Marketing Interactions

B2B Marketers Need a Fresh Perspective

In response to my last post, Product is Not the Hero of a B2B Company’s Story, Michael Webb asked a great question. I started to answer it and then decided the answer deserved its own post.

Michael asked:

I can't help wondering what you (and others) think about the "Why-why-why?" of the things you've written about?

For example, take the issues you addressed in your last five articles. Why is it so easy for marketers to focus on:

• Products, rather than the customer as hero? (Product is Not the Hero of a B2B Company's Story)
  
  
• Shiny objects, rather than the thinking work required to support the outcome? (Shiny New Tech: Content Not Included. Proceed With Caution)
  
  
• Generating "leads," instead of working with sales and service to help customers solve problems? (Crossing the Chasm: The new Obstacle for B2B Buyers)
  
  
• Creating content and events, instead of orchestrating for momentum? (Is Your B2B Content Just a Pt Stop?)
  
  
• Building campaigns that end, instead of encouraging dialogue (Why B2B Marketers Need a Ping-Pong Plan)

Do you think there might be some sort of common cause underlying these? If so, what might it be?

My gut response is short-termism and a failure for companies to get out of their own way. But that would be too easy. The real issue is that change is hard.

Factors at play include, but are certainly not limited to:

• Marketers are evaluated on lead generation, not the stuff that I've talked about in the posts Michael mentioned. The same is true for sales. They work in short windows of time to meet "numbers" set for them. Marketing is supposed to feed this goal. Until companies can look at both short and longer-term goals based on customers, this perspective will continue to limit potential - especially in complex sales where the buying process takes longer than one quarter.
• Culture is still very much inside-out, no matter how much lip service is paid to being "customer centric." Change is hard. And I'm not sure companies really know what to change. They still think they are in control of the process. No matter how much this shouldn’t make sense, given the changes we can plainly see, it is true. Marketers are told to go out and get leads. Sale teams are told to sell more. The pressure to perform is immense. But the tools and skills to do so in today’s environment are lacking.
• The curse of knowledge is also a factor. We simply know too much about what we sell. We believe in it and we see the value. This causes us to not relate to buyers in parallel with what they need to learn to develop the confidence to buy. Marketers and sellers are often out of sync with the marketplace.
• We haven't developed trust. Buyers see vendors as biased in their own favor. They don’t know whether to believe us or not. There are many buyer surveys that basically reflect buyers as saying, don’t call us, we’ll call you; stop pitching us; quit trying to go around my staff to get to me and give us more substance in the information you provide. Marketers and salespeople have got to focus on value delivery, not feeds and speeds, but features and functionality are what they know best, as I stated above.
• Most vendors are still analog in a dynamic world. Real-time responsiveness is nice to think about, but it takes an immense amount of planning and strategy. An example everyone knows is the Oreo Dunk in the Dark Tweet during the super bowl. But if you read the articles about it, there were teams of people in the room, including the executives who had to approve the Tweet before it could be sent. This needs to change. We need to figure out how to become more agile without all the red tape.
• Lack of process, at least for marketers. Heck, the majority (66%) of marketers report that they don’t have a strategy in place. Ad hoc campaigns based on meeting this quarter’s numbers are a symptom of short-term, tactical thinking. The same thing happens to sales when they have a few weeks left to close deals to make the “number” and everything except the most promising deals are pushed aside.
• My favorite: “But we’ve always done it this way.” This is a big one - not only for us, but for our buyers. Why should we expect them to change if we can't change?It’s perceived as safe to stick with status quo. Many decisions put people’s careers on the line. Sometimes it’s easier not to make them or not to stick with them if it looks like the outcome won’t be there in time. But in all fairness, there are a lot of dependencies. One decision can have a ripple effect that affects other departments and outcomes. Consensus for change is sometimes even harder to get than consensus for a purchase decision.

The factors I’ve stated above are not news. We know this. CMOs admit it. They worry about it. Their biggest fear is becoming irrelevant to the markets they serve rendering them unable to reach customers. They know things have changed. Change has become the elephant in the room that appears too big to tackle.

But we must. We don’t have a choice. Those who take on change will win and those who don’t will flounder. We’ve also seen this. We saw it in NetFlix vs. Blockbuster. We saw it with book stores and Amazon. We’re seeing it now in Telecom and Communications with Over The Top (OTT) providers like Google and Amazon stepping in to take chunks of their business away.

