B2B Content Marketing

A major benefit for undertaking sales alignment and content marketing initiatives is to reduce the cost of sales.  According to Sirius Decisions, “ Unrelenting expense pressures are forcing sales leaders to rethink the affordability and disposition of all their sales support resources.”  The evolution of sales to content marketing provides sales a platform that allows the sales person to become a subject matter expert.  A recent Forrester study cites up to 19% of SG&A expense is tied up in the hidden cost to support sales, so the RIO numbers are huge.

From Sirius Decision’s perspective, they describe the development of microsites augmented with rich media that allows salespeople to access content or people resources to differentiate their goods and services from their competitors. Not only does sales information portals and content marketing allow you to find, care and feed website visitors but reduces the cost of the sales process too.

Today is Saturday, I was surprised to get a call from a client,  she was fed up with Youtube™ throwing up competitive advertising on her videos.  Shortly before, a well know social media expert sent out a Tweet with a link to a Slideshare™ presentation that  included a virus, in response another content marketing thought leader chimed in, “the same thing  happened to my Slideshare™ presentation yesterday.”

I respect and often rely on experts for their thought leadership. When dealing with people whom I trust, I tend to be forgiving, on the web things happen, and my point, they do not have control over the technology or what is served up (competitive ads and viruses?!).  As marketers when does the risk outweigh the value of these free platforms?

It comes to a point when standard social networking tools like YouTube™ and Slideshare™ get in the way of your reputation, when does enough become enough?

I am a little shocked frankly. We spent a year developing our platform and content, it took us another 4-5 months to show up in organic search.  My mantra, no cold calls, no email blasts, no advertising.  If we build it, they will come.  They came, they came again and they were consuming our content.  How could we have so many visitors spending so much time on our site without anyone calling us to find out more?

After months of this, my patience wore thin. I had a business issue, so where did I go?  Google™ of course. I typed in my search keywords, found what I was looking for and picked up the phone.

“Hello Allen, my name is Seamus Walsh, you and I have never spoken before nor were you expecting this call….”

After a 10 minute discussion, he said, “What you have sounds interesting, and you happened to call at the right time. Let me talk to the person responsible and get back to me next week.”

I broke the mantra, the code, the false promise I set for us by making the dreaded cold call.  I reinserted people back into our equation.

A week later, I anxiously picked up the phone again — one ring, two rings, and I thought, he has caller ID, he is not going to pick up. “Hello this is Allen,” I smiled….

“Hello Allan, this is Seamus, the last time we spoke you mentioned I should call you back today.”  His reply? “Seamus, we like what you had to say and we want to move ahead.”

The point of this real life story is that you can invest in the latest and greatest technology; you can have content that educates and editorializes.  You can try to win prospects over by sharing research and content that adds value.  We tried it, it did not work. I went back to something I learned very early in my sales career, people buy from people.

When we trademarked “Optimizing People, Process and Technology,” I knew it was a three legged stool, but I failed to proactively engage with the client.  People have to be part of the process. Someone has to engage the client, someone has to differentiate and articulate our unique value.   Someone has to close the deal.

People expect great content, people expect a usable site, people want to be pitched on their terms with solutions that solve their business issues, that is the new norm.

What has not changed is that people buy from people.

After working for 3 research advisory companies it became very clear where they were getting their fodder; polls, surveys and events! In essence talking to people about their business issues.   So that’s how they got all that compelling research data, that’s right, they asked for it!

When VAZT set out to market, we wanted a branded survey experience, so we developed our own custom survey format.  Our strategy was to influence the influencers and I did not think the analysts at the big research companies would take us serious if we asked them questions via a “Survey Monkey.”  Don’t get me wrong, I like Survey Monkey, but when your pitching an 800 pound gorilla, you need a different set of weaponry. Following David Meerman Scott’s advice, that you have to give to receive, we set off asking questions of our audience to get them engaged. Right off the bat we developed a marketing alignment, sales alignment and a content readiness assessment. We asked  the questions that respondents need answers to, based up our survey data, we create actionable advice based on what our clients are telling us their business problems are.

At a time when publishers are becoming researchers and your firm is  becoming a publisher, user wants and needs can be determined, all we have to do is ask.

Yesterday, I attended, “uncovering the hidden costs of sales support”, hosted by Forrester’s Chief Financial Officer, Mike Doyle and Scott Santucci, Sr. Analyst Sales Enablement.

Scott and Mike discussed  “random acts of sales support,” they explained those are activities dispersed though out organizations that carry a variety of hidden costs that are tucked away in various budgets.  For this study, they examined 25 vendor and user companies and took a closer look at these “random acts” and activities to “help sales sell” and came up with eye-popping results:

“Technology vendors are spending, on average, 19% of their selling, general and administration (SG&A) costs of $132,262 per quota-carrying salesperson in support-related activities”

With sales and marketing budgets being slashed, there are things you can do to “hold the (budget) line” in your company,  start by inventorying these activities and costs and utilizing sales enablement and marketing automation systems to make these cross functional activities more effective and efficient.

