Accommodating Today s Fast-Moving Buyers

Transcription

1 Accommodating Today s Fast-Moving How Marketers Are Redefining Engagement & Sales-Readiness Sponsored by WHITE PAPER

2 Introduction In B2B, the process of engaging prospects is inherently a long-term exercise, based on complexity of the buyer s journey and long sales cycles. However, the traditional process of nurturing leads by periodically extending a series of offers and then tracking their responses often fails to keep pace with today s self-empowered buyer. Given that the majority of buyers are self-navigating and dictating the pace of their journey, the tide is quickly shifting away from buyers who are willing to wait weeks or months to be served the next piece of content. Illustrating this trend, 93% of respondents to Demand Gen Report s 2016 Content Preferences Study recommended marketers package related content together. As a result of this shift to more agile buying behavior, traditional metrics such as views and clicks don t provide all the insights marketers need about content engagement and salesreadiness. Faced with stagnating conversion rates at the top of the funnel, marketers are beginning to look beyond the click for deeper insights into just how educated and qualified their prospects really are before sending them to sales. According to Ardath Albee, author of Digital Relevance: Developing Marketing Content and Strategies that Drive Results, engagement is often measured by surface metrics, such as clicks, shares, and views, but measuring commitment requires more depth such as whether an audience spends enough time on the page to read the entirety of the published content. For marketers who have traditionally viewed the click as the destination, new post-click engagement metrics shed light on how much content a buyer has consumed and how long they spent consuming it, adding another whole dimension to determining buyer qualification and intent. Next-Generation Nurturing Beyond the Click 2

3 While marketers may have succeeded in gaining a prospect s attention, if they don t truly know who has engaged with their content, they cannot serve up the best leads or properly track the actual engagement levels with content. While marketing automation has provided marketers with lots of clues into buyer readiness, it falls short when it comes to truly assessing behavior as a signal of intent. Two prospects that have clicked and converted on the same call to action look exactly the same to a marketing automation system there is no concept of engagement beyond that initial conversion. In order to empower their most qualified prospects to self-educate in real time, marketers are now looking for ways to hold the attention of increasingly busy and fast-moving B2B buyers who can easily click away to something else. The idea that your buyer will wait until they receive your next nurture or encounter your next ad to consume content has quickly become antiquated. To capitalize on a prospect s attention, marketers need to be prepared to nurture whenever and wherever their buyer clicks. A truly engaged 93% of B2B buyers prefer packages of related or similar content Content Preferences Survey, Demand Gen Report and qualified prospect may want to consume multiple pieces of content in a sitting, and serving up a single asset per click doesn t accommodate the behavior of someone who needs to do more research right now. Experts say the next generation of automated lead nurturing will prioritize multi-asset content experiences and intelligent content sequencing. These next-gen programs will also measure content consumption beyond the click, providing marketers with deeper insights into potential buyers who are in control and moving quickly, at their own pace. Next-Generation Nurturing Beyond the Click 3

4 B2B Marketers Pull a Page from the Digital Publishing Playbook B2B marketers are beginning to understand and employ a YouTube or Amazon-like recommendation engine approach that is based on buyer behavior and preferences. Many B2C brands are masters at capitalizing on and monetizing attention. They know they need to seize the moment when their user is engaged and do everything they can to keep them engaged and guide their journey. Think about how Netflix sucks you in by making a whole season s worth of episodes of your favorite show available whenever you tune in. You no longer have to wait until next week to watch the next episode you are free to binge for as long as you d like. Not only that, but they know what you ve consumed in the past so that they can guide your programming in the future. B2B buyers who are deep into the buying process are similar to television viewers who have dedicated some time to binge-watch their favorite show they have carved out time to do their research and want all the relevant content available to them here and now. Innovations in content technology will focus on delivering content assets in the right sequence to the right buyer, at the right time, and in the right channel. Regardless of where the buyer clicks or converts, marketers can now be ready to deliver the right sequence of content for that particular scenario. Next-Generation Nurturing Beyond the Click 4

5 The Quest for True Content Engagement According to Demand Gen Report s Content Preferences Survey, two thirds (67%) of B2B buyers rely more on content to research and make purchasing decisions than they did a year ago yet, nearly three-quarters say they have less time to view content than they did a year ago. It s no secret that buyer attention is at a premium and as the currency that all marketers deal in, focusing on how to capitalize on attention has become mission-critical for marketers that need to educate and qualify prospects for sales. People are fickle these days, and loyalty isn t what it used to be, says Catina Martinez, account director at DemandGen International. If you don t have similar or useful content available when they re in that moment and interested in learning, they can easily become frustrated and move on to the same type of content at your competitor. Over the past few years, marketers have made great strides to begin to decipher consumer intentions through digital body language and predictive analytics. Lead scoring tools that bring together behavioral data such as opens and pages viewed, and firmographics such as technologies in use and spending allocation contribute to greater understanding of the customer. But what happens after the click, view or open? How do you know if someone read the entire ebook and was ready for more, or read only a paragraph or two and moved on? The traditional behavioral metrics tend to fall short when it comes to truly unpacking how engaged a buyer is. Gaining attention by getting someone to click is not the same as holding that person s attention and building a relationship that moves them down the path-to-purchase. According to the National Center for Biotechnology Information, the average person s attention span in 2015 was 8 seconds one second less than a goldfish! That isn t surprising, if you think about the average number of meetings employees attend every month a whopping 62 or consider employees receive an average of 88 business s each day. Next-Generation Nurturing Beyond the Click 5

6 Case Study: Qvidian Creates an Orchestrated Sequence of Content Marketing The era of measuring clicks and having to make assumptions about buyers engagement is drawing to an end, said one industry watcher. Experts agree that the click, or the view, has become a shallow and sometimes inaccurate definition of engagement, leading to false positives and funnel inflation. Sure, everything the marketer needs to do is predicated on getting the click, but this can no longer be viewed as the destination. Instead, the click or conversion is the gateway to understanding engagement. And this narrow view of buyer behