receiving end of emails from companies you've never heard of or given permission to hear from about stuff you have no interest in?

Do you enjoy downloading a paper and getting called from a clueless salesperson to "follow up with a demo" when you were simply interested in the topic of a white paper?

I thought not. So why is it we still feel like this is the way to go? It's kind of one of those "do unto others" things. But, for some strange reason we act like it doesn't apply to marketing.

So why?

I'm going to start by blaming the CMO, CSO and executive team. Until marketing performance is graded on quality, rather than quantity, you're driving the B2B Lead Slave Trade.

What the Buyer Zone report found is that B2B marketers are actually getting pretty good at generating their own leads but feel that they've exhausted their internal skills to amplify the volume, so they resort to buying them. You're selling yourselves short; taking the easy way out.

I'd argue that if the leads generated were really leads, marketers wouldn't have this problem. Although marketers in mid to large companies say they're tracking qualification and close rates, it appears they're doing this more as bystanders than as active participants with accountability. (See the immediate turnover of leads to sales above)

So now it's time to assign blame to marketers perpetuating the crime. It's not okay to abdicate yourself from your participation in the B2B Lead Slave Trade by taking a hand's off approach as you toss leads over the wall and rely on sales to sentence them to hard labor as they seek to reach the number. Your hands are still dirty.

Set Your Slaves Free

Buying leads is lazy. It's all about you and nothing about them. The hard part about marketing in this noisy world is that attracting attention and then sustaining it isn't for the faint of heart. It takes hard work, dedication and a buyer-first mindset. But it's worth it.

When you create and share ideas that your target audiences need and want, they will opt in willingly to get more. They'll be interested in dialogue to learn more about the expertise your company brings to help them achieve elusive objectives. A lead isn't created in one touch - not usually. Just like you don't become best friends when you meet someone the first time.

In the report, the company website barely eked by lead generation services as the number one source of leads. I guarantee you that you have not exhausted the potential of that property to generate leads. You're probably not even close. The same is likely true for email, social media, SEO and word of mouth - ranked 3 - 6.

Instead of buying your way to lead quantity, it's time to focus on improving your skillsets and market approaches for gaining attention and sustaining engagement to improve lead quality. Roll up your sleeves and get to know your buyers. The buy and toss method doesn't help you do this.

There May Be a Bit of an Upside...

B2B marketers were asked, "Looking ahead, what will be the key game changer for the future of lead generation success? 

First response by 21.1% was increasing the quality of leads. Lead nurturing came in second with 12.8%.

Kudos to one fifth of marketers for at least knowing they're not hitting the high notes. The remaining 79% may be in serious trouble as buyers continue to fight for their freedom.

Are Your B2B Buyers More Evolved than Your Content?

The noise online is deafening. But there is also a lot of really great content available on nearly every subject imaginable - from addressing simple ideas to the highly complex. There's a lot of research that shows the first stop for B2B buyers with the need to solve a problem is search. With nearly unlimited search results for any query, your buyer is learning a lot as they browse around looking for ideas, education and opportunities to turn that problem into an opportunity for their company - and their career.

So, do you know what they know?

Most marketers do (or have someone) do keyword research to use to engage their target audiences.

I worked on a project recently where an "SEO specialist" provided a list of keywords for the marketing team to use. I went out and Googled them. Some of them produced results totally unrelated to what the buyers would be interested in, but they had good volume (so what?). Some produced results with competitor content and some of that content was pretty darned good. Some of it was totally off the mark.

The point being that I don't see a lot of marketers actually looking at what the keywords they're using produce for a search. It's strangely a bit like blind acceptance if the words make sense to them. But what's at the end is critical.

So what if you stepped into your buyer's shoes and went online to search for a solution to a problem your buyer might be experiencing by using your keywords? What could you easily learn from the content offered up in the search results? If you click on a link and read it, does it prompt you to search on a new term? (what was is?) And so on.

Or would you hit the back button and keep scrolling through the search results looking for a better option? How far do you get before you realize this keyword isn't giving you what you need and move on to the next one? Do you use a keyword from your list or did your brain come up with a new one.

Remember, you're in your buyer's shoes. Be discerning. Treat the exercise seriously. Heed time - they don't have all day. Look for the rabbit holes that start with the example I proposed in the previous paragraph.

Once you've done this several times, review what your buyer would have learned.

If you know your buyer uses a social platform in their buying process, go try searching on some of those - groups in LinkedIn they may belong to or hashtags on Twitter, for example. What can they learn about solving those problems in those environments?

Now go look at your content. Given what your buyer may have engaged with, is your content off the mark? Is it too advanced or too simplistic? Is it possible that any of the rabbit holes you followed could provide new insights for how your content might be positioned to enter the thread? This can be critical if the keyword isn't one that will allow you to quickly reach page 1 in the search results.

We often plan our content from start to finish as if our prospects will only interact with the story we're telling. Heck, I've been guilty of this at times, myself. But marketers need to recognize that this isn't reality for most of our buyers - if any - and start to figure out how we'll engage them based on what they may already have learned.

In the experiment you did, was what you learned on the mark? Or was it off track, given the thorough research I know you've done while building buyer personas?

If it was off track, can you develop content to set them straight? I don't necessarily mean dissing the other content, but gently guiding them to another perspective. Perhaps something along the lines of "Why X may not be the best choice if you need to do Y" And this isn't to be taken lightly. You better be able to show your expertise where your claim lies.

Buyers are smart. They're evolving quickly. We need to think about what that means for our marketing programs and how we'll evolve them to stay in step with what our buyers know - or think they know - as they navigate through all that online noise to find what matters to them.

You want it to be your content, right?

 

Even ONE B2B Persona Can Bring Benefits

Last week, Steve Rayson wrote a blog post over on Anders Pink, B2B Buyer Personas - A Waste of Time? I'm honored that he wrote about a post I published and shared a few metrics I'd not seen. Steve's blog post is solid and pulls in other research and points to be considered - you should go read it.

But Steve concluded with one point that I'd like to counter. He wrote:

"The challenge for B2B companies is to create content that addresses the questions B2B buyers are asking and helping buyers make better decisions. This is complex with multiple people involved as the buying process progresses. Thus it seems to me that buyer personas are more essential than they ever were. However, single buyer personas are probably ineffective and could well be a waste of time. What is required is a full understanding  of the buying process, multiple buyer personas and a clear identification of their requirements at each stage of the process."

[Note: emphasis moved to make my point]

I don't mean to be rude, but I disagree with this kind of thinking. Although that last sentence in his paragraph is right on the money, it's the one I highlighted that has me stirred up. It's the equivalent of thinking "this project is too big (expensive, complex, difficult), so instead, I'll do nothing."

Quitting before you start when you know improving the relevance of your marketing programs will bring rewards is a huge fail. Yes, B2B companies buy with committees. Yes, to do this optimally would require more than one persona.

But a HUGE misconception is that buyer personas are an all-or-nothing proposition.

Sometimes taking an iterative approach to a complex program can be the best way to tackle it. Think about the value you can reap from just one persona. With personas this can be especially valid considering that what's at the end of a persona project is content strategy and development. Sometimes, it's not the persona creation that's the problem, but the execution that goes with each one.

So let's say you can only produce one persona.

First - select the primary persona that sales is clamoring to get into conversation - provided that marketing can influence them. This is important. For example, many salespeople want to speak with CXOs but what we learn is that someone at the director level is doing the research, evaluation and creating the short list for their CXO boss. So take a good look at your choice.

Now let's look at the benefits that one persona can bring:

• Relevance: There's always one persona who is a primary target over the others for each company - one that is better as a way in than the others. If you look at your database, this persona likely makes up a bigger group of contacts than the others. Wouldn't you rather be highly relevant to this major audience than to be serving up good, but not really compelling content, to all of them?
  
  
• Your Ideas in the Room: The thing about B2B personas is that they're part of a group - a buying committee. They talk to each other. They eventually need to reach consensus. If the persona you target is influential, then he or she is capable of bringing your company's ideas and expertise into those conversations.
  
  Considering that short lists are created today - often without speaking to the vendor - this is a critical consideration. But to be motivated to do so, your content must be so relevant that your prospect thinks he came up with them. A persona can help you get there.
  
  
• Pass-Along Value: During the interviews you conduct for developing your ONE persona, you'll learn a lot of things. Asking the right questions is critical. But, if you know you're only creating one, then make sure to ask about the others involved, who can push back and why. What obstacles did this persona have to overcome to gain consensus?
  
