ClickInsights: How can B2B marketers use content effectively for demand generation?

Posted by Ambal Balakrishnan August 27th 09

ClickInsights is an Expert Interview Series brought to you by Connect the Docs (ClickDocuments blog). In ClickInsights Expert Interview Series we feature top notch industry experts and thought leaders and get their insights, opinions and predictions. We also ask for their suggestions on recommended reading resources to keep abreast with latest trends in their industry.

B2B marketers are producing, managing, and distributing marketing content to reach prospects and turn them into customers. We have invited B2B Experts to shed light on the following question: How to use content effectively for demand generation? Read on to get their insights.

 

Ardath Albee

Blog Marketing Interactions Twitter Ardath421

Set Parallel Content Goals

Ardath Albee's Bio

Ardath Albee is a B2B Marketing Strategist. Her company Marketing Interactions helps companies with complex sales and quantify marketing effectiveness by using interactive e-marketing strategies driven by compelling content. She empowers her clients to create customer-centric nurturing programs that leverage strategic story development to engage prospects until they are sales ready. Ardath’s book, E-Marketing Strategies for the Complex Sale, will be published this fall by McGraw-Hill.

Ardath Albee's Tip

The act of using content to generate demand for a complex sale is a long-term proposition. When you create your content strategically, you have the ability to more accurately gauge how far along prospects are in their buying process based on which content they view. A prospect sitting squarely in status quo is not likely to be scouring the Internet for comparison reviews of a solution. But, they may be interested in an article about why an issue is worthy of their concern. By creating valuable content mapped to the needs they have throughout their buying process, you both win.

Each content resource you develop should be aimed at educating both them and you. This is why you need to set mutually-beneficial content goals. Content goals are fluid. Each goal builds upon the others to produce a growing level of engagement between the prospect and your company. The trick is in getting your goals and your prospects’ goals to run in parallel.

Your goals may revolve around this process:

• Connect:  get their attention.
• Engage: once you’ve got attention, get them to take action.
• Involve: once they've taken action, make it compelling enough that they initiate follow-on interactions to learn more.
• Guide: make sure they gain all the knowledge they need to confirm your company provides the best path to achieving their desired business result.
• Influence: your prospects are driven to promote this knowledge to others in their organization and drive interest and buy-in for your product or service.
• Pursue: determine the level of interest so you can pass the prospect to your sales team at just the right time.

Your prospects goals will look different:

• Decide: the issue is worth learning more about.
• Find: information that helps them understand what they need to know to make the best decision.
• Persuade: build a business case that gains them the approval for the project and enrolls the other people their company includes on the project team.
• Verify: ensure they’re making the choice that will really solve the problem AND make them look good with the least risk exposure.
• Simplify: whoever makes solving this issue easiest for them is worth talking to.
• Minimize: guard their time so they can move at their own speed and still complete all their other responsibilities.

If you overlay these goals, you’ll see a clear path to developing content to help both of you achieve what’s important. One-size-fits-all content won’t accomplish that. Designing content to answer your buyers differing needs as they work through their buying process will.

Ardath Albee Recommends

• Get Content. Get Customers. By Joe Pulizzi and Newt Barrett
• Keeping a Closer Eye on Content ROI – CMO Council
• Eccolo Media 2008 B2B Technology Collateral Survey

Rebel Brown

Blog Phoenix Rising Twitter RebelBrown

Tell Compelling Stories

Rebel Brown's Bio

Rebel Brown is go-to-market strategist and Spin Doctor specializing in start ups, turnarounds and start-arounds in the high technology arena. She has helped to define, position and launch over 75 individual products and companies since she began consulting 20 years ago. Her clients who are technology vendors and venture firms leverage her strategic marketing and go-to-market expertise. She identifies and transforms differentiation - customers crown jewels - into compelling, customer-centric value that sells. Her blog is Phoenix Rising and her business is PeopleWhoKnow.

Rebel Brown's Tip

Tell compelling stories. That’s the first thing I suggest when it comes to demand generation. Use stories to create the desired perception of our company, its expertise and value and why we can and should be a trusted partner. Demand generation offers the perfect opportunity to instill a baseline perception within our audiences – before we ever have a real-time conversation.

Too often we see demand generation as a way to fling out a diversity of information – facts and feeds ‘n speeds and chest thumping about ourselves. Often these ‘flings’ are random and disjointed, throwing a bunch of ‘stuff’ at the audience to see what sticks with them.
That’s the wrong approach folks. If we follow it, our numbers will show just how misguided it is.

The key to great content-driven demand generation is to thoughtfully and logically use stories that are relevant to our audiences. Note that – use stories that are relevant to our audiences, not us.  Sending out stories from high technology successes does nothing to attract an audience segment focused on heavy equipment sales.  The stories have to match the audience, which makes profiling even more important in the demand generation process.

So, how do I set up the story flow?  Well, that depends on the audience and the client.  With each story, be sure to include links to other relevant information that supports the specific piece of the overall story. Also – stage the stories so they map to the audience’s progress through your pipeline process- whatever that may be. Here’s a general flow for a multi-step campaign. Be sure and tailor it to match your specific objectives and audiences.

1. Set the stage. To communicate, we have to make sure our audiences are all on the same page (our page) regarding our topics. I usually start with a story focused on the challenges and issues faced by our audience – what we see as the key opportunities for change and improvement. This first story helps our audience understand that we get their business, their issues and have expertise and knowledge that is of interest to them.
2. Share a generic example of what can be. Create a story focused on our vision of what could be – the potential for breakthroughs. Include an example of how the changes occur, how a ‘generic’ product or service can be applied to initiate improvements. NOTE: generic product, not our product.  We’re educating not selling!
3. Share quantitative and qualitative evidence that solutions are happening already. So, we’ve gotten everyone on the same page, painted the rosy picture – now’s the time to show that it’s not fantasy – it’s happening. Share a series of evidence points – from customers, market leaders, analysts – whatever source is credible and has the right information to validate the opportunity.
4. Share a real world story that can apply to multiple audiences. Sometimes this is the hardest story to create –because it acts as an umbrella example across multiple audiences. The key is to determine the 3 pivot points we want to drive home – the key values that apply to all audiences – and evidence them in a real-world scenario.  If I can’t find a real customer, sometimes I simply make one up, based on a combination of a few customer examples.
5. Drop into segment specific stories. Now’s the time to drop into stories that are highly relevant to specific audience requirements and situations. The more the merrier! These can be sent individually or as a single communication with links to multiple stories.
6. Continue with relevant customer or market examples. Finally - keep nurturing. Don’t stop because an audience member hasn’t bought anything yet. Keep sharing stories across the spectrum of topics I’ve listed. Have a new statistic that shows the opportunity is growing faster than ever? Share it. A new example of how someone applied the concept to their reality? Promote it. 

The key is to use stories to educate our audiences – which simultaneously positions us as the expert and a helpful resource for them. When we become a key trusted resource – a revenue relationship will follow.

Rebel Brown Recommends

• Charlene Li's and Josh Barnoff's book Groundswell: Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies

Brian Carroll

Blog Start with a Lead Twitter BrianJCarroll

Use your demand generation content to set yourself up as a thought leader

Brian Carroll's Bio

Brian Carroll, CEO of InTouch, is part of MECLABS Group (MarketingExperiments, MarketingSherpa, InTouch) and author of Lead Generation for the Complex Sale and the B2B Lead Generation Blog with expertise related to B2B marketing, lead generation and complex sales.

Brian Carroll's Tip

Demand generation content is really any material that is informational and not a straight-up sales advertisement for you or your service. Content could be a newsletter article, a press release - anything that contains factual info about your product or your satisfied customers.

Demand generation content and thought leadership can be used to highlight any underlying business issues and needs that your products or services can help solve.  

However, I think the best kind of demand generation content is anything that sets you up as a thought leader or industry expert. That could include a complimentary whitepaper, a webinar, a speech, or a blog post – actually anything that gives your prospects valuable industry info such as how-to tips, insight on industry trends, or useful data. This kind of content shows your prospects that you’ve done the research and that you know the industry inside and out.  

According to a study released by RainToday.com (“How to Become a Thought Leader”), key benefits to embracing thought leadership include:  awareness and reach in the market; easier business development with more desirable clients; appreciation inside your own company; higher speaking fees; and less market “push” and more market “pull.”  

Here are some great ways to use demand generation content to set yourself up as a thought leader in your industry:

• Create a Case study on how yours or other companies used a product to improve their business process
• Highlight new industry research
• Publish a How-to- guide for using your product/service to create a better advantage
• Interview a top analyst or top executive on the state of your industry
• Create a podcast that meshes the above interviews with your  thoughts on the subject
• Write about 10 ways to improve business
• Host your own webinar or team up with a company that shares your interest in a particular subject

Setting yourself up as a thought leader isn’t easy. From my own experience, I’ll warn you that it takes a lot of work to keep this commitment. You’ll have to be consistent. You’ll have to write articles, agree to speak publicly, be open to participating in industry associations and webinars or podcasts. It’s all about engaging your audience.  

At its core, thought leadership is about sharing content that's relevant and valuable to potential customers even if they never buy from you.  And, that’s the most important thing to remember: it’s not about you. It’s about them. You need to always be thinking about your prospects’ state of mind. It’s a long-term investment.  Give them what they need to make decisions about you and their future, and you’ll reap the benefits in the future.

Mac McIntosh

Blog Sales Leads Insights Twitter B2B_Sales_Leads

Use content as offers or calls-to-action

Mac McIntosh's Bio

M. H. (Mac) McIntosh is considered to be one of North America’s top B2B marketing consultants and an expert the subject of using marketing to generate leads and drive sales. In addition to consulting, Mac conducts marketing workshops and seminars, writes regularly for leading marketing and business publications, is the publisher of Sales Lead Report, a newsletter with more than 15,000 subscribers, and Sales Lead Insights, his B2B marketing blog. He holds the Certified Business Communicator (CBC) designation awarded by the Business Marketing Association and was designated by BtoB magazine as one of its “Top 100 in BtoB Marketing.”

Mac McIntosh's Tip

In my view the best use of content in B2B demand generation is as part of your lead generation and lead nurturing programs:

1. Use content as offers or calls-to-action, ideally designed to appeal to prospects at different stages of their buying process, as they move from awareness to inquiry to consideration and to purchase.  

For example, if you’ve just identified a prospective customer—let’s call it the “first date” stage of the sales cycle—you might offer educational materials such as case studies, e-books, white papers, how-to articles and decision-maker kits. At this point, most prospects aren't ready to meet with salespeople—but they're comfortable requesting information that they may use for later decision making.

In the "middle date" stage, consider offering in-depth white papers, self-assessment worksheets and webinars. Such materials and presentations require more time and effort from your potential customers, but they're also more closely linked to each prospect's specific situation, which helps with moving them forward in a sales-winning relationship.

When you know each other well, it's time to make offers or calls-to-action which are designed to move your prospective customers toward choosing your company. For instance: Invite them to all-day seminars delving deep into implementation details. Offer demos or low-cost or free needs assessments. Or ask whether your salespeople can meet with their decision team to present customized proposals or quotations.
 
What if you don't know where prospects are in their buying cycles? In that case, make offers appropriate for every stage and let people select the ones they want.

As you think about B2B lead generation and lead nurturing , keep in mind these points about offers and calls-to-action:

• They must be genuinely enticing. The best offers are often educational in nature, geared to helping people make good buying decisions. Titles containing phrases such as "How to ..." or "10 Ways to ..." tend to be most effective.
• They should be "self-qualifying" whenever possible.  Who, other than a qualified prospect, would really be interested in a white paper about your company's solutions? On the other hand, many people—including some who will never turn into qualified, sales-ready leads—will gladly accept an offer with a freebie such as an MP3 player or a digital picture frame.
• They must move the buying process forward. This requires directly (and satisfactorily) addressing your prospects' key questions and concerns.

2. Use content in your newsletters, blog posts and articles on your website.  Use your content-rich newsletter, blog or website articles as additional ways to communicate key information to your prospects and customers.   

Like you did with your offers or calls-to-action, develop content to appeal to prospects at different stages of their buying cycle.

It doesn’t do any good if nobody knows about your great content, or can’t find it.  So you need to promote it. For example:

• Pepper your content with keywords and phrases in the right places so it will have a better chance of being found when people are searching about the topic via search engines like Google, Bing and Yahoo. 
• Merchandise free subscriptions to your newsletter and promote your blog on your website.
• Twitter about your blog posts or newsletter articles to get your content read by, and re-tweeted to, prospective customers. 
• Mention relevant newsletter or blog content on Facebook or to your LinkedIn groups.
• Link to your enewsletter, blog, Tweets and linkedIn profile from your email signatures.

Mac McIntosh Recommends

• MarketingSherpa
• B2B Lead Generation Benchmark Study 2009
• Sales Lead Expert’s Learning Center

Maria Pergolino

Blog Modern B2B Marketing Twitter Marketo InboundMarketer

Content shouldn’t stop once the lead is created

Maria Pergolino's Bio

Maria Pergolino works as Inbound Marketing Manager at Marketo, leading their efforts in adoption of social media channels for brand awareness and demand generation. She has worked in marketing for over ten years, and specifically in online marketing including social media, search marketing, and lead generation and nurturing for the past six. Maria has a Marketing Degree and MBA from the School of Business at Rutgers University, is a Salesforce Certified Administrator, and a speaker at numerous marketing events. She has also written for many marketing blogs, and is a frequent contributor to Marketo’s popular blog, Modern B2B Marketing.

Maria Pergolino's Tip

At Marketo we have found that content that is educational (versus product focused) performs much better in demand generation programs.    But don’t just stop there; make sure that the educational content is relevant to the audience in the campaign.  According to David Meerman Scott, Marketing Strategist and Author of The New Rules of Marketing & PR, “People want to do business with people. We’re human, and we crave interaction with people who know us. When you build content especially for your buyer personas, you build a relationship with people before you’ve even met them.”  

You can augment thought leadership by change the title or introduction, or adding additional sections so it will resonate with a new audience.  For example, an educational paper you already use on your website can be changed to include a section on ROI and analytics so it is more useful for an executive level demand generation program.

Also, you need to have content that is relevant to everyone involved with the purchase of your product.  According to MarketingSherpa, even at small companies (100-500 employees), the average number of people involved in a decision is 6.8 — and that number goes as high as 21 individuals on a buying committee at larger companies.  Your demand generation will need to speak to each of them and address their unique needs in order to attract them all to complete a form (or do some other type of conversion).  The more product awareness there is with each of these buyers prior to the purchase the easier it will be to make the sale.

Finally, marketer need to remember that the content shouldn’t stop once the lead is created.  Good content for demand generation isn’t enough.  Good educational content is needed for lead nurturing until (and even past when) the purchase is made.  

Maria Pergolino Recommends

• Forester Blog for Interactive Marketing Professionals
• Ardath Albee's blog Marketing Interactions
• Brian Carroll's blog B2B Lead Generation Blog
• Laura Patterson's book Marketing Metrics in Action
• Hugh MacLeod's Ignore Everybody: and 39 Other Keys to Creativity

Seamus Walsh

Blog B2BContentMarketing Twitter SeamusWalsh

Let your audience choose how they want to consume your content

Seamus Walsh's Bio

Seamus Walsh founded VAZT Global Inc. in January 2008. Seamus' passion for sales, sales process and excellence enabled him to develop a platform that "finds, cares and feeds" prospects until they are ready to buy. Prior to forming VAZT, Seamus worked in sales and strategic account management for The Hackett Group, a strategic advisory and management consulting firm in Atlanta, For Gartner, a research, advisory and consulting company in Stamford, CT and Cambridge Technology Partners, a web development company, prior to its acquisition by Novell. Seamus resides in Essex Junction, VT with his wife and four children.

Seamus Walsh's Tip

B2B marketers can use relevant content effectively for inbound marketing, outbound demand generation and to reduce the cost of sales.

To me, outbound marketing assumes you have a list of target accounts and inbound: you rely on your thought leadership, business value and unique differentiation to attract mindshare and clients. There are different content formats and types and you should let your audience choose how they want to consume your content, be it a whitepaper, social membership, video, shopping cart, blog or survey.

I have been calling video blogs “lazy man’s content,”  it’s a very effective way to quickly communicate your message and unique differentiation.  Personally,  I have started to put interview transcripts online with the video to get the information found on Google™.  Don’t ignore long tail content formats,  our sales and marketing alignment survey consistently comes in top organic Google™ placement for our search term. Be patient, but ask questions of your provider, one client poll landed  in the seventh organic spot on Google™ after 28 days.  With  over seventy keyword advertisers,  I cant answer how it is going to perform with the number one, two or three sponsored links or the sheer number of PPC sponsors, but  it’s nice  to know we now have data points and metrics for a ROI. According to one Forrester study, the payback of getting the  right information in the right hands at the right time in sales alone could save up to 19% of SG&A expense.

Seamus Walsh Recommends

• Richard Sheffield's Book The Web Content Strategist’s Bible
  
• Seamus Walsh's 'Assessment to measure how well your content is aligned to sales'

Related Articles  

• ClickInsights: Tips on how B2B marketers should leverage social media
• ClickInsights: Tips on how B2B marketers should do Content Marketing

 

posted in ClickInsights: Expert Interviews

bookmark in del.icio.us | submit to stumbleupon