I've been asked a lot of questions lately about formulaic approaches to eMarketing. People want some kind of measuring stick to compare their results to those of others. Some kind of way to prove they're succeeding in comparison to the guy down the street.

I'd like to propose that that kind of perspective is a bunch of bull puckey.

Buyers are not the same. They don't think the same ways and they don't go through their buying process in the same order of activities. Their thought processes and their situations have different nuances that won't match up with a formula.

If the guy down the street says they've increased lead generation by 25% with their email outreach program this month and you've only increased yours by 10%, are you a laggard?

Well, that depends upon who opted in.

Are they viable prospects with a high propensity to become sales opportunities or are they just contacts added to your database because they wanted whatever that specific content offer promised?

If that 10% of additional leads are truly engaged with your company, showing interest beyond the content offer that enticed them to opt in, then it's more likely you're going to see some revenue coming down the pike as a result. That doesn't say "laggard" to me.

That's what eMarketing is all about. Activities that drive future revenues by building mutually valuable relationships with prospects and customers. 

The only way to employ eMarketing strategy successfully for your company is to focus on and respond appropriately to the behavior of your buyers. Having a plan is great, but you've got to continuously refine and adjust based on what your prospects show interest in.

Three touches and a sales offer is a formula. It's a halfway-in attitude. What it says is that you'll give them a taste, but then they have to ante up. It's self-serving and not highly effective in a lengthy complex sales process.

Instead, focus your eMarketing strategies on long term generosity. Measure against your past results and set your own benchmarks. Improvement is all about your relationships with your buyers, not your numbers against what the guy down the street is doing.

Refine and improve based on how your prospects are responding to your content and communications. Tweak and tune to increase relevance. That's what counts and that's what's going to produce sales opportunities that turn into customers.

A formula offers a false sense of security. It's a recipe that dictates you follow-it, regardless of what your prospects tell you. It promises if you take steps A + B + C that you'll get a specific outcome. It's like wearing blinders and believing you're in control.

If only your prospects were that predictable.

Instead, go All-in and provide continuous value. Focus your strategy on creating pipeline progression. A strategy is a process that requires continuous adjustments parallel to your prospect's changing needs and priorities. When you approach eMarketing in a holistic manner, you'll see impressive results. 

Every client project I work on requires a unique approach. That's because every company I work for has uniquely differentiating qualities. The relationships they build with their customers are influenced by those nuances. Your company is no different.

Trust me, formulas are not the answer for implementing eMarketing strategies.

In my book, eMarketing Strategies for the Complex Sale, I talk about how B2B marketers need to really get to know their customers in order to improve their marketing effectiveness. One of the exercises presented in the book is The Customer Focus Tune-up. This eBook expands upon that exercise.

In the eBook, I present:

• A breakdown of the steps in the complex buying process.
• 4 Steps to improving your customer intelligence.
• How to apply those insights to content development.
• Applications for putting your customer focus to work.

Download the complementary eBook.

To learn more about creating contagious content that produces quantifiable eMarketing results, you can always buy the book...or at least go download 2 chapters

Questions are a staple of our lives. They are what inspire us to explore, learn, achieve, challenge and wonder. Imagine your life for just one day without asking a question — whether out loud or in your head. What the heck would you do all day long? (See, I can't do it.)

Well, neither can your prospects and customers. Each challenge that arises is a question generator. What, where, when, how and why is a thought-process structure we've embraced since childhood.

We're demanding. We want proof, knowledge and evidence before we believe. (Well, most of us do.)

The trick to marketing that creates extremely high degrees of relevance for buyers is to answer their questions.

Problem solved. Just go do that.

If only it were that easy. In order to do that productively, we've got to know our buyers really well. We've also got to be able to erase what we know about our products and solutions to put ourselves into our buyers' heads and come up with the questions they'd have when facing particular situations.

The problem with questions is that once you know the answers, they're no longer questions. Which is precisely why marketers have difficulty in matching their content to buyers' needs.

This is why buyer personas are a great tool to use. They help you embrace the role and situations of specific customer types. Incorporating actual customer intelligence and experiences into them gives you a frame of reference. Including feedback from salespeople and customer service reps can help flesh out the composite. Try to find out what questions they're being asked.

Now, try to step into that persona and choose a situation.

Begin asking questions. Make a list. Check yourself to make sure you're not coloring the process with your product knowledge, that you're staying in character. This is easier if you try to answer the questions without talking about your product at all. Talk about what it enables (or what your buyers need it to do) instead.

What you'll find is that one question will spawn others. In short order, you'll have a long list of questions that can be representative of the answers your prospects need across each step of their buying process. Use that to drive your content development.

Answering questions with content is most effective when you choose only one at at time. Explore it from different angles, apply different contributing factors and go for depth. You'll build engagement as a result of the increase in relevance.