Marketing Interactions

Format is Not a B2B Persona Question

I am often asked which content formats to use in which stages of the buying process. B2B marketers often arrive at this question during the creation of buyer personas and content flows. In a perfect world, there would be some magic formula for content format based on this work. However, I advise marketers to consider that content format is not a buyer persona question, it's a circumstance question.

Now, arguably, certain content works better in certain formats. Longer form content is more suited to a white paper, eBook, or Webinar format. Shorter content to a blog post, Facebook post or, obviously, a Tweet.

But that skews the question. That's not a function of persona, but of the content itself.

From a persona perspective, let's say I'm representative of a target segment. Well, I happen to love videos, but I'm time constrained. Therefore, I'm more likely to go for text-based content because I can scan, get what I need, and move on. Am I now a different persona because I downloaded the whitepaper rather than watched the video?

No, I'm not. I'm still the same person operating in response to my circumstances.

Circumstances are often the cause of content format preferences. For example:

• Driving a long commute? Listen to a podcast.
• Eating lunch at your desk and curious about what's new with X? View a webinar.
• Need to really understand the latest research on a subject? Download a white paper.
• Want a quick "how-to" lesson? Watch a video.
• Only have an hour to catch up on what's new today? Scan blog posts from your feed.

I can think of a ton of variations. But none of them make me a different persona. Remember that a persona is representative of a target segment of your market with similar characteristics that is trying to solve a problem that your product or solution addresses.

Buying stages offer another angle on format, but it's a bit more fuzzy. It often depends on the question or query that brings the persona to search for content.

• Is the question easier to answer? Shorter content.
• Is the question more complex? Longer content, or a series approach.
• Is the question a late-stage validation question? Bring on the customer stories.

Perhaps you noticed that in this instance the format is in regards to length and type, not really format as marketers traditionally mean it. There are still many ways to determine which format you'll use. For example, one way is which channel you'll use to distribute the content.

Considering buying stages will also play into how well your personas know your company and how credible they think your content is. The better they know you and the higher esteem they equate to your content, the longer you'll be able to hold their attention. And attention is currency these days.

But perceptions vary. Someone who is early stage but has a referral to your content from a trusted colleague, for example, may be willing to give you the benefit of the doubt and dive into a white paper. Others who have no reason to believe your content will really be helpful will remain skeptical and may only choose a blog post to give you the opportunity to earn their attention.

I think B2B marketers often work from a deficit because we've been slower to lose the product and company focus in favor of the buyer's perspective. We have to prove our content is better and more valuable from the word "Go."

This being said, in my opinion, all of these circumstances indicate that companies need to enable prospects to choose the format they prefer, regardless of the topic they're interested in pursuing.

Format should obviously match the channel. But the formats you choose should also be evidenced in response to all the topics/questions your personas would be interested in learning more about and answering across their buying process.

If your persona is interested in Topic A — then create a variety of formats for Topic A. You can have a white paper, a blog post series, a few videos, etc., all about topic A. Then, regarless of their circumstances, your personas will have access to the format that meets their needs in regards to obtaining that information.

I also acknowledge that creating a quantity of quality content is many marketers #1 challenge. I'd suggest you make your best guess and monitor response and engagement. If a topic shows a lot of interest, try creating more content about it in different formats and see if you can gain more attention from a wider variety of prospects.

All personas are not created equally. And content format is not one-size-fits-all-personas—no matter how much we'd all like it to be.

Yesterday, Joe Pulizzi wrote a blog post, "Finding Your Content Marketing Hedgehog," that discusses how to blend content, format, and expertise for best results. It's great food for thought if you're pondering how format fits in with your content marketing strategy.

What Tech Buyers Want From Content

One of the reasons to create personas is to develop a tool that guides your content strategy to develop content that they'll find interesting. In fact, I'm not quite sure how B2B marketers without personas actually decide what content to develop. But, from what I've seen, I'm guessing it's based on what they want to talk about, what's hot and happening at their companies, and what new product feature they figure their prospects can't live without.

Hmm. If that's true, then maybe some new research will help dispel the idea that you don't need to know your audience to publish content they'll find relevant.

The latest research by UBM TechWeb asking Tech buyers what they want from content finds:

Content Has a "Use By" Date

• 58% said they wanted content that was timely and current
• 41% said they would only consider content that was less than 1 year old
• Only 11% said they'd consider content more than 18 moths old

So for all of you who are relying on that white paper published in 2010 to do the trick, it's time to produce something fresh. Things change fast. I hear marketers tell me that their industry hasn't changed much in the last couple of years as rationale for relying on dated content, but I'm not buying it. At the very least, update it for new statistics, terminology and references.

Right clicking in a PDF to view document details will tell me in 2 seconds how dated your content is. But worse than that, the message it sends is that your company is out of touch and isn't focused on looking forward and being innovative. When choosing a vendor to partner with, is that who you'd pick?

Content Must Walk the Talk

• 64% said they want facts and figures to support claims
• 65% said they want best practices

Your buyers are no dummies. They're looking for expertise and education and they want to know they're getting it from a credible resource. This means that fluff won't cut it (Yep - 77% of respondents said that).

Making ambiguous claims isn't going to fly, either. Nor is general content that doesn't get to any depth of insight. It's time to really think about the expertise your company brings to the table that your prospects and customers don't have and start sharing it. Incorporate customer scenarios to back up what you say, and/or do your research to provide the backup for your ideas from other trusted resources, such as my reference to this research.

Irrelevant Content Causes Damage

• 86% said that vendor information that doesn't meet their needs has a negative impact
• 79% said that the quality of information received significantly affects whether or not they'll do business with the vendor

I think that pretty much says it.

Creating content just to create content and check the box isn't the answer. So start getting to know your buyers and building content that they'll find valuable. Ignoring what your prospects want is not a viable option.

 

 

Robotic Email Campaigns Miss the Point

In addition to learning that lead generation is the top marketing priority for tech marketers, IDC's 2012 Tech Marketing Barometer Study asked them about their perceived effectiveness at lead nurturing. In reponse to the 22% who said they use regular nurturing touches geared to buying stages that include more than email and web-based multi-step campaigns, Kathleen Schaub, VP-research, CMO Advisory Service at IDC, said:

“I don't believe this, or people don't understand what nurturing means,” Schaub said. “I talk to a lot of our clients and people in the industry, and I know for sure that people are not nurturing well.”

Based on what I've seen, I agree with her. Kathleen also made the comment,

“A lot of people look at nurturing as, "Now we can program our campaign system to deliver six emails in a row.'"

Hence the need for this post. Yet again.

Lead nurturing is not about sending out emails on a regular schedule just because you can. Or just because you think that constant communication (regardless of relevance) will help you sell something. It won't.

And it's evidence that marketers have missed the point.

Lead nurturing is about providing education, expertise, and evidence that help prospects learn what they know during each stage of the process and build the confidence to make a buying decision in your favor — or to gain the consensus from those involved in the decision to get the deal done. It's about positioning your company as an expert that can bring more value to the project than the product would alone.

Let's face it, perceived value, expertise and credibility are the true differentiators in today's marketplace. Otherwise it would just be a price war.

Stringing together 6 emails as a set-it-and-forget-it program won't do this. Don't misunderstand. It's not about the number 6, but the laziness behind the robotic campaign that sets my teeth on edge. Based on the length of the buy cycle, 6 touches may do the trick — if they're relevant and build the right story.

The problem with robotic email campaigns is that they:

• Lack the consistent provision of relevance and value
• Irritate your prospects (based on the above)
• Don't build your credibility
• Are likely focused on feeds, speeds and products
• Don't take into account buyer behavior during the campaign
• Are a campaign, not a strategy
• Have no progression of story that builds momentum
• Have no cohesive story
• Do not differentiate your company
• Are more about timing than context
• Do nothing to stimulate dialogue
• Create another marketing silo
• Don't integrate with programs in other channels
• Probably push the sale for lack of anything better to do
• Are instantly forgettable
• Train your prospects to achieve speed records in clicking delete
• Are about you, not them
• Let you check the box without achieving objectives
• Put you squarely in the marketing fluff camp
• Usually aren't tied to revenue
• Make your company irrelevant
• Don't provide ideas worth sharing (or even pondering)
• Lack the ability to stimulate curiosity
• Repel engagement

I can probably think of more, but you should get gist.

Please understand that this has nothing to do with marketing automation. I think every marketer should have it. It's what you do with it that counts.

Lead nurturing is a process. It's the unfolding of a story that helps the buyer understand why they need to solve a problem, options for solving it, why they should change and why they should choose you to do so. It's never about buying a product. At least not overtly.

This takes thought, planning and the establishment of a lead management process that's managed to goals and objectives.

And it takes the chops to develop outstanding content designed for buyers.

It also means that you need to think outside the Inbox. Lead nurturing happens with every asset your prospects come in contact with in whatever channel they're using. Whether they see a Tweet and click to read a blog post or receive an email with a link to an article or white paper, or find your infographic using search, the result should be the perception of value and time well spent.

So before you go hook up 6 emails in a row to send out on a schedule, take some time to think about the experience you're creating for your buyers. If you need more motivation, review the list above highlighting the consequences of using robotic emails.

Picture courtesy of Robot Pictures

Can B2B Marketers Become Content Whisperers?

One of the mandates bandied about lately is that B2B marketers need to become listeners. They should set up listening posts and they must listen first, before launching marketing programs. You're told listening is a requisite for establishing 2-way dialogue and sustaining relationships across the buying process. If you've "listened" to all of this, then you know that listening informs (or should) how marketers respond to prospects' online behavior.

Anyone who's married or in a relationship can relate to "listening." Trust me, I've been married to a wonderful Italian man for 16 years and it's not so much what's being said, but what it means, that counts.

This is great and dandy for one-to-one relationships or even amongst small groups of people, family and friends, but what happens when you're a B2B marketer with thousands of contacts in your database? How the heck do you manage listening to that level of volume? In other words, the input of a few will not necessarily correlate to the wishes or intentions of the many.

Telling marketers they need to listen is one thing. Helping them figure out how to do so in a way that produces an effective input to inform marketing programs is entirely another.

A Few Ways Listening Goes Wrong

Listening is defined as making an effort to hear something. Hearing can be defined as paying attention to gain knowledge or insight.

Unfortunately, many people treat listening as the stimulus for their response, rather than an act of learning to inform their response. I call that selfish listening. Much marketing is done in relation to selfish listening. This is when you see the "me, me, and more about me" marketing content based on products and company grandeur rather than what prospects are interested in.

The other thing that can have listening lead your marketing astray is when you allow individuals—rather than the collective that relates to your personas—to influence how you market to a segment of a target market. You see examples of this related to the squeaky-wheel-that-gets-the-grease syndrome.

If one person says so, is it true? How about 10? Or 100?

The Role of Personas in Listening

When trying to determine if what you're hearing from prospects should inform your content marketing strategy, the first thing you need to do is ground the feedback. Is the person (or people) you're listening to representative of the persona the marketing program is designed to engage?

Marketers must make sure that feedback and dialogue is considered in the appropriate context before acting upon it.

Is the input common? How can you be sure?

Assuming you have a content strategy that was used to develop content related to answering your persona's questions, concerns, and informational needs related to solving a specific problem your product addresses, what inputs can be used for "listening?"

For example:

• The average time spent reading the content is 25 seconds when it takes an average person over 2 minutes to read the piece is an indication that the content isn't a relevant part of the persona dialogue.


• A lack of click through—whether from social media or email—indicates that your message isn't resonating with your audience.


• A discussion you start on a LinkedIn group or industry forum where you know your persona hangs out that points to a blog post to back up your premise gets no clicks or comments.


• A blog post written for Persona A gets shared by dozens, receives numerous comments and garners a nice volume of clicks to a landing page you linked to offering a white paper on a related subject.


• An article in your lead nurturing program for Persona B that also offers links to related content is shared by a number of prospects with colleagues they work with at the company.


• A Twitter thread using your hashtag becomes active with numerous people offering comments and perspective.

The list above includes both good and not so good responses to your content marketing efforts. If you're listening in relation to personas, you can likely find some things to improve and determine which may not be relevant based on who is reacting to what content.

The one thing marketers often forget is that just because we design content for one persona, doesn't mean it won't find exposure with others. In other words, all feedback should not be weighted equally.

You will never make everyone happy, so you must choose how and when to allow listening to shift your strategies and your response.

From Listener to Content Whisperer

The trick to listening is to equate what you're "hearing" to creating higher engagement, interest, and momentum with your personas.

Don't get me wrong. If an individual reacts to your content by leaving a comment or saying something on social media or replying to an email, a relevant response is warranted. But that doesn't necessarily mean changing your strategy.

In B2B marketing, often the response is passive viewing. At least during quite a bit of the self-education phase that seems to be growing longer as more and more content fills up what used to be empty space. But marketers cannot sit by passively if we want to achieve their goals. That's a luxury reserved for your prospects.

This is when becoming a content whisperer comes into play.

Nicoholas Evans wrote The Horse Whisperer, inspired by Dan "Buck" Brannaman who is known for the philosophy of natural horsemanship, based on the idea of "...using an understanding of how horses think and communicate to train the horse to accept humans and work confidently and responsively with them. One of Brannaman's stated goals is to make the animal feel safe and secure around humans so that the horse and rider can achieve a true union."

To become a content whisperer, marketers must focus on listening to propect behaviors to help them become credible (safe) resources that buyers trust (secure) and want to do business with (union). (Okay - maybe stretching it, but bear with me)

When prospects are passively engaging, marketers must "listen" to that engagement based on the information prospects are willing to spend time with. If they respond with content related to those topics, then they are helping to create a two-way dialogue that is the goal of listening.

• Prospect expresses interest
• Marketer provides more related content
• Prospect engages again
• And so it goes

If marketers have designed content to answer specific questions that a persona will have to get answered during their buying process to move to next steps, then based on the content they engage with, a marketer should be able to anticipate what might also be of interest. This is the art and science of B2B storytelling at its finest.

It's important to note that content whispering is not only related to your content, but to content produced by others that may get the reaction or dialogue you're looking to establish. Marketers need to consider not just what prospects say, but what they do.

What can you learn from "listening" to the content that engages people represented by your personas?

Perhaps becoming a Content Whisperer is a skill worth developing...if you want to create a 2-way dialogue that builds momentum toward buying.

What do you think?

Content Strategy Must Reach Beyond Marketing

Arguably, content strategy is most often thought of as a marketing application. That's a great start, but it doesn't do the practice justice. In fact, that view tends to cause siloed efforts and limit the potential of content strategy.

Content is a part of everything a business does in regards to communicating with prospects, customers, and the industries their offerings serve.

Content is anything that says something about your company, brand, expertise, or point of view that forms an impression, including:

• email
• video
• articles
• white papers
• blog posts
• blog comments
• conversations
• trade show swag
• call scripts
• sales collateral
• webinars
• advertising
• conference presentations
• newsletters
• direct mail
• solution briefs
• Tweets
• status updates
• discussion forum participation
• infographics
• referrals
• eBooks
• executive interviews
• press releases
• advocates
• data sheets
• media coverage
• customer stories
• websites
• ETC.

*Note the the focus of this blog post is on external audiences. But it also applies to internal audiences as well with another long list of formats and applications.

That's a lot of stuff. It's also why I wrote the previous post about why content should never be in a silo. Please note that much of this is created by the company, but some of it is not, such as referrals, and advocates. And some can come from the company as well as others, such as Tweets, status updates, and discussion forum participation. Regardless of source, it's still content that affects impressions about your company--good or bad.

(How content strategy applies to addressing content created by others about your company is another post)

The point I want to focus on today is that content strategy must address what lives beyond traditional marketing boundaries.

Two of the most prominent boundaries that must be dissolved are Sales Momentum and Customer Retention and Expansion.

Sales Momentum:

You may also think of this as Sales Enablement, but I don't like the term "enablement." Salespeople, by their very nature, should be enabled. The role content strategy can play with Sales is in helping them to continue to escalate opportunity momentum towards a deal, rather than stop it in its tracks if they step into the process out of sync.

I'm sick and tired of the battle for alignment between marketing and sales. There, I said it. Seems ridiculous if you ask me. I work with marketers everyday that are engaging salespeople in content strategy design and development because they realize salespeople are critical to the process. Not to mention that Sales really appreciates the help due to the constant change and shifting buyer attention in the marketplace today.Their position has changed, and they know it.

One of the interesting things I see when marketers involve Sales is that salespeople often have no real idea of what marketing actually does that may be helpful to them. This being said, just as marketers can no longer implement effective programs without getting to know their buyers, they also cannot help salespeople without knowing them, their priorities and what they're experiencing on the street that may be blocking or winning deals.

Marketers cannot provide the same content to salespeople that they provide to prospects. The context is different and the situation is different. The questions and obstacles are different.The interactions are different and so are the expectations from buyers on the receiving end.

By working with Sales, marketers can create content that salespeople will actually use to develop and engage late-stage opportunities. Once they see it's useful, valuable, and helps opportunities move to the next step in buying, marketers will find themselves inundated with requests for more. And that's a good thing!

Marketers must prove accountability. If they can do so by tracking use of content designed for sales interactions, their contribution to downstream revenues can be better substantiated. I hear a lot about salespeople taking credit for deals at the expense of marketing, but if the caveat to getting more content designed for them includes feedback on what's working, why it works, and what it helps them to accomplish, that will diminish.

Think about it.

Customer Retention and Expansion:

Most of what I see marketers focused on is new customer acquisition. But I often hear the lament that companies are having a difficult time expanding customer footprints. When I ask how their content strategy is designed to promote customer retention and expansion I hear things such as, we have an annual user conference or we send a monthly or quarterly newsletter. Or that it's someone else's problem, such as account reps or customer service.

Those are cop outs.

A few things marketers need to realize about customers is that their status quo is different than that of prospects. They solved their problem when they bought your solution, right? So what's next? What did solving that problem do to open up possibilities that can now be addressed?

That's where to start.

Expanding customer accounts is not about promoting products. It's still about solving problems - new ones. Why do companies think that rule changes once prospects become customers?

Do you have customer personas? Yes, they are different than buyer personas. See above.

Do you have content that helps them use the solution they've purchased to its fullest value? Have you made it clear why they should? Sharing your expertise should only increase in relation to customers. They are  much more of a known value to you than prospects.

And I'm not talking about using feeds and features. I'm talking about business value. Think beyond the end users of your solutions to other impacts the results of using it make to your customers' businesses.

How can you tie that into their ability to solve new problems? What's the additional business value they can gain?

Growth doesn't just come from new customer acquisition. But, for some reason, companies seem to take their customers for granted by assuming they need less attention than potential new logos. That's not a good business decision.

Perhaps it's time to rethink your customer retention and expansion programs and how they fit into your content strategy.