B2B Content Marketing

In September 2007, I saw writing on the wall that sales processes were changing.  It was harder to get appointments, cold calls were not picked up and we had full-blown “blitz days” to get people to attend a seminar.  We even had compelling direct mail campaigns with relevant content that was not seen as a value.

In the meantime, on a website that I launched in 1988 to post details for an upcoming fishing trip, I had thousands of visitors, so many in fact, I could not keep up with the inquires.  When forming VAZT, I thought how could I leverage what I knew was happening in our sales process and create a sales and marketing engine that self qualified visitors throughout their buying lifecycle?

In January 2008, VAZT Global was born, but how could we go to market when the main keywords we use internally were not showing up in the top three in organic Google search? From experience, I knew that search engines are all about degrees of keyword relevance.   It’s not rocket science, even Google advises webmasters to,  “think about the words users would type to find your pages and make sure your site actually includes those words within it”.  We spent a year developing content and our B2B Content Marketing Platform.  For our first anniversary, we showed up number 1, the strategy worked again and it can work for you too.

Keyword selection is important as part of any B2B content marketing campaign. When selecting keywords for your next campaign think in the mind of the customer and their wants and needs. Next build the right content that addresses your buying lifecycle, be it one day, one week, one month, one quarter or one year.

The term business value often refers to the particular value a process delivers in a company’s internal and external supply chain, which includes,  planning, procurement, manufacturing, order management, product design, sales, CRM, etc.   B2B marketers must articulate the value that is received from utilizing your product or service.  Ask yourself, how does my product or service increase efficiency, quality, speed to market, effectiveness, or decrease  a cost or two. Your firm must create an economic measure and points to determine the business value your product or service delivers.  Begin by identifying the opportunities for improvements in your clients supply and value chain.

As an outsider this may be difficult to attain, because business value is often in the eye of the beholder;  However here’s a simple guideline can start the process:

1.    Will it help increase your client’s revenue?
2.    Will it decrease the cost of a process?
3.    Will it increase shareholder value?
4.    Will it improve efficiency or effectiveness?

I often hear from executives that companies will come in and give a sales pitch, but do not quantify their business value.  The main reason, I believe is providers fail to put it in terms that the business understands, including an understanding on the return on investment.

Articulating a clear business value and your company’s unique ability to execute will dramatically increase the chances of winning more business.

In today’s tumultuous economy, a systematic approach to implementing an integrated content marketing campaign is a requirement. Integrated programs combine  your brand with content creation, media and press relations, online marketing and event production.  Lack of a plan costs time and money; a plan with defined outcomes will avoid little or no return on investment.

An effective campaign must include your intellectual property and thought leadership that builds your own community.  These days, I believe there is too much focus on social networking sites; these sites drive people to somewhere else other then your site. Sites like my MySpace, Facebook, and Twitter can be important strategy, but unless tightly controlled, it may be difficult to articulate your companies messaging.

4 steps to launching an integrated marketing campaign:

1. Understand who you are targeting and how they are currently interacting with your company and your site.    It is important to identify your target market, be it micro-businesses or major corporations,  understand your audience’s business issues.

2. Understand, based on what we know about our visitors, what you can sell to them or as important, if you want to. Qualify, qualify, and qualify through each stage and milestone.

3. Connect the dots from A to Z by developing a robust content strategy that will engage your target audience,  understand quickly where they are in a buying life cycle and create scenarios and content to move them further in a pipeline.

4. Have a follow-up process established before  the campaign release.  Identify goals for a registration process, have scenarios for multiple follow-ups, what happens  on the day of visit/download, and what are the follow-up campaigns for those who respond and those who don’t?

Integrated campaign management is  both art and science, it’s as easy as a blog, a podcast, a process to effectively submit to search engines and monitoring constantly to improve your rankings.   Use the 4 steps as your blueprint to ensure bases are covered.  As in most cases, the better you plan and the better you communicate the better your results.

When executives visit Google today they often want information to help them do their jobs better. To engage prospects business marketers must focus on creating valuable information and content.  A recent Junta42 study suggests, “Even in tough economic times, money is still flowing into content marketing initiatives. 31% of marketing and publishing decision-makers plan to increase spending in 2009.”
Their top content formats are:

Membership/social initiatives
E newsletters
Blogs
Online video
White papers
Microsites

Smart companies are packaging and integrating multiple content formats into their sales buying lifecycle, yet buyers are all keenly aware and skeptical of push and hype marketing.   How do you plan on engaging and converting your website visitors into customers in 2009?