How to capitalize on the content marketing continuum

Get Up to SpeedThe buyer has taken control of the purchasing process; it’s a refrain heard often in marketing and sales channels.. Marketers and salespeople are now reliant upon their ab

ON THE CONTENT MARKETING

CONTINUUM

HOW TO DESIGN MARKETING-TO-SALES PROGRAMS FOR THE NEW BUYER

By Ardath Albee

Continuum – noun; A continuous extent, series or whole

- Dictionary.com

Marketing is no longer effective when comprised of one-off events, messages or campaigns The buying experience during a complex sale must be fluid, connected and engaging across its entirety Content marketing programs are the threads that weave together to create a fabric of engagement that elevates pipeline velocity, putting salespeople in viable opportunity conversations sooner—rather than later

There are no stops and starts in a continuum The flow is consistent, steady and designed to build the problem-to-solution story with buyers by providing the education, expertise and evidence they need to conclude that your company is the ultimate choice to

help them achieve business objectives This eBook is your guide for generating a transformation in marketing, from standalone efforts into strategic business assets that improve revenue performance.

Table of Contents

Get Up to Speed 4

Online Publishing Changes the Game 5

How Online Publishing Affects Buyers 6

How to Rise Above the Online Noise 7

Tools to Increase Relevance 8

Buyer Personas 11

Five Steps to Building a Buyer Persona 12

Four Types of Prospect Attention 13

The Importance of Integrating Marketing Channels 14

Why Segmentation Marketing is the New Black 15

How and Why to Narrow Your Focus 16

Messaging to Multiple Target Segments 17

Design Content Flows for Target Segments 18

How to Improve the ROI on Marketing Content Investments 19

Shifts in Skills Needed to Market to the New Buyer 20

Creating Synergy with Sales 26

Producing Leads Worthy of Sales Pursuit 27

Why the Toss Over the Wall is OUT and the Baton Pass is IN 29

Give Sales a Conversational Toolkit 30

Position Salespeople as Valuable Experts 31

Capitalize on the Content Marketing Continuum 32

About the Author 33

Get Up to Speed

The buyer has taken control of the purchasing process; it’s a refrain heard often in marketing and sales channels Information has become ubiquitous—as has access to it No longer are companies and their salespeople the gatekeepers that must be sought out for help to assuage curiosity, reveal solutions to problems, build business cases and select a short list of vendors to pursue The informational gatekeepers are now represented by search engines, social networks and perceptions of relevance Marketers and salespeople are now reliant upon their ability to:

• Be found with the right information in the channels buyers prefer

• Attract and keep the attention of buyers and influencers

• Respond appropriately with digital dialogues that motivate buyer intent

• Elevate the perceived value of every interaction—whether with marketing or sales

What the continuum means for marketers

Marketing has become a continuous stream—not one-off campaigns or events This creates a continuum that must be sustained

by stripping away the pretext, posturing and limitations of traditional company and product-focused marketing A continuum approach is based on delivering escalating value for buyers in every online interaction to create digital dialogues that drive momentum that results in sales and continues on across the entire customer lifecycle

Implications for sales

Where the continuum intersects with sales, the provision of value-added, fresh and relevant ideas must seamlessly transition without interruption to momentum Salespeople must be primed to provide unique expertise beyond what competitors can even imitate—should they try

Preparing for the Content Marketing Continuum

The ability to publish content online, interact with buyers and engage in social conversations has become simple to execute It’s the planning, strategy, and context—along with a foundation for sustaining it consistently over time—that challenges marketers and salespeople Shifting the dynamics of marketing requires new skills and ways of thinking Following is a framework to help you prepare for sustainable marketing and sales efforts that put the new buyer at the center of your strategy Change is never easy, but it can certainly be transformative Ready?

Online Publishing Changes the Game

Speed is one of the dynamics of today’s marketing The concept of real-time is pushing marketers to move more quickly than they’ve ever moved before Speed for marketing is a construct driven by the ease of publishing content and the rallying cries

of social media enthusiasts and so-called marketing gurus The fear of missing out in the chase after the latest shiny object developed to change the way people live, work and play—and most importantly, buy—is urging marketers to move faster

This is not to say that it shouldn’t be an imperative to take advantage of these new capabilities, but that marketers need

to take a deep breath and consider the implications that come with online publishing, and how they change the game