We see it in hardware becoming virtualized and running in the cloud, rather than on premise which is challenging managed services providers to reinvent themselves to stay in the game. IT can spin up a server in minutes instead of spending weeks to order the hardware, install and provision it. We’re even seeing it in space exploration with private corporations replacing NASA programs.

It won’t happen overnight, but change needs to happen. We need to take the time and make the effort to start making the shift. Our teams need new skillsets and processes for continuous improvement. If marketing has changed more in the last two years than in the last 50 years, what do you think the next two will be like?

This is only my opinion. I’d love to know yours. Please chime in!

Shiny New Tech: Content Not Included. Proceed with Caution

I've written about shiny object syndrome (SOS) on this blog a number of times - just do a search and you'll see. Many others have also shone a light on the folly of SOS over the last few years. But it's not changing behavior. B2B Marketers have yet to take it to heart.

Fournaise Group reported in January that Over 70% of Marketers (Still) Got It Wrong in 2013. What they mean by this is that 70% of marketers didn't deliver the performance with their marketing programs expected of them by executive management. There was not enough measurable contribution to sales, market share or sales-ready prospects.

Want to know why?

If you're thinking SOS, you'd be right. Apparently marketers chose to invest in new media platforms, marketing automation, big data and other technologies thinking that new technology is the answer for content distribution and engagement.

So far it sounds like marketers were on the right track. But it didn't work.

Why?

According to Fournaise Group, marketers didn't assign enough importance to their messaging. They failed to communicate a valuable enough message to stimulate the performance their campaigns were tasked to produce. Essentially, their programs lacked relevance.

This seems ass backwards to me. But it shouldn't, not really. I see it a lot. Cart before horse. I love technology more than many marketers I know, but it deserves more respect than it gets. The promise of easy gains with technology seems to enable us to overlook and undervalue the work that must happen to support the outcome.

It's common sense and we all know that it takes people, process, content and technology to pull digital marketing together. Digital marketing needs the emphasis to remain on the marketing part first, with digital coming second. And effective marketing must focus on customer-first.

So why do we get it backwards?

Somehow, we've convinced ourselves that SOS is a Silver Bullet Strategy.

That the push of a button will allow us to achieve the results we want without all that pesky, time consuming:

• Research
• Strategy development
• Angst over value propositions that align with our personas
• And damn good content that takes research, effort, editing and elbow grease

Unfortunately, in my 30 years of business experience I've yet to find a Silver Bullet Strategy. Oh, there are times when I've had hope, but quickly realized I was nuts - thankfully.

Here's what we need to get: Technology is a resource, like any other. If used well, it's a killer resource. However, as with all things worthwhile, you get out what you put in.

With technology, we can finally:

• "See" more about our prospects and customers than ever before
• Gain the ability to gather vast quantities of data and ask questions we'd never have gotten the answers to before
• Reach more people, more easily than ever and deliver them compelling and relevant content about stuff we've learned they care about
• Start becoming predictive, rather than reactive
• Prove our performance by proving our contribution to revenue
• Earn a seat at the strategy table.

But not if we expect the technology to do this without out help and hard work.

Why aren't we doing this?

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.

B2B Content for Customer Retention Tells a Different Story

I'm starting to see customer retention, up sell and cross sell getting a bit more attention from B2B marketers these days. From account-based marketing programs to targeted microsites and nurturing programs, marketers are finally looking to increase the value of their existing customer portfolios. And I like where they're looking.

The challenge is that customer marketing is a very different animal than net new logo marketing. We can't just show up at renewal time and get them to sign off. Customer retention is no slam dunk.

A few reasons why:

• Their status quo is different
• They have a relationship with you
• Their expectations are higher

In light of the points made above, let's take a look at how content strategy must shift to engage existing customers.

A New Status Quo

Your customer's existing situation is different (It had better be) because they've purchased the solution to their original problem. Therefore, everything you said to them prior to that purchase (your lead gen and nurturing content) is now redundant.

Consider that the problem-to-solution story has changed. Now that the original problem has been solved, what comes next that your product and company can help them resolve to add more business value?

The only time there's an overlay with new buyer content strategies is when the target is a line of business or department that may not be familiar with your company. But I still contend that a referral/reference strategy is a core component to consider. In fact, I'd suggest using a case study - or several - about the value you've already helped them to accomplish internally.

The buying process for retention, up or cross sell will look somethinng like:

Use and Rely Upon: After purchase, your content should help them embrace the new solution and address issues such as user adoption, reporting, and other things they need to know to get the value you originally promised.

