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So what do we mean by content?
Content includes:

• Industry reports on trends and new developments
• customer success stories
• ROI Calculators
• implementation guides
• analyst reports
• product information
• training materials
• webinar recordings
• eBooks
• blog posts
• videos
• slide decks
• images…and more.

I began my presentation segment, “Ten Tips for Using Content to Set the Buying Vision”, by asking the assembled 100+ inside sales professionals:

Q: “How many of you use content today in your sales process?”

A: Less then 15% raised their hands.

Was this answer a surprise? A bit, as I would have thought more hands would go up. At the same time it points to:

1. The opportunity for salespeople to differentiate themselves from other salespeople if they do begin to use content in their selling process.
2. The opportunity for Marketing and Sales to collaborate to bring the value of all that marketing content into the hands of salespeople for the last mile message delivery to potential customers.
3. How sales leaders can help their sales representatives become respected experts.

Content is now a centerpiece of business-to-business (B2B) inbound marketing. Marketers are regularly creating content to help attract potential buyers to their companies. Potential clients are consuming this content. In fact, data from IDG shows that IT decision makers consume on average nine (9) pieces of content during the purchase process.

Sharing content CAN increase a salesperson’s opportunity to win each deal.

The reality is buyers are doing their own research. Left to their own devices, buyers will not typically speak with a sales rep until they are roughly 2/3 through the buying process. At the same time, buyers tell us they respect and trust the person who helps them set the “buying vision” and go with the vendor who does more often then not. Said differently, the vendor who disrupts a client’s satisfaction with the status quo—by articulating a better outcome with a clear path to achieving it—most often wins the deal. Sharing valuable content to educate is one way a salesperson can engage a potential buyer early on—ideally even before the prospect realizes there is a problem.

There is a lot written on the importance of aligning marketing and sales to achieve the ultimate goal of growing revenues. Most marketing organizations are creating a lot of content to help create leads. I see a huge opportunity for marketing and sales to collaborate on helping sales reps learn how best to use content to drive revenue.

How are you using content in the sales process?

When you log into Postwire today, you’ll notice a major change to the User Interface. I’ll review the changes and then do some background on why we decided to change it.

New Top Nav

The first thing you’ll notice is the new navigation bar.

The goal with the nav bar update was to make it one-click to do the major things that most Postwire users need to do. Click the logo or the Home icon to see your list of Postwire Pages, view activity, or add content to an existing page. Click My Content to manage your collections of content. Click Quick Share to make a new Postwire Page to share with new people.

Updated Home Screen

Orientation

At the top of the Home Screen, we now include a 6-step orientation to help our users get acclimated with Postwire. If you step through these tips, you should be able to understand the lay of the land.

Page List

We made several updates to the page list, including adding a Page Search, adding column headers, and cleaning up the Outgoing/Incoming filter tabs in favor of a dropdown.

Latest Activity

We had a lot of complaints that the Activity Feed was pretty noisy and most users tended to ignore it. We refreshed the design of the activity to make it more readable as well as filtering the activity to make it more effective.

Libraries & Collections Refresh

The number one thing we hear from new users is the confusion between Libraries, Collections, and Pages. With the redesign of the “My Content” page, we aim to make it very clear that My Content is where you organize and store content for later and Pages are where you share that content. To achieve that, we made the following changes:

Remove Activity Feed

We only include the activity feed on the home page now.  As a result, we make the collections span four columns wide. This should make it easier for users with a lot of content.

Library Tabs

When we segmented our users, we found that they either had no libraries or many libraries. As a result we refactored the Library Navigation into a dropdown instead of having many tabs across the screen.

Page UI Cleanup

When most users created a new Postwire Page, it was very overwhelming. There was tons of text and buttons all over the place. With this update, we aim to make it very obvious for people to understand what a page is and how to add content.

Simpler Interface

The main difference that most people will notice is that it looks much more clean. Also, we moved the Invite button up under the Title & Description.

You may also spot a few more helpful tips in different areas to help new and existing users understand Postwire better.

Comment & Activity Tabs

Pages with a lot of activity could really slow down the page load. Now, we’ll only fetch the activity when you request it by clicking on the tab.

Recently Added Content

When you click the Use Existing button, you can choose from your collections as well as choosing from Most Recently Added. Most Recently Added includes any content that you’ve added to either a collection or page. We aimed to solve two problems with this feature.