Online publishing is a rather broad concept It covers every format for distributing

content online including, but in no way limited to, website content, articles, blog

posts, video, white papers, case studies, eBooks, social media profiles, company

pages on Facebook, LinkedIn discussions, forum questions and answers, webinars

and virtual events, Tweets, podcasts, images, slide decks, and the rapidly growing

use of infographics Let us not forget that online publishing also includes processes

such as curating content and publishing press releases

The concept of earned media has been enabled by online publishing Earned

media is often defined as what others choose to say about your company, but it

should also be considered in relation to those who share your content with their

networks This includes content curators, community blog syndication and social

mentions All types of earned media serve to extend the reach of your content

farther than you could on your own Sharing transfers credibility from the

source with their recommendation that their audience will find it relevant to

their interests

Rather than paying for content placement, marketers can now create their own

media and earn coverage in channels where that content is found valuable by

audiences they want to reach But the biggest game changer of all may be the

ability for a company to create, own or sponsor online communities and websites

that facilitate the publishing of thought leadership content to help their target

audiences deal with business priorities—without trying to sell anything Among

many examples are cmo.com, sponsored by Adobe, Smart Data Collective,

spon-sored by Teradata, and all Business, sponsored by D&B, and Bizmology, published

Adobe is the brand behind [cmo.com], but our job is not really to sell

product, but to educate and

inform the chief marketing

officer about issues going on in the digital marketing world.

Timothy Moran, editor in chief, cmo.com

“

58% of buyers say thought leadership from solution providers is important or critical during their buying process.

48% said that if the quality

of thought leadership proved, it would influence their purchase decision.

im-ITSMA and PAC, 2010How Customers Choose Study, 2010

How Online Publishing Affects Buyers

One of the misconceptions that comes with speed is that it’s an equal-opportunity dynamic Just because marketers can publish content quickly doesn’t mean that buyers will keep stride with this breakneck pace The rise in content publishing assumes that there’s a corresponding rise in the availability of time and attention needed to consume that volume of content For buyers, often the opposite is true Marketers may be producing more content, but buyers often have less time to consume it

Three factors that impact the buyer experience include how to:

1 Find the right information – the overwhelming amount of

information available on every topic imaginable makes it more

difficult for buyers to filter it to determine which of it is credible,

or even useful The time this takes is also extremely limited, slowing

the buying process regardless of how fast marketers think they’re

addressing buyers’ needs by publishing more information, faster

Even if it’s information they need

2 Convince the right people – in a B2B buying process, the increase of

complexity and breadth of solutions requires more people to reach

consensus—each of them with differing priorities and motivations

The content that works to convince one stakeholder to embrace the

proposed change may not work to persuade the others

3 Build the best business case – today’s economic climate has changed

the usual budgetary structure, requiring buyers to identify problems, the reasons for solving them and—only once that foundation has been established—to build a business case to secure the budget to proceed Research by DemandGen Report found that 30% of B2B purchases were made in this fashion by buyers surveyed The challenge for marketers is

to provide information so clear and relevant that the value of pursuing the fix is validated by proof of the impact the project can have on the company’s business objectives

All three of these factors can be answered with online publishing, but to do so marketers must first plan for and address the challenge of being found in the channels buyers prefer

How buyers say they spend their time during their buying process:

23% in discussions with colleagues 21% with sales team interaction 19% searching the web

19% with educational content 18% reviewing promotional content

IDG Connect, 2011

How to Rise Above the Online Noise

Being found by the right prospective buyers is dependent upon differentiation supported by specificity The only way marketers can do this well is by doing the work and research it takes to get to know their buyers nearly as well as they know themselves

Here’s an example to demonstrate what I mean by differentiation and specificity in relation to providing content that will rise

above the noise for your buyers:

Take the concept of “growing revenues.” It’s something most companies tout as a benefit their buyers can get from using their products and services But it’s so generic and high level that, on its own, it means nothing interesting

There are many ways to increase revenues The key is to think about the how and the why instead of relying on the vanilla benefit (the what)

Why is your prospect’s priority focused on increasing revenues?

• Perhaps it’s because he’s a line of business manager and his job depends

on the amount of product that gets sold in the marketplace

• Maybe she’s the director of inside sales and her reps must provide field

sales reps with leads worthy of pursuit or the company won’t meet their

quota for revenues

• Perhaps your prospect is a call center manager and his initiative is to

increase cross-sell and up-sell solution extension products to current

customers

• It could be that your prospect is the CEO and responsible for increasing

stock value for investors through continuous growth milestones the

company must achieve

To each of these people, the concept of driving revenues has a different context

The reasons supporting the goal are different Their role and responsibilities

within the company are different If you’re trying to reach all of these buyers with

the same content, it’s less likely to be found and assigned the attention required

to build and sustain engagement across the buying process

Buyers’ top complaints about content include:

33% say there’s too much content that’s not useful 29% say content is not relevant

24% say content does not meet the needs of all the people involved in the decision

23% say there’s not enough educational content

IDG Connect, 2011

Now think about the how How can the prospect best contribute to the overall objective of driving revenues?

• For the product manager, perhaps the solution is new packaging to make the product more appealing or improve training for salespeople in how to sell it Maybe it’s improved management of production to better meet demand

• For the inside sales manager, a possible solution could be providing faster access to information that enables her reps

to have better conversations with prospects, improving quality and prioritization

• For the call center manager, perhaps it’s improving the ability for her agents to easily know what products the

customer already has and which are appropriate add-ons or advances relevant to their business needs This

could mean integrating data silos

• For the CEO, perhaps the answer is better dashboards or information visibility that enables better and faster decisions

to be made for volumes of data

When you can get specific enough to narrow your focus to the who, the why and the how that relates to the what (driving revenues), then you can create messaging and content that rises above the noise to get found by your buyers Once again, the best way to accomplish this is to get to know your buyers

When creating content with differentiation and specificity, make sure that it delivers on buyers needs by:

Tools to Increase Relevance

Engaging B2B buyers across the entirety of the purchasing process must be the goal of marketers In today’s online business environment, this means not only the ability to create digital dialogues, but to sustain them over the long term By flipping your focus from the way your company defines the sales process to how buyers engage in the buying experience, you’ll gain a better understanding of how to make this happen

Instead of orienting your funnel to a sales perspective, focus the stages of the funnel on your B2B buyers’ experience When your funnel is focused

on meeting the needs of all the people involved in the decision, you’ll see a swelling in the middle, instead of the constriction that indicates fallout, or leakage, in traditional funnels

In the buyer-experience funnel, notice the buyer/customer and marketing are interwoven throughout the entire buying experience—and beyond Salespeople enter the process around the 5th stage and are usually out of the equation after the buyer purchases But most importantly, recognize the expansion that happens in the middle of the buying process during buying committee involvement This is where knowing who else is involved in the process—and addressing their interests—is critical to continuing the flow of buying momentum Today’s buyer experience is quite different from the process most marketers have enabled and supported in the past

The Buyer-Experience Funnel

stages include:

Interest: Get buyers to take a

look at how you can solve the

problems they face

Attention: Convince them to

opt-in Fallout occurs if they

choose not to continue

Value: Instantly recognizable

value increases willingness

to engage

Engagement: Prospects spend

more time & mindshare with

your content

Buying committee involvement:

Your funnel swells as influencers

interact to gain consensus by

building and validating the

business case

Conversations: Sales steps in to

drive momentum to purchase

based on interests expressed

The funnel narrows to core

decision maker participation

Purchase: Buyers choose to

partner with your company

A disconnect occurs because marketers haven’t changed in response to how their buyers have shifted The figure below shows how the majority of marketers are responding to the buyer experience according to a poll taken with attendees of the Sirius Decisions Summit in 2011.

According to the poll, 79 percent of marketers are only addressing a fraction, if any, of the buying experience that’s pivotal to generating the increased demand that leads to customer acquisition This presents a huge opportunity for the marketers who recognize and address the importance of addressing the variety of activities and needs that arise across the entire buyer experience funnel

The buyer experience funnel has a direct overlay to the stages of the buying process and the questions your prospects will need answered as they move from stage to stage

In the table above, note the parallels between the buyer experience, stages in the process and the corresponding questions There’s a fluency of progression from the top to the bottom.

Buyer Personas

To coordinate the experience, stages and questions into a consistent process that meets the needs of your buyers, use buyer personas as the foundation Personas do not need to be difficult, but they do require that you step into the shoes of your target market to create them

A persona is a composite sketch of a type of customer your company serves.

When creating a persona, it’s best to focus it on one segment with one problem-to-solution journey If you focus more broadly, it’s hard to tell a consistent story that builds momentum over time Once you’ve used the problem to define scope, decide who the issue is most important to and begin to build your persona following these five steps

Interest: I’m curious enough to take a

look

Status Quo: Problem not yet

recog-nized as painful enough to fix

Why should I care?

Attention: I like what I see so far Priority: Problem recognized but

un-sure how to proceed

What should I know?

Value: This can really help me achieve

goals

Research: Actively engaged in

learn-ing what they need to know to take action

What are best practices?