Gain More Value: Once the customer is using and relying upon the original solution, your goal is to help them find even more value than you promised. This could mean introducing new ideas that take them from their new status quo to a position of higher value - often by purchasing enhancements or additional solutions.

Keep the sales pitch subtle. This is about thought leadership, education and expertise. Then cement that with case studies that focus on what your customers have achieved beyond solving the original problem.

Renewal or Expansion: Given your goal, this is the late stage of the buying or renewal process. This is when marketers really need to focus on creating the content that account managers need to convince customers to stay and continue to put faith into the value of your company.

Talk to your account managers and really probe to understand what they're hearing from existing customers. Ask them questions such as:

• Who are they trying to get to for an expansion deal?
• What new lines of business are they trying to get to?
• What problems might existing customers be having with the product they purchased that could keep them from renewing?
• What's next in their customer's strategic plan?
• What successes are their customers most proud of? (Is it what you thought?)

The Customer Relationship

One thing to consider is how to segment customers not only based on what opportunities their new situations present, but by how much attention they get from their account managers. Often, for economical reasons, only the best/biggest accounts get a lot of attention. It's marketing's job to help the customers with limited account manager relationships feel the love. And that means creating content programs that they find valuable.

In fact, retaining customers is getting more competitive in line with the speed of change to the business landscape. Remember that to someone else, they are a new logo. Just as you try to become the replacement vendor for those using your competitor's solutions, well, so do they go after your customers. Losing sight of that reality can be costly.

Higher Expectations

Many buyers say that a key factor in their decision to do business with a company rested, in part, on the value of the content and unbiased information provided during their buying process. Why wouldn't the same be true of their renewal process? But, based on that previous buying process, their expectations are high. They expect evolution from what was a stellar engagement process during buying to a better one now that they're customers.

And, they should. Given the fact that markets change quickly and solutions evolve much faster, there will always be a new story to tell. The marketers who tell it first and best, putting an insightful spin on how their customers can reap even more value, will be the ones who help their company win more business.

Providing value to our customers does not stop with purchase. The story just changes. It's up to us to help them connect the dots to find more value and new approaches to reaching their business objectives.

How are you evolving the story you're telling to your customers?

 

Making Assumptions About The Buyer's Journey

I'd like to take pause to question how marketers are using the term "buyer's journey." This also applies to buying process, buying cycle, sales cycle, etc.

If you've been reading my blog lately, you know I've been on a bit of a quest to get marketers to stop and think about what the terms we use every day actually mean. We're moving so fast and trying to expand our skill sets in real time and I think we adopt terms and apply them to what we're doing without really analyzing the underlying meaning.

So, let's take on the buyer's journey.

I write a lot about the buyer's journey/process. In fact, I took a very hard look at it when I was writing my book. Since I work with B2B companies with complex sales that have very long periods of prospect gestation, I came to the conclusion that the usual definition was just too broad to be meaningful.

I'm talking about the usual nod to: Awareness, Consideration, Purchase.

If the cycle takes 9 months, that's a lot of gray area for each stage. And all stages are not created equally in length of time or objectives that must be met for the continuation of forward motion. Plus, it occurs to me that the construct above is for us more than it is representative of our buyers.

I chose to break the buyers' journey into 7 stages based on how I've seen prospects navigate problem solving:

• Status quo - Their situation today before they are actively trying to resolve a problem


• Priority - Their realization that a problem exists that's worth solving


• Research - Actively seeking education, best practices and whatever they need to know to determine a viable course of action


• Options - Determining who has the expertise to help them solve the problem with the least risk


• Step Backs - Handling the doubt that occurs to restore confidence that all their questions have been answered and they're on the right path. Answering the "What if...?" questions


• Validation - Verifying that they're making the right choice in solution and vendor


• Choice - Making the purchase

However you choose to define the buyers' journey is fine. There are many roads to Oz. But what's important is that we consider this process from the buyers' perspective, not ours.

For example - let's say you use Awareness as your first stage. For some reason, marketers assume that if prospects are just "aware" of their company and solution that they will move on to the consideration stage.

Why?

I'm aware of a lot of companies that I never buy a thing from. So are you. What creates that defining moment that speaks to your prospect and motivates them to take an action to learn more about you or from you in relation to a problem they are trying to solve?

If they do learn more, do you assume they're now in the consideration stage? Or are they just becoming more aware? What is the catalyst that creates a stage transition? And how do you evaluate that?

With buyers taking control of their "journey," what makes you think you have the inside track?