  Armed with this information, you can generate content that will help your prospect answer these questions and respond to pushback introduced by others on the buying committee. He or she will pass along your content to help validate the answers.

These are only three benefits, but they should be good enough to get you to consider why even one persona is better than none.

But consider the learning benefits for your marketing team, as well.

One persona is a test bed for:

• Proving increased relevance will make a quantifiable difference
• The opportunity to tweak and refine and learn what works
• Quick wins that earn the ability to ask for more budget and prove it's a good investment
• Developing a process and workflow for content development
• Developing a persona-driven engagement program for better execution
• Creating one solid story across the entirety of the buying process tha can serve as a template as you add more personas when you're ready.

One of the things I always ask clients at the onset of a persona project is if they have the resources to actually put the personas to work. If they don't, then creating them all now isn't the best choice.

Why?

Because personas are never once and done. They need continuous updating and refinement. Three or six months or a year from now they will be different - depending of course on fast fast the market you serve is moving.

If all you can do is create one persona, I say, Get moving! The payoffs will be worth the effort.

If you want to get your feet wet, try the Up Close and Persona app that's featured over to the right. It's a free, simplified process, but it will get you started thinking about what's involved in creating one persona.

Is Your B2B Content Stuck in Purgatory?

One of the challenges I've had a number of conversations about recently has been the ability of B2B content to attract the right audience. Much of the content created by B2B companies gets a limited amount of pageviews, social shares or direct passalong.

There can be many reasons for this, but for the purpose of this post, we'll assume that your content meets the standards for "amazing." We're going to talk about distribution.

One of the things I've often ranted about is the lack of content strategy. An important part of content strategy is distribution. So hopefully, this post will help start a trend for more B2B marketers to turn to strategy before they publish.

While B2B marketers have begun to embrace different content formats and modes of publishing, including articles, blog posts, SlideShare, videos, and more, their publishing practices are often focused on getting it live on the website, blog or wherever the launch point is for the asset.

While they may post a few times on social media, linking back to the content, usually this involves the title and a link. Maybe they send out an email blast to their database. After a few days they move on to the next publishing project.

This lackluster attention to distribution results in a lack of discovery and attention. Sometimes it almost feels as if marketers are checking the box off the list and just moving on to the next item.

What I'm sensing is a lack of enthusiasm.

As everything else related to content marketing requires, distribution takes a concerted effort. It takes creativity and thought and it takes a clear understanding of the audience you're trying to engage, where they hang out, how they prefer to access content and what formats are more engaging to them in which circumstances.

Without this kind of attention, your content will sit in purgatory. It will remain in limbo - neither loved nor hated. Just so-so content doomed to be unappreciated. And that's a shame.

A few things to think about:

• Content marketing is never once and done. Especially in a fast-paced environment, such as Twitter, where the life of a Tweet is said to be something like 20 minutes. Do you think your entire audience is watching the stream at the time you post? Not likely.
• Title and Link are okay once, but self-serving laziness after that. What are the key points the content makes? Use those. Is there a catchy phrase or a proof point that's compelling? Use them. If your title isn't drawing attention, can you change it to something that will?
• When you post on Facebook are you taking the lazy way out and letting the link pull the blurb and picture without adding any commentary? Is what gets pulled compelling?
• Have you thought about what people on different platforms may be looking for and adjusted the way you post to meet those expectations? All social platforms do not deserve the same treatment.
• Have you reviewed your other content to find relevant opportunities to link to this new content? Creating additional pathways is always a good idea as long as they're relevant and make sense.
• So you emailed it once. Why not take a new approach in the subject line and copy and send another email in a week to everyone who didn't respond to the first send?
• Can you submit the content to related industry sites or portals or blogs that cover the subject matter?
• In what other formats could you present the content in addition to it's original form? Does this give you new opportunities for distribution?
• Is there a discussion on LinkedIn where the content is relevant? Can you add to the conversation and then share the link?
• Can you start a conversation in a group on LinkedIn that will engage with the topic? I don't mean clicking on "start a new discussion" and just posting a link to the content. Set up the discussion with a premise and ask a pointed question or make a statement that will encourage people to get in the conversation. It's not as much about views as it is about initiating dialogue.

These ideas can help, but what you really want to base a distribution plan on are the goals for this content. You do have goals, right?

