Marketing Interactions

B2B Content Marketing: Thoughtful or Rote Activity?

2013-05-18T15:07:49-07:00

I recently read a post written by Brian Carroll of MECLABS. An excerpt caught my attention as this is a problem I see often. He was discussing a finding in Marketing Sherpa's 2013 Email Marketing Benchmark Report that found only 15% of marketers reported they have dedicated resources to produce content for each stage of the buying process.

Brian's colleague, Daniel Burnstein, shared that he had heard a related story from one of their partners:

They, too, wanted to send emails that were relevant and didn’t know where to begin. Typically, as a matter of rote, they blasted out an email every week about one of their products. The marketing team knew it wasn’t the optimal approach, but didn’t have the time to think it through – the emails had become merely another part of their weekly list of activities.

This is why content marketers find themselves in a pickle. They've realized what content can do to facilitate buying, but they've lost the passion in the quest for quantity over quality. Sound familiar?

Instead of a strategic and thoughtful application, content marketing has become a rote activity. And that's causing all kinds of commentary in marketing circles, my favorite of which is the CRAP presentation from Velocity Partners.

I decided to share a few of my thoughts about why it's important to step off the treadmill and create more thoughtful content. Sometimes it's hard to see past the chaos. Marketing is inundated with a never-ending list of things to do as channels multiply and buyers, executive teams and salespeople demand more and more.

But we have to stop and think. We need to calm the chaos and wrestle the content marketing beast into a thoughtful approach that delivers returns. MORE content is not the answer. Better, more thoughtful content is what will make the difference.

Create Thoughtful B2B Marketing Content from Ardath Albee

Use Content Strategy to Break Into a New Market

2013-05-04T12:06:43-07:00

I've been on a number of calls recently with companies that want to break into a new market. They think that content marketing may be the key, but are uncertain if they're right, as well as how to approach this new direction.

Content Marketing is definitely a key strategy. In fact, I'm not quite sure how a company would go about breaking into a new market without it. But there are some challenges when your goal is quick uptake and your company doesn't have a lot of exposure or familiarity with the target audience.

Here are the things that come to mind. It shouldn't be surprising that most of them aren't related to the content, itself. There's a foundation that must be set. During these calls it dawned on me that whether you're breaking into a new market or establishing a content marketing strategy, a lot of the work is the same.

Market Research:

To be effective, a content marketing strategy must be based upon knowledge and understanding of the target audience (market). Call this personas, profiles or market research — whatever works for you.

Who are they?
What do they care about that your solution helps them get?
How are they answering the need today?
Is how they're doing it a workaround or a solution?
Why is whatever their doing not the best way?
What is it costing them? (time, money, growth, marketshare, efficiency, productivity, customer retention, talent retention, etc.)
What could they gain if they switch? (outcomes they care about)
Why would they be resistant to change?
How would you overcome this?
Why should they listen to you?
Where do they spend time online?
Who/what influences them? Who do they believe/follow today?
What's the chatter? (LinkedIn, Twitter, market-specific forums/blogs, pubs)

Value Match:

Given what you learned above, how will this new market define value related to what you sell?

What expertise do you bring that they don't have access to today?
Is your thought leadership edgy or provocative? What new thinking will catch their attention that they will find relevant?
Who has or can develop a personal brand that the market will relate to? It's not just about your company (inanimate) — it's about your people and your expertise.
What are this person's strong suits? (expertise) What kind of support will they need?
What does this market relate to that competitors bring to market? Are they truly happy with it or is there dissatisfaction? Where? How? Why?
Does this dissatisfaction intersect with your company's strengths?
How will you prove your answer to their problem works? (evidence)

Structuring the Content Marketing Story:

One of the things that I encounter the most is either "me-too" messaging that has companies sound just like everyone else in their markets or convoluted messaging that a Ph.D. would have trouble unraveling. If it takes too much effort, you've lost before you get started. The ultimate goal with marketing is to have your target audience "get it" as quickly as possible.

Take what you think is your most compelling positioning or core message and rewrite it for a 6 year old based on what you learned above. Seriously - get all the jargon, important-sounding words and high-level crap out of it. You can always put it back in, but I bet you that it will take a bunch of effort to get it out. Go ahead - try it. Get down to the basics that matter. Think the 6-inch view vs. the 30,000 ft view.

Now look at what you learned in the two steps above and see if you'd change anything else.

Send it to people who know the market or who are the market and get their feedback. Make sure they're people who will be gut-wrenchingly honest. This can be eye-opening to those of us "in the tunnel." Trust me on this one. You'll learn stuff you never thought about. Be prepared to revise.

Given this core message you've finally arrived at and what you know about your market and value, what questions will your prospects have? Make a list. It should be pretty long. Go deep, get into the weeds. Pretend you know nothing.

Here's the thing with the questions. Lots of marketing "experts" say to answer your buyers' questions. It's become the standard for simplifying content creation. But, when used strategically there's more to it than that. The difference when you apply "story" to this process is in the organization of the questions, how you answer them and how those answers work together to deliver what the prospect needs to know to take the next step. This is critical. There must always be a next step.

There's a strategic value to Q & A.

For example, If I ask why should I care about X? You say "because X can help you gain bigger share of customer wallet." The next question asked is not "How much does it cost?", but rather "Really. Hmm. How does X help me do that?"

Sure, prospects aren't linear all the time. I'm sure one of you would say, but they did ask about price! Ah, but do you know what other content they've also viewed? The questions people ask have some level of knowledge behind them that's relevant to the person asking.

The more relevant the next piece of content is in relation to what the person just expressed interest in, the greater your chance to gain an extension in their attention. The more often you can do this, the better off you'll be in generating pipeline momentum from a new market as they begin to nod their head in agreement and trust you.

Every interaction with your content needs to deliver on previously set expectations and set up new ones. I call this orchestrating progression.

There are obviously a ton of other things you need to do to break into a new market with content marketing, but try these three steps and see where you get. The first two will help you decide whether or not to go there. The third will help you determine how to create a story to extend your brand in that direction, should you choose to do so.

These steps will also help to define channels and execution options that will be most effective for generating awareness, reach and engagement within the new market you've targeted.

The B2B Website Audience Litmus Test

2013-04-27T14:44:25-07:00

Many B2B companies think that their website must serve every type of customer they have—every flavor of persona. I'd ask you to step back a moment and think about your website audience. Just because your company serves a range of people, titles, and roles, doesn't mean that they all use your website—or ever will.

The elephants in the room during this discussion are usually represented by the CXOs—the ultimate persona that all companies want to attract, engage and sell to. However, these people are not likely your website's greatest fans or visitors.

Why not?

CXOs are:

Too busy
Relegating research to their staff
Responding to referrals from peers and colleagues
Focused on big-picture, business-imperative strategies which most solutions don't address
Distrusting of vendor content at face value
Irritated with company websites focused on the company, rather than their needs and interests
Frustrated at their inability to find what they need quickly
Disappointed in the lack of strategic thought leadership represented

*Note that this applies to CXOs at mid-size to large enterprises, not necessarily SMBs who may wear many hats, including doing online research.

So you're sitting there thinking, well, we can address this. We'll just change our website and design it to win over those picky CXOs!

Stop right there. The realities represented in those bullets above aren't likely to change just because your website gets a facelift and focus. Build it and they will come doesn't apply here.

The course of action with a higher payoff is to design your website for the staff doing the research and building the business case. I have to tell you that in creating nearly 70 personas in the last year, not one of them has been a CXO in relation to a website content strategy.

This doesn't mean you don't need content that's worthy of CXO attention - it means that getting that content to them will probably not be a direct route. Or, if it is, it's an executive roundtable or a specific thought leadership asset that you can place in front of them. Even if they're interested in that one piece, this doesn't mean they will begin trolling your website.

Additionally, if you design your website for an audience that doesn't trend toward visiting it, you've left the audience that will show up with nowhere to go but to a competitor's site that speaks to them.

By the same token, orienting your website for end users will also not drive the results you need. These folks hang out in customer communities and forums where they can interact with peers and get support and insights from experts for product use and resolving issues. They don't care how many awards your company has received or that your CEO is speaking at an industry event they aren't attending.

This leaves those in the middle of the spectrum. The people responsible for researching solutions to priority problems, building the business case and selling your ideas/solution internally. The content for those who sign off and those who use the solution on a day-to-day basis will, for the most part, be exposed to them by these folks.

Defining The Role of a B2B Website

Although websites should be designed with a primary audience in mind, the role of your website can become a bit convoluted. This is especially true when you consider all the departments that have a stake in the property.

Some possibilities include:

PR wants the latest news to shine front and center
Product managers what their collateral to have top billing
Demand Gen wants gated content and calls to action that capture contact information prominently displayed (notice I did not say leads)
Branding wants everything to reflect the tone, style and creative they've defined
Web designers want template standards adhered to
Sales wants customer stories featured, along with ROI tools and TCO calculators
Social media wants icons and feeds in the eyepath

I could go on, but you get the point. This is a lot of stuff for one web property to accomplish. It's hard to make everyone happy and attempting to do so defeats the purpose. But, the real problem is that there's one stakeholder that's totally unrepresented in that list, the most important one — buyers.