These are not easy questions to answer. Developing a strategy to engage buyers by answering their needs as they look for solutions to problems requires hard work, research and continuous testing as markets evolve and priorities shift.

The starting point (in my opinion) is buyer personas. You've got to compile insights across the entirety of the process to determine what to provide, when. And how to provide it in a way that works for them.This includes uncovering the questions they need to answer to open up a path of discovery with the intention to solve a problem.

I think that in order to do this well we need to forget about format and think about information. For some reason, marketers always want to assign formats to stages before they think about the information that prospects need. I see this a lot.

Should we use a case study here or a blog post there? Who cares? If the information isn't what the prospect is looking for, it doesn't matter what format you put it in.

I took a road trip this summer and it occurs to me that turn-by-turn navigation from my GPS is pretty much definitive of the buyers journey. In other words, you can't turn right on Main Street until you take exit 12 off the freeway.

The same is true from an informational perspective. For example, until I know what my problem is costing me or what I'm giving up by letting it persist, I may not be motivated to seek change. So if your information is about why your solution is the right choice for solving my problem, I'm not interested because I haven't decided it's worth doing...yet.

If you want to know where your buyers are in their decision process, you've got to create tightly targeted content that will tell you based on their interaction with it.

And that's where marketers tend to miss the point. One interaction with your content doesn't prove a thing. How do you know it was really what they were looking for? Did it resonate or did they walk away after viewing it unimpressed?

Only by observing patterns of behavior over time can we ascertain how interested someone is and if we're truly seeing the display of intention.

There's much more to be said about the buyer's journey, but I'm stopping here. I'd like to know what you think. Where can we improve how we address problem solving for our prospects?

In fact, maybe it shouldn't be called a Buyer's Journey at all. Maybe it should just be called Problem Solving. For without problems, there would be no need for solutions, right?

And for those of you who look at the other end of the stick, an opportunity that isn't realized is due to a problem that is limiting potential. Just saying...

Why B2B Marketers Must Address Status Quo

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

• What trigger event would cause them to pursue change?


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


• Are they losing market share even while growing revenues?


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


• Will a looming merger threaten their market position?


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


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


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

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

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

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

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

What other questions would you add to the list?

Hello Mr. Customer; It's Me...Your Vendor

According to research by BtoB Magazine, 58% of B2B marketers say that marketing involvement never stops and must continue across the entire customer lifecycle. Be that as it may, marketers are focused on driving qualified leads as their most important mission.

So where does that leave customers?

Research from the CMO Council finds that companies lose 10% of their customers each year, on average. Would it shock you to learn that 68 percent of customer defections occur because customers perceive "an attitude of indifference?" (American Society for Quality)

Content marketing across the customer lifecycle can play an important role in reversing this perception of indifference. Considering that even a 5% reduction to churn can increase profitability by at least 25%, it’s definitely time for marketing to create a continuum for content marketing that reaches beyond the sale.

Thankfully, there may be a change brewing. I certainly hope so.

According to Google's 2011 B2B Marketing Outlook report:

87% of marketers invest in customer retention, and 2/3 say that this is where the majority of their marketing dollars will go in 2011.

To use content marketing for customers, marketers must consider the differences between content designed for prospects and content designed for customers.

This is easier when marketers realize that their marketing automation platform is not just for pre-sales use. By using the profiles and activity histories developed during the customer acquisition process, marketers have great visibility into the intelligence they need to continue to deliver relevant and valuable communications after the deal closes.

In fact, given the data marketers should have available, it should be even easier to develop relevant content for customers than it is to do so for prospects.

To construct a content marketing program for customers, do the following:

Reset Their Status Quo
Once a prospect becomes a customer, their status quo is different. They no longer have the problem they set out to solve as a prospect. Any marketing content developed must take into account the customer’s current situation as the foundation from which to address why more change and evolution is beneficial to their future success.  

Define New Needs and Priorities

• Given the customer’s current status quo with your solution in play, what new needs or priorities have been created now that the original problem was solved?


• What features might your customers not be using that can help them reap even more value than they required during the initial purchase?


• Are there industry trends that point to the need for customers to proactively take next steps that you can help them achieve?

Create content that showcases your company’s expertise in helping your customers meet their future business objectives. Use in-depth customer success stories that show just how you’ve expanded your role to create richer, enduring value for other customers like them.

You DO have a Relationship, Right?
Theoretically, your company already has an established relationship with your customers.