Engagement: I need to find out more

about how they deliver what they

promise

Options: Identifying solution sets that

can provide the most value for now and future

Who has the expertise?

Buying Committee Involvement:

Everyone needs to get on board

Step backs: Stops to verify beliefs or

find answers to new questions

What if…?

Conversations: I want to make sure I

can work with you – trust you

Validation: Exploring evidence that

supports vendor promises

Why should I believe you?

Five Steps to Building a Buyer Persona

Step 1: Define their current situation

and just starting or have spent most of their career with the same

company can provide insight on risk tolerance, influence in

creating change within the company, etc

• Search by industry, size, title

• Assess profiles, click through to review LinkedIn profiles

• Use at least 20 profiles to identify common themes

• Access the industry information

to gain insight to challenges and opportunities

• BI portals also offer in-depth research on specific industries, helping you to define priorities and challenges quickly

Talk to Salespeople:

• What areas of the business are they focused on?

• Who are they speaking with?

• How do prospects frame the problem?

• What stops them from taking next steps?

• Who else do they have to convince?

Talk to Customers:

• What problem did we solve?

• What else did that enable?

• Why did they choose us?

• What obstacles did they have to overcome to buy?

Step 5: Draft the buyer persona value statement

• I need to solve (problem) in order to achieve (solution/goal) _

Four Types of Prospect Attention

Attention is the capacity to maintain selective or sustained concentration The amount of attention your prospects attribute to your digital dialogue will be indicative of their propensity to buy from your company But, it’s important to consider that not all the types of attention are the right kind of attention to contribute to purchase decisions

As you create content marketing strategies to provide a better buying experience,

consider which types of attention you could be generating and how only one type

will truly influence purchase decisions

1 Cursory attention – This attention is the equivalent of curiosity in the

Interest stage of the buyer experience funnel This is your buyer telling you

that he or she may be interested in what you have to say, but they are thus

far unconvinced of how much of their time your content and dialogue

warrants This is status quo and where you start

2 Misleading attention – The buyer thought he was interested, but his

attention wandered and he may possibly still be staring at your content,

but thinking that he needs to pick up his dry cleaning on the way home

from work and wondering what his wife is cooking for dinner This

attention can also be from people who want a content offer for the

information it promises, but not because they’re interested in buying

from you

Catch Factors are the

preferences and aversions that form a prospect’s gut reaction to your content and communications.

Urgency: Is it a priority

right now?

Effort: How hard will it be to

access, understand and use the information?

Reputation: What do I know and

think about your company?

Intent: What do you want

from me?

By addressing Catch Factors within your content, you will not only catch, but keep, attention across the buying process, transitioning it from cursory to intentional attention that turns prospects into buyers.

3 Voluntary attention – These are the people who subscribe to everything you publish They read your blog, sign up to

attend webinars, but always stop short of taking a next step that would indicate momentum in the buying process This said, this is the type of attention that results in earned media, referrals and advocates, so it’s wise to cultivate it

4 Intentional attention – BINGO! This is the type of attention you want to achieve These are the buyers who are intent on

learning what they need to know to make a purchase decision They interact purposefully with your content and

proactively access it, even without prompting from nurturing emails You can see a pattern in the content they’re accessing and the dialogue they participate in, or follow These are the buyers that will invite sales into conversations when they reach that stage in their buying process

The Importance of Integrating Marketing Channels

With the increasing comfort B2B buyers have for sourcing information online and participating in social media—not to

mention using search engines—the quality of your digital dialogue must be impeccable It’s imperative that your content

marketing programs show buyers the consistency and expertise that demonstrates the traits of a partner they’d choose

to help them solve their highest-priority problems

Online publishing has enabled marketers to expand the distribution channels they use to share content and reach buyers.Unfortunately, the norm is that these channels are executed as silos, rather than as one comprehensive program Sometimes this

is due to how marketing tasks are distributed across the company Sometimes it’s simply that no strategy exists to executechannels in sync with overall objectives and goals

This needs to change And change quickly

Let’s say that your company has a website, an expertise micro-site, a company

blog, several employees who both Tweet and blog personally, a group on LinkedIn,

a YouTube channel and nurturing programs designed to engage three different

personas These channels are executed by three different marketing groups;

demand generation, web marketing and social media

When’s the last time you typed your company’s name into a search engine?

What about the keywords and phrases your buyers use?

Have you experienced your marketing programs as your buyers do?