Users Who Have A Lot Of Content

For users who have a lot of content, they can have trouble finding the stuff they use often. This should help greatly.

Users Without Collections

There are a fair amount of users who never create a collection but might have one piece of content that is the same on each page. Rather than creating a collection to hold that one item, they can simply go to Recently Added Content and select it.

Summary

Even though it seems that these are relatively small changes, we’ve been working on them for about a month because we’ve tweaked almost every screen in Postwire. After a recent round of usability testing, we’re pretty confident that this new layout will be easier for users to understand and use.  If you are confused, don’t hesitate to click the Help Button in Postwire to initiate a live chat.

I suggest setting a goal that 100% of your clients are referenceable.

Here’s why:

1. 100% referenceable is a mindset. It permeates the entire organization. It means even if a client decides to stop doing business with you, they should be referenceable. They should not leave you because of dissatisfaction with your company or product. In fact, they should still be fans. They should leave because there was no longer a fit between their needs and your service. The real test is that they will be a good reference for you and will still refer people they know to you where they think there is a good fit between you and the prospective client.
2. It aligns everyone in the company around a shared vision and signing the right clients to be set up for success. Everyone works together to create a remarkable client experience.
3. It builds a strong revenue base from which to grow. Today the easiest revenue dollar for any organization is the revenue it gets from its current clients. If next year you can keep all the revenue you have, then growth is much easier. Unfortunately, too often we focus on new sales and how we treat our current clients becomes secondary.

So how do you measure client satisfaction—having 100% referenceability?

Many folks will say this is an unattainable goal. But I ask: would you ever design a system that says it is okay for clients not to have a really good experience?

Ali Riaz, now CEO of Attivio (www.attivio.com), was the person who taught me the concept of 100% referenceable client base. Ali set this is a goal when he and SId Probstein (@sidprobstein) founded Attivio.

I had been involved in subscription businesses since I started working back in the late 70′s. In those businesses, a key metric was your renewal rate. Our goal was renewal rates of 98% per year. Yes, only a 2% loss rate for the year. The only clients we could tolerate losing were those that went out of business.

That is why Ali’s concept of 100% referenceable strongly resonates with me. Getting a 100% renewal rate was almost impossible given clients could go out of business or there might not be a fit between their need and your product any more. So 100% referenceable meant you could lose a client, but they had to be referenceable. That means any person could call them and they would provide a positive reference.

Why is 100% referenceable so important?

Referrals for new clients will be your least expensive cost of acquiring new clients. If clients love you, they will refer people to you. Yes, they have to LOVE you, not like you, to refer.

Over the next few months we will look for ideas on things you can do to make clients love you.

What are you doing to make your clients LOVE you?

P.S. Creating a 100% referenceable mindset and culture pays off: CONGRATULATIONS to the Attivio team for raising $34 Million in growth funding from Oak Investment Partners! Read more here.

Q: What’s the difference between PRIVATE and SECURE Pages?

A: By default, all new Postwire Pages will be PRIVATE. This means that the links (urls) to the Page are not publicly available, but if you or one of your recipients shares the link, the Page can be viewed.

With a Postwire Pro account, you can be more restrictive. You can make each Postwire Page SECURE. To view a SECURE Page, you must be specifically invited and logged in to to Postwire.

Secure Pages

SECURE Pages are especially helpful in healthcare, deal negotiations and other sitations where extra security and confidentiality are required.

David Marinac, President and CEO of StandupPouches.net has been a huge fan of Postwire from the very beginning. He is a supplier of customized packaging, specifically stand up pouches used for food, pet treats, soaps and more. David says Postwire helps his high-touch business respond faster and more completely to win more business.

No stranger to video, David once mentioned he hoped to promote Postwire on video. Still, we were blown away when this polished and glowing testimonial arrived unannounced the other day. Of course, we couldn’t help ourselves and wanted to share it right away with you here.

From the bottom of our hearts, thank you, David.

-The Postwire Team

Drag ‘n Drop

In presenting a point of view to a prospect, sales reps often share information. A question for many is how much info to share with a prospective client and when to share it.

One strategy for presenting information to set the buying vision can be compared to the very popular poker game, Texas Hold’em. In this card game, players typically make single bets after each card is shown. Eventually, one card player might sense an opportunity and go all in, placing all of her chips on the table because she believes her hand will win against all others. This forces everyone else to fold or match her bet.