Unfortunately many companies act like they’ve never met their customers. This is evidenced by sending them information that’s no longer relevant to them after the purchase or pushing up-sell offers without foundation. Even worse, acting like you don’t know them diminishes your credibility as a partner and works to establish that perception of indifference that leads to defection.

Our customers are our greatest asset and the importance of continuous engagement across the entirety of the customer’s lifecycle cannot be overstated. Marketers need to focus on continuing to grow the relationship established during the pre-sale instead of starting over once the ink has dried.

Zap the Excuses Limiting Personalization
During pre-sale marketing, it’s a challenge to target and personalize our marketing content appropriately because we're often using a number of assumptions.

With customers, marketers have the data to do so. Or we should. If marketers are leveraging their marketing automation systems for customer communications, continuing to expand profiles, monitor interests and respond to online behavior is less complex.

Integration with CRM systems will help us work with account managers to increase visibility into how we can best provide continuous value to each customer. With the ability to use marketing automation technology to finely tune our customer segmentation, messaging can become highly relevant to each niche a company serves.

Leave No Customer Behind
Growing revenues is not just about net-new customers. It's about extending the lifecycle with those we have and increasing the value that we provide to them over time. Let's face it, a customer relationship is a terrible thing to waste. Especially when we've got the tools and the data to create content and conversations that increase loyalty and spend from those we've already sold.

Lead Generation is NOT IT

As the latest research, surveys and reports about content marketing begin surfacing, I'm wondering if  B2B marketers are really embracing change or if they're stuck in the past? Time and again, I see lead generation as a top priority goal while lead nurturing comes in at the bottom of the heap - behind web traffic and brand awareness for crying out loud.

Lead Generation is a hello and a handshake.

Lead Nurturing is the art of building a relationship with purpose.

Big difference. HUGE.

To be successful, marketers need to integrate them both into a lead management process.

In the 2010 B2B Content Marketing Trends report from Marketing Profs and Junta42 they found:

"Marketers report that content marketing supports multiple business goals, led by brand awareness (78%), customer retention/loyalty (69%) and lead generation (63%); the least widely employed goal for content marketing is lead management/nurturing."

And "Web traffic is the most widely used success metric (56%)"

In another recent survey completed last month by TechValidate, they found that the biggest reason marketers create content is for a lead generation campaign (60%), but only 2.9% cited the need for a lead nurturing campaign.

Interestingly, they also report that thought leadership content is more effective than lead generation content and that 3rd party analyst content is more effective than content written in house.

Does anyone see conflict in the way effectiveness of content is matching up to goals? And, I might add that, with 3rd party content, you don't know if the person is interested in your company or the analyst information that they'd have to pay $ for elsewhere.

First, let's dispel this idea that an opt in is actually a lead. Because they're not. They're someone who was interested enough in the offer presented that they chose to fill out a form to gain access to it. Period.

What they choose to do next in response to your content and communications is a critical pivot point. One that won't happen if marketing programs stop at "lead" generation.

The evidence exists that buyers spend more time self-educating via the Internet than they do in conversations with salespeople. There's also proof that, due to this change, sales is only invited into the last 1/3 of the buying process.

With a complex sale, there's a lot of knowledge transfer that must happen. If they're not getting it from you during a nurturing process, which competitor are they relying on? And why do you think you'll suddenly pop up on their shortlist if you haven't been there, being helpful, all along?

And, if salespeople are cherry picking all the "leads" you toss them, what's happening to all the others? If they were interested enough to fill out a form, they may eventually become buyers.That's up to what you do in an effort to build a relationship [read nurture].

After all, the subject is top of mind enough to cause them to pay for content with information. So, what's the benefit of spending all that budget to let non sales-ready prospects languish unattended?

Some of the problems that are cited with content development are that it's too time intensive, too labor intensive, too costly and that companies lack the expertise necessary to create great content. I don't think avoiding solving these issues is going to help. In fact, I'd wager that it would be a good idea to solve them before jumping on the social media bandwagon - which seems to be one of the top goals for marketers these days.

Content marketing is a critical skill set. It's necessary to get beyond the "lead" generation mindset to prove contribution to revenues.

What will it take to get this status quo focus on lead generation to change?

Marketing Automation Provides Tactic Validation

I was just reading a post by Mac McConnell, You've Got Marketing Automation. Now What?, and one of the points Mac made really resonated with me. He was talking about what could be referred to as throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

One of the things that marketers must get better at is the ability to measure the effectiveness of every element of their marketing mix. In the scenario that Mac shared, his client had stopped doing tradeshows because they didn't think they were as effective as other tactics.