For each of the "wants" of the stakeholders above, unless it serves the story that will attract and engage buyers, your website will fail the audience litmus test.

Develop A Process for Passing the Website Litmus Test

Start with the personas most likely to visit your website
Do the research to find out how they'll get there and what will attract them
Develop possible scenarios across channels they frequent and determine how best to connect the dots (your website analytics can help with this, so can social media monitoring)
Given these routes, figure out which pages each persona is most likely to land on and where you want them to go next (or what you want them to do)
Build connected pathways with content and storylines
Focus on the problems they need to solve and then (only then) on how your products and services enable that to happen.
Take a hard look at your home page and figure out how to hook each of them when they land there. Is it obvious what they should do? Is the promise of what they'll get compelling enough given their priorities?
Also assess your homepage for anything that will cause them to click the back button (your biggest enemy) and fix it.
Remember you have only 3 - 5 seconds to convince them to stay

Essentially, if you are designing your website to engage Tom, Mary and Dennis, you need to look at it as if you were Tom, then Mary and then Dennis. Better yet - give someone who's not steeped in your site a description of Tom and what he's interested in, have them step into his shoes and visit the site for 5 seconds. Ask what caught their attention. Better yet if you can use an actual Tom, do that.

The turf wars over websites need to end. If your website is not contributing to business objectives, its not built for the audience. It doesn't matter what you think, what your boss thinks or what anyone else in your company thinks unless it's adding relevance for the audience your website needs to attract and engage.

Does your B2B website pass the audience litmus test?

If not, you're wasting time...

Is Social Selling in Need of Sales Enablement?

2013-04-02T12:41:39-07:00

In my last post I wrote about some of the ways Marketers could benefit from LinkedIn in relation to the report Jill Konrath and I released recently, Cracking the LinkedIn Sales Code.

Today, I’d like to write about some opportunities that surfaced during our analysis of the data that point to the need for sales enablement that can help your company’s social selling initiatives, as many salespeople appear to be struggling to find the value.

The fact that only 4.9% of the 3,094 survey respondents are identified as Top Sellers is a wake-up call.

The idea that gaining access to InMail is critical for being able to “pitch” more people directly – as expressed in many comments from the survey – is a wake-up call.

The conclusion that, since prospects don’t like to be pitched to via LinkedIn means that LinkedIn is not a valuable tool for the sales process is also a big, fat wake-up call.

Comments like these sum up the need for a bit of intervention:

“[I] don't have the right content and approach yet to really engage with potential customers on LinkedIn to gain new prospects, thus new sales.”

“I send InMails ongoingly and the majority [of them] are ignored. I'm beginning to think it's a waste of time....”

LinkedIn Has a Bit of a Learning Curve

I’ve been using LinkedIn so long and so much that the idea it’s not easy to grasp and use effectively was a bit of a surprise to me. Although it shouldn’t be. I see crappy stuff posted out there all the time. But I also see great stuff!

The thing that’s bugging me a bit is that the majority of marketers asked in numerous research studies say they’re using content marketing. Many of them say they know their prospect audiences well. Many of them maintain blogs for their companies. And, many of them participate on social media. Heck, social media has been in the top 3 for marketing priorities in most research reports I’ve read for the last couple of years.

If marketers are actually doing all of the things stated above, I’d submit that they are in the perfect position to create a “social sharing” support program for their sales teams. And it doesn’t have to be difficult.

Create a weekly primer that includes:

Relevant groups for sales reps to join based on who they sell to, what they sell and their specific area of expertise or industry knowledge
A list of appropriate content resources based on the above point; include links, a summary of key points, and suggestions for discussion prompts they can use
Ideas that promote sharing expertise or asking questions to stimulate discussions

Include a tips section that includes ideas that will help them gain proficiency with the tools that LinkedIn has to offer. Just one or two tips per week that they can master quickly is plenty. I’d start with Signal and give them some keyword phrases to set up so they can easily keep track of what’s going on in their area of focus so that they can more easily join in on relevant discussions.

For those of you thinking – wow – that weekly primer thing is going to be a lot of work, stop and think about it.

You know what content you’re publishing and online events you’re scheduling
You know what the key points are
You have the links – or you should

If you’re using other social networks you’re already curating content that aligns with the story you’re sharing, right? So include those links, too. After all, social sharing isn’t just about your company’s content.

Sure the group recommendations will take a bit of effort, although not so much if you’re already tracking them for insights that inform your marketing programs. And I’d stipulate that you should be doing this.

And the tips for tools may also take some thought and experimentation if you’re not using them, but you should be doing this, too. The benefits are profound.

So, ultimately, creating a social sharing support program is a win-win situation in the end, right?