Here’s how I connect this card playing metaphor to a content sharing strategy for salespeople to aid in setting the buying vision:

• Situation 1: When your prospect doesn’t yet know he has a problem, share information deliberately, one card at a time.
• Situation 2: When your prospect realizes he has a problem and is considering taking action, go all in laying down all of your cards.

Building Awareness of a Better Outcome

In the first situation, ignorance is bliss and the prospect is in learning mode. He’s very busy and craves simple. In content sharing terms, simple means sharing a single piece of content. For example, one really good article that talks about why not taking action has negative consequences–like why not addressing energy efficiency in a data center causes significant issues beyond cost. If your prospect shows interest by reading this article, then you can suggest other related educational content. You begin to set the buying vision, one card and single bet at a time. Jill Konrath has a wonderful concept  TMTQ (Too Much Too Quick).  Read it here.

Creating Confidence in Your Solution

In Situation 2, the buyer already knows he has a problem and is actively seeking solutions. This is your chance to show him a complete path to success. Yes, describe your solution, but also provide information on other options he might consider as alternatives. Present likely outcomes and what it’s like to do business with you. Your goal here is to impress him by providing the relevant information in an organized fashion to enable him to quickly and confidently make a decision. In this case, your information helps him see you as the “right” partner. Knowing what he reads gives you insights to enrich your conversations and openly address any concerns. Just as Texas Hold’em is played with 7 cards, restrict your all-in information sharing to 7 or fewer pieces of content.

Determine your prospect’s concerns and bring content addressing them to the table–share the right content in the right context. It’s not always easy to assess when less is more. When in doubt, share only what matters to avoid overwhelming. Be poised for when the opportunity is ripe to go all-in.

How are you using content in your sales process?

Here are tips to stay connected, share new ideas & grow revenue:

• Share resources on a personalized Postwire Page that reflect the particular needs of each client to get started after the deal is closed, get the most out of the product or get the contract renewed.
• Stay in touch and keep it real by adding third party perspectives on topics your client cares about.
• You know that new webinar recording or thought leadership ebook developed to generate leads—share it with existing clients who’ll value it, too!
• Remind clients of everything you offer and include links to new offers for related products & services.
• Use the Page to let new users or departments know how you are helping others at the company today.

How to Upload a Prettier Image

Upload any image you want. Consider taking a screenshot of the nice graphics in your ebook. Here’s how:

1. View the PDF document.
2. Take a screenshot of the graphics you like:
   How to Take a Screenshot in Microsoft Windows
   How to Take a Screenshot in Mac OS X
3. Edit the content item.
4. Click Can’t find a good image?
5. Click Upload an image.
6. Select the image file to upload.
7. Use the cropper.
8. Ta dah!

From a Postwire user…

Michael Heffner, Enterprise Sales Account Manager from Tableau Software says:

“I make a Postwire Page for each account. I modify the content titles to state clearly what each item is and also upload attractive images. My customers love Postwire because it gives them one place to go.

I love it because there’s no better way to understand what content customers care about. It’s amazing to see customer behavior!”

In speaking with the #Inbound12 crowd, we learned that some folks plan to use Postwire to educate buyers by anticipating and answering the questions buyers must ask to make purchase decisions. There were others who made a beeline to our sponsor table from Laura Fitton’s breakout session on “Inbound PR”. Laura plugged Postwire as a way to build relationships and share your ideas to attract media attention “without being a self-promotional jerk”. Several small business owners saw ways to differentiate their services using Postwire. I especially enjoyed meeting a woman who owns a doggie daycare and training business. She was excited about creating a Postwire Page for each client to provide educational materials & short videos capturing the away-from-home antics of her clients’ beloved pets!

Yes, Inbound 2012 was awesome! A hearty welcome to all of our new Inbound 2012 friends!

Who’s this “Someone”?

Knowing when a prospect or client engages with the information you share is one of the features many Postwire users love. Postwire’s tracking reporting gives you feedback you might not otherwise get, helping you to respond faster with greater insight. But who is this “Someone from Asia Pacific Network Information Centre near San Jose, CA – US has viewed your Page Inbound12 Highlights“? Want to learn more? Read the full blog post: How Does Postwire Tracking Work?

4 Reasons Your Client Wants Their Own
(FREE) Postwire Account

1. To comment on your Postwire Page.
2. To avoid hunting through the Inbox for the Page link.
3. To invite colleagues to view and discuss your cool content.
4. To keep connected with their own clients, too!