According to Adobe's 2010 Analytics Survey, 44% of 1,000 marketers surveyed said they could not allocate sales and costs to marketing campaigns. Given this, it's not really surprising that 76% of marketers cannot measure full marketing ROI.

Which is why many marketers are still playing the intuition game.

So, back to Mac's story. What his client did once they had marketing automation to track lead disposition was to divide their spend equally across 3 demand generation initiatives:

• list rental
• content syndication
• one trade show

Guess which one is driving 2.3X more pipeline than the others after 6 months of tracking and measuring activity and results?

Yes, that would be the trade show the company had eliminated from their marketing plan because they thought the event wasn't successful.

There are a lot of new marketing technologies, processes and tactics available [read shiny new toys]. But this doesn't mean that the more traditional tactics aren't effective - well at least some of the time. The important thing is to gain insights to deeper data that can prove how close your intuition is to the truth.

Mac's post also provided a great chart showing the difference between engagement with content that prospects find valuable and that ridiculous "look at me" content that many companies are still cranking out.

The difference is striking - click over to Mac's post and see it for yourself.

Although I have to say that the customer story statistic surprised me. The questions I'd have for Mac would be during which stage of the buying process was the customer story used? And, was it a valuable story that showcased the problem-to-solution process or a glorified 2-page brochure that touted brand and product names without any meat on its bones?

Use Marketing Content as A Pipe Cleaner

The other day I spoke with a company that sounded like they really had a grasp on their content marketing programs. It appeared that they were doing everything well. They segment their lists, they provide great content their buyers will find helpful and they employ marketing automation to monitor behavior and tune their efforts.

As they were telling me about the solution they wanted to create higher adoption for in a specific industry, I asked a lot of questions and started hearing a recurrance of two issues:

1. They were having a hard time creating priority recognition and opt in.


2. Once they'd accomplished that, prospects moved along nicely and the handoff to sales went well — and then stalls would occur resulting in no decision to move forward.

The first issue is rather common. We don't start early enough in the buying process. We assume that our prospects know they need our solution, they just need to decide to buy it from us — instead of someone else.

This is the first bottleneck in the demand generation process. We've failed to address our prospects' status quo situation. We're already too far ahead of where they are to be relevant.

People are masters of the work-around. Most of your prospects probably have PhDs in work arounds. Making tweaks to what they have in order to continue to get the job done is the most acceptable level of change for both people and companies.

Think about all the things you could do (probably should do) to make your life easier, more fulfilling and happier, but you put off because it's too much trouble to change right now. Maybe next week, you think. And, pretty soon you've "next-weeked" yourself into next year. It's the same thing for your prospects.

Maybe they don't know why they should change.

Maybe they don't understand the cost of the way they're doing it now.

Maybe they don't have enough confidence that change will get them what they want.

Maybe it just seems to darned hard.

Go figure out their status quo and create content that addresses their current reality and how things can be better, faster, easier, more lucrative, etc. if they consider alternatives.

The objective with status quo content is to get them to open their mind to new possibilities and arouse their curiosity enough to get them to look into what change might mean for them. Not to sell.

What you want them to do is to learn enough to agree that the issue is worthy of a priority position on their to do list and to start investigating what that means by asking for more information — in other words, opting in to get more of your content.

The second issue is what I call Step Backs during the buying process. It's what happens when prospects have been moving through the pipeline nicely and suddenly stall. This is when the "what if..." scenario stomps on the brakes.

What if my users won't adopt the new system like you say they will?

How can I be sure we won't run over budget getting the results you promised?

Oh, wait - how will this new process impact Mary's team in product design?

Maybe the risk is really higher than I thought...

Your job as a content marketer is to figure out what all these hesitations can be and create content and sales collateral that can be used to address them, alleviating your prospects' concerns, or the concerns of other stakeholders that may arise at the last minute.

Go talk to your salespeople and your customers (newer customers are optimal because the process is still fresh in their minds). Find out what kinds of concerns customers had and learn about the conversations your salespeople have with prospects at each stage that produce a change in behavior. Learn the good changes as well as the bad as you can use both to design compelling content that keeps momentum from stalling.

Figure out where the bottlenecks in your pipeline occur (not just these two places) and create content that will serve as a pipe cleaner to clear the way to more decisions being made in your favor. Sometimes, as with the conversation I noted at the beginning of the post, talking with someone outside of the process can help highlight things you won't see because you're too close to it.