• Do you want to engage new audiences?
• Do you want people to engage with that content and then demonstrate their level of interest by clicking on a "see also" link to a related piece? Or something else.
• Brand awareness? Although this is often a pretty wimpy catch-all on its own.
• Lead generation?
• Customer engagement and retention?

There are many options. Just make sure the goals aren't conflicting. One content asset cannot do everything. If it's trying to, it will fail.

Which persona is the content designed to engage? Where do those people hand out? Have you factored that into your distribution planning?

This post only scratches the surface. However, by determining the goals for your content, you will be able to design a distribution plan that goes much farther than initial publishing. Doing this well takes work. If you want content marketing to work, you need to make sure that your content is given the best chance for being discovered by the people it was designed to engage.

Distribution counters the irrational idea that "if you build it they will come." It takes more than that to get your content out of purgatory.

How Does Your B2B Brand Reflect On Your Buyers?

I've been reading a lot of posts lately about making emotional connections with B2B buyers, along with reminders not to forget their personal side. But this doesn't mean to start looking at them as B2C consumers - even though they are when they're away from the office. In professional mode, "personal" is a bit different.

And for all of you wondering - this does not mean that 2 dogs and a house in the suburbs is information that will help you.

Personal attributes for a B2B buyer are still related to the role they play at work. Some of the most basic questions of a personal nature that cross B2B buyers' minds include:

• How will this decision affect my career?
• Will this decision help save my job during the reorganization that will happen with the upcoming merger?
• Will solving this problem help me earn a promotion?
• Will this decision increase the value my company sees in me?

But when you look beyond those considerations, how does their perception of your brand influence their thinking? Is what they come across representative of the way you want your brand to be seen? Is their experience consistent across channels?

Could the way you represent yourself across channels be costing you business?

Below are a few situations to consider:

• What will my peers and colleagues think if I choose them?
• They're too hip and cool for our conservative culture. Will my executive team believe there is really enough substance?
• They're really conservative - will they bring the innovative ideas I'll need in the future? Then again, I can probably trust them not to take a flyer...
• They have some really smart people working for them - their blog is awesome - but every time the corporate Twitter handle Tweets it's about sports stuff or product discounts. Given how much the solution we're looking at costs, if my CFO ever sees that...
• I asked a sales guy an industry question he couldn't answer yesterday. Today he sent me a link to a great thread where thought leaders were weighing in. It wasn't even produced by his company. I like this guy!
• My friend just emailed me a link to a LinkedIn discussion where a gal at a company we're considering buying a solution from got defensive about something one of my colleagues posted. Uh oh...
• I'm so tired of webinars that are really sales pitches. When they don't provide the value they promise on a webinar, will they deliver if you buy? It makes me wonder if they'd always be trying to upsell me if I became their customer.
• Every time I get an email from this company I can't wait to see what they sent me. It's always great stuff. And if I can't use it, I know someone who can and forward it along. They make me look good.

Are any of these happening at your brand? Obviously, I've painted a picture that includes good and bad stuff. Even exagerated some of it to make a point. But this stuff actually happens. I've heard versions of most of these brought up in meetings. I've been forwarded links to stuff with WTF? notes from my clients and colleagues.

The truth is, social media and user-generated content and channel proliferation has created a version of reality that often reminds me a lot of high school. Operating in this environment is a lot like working under a microscope. But, if so, we need to adjust - and fast!

The truth of the matter is that you'll never be a fit for everyone. Making sure that your brand is aligned with your target markets is the best a company can hope for. Still a big task, but made more manageable. Putting buyers at the center of what you do also helps.

But this reality is also a rallying cry for working together. For breaking down silos and opening the lines of communication to help get everyone on the same page. Sure, they'll be outliers, but when each of us is by extension representative of the brand we're affiliated with, more thought needs to be given.

If the social media team isn't talking to the demand gen team who isn't talking to the web marketing team or the events team or the PR team and none of them are talking with the sales team - what are the chances that your brand is being perceived by your buyers in a way that's costing you sales?

When will we "get" it?

Step into your buyers' shoes and go take a look at your brand from the outside-in. Go look at all the channels through the experience your buyers will have. What do you think?

Are you inspired? Energized? Intrigued? Or are you disappointed, even alienated?

What one thing can you do today to shift the status quo?

Just take one step and then work on the next one. Once you recognize the issue, it's often taking that first step that's the hardest. You can do it. I have faith.