Both of you can learn together and you can help to ensure that the story being shared in LinkedIn by your sales team aligns with the story marketing is sharing. And that’s pretty huge!

Once you get the primer format down, it’s a simple process to update it each week to ensure your sales team has fresh content and ideas to share. And, it’s important to remember that appropriate sharing and participation are two of the habits that Top Sellers rely upon to drive the generation of opportunities on LinkedIn.

If you haven’t downloaded your copy of Cracking the LinkedIn Sales Code, go get it!

And don’t forget to download the companion eBook (Link in the report) to read the stories that top sellers shared with us about what’s working for each of them. You may find some ideas you haven’t thought of.

And, for fun, see my Madlibs post on Funnelholic where I predict that sales enablement will be the next hot thing for marketing. Seriously!

Cracking the Code on LinkedIn is For Marketers Too

2013-03-27T13:54:05-07:00

Jill Konrath and I recently released a report, Cracking the LinkedIn Sales Code, that details what we learned from a survey of 3,094 salespeople about their use of LinkedIn as a sales tool. As a marketing professional, I found the responses fascinating and began thinking about how the data crosses boundaries to inform the marketing side.

In the report, we looked at two sides of the coin; Salespeople who could attribute lots of sales opportunities to LinkedIn (Top Performers) and the others who generated a few—or none at all. The differences were quite striking—as was the admission by 58% of respondents who said they lacked an understanding of how to use the capabilities of LinkedIn.

LinkedIn provides a wealth of tools and insights about our markets. I nearly live on the site most of the time because it contributes so much to the work I do.

In this post, I’d like to pull out a few key findings from the report and discuss them from a marketing perspective. And I’d also like to add a few insights of my own that may help marketers find more value in LinkedIn.

Establishing a Professional Presence

41.3% of Top Sellers rate their profile as well done,
compared to 15% of all other respondents

One of the things about LinkedIn that’s not necessarily true about other social platforms, such as Twitter and Facebook, is that marketers cannot hide behind their company logos. Whatever you do on LinkedIn is tied directly back to your personal profile. This puts a lot of pressure on marketers who can only talk knowledgeably about their products and their jobs, but not necessarily about the needs and priorities of their customers.

While I see a lot of marketers on LinkedIn participating in marketing-focused groups and learning to improve their skills or asking and answering marketing-related questions, I don’t see a lot of them involved in effective engagement with prospects. Posting a link to a blog post in a group without adding commentary designed to initiate a useful discussion, doesn’t count—and “useful” relates to the value seen by the group’s members.

Things to consider:

How many groups do you belong to and participate in where your prospects hang out?
How many times each month do you share relevant content or participate in discussions?
Starting a group related to what your prospects care about

One respondent to the survey told us, “LinkedIn is an extremely valuable part of my career. The group I moderate has now become an inbound ‘business opportunity’ marketing machine.”

Why it’s important:

Your participation is a reflection of your company’s value
Uncovering qualified sales opportunities is part of your job
What if you could establish engagement and introduce a warm lead directly to a salesperson?

The Market Research Tool You Shouldn’t Ignore

LinkedIn is probably the best prospect research tool I’ve ever come across. Marketers need much more insight than is made available through buying lists or sites that only provide demographic information. LinkedIn is a community of real people who share their perspectives about what they do and what they value and the jobs they do. While some people still use the site as a boring resume exercise, others provide a wealth of insight previously unavailable to marketers.

For every project I do, I use LinkedIn as a source of insight. Some of the tasks I frequently perform include:

Using advanced search to find a list of prospects who could be representative of my clients’ target markets. I review hundreds of profiles to uncover insights, priorities, aspirations, and more. Granted, I use the professional version which allows me cool ways to filter lists, but it’s worth every penny. This research not only helps me understand how to conduct persona interviews, but also helps keep me updated on trends as time passes.
I use Signal (under News in the navigation) to do searches on keyword phrases, such as “oil production” that I need for insights about a project I’m working on. I also have searches saved for subjects, such as “content strategy,” to keep up with my own industry.
When I’m reviewing profiles, I always look to learn about which groups potential prospects belong to and check them out. One of the best things LinkedIn did was make it possible to open up groups – and many have taken advantage. This removes the conundrum about how to qualify to gain access to specialized groups and allows me to learn about the trends being discussed among the members.

Using LinkedIn for research can help you identify market trends, prospect priorities and topics that will resonate with different groups. Just like it doesn’t work to create one-size-fits-all content, it doesn’t work to post the same links to a bunch of groups and hope for the best.

Next post I’ll share insights to sales enablement that relate to the report.

Download your copy of Cracking the LinkedIn Sales Code