Action items that came out of the call:

• Develop messaging, collateral, call scripts, follow up tools and buyer training all focused on helpings salespeople gain access to a specific role with-in a given account.
• Provide materials that can be tailored to the situation and not standard presentations
• Build a business case that helps realize your customer’s vision, not just your ROI.

Each of these recommendations can leverage online tools and best practices. A sure way to reduce those hidden costs is to maximizing the business benefits of the web.  There are many solutions that will increase top line revenue, customer loyalty and your customers and prospects buying experience.  The issue, I see is that many continue to focus on content quantity and not quality. With everyone, including your competition, placing a greater focus on leveraging their online channel, those who build a more intimate and personalized buying and account management process will win more business.

There is an elephant in the room. Trust me, I am all for filling top of funnel, but without internal skills and processes in place there is going to be a wider gap forming between sales and marketing.   There is no silver bullet, no magic pill,no new technology that is going to solve your sales and revenue woes.  This is a big issue and in most cases solution providers are not talking about.  Don’t get me wrong, there are niche providers that do a excellent job addressing each point below, but something has to give, or its going to be same ol’, same old. The top of funnel can be stuffed, but in order for them to be followed up on, sales has to agree on what is the true definition of  “qualified” lead is in order for the initiative to be effective.  It is much more then installing a platform, or in most cases 2 or 3 platforms that have to be integrated.   People, process and technology have to optimized and on board with a common vision for its success.  Here are 6 issues that content and inbound marketing technology providers fail to address;

Issue 1. UX, you have 3-7 seconds to impress a visitor- if your site is not engaging and if you don’t have a the right look and feel, no one will trust it. UX Guru, Jakob Nielsen says,  for some, you may only have eleven characters, or about two words in your headline to make a first impression.

Issue 2.  OK you passed the sniff test, with a good UX and SEO, that  is not enough.  You can attract all the visitors to your website you want but if your content does not educate or engage them, click, clients have their finger on the mouse button and are ready to move on.

Issue 3.  To this day, most enterprises work in silos, content strategy, marketing, sales and IT, each with their own agenda, goals and time frames. In most cases,  a sea-change has to happen to get an integrated go-to-market strategy.  Forrester research recently came out with a statistic, up to 19% of SG&A expense is hidden costs associated with supporting sales.  Reducing those costs should be the number one goal and process optimization and integration is the only way to address it.

Issue 4.  Generic content does not work anymore, you need to address each stakeholder, if you are selling to a CIO, CFO, HR, you need specific content to address their business requirements.

Issue 5.  People come to you at different stages in their buying life cycle, they could buy in one week, one month, one quarter or  one year, you need specific content that editorializes and educates them on your business value and unique differentiation on their time frame not yours.

Issue 6.  Marketing alone does not build intimate relationships, merely pushing emails back and forth does not show an investment in a relationship. Companies need to invest in building trusted advisor relationships.

On the flip side, I believe the value of a content or inbound marketing technology solution is that it delivers industry best practices and fulfills a skills gap that you may not have in your company. But be prepared, the technology solution is not an end all to delivering on the expectations.  To be successful, having the correct skills and processes in place is imperative for a successful implementation of this technology.

Welcome to the newest of the new economies where customers demand justification before they loosen their purse strings and the person often controlling them is the CFO.  Like it or not every deal these days lives or dies in the CFO’s office.   In December 2008, CFO Magazine dubbed 2009 as the year of the CFO, with that in mind, it is important that your content marketing initiatives articulate how your firm provides value,  be it in the every day mundane functions, process and activities to strategic initiatives that their office may be working on, after all, even in a recession companies must get their work done.   Here is an overview of the primary focus and measures of the CFO:

Primary Focus

• Revenue, cost, profit and margin.
• Budget management
• Investor relations
• Transaction process efficiency and effectiveness
• Cash flow and liquidity
• Accounting and legal compliance

In a nutshell the CFO’s job to measure and monitor the audit and financial processes – but also to enable efficiency and effectiveness in their operation.  Do not present canned presentation and numbers.  When writing to a CFO prepare by understanding their latest year-end and quarterly results.  Spend the time to listen to their earnings call and identify a quantifiable value proposition with hard, tangible numbers framed within financial metrics that CFO’s understand and use to make decisions.

Will your solution;

• Increase earnings per share
• Increase working capital
• Increase Market Share
• Increase Productivity

To get their attention, approach CFO’s from a fiscal angle with unbiased content that educates them on the business value of your solution.  Quantify benefits with case studies or references, don’t go in with ROI or TCO until you have their numbers.  CFO’s are the first to realize that past performance does not guarantee future results. CFO’s are not concerned with the speed and feeds of your solution but are very concerned with what your solution can do for their business.

 Hot Topics;

• Alignment and strategy
• Costs and efficiency
• Leveraging technology
• Compliance and planning

Business Issues;

• Cash flow
• Inefficient business process
• Decrease of market share
• Pricing pressure
• Competition

Key Metrics

• Revenue and growth
• Gross/Net profit and margin

Bottome line:

Today’s CFO’s have many concerns, understand them and how your company is uniquely qualified to solve their issues and become a trusted advisor through thought leadership.   As financial stewards they often look to peers and subject matter experts.  Focus on what is important to them and how they measure,  add value and understand CFO’s require strategic advice that is grounded in facts.

On Friday, there was an interesting question asked in a Linkedin™ group called Lead Nurturing,   headed, Conference/Trade ROI, Does Anyone have a good way to figure out a show’s ROI? Or a good system for qualifying a show?

For a significant portion of my career, I worked for a research advisory company who had a high percentage of their revenue coming from conferences. This company had it all, field sales, great content, and lots of events.   The question always intrigued me, which channel had the greatest ROI?  Since our inception,  we have been asking that question via a poll on our website, “What is the most effective way to market your product or service?”  I pulled the latest results, below:

Meeting and conferences 21.43%

Surveys and white papers 25%

Direct mail and email 10.71%

References 42.86%

When it happened, I was quite surprised that conferences slipped to 3rd behind white papers.  I made a few calls, everyone I spoke to “in the business” was concerned about the continuing shift away from their trade-shows and conferences, but there are some bright spots, according to Tradeshow Week, not all shows are having problems. The 2009 Off-Price Specialist Show year-over-year attendance was up 10%. In addition, Integrated Systems-Europe, an audio-visual and electronics systems show held this past February  had attendance up 12%.

I don’t think trade shows and conferences are going away.  To draw, they will need to be micro-targeted to specific audiences and topics.  With that, show producers must use content marketing to justify and  articulate the business value an attendee will receive and marketers must pay closer attention to serving their prospects and clients on their time and their turf with B2B Content Marketing.

SWAG from SXSW Interactive-2009

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In the March 2009 Harvard Business Review, there is article called “In a downturn, provoke your customers.”

Geoffrey Moore (Crossing the Chasm) contributed to the article, its premise, “the companies you serve are slashing their budgets- but you can still make the sale.”    Using what they call provocation-based selling, this new (ehemm) process can persuade customers that the solutions your firm brings to the table are “not just nice but essential”

The article states to begin a provocation-based sale must do three things well;

•    Identify a problem that will resonate with executives in the target account.
•    Develop a point of view about the problem
•    Engage a decision-maker who can take an implied action

I don’t mean to be a stick in the mud, or even challenge the article, but it seems to me that’s what custom whitepapers and Account-Based Marketing have been doing for years.  One caveat, going to a senior level executive with a generic white paper is not going to work.  That’s where it ties to the ITSMA’s Account-Based Marketing process, where the paper is developed to be very specific to the account’s business issues.   Any sales approach requires you to do your homework, find out what is keeping the CEO up at night and develop your firm’s point of view on the business issue and your unique differentiation on how you can solve the problem.

To see the article in its entirety click here:http://hbr.harvardbusiness.org

The second part of a survey from the ANA (Association of National Advertisers) shows that businesses are cutting back on their marketing budgets at rates greater than expected.  Of those responding, 77% plan on reducing advertising and media budgets, 72% reducing advertising campaign budgets, 68% are challenging agencies to reduce expenses and costs and 58% are eliminating or delaying new projects.

How can marketing bootstrap programs that keep their messaging and brand in the marketplace?   With search marketing emerging the winner, there are 5 things that your company can do that does not cost money.

1.  Create quality content- this is a must, great content will attract and retain visitors and it gives them an opportunity to share and come back for more.

2.  Understand your keywords relevancy in the market. Do research and understand your target audience wants and needs then build your content with them in mind.

3.  Have a link building strategy- spend time understanding relevant sites that will add value to your reader.   Linking strategies payoff in more ways than one, including it will help search engines will find you.

4.  Leverage social media- establish or join a group and participate in the discussions.  Be it LinkedIn, Facebook, or your college alumni association,  participate in conversations and start networking.

5.    Be patient, it took us eight months to show up number one in organic search for our keywords.  There were 5,940,000 other sites vying for our position.  It takes time to be numero uno.  Go back to one, start over, repeat.