How likely is it that each of these three marketing groups knows what the others are doing? The reality is that prospects will traverse a variety of channels during their research for problem solving They’re likely to encounter content and dialogue placed online by each of the three groups Will their experience be consistent? Or will the contrast be so fragmented that these experiences culminate with a diminishing level of interest in doing business with your company?

Each channel requires a unique format, tone and style of content The key is to make sure that the message experience is consistent, encouraging a higher level of engagement and intent

Why Segmentation Marketing is the New Black

In every client engagement, I have yet to find only one persona, or target market Most companies have at least two or three audiences that must be addressed for each solution Addressing those audiences based on their specific needs and interests is usually constrained by marketing resources, rather than due to prospect similarities

Segmentation must reach beyond job titles and industry to incorporate the knowledge gained from creating personas

Unfortunately, as you’ll see in the chart below, research from Marketing Sherpa finds that segmentation is still a top

relevance challenge for marketers

The purpose of segmentation is to match

content with the interests and needs of the

audience Ultimate segmentation is when

marketers can implement strategic responses

based on behavior, rather than just a category

such as role, title or industry High relevance

directly correlates to level of engagement

As you can see in the chart, segmentation and

interactions based on behavior, triggers and

place in the sales (buying) cycle are three of

the top four challenges stated by marketers

that keep them from improving the perception

of relevance by their prospects

It’s also important to realize that segmentation is not just for email campaigns It applies to how marketers address each audience they wish to engage Consider new forms of segmentation that marketers can use:

How and Why to Narrow Your Focus

Segmentation can also be thought of in terms of a niche

“A niche, by its very nature, catches the attention of those it appeals to

These people are the ones who will go out of their way to participate

and interact with it And with others who have the same interests

You’ll find it easier to generate relationships because your

communications and content relevance will be so high they will spawn

interactions based on the establishment of a common foundation for

dialogue And a niche focus increases your prospects’ view of your

company as a specialist with expertise they need This is because you

are perceived to be focused solely on them

“Think about the beauty (and the potential payoffs) of a niche Niches

come to life when you add personas A persona takes a segment of your

company’s aggregate customer profile and fleshes it out with detailed

information that represents real prospects in specific circumstances

The more specific you can get about the boundaries of your niche, the

more your persona can become a viable representation of your

prospective customers Consider as a simple example of narrowing to a

niche focus that “all people who drive SUVs” is not the same market as

“those who drive Hummers.” And remember that a niche is different

than a persona One niche can have a variety of personas You would

market differently to female buyers of Hummers than to men who drive

hummers, for example Or, a Director of IT will have different interests

than a CIO.”

53% of marketers say their primary concern is meeting the growth agenda by establishing

a differentiated brand position.

Only 10% ranked their organizations well equipped to target customers and market

86% of respondents say customer engagement is essential or important – down 2% from last year.

However, only 6% say that they know all of their customer touch-points and 34% say they don’t know how many customer touch-points they have.

eConsultancy, Customer Engagement Report, 2011

Payoffs from narrowing your focus include:

• Higher engagement, interest and dialogue

• Increased momentum across the buying process

• Getting buyers to involve salespeople earlier in the conversation

• Competitive advantage based on increased credibility and trust

Messaging to Multiple Target Segments

According to DemandGen Report, 43.7% of buyers say they’re taking more time to research purchases This is likely related to research by IDG Connect that finds 62% of buyers say the content they find is not relevant or useful

To get the feel for how messaging is refined to address specific target segments, take a look at how Apple has created successful engagement across four segments, excerpted from Prophet’s 2011 State of Marketing Study:

Notice the differences in the positioning message for each segment:

Each of these messages, while specific to a target audience, carries the style, tone and passion of the Apple brand The messages focus on a want, need and priority for each segment With each of these positioning statements, Apple can match them up against all the content and messaging developed for each segment to ensure that the messaging stays on point, delivering high relevance with each interaction and dialogue

Consider the potential differences in priorities between sales and operations as another example Salespeople are focused

on driving revenue and increasing customer acquisition Operations managers are concerned about increasing profits,

which usually translates to reducing bottom-line expenses Revenue is not the same as profit and requires a different message Reducing bottom-line expense is often about process efficiency Increasing revenues is based on the effectiveness of salespeople

Consumers: “Devices should help you experience your life exactly the way you want to.”

App Developers: “You can be part of the future, have an impact on people’s lives, and generate value

along the way.”

Media companies: “Your business will thrive and your content will be experienced better than ever before.” Tech bloggers: “You win when you make the future understandable to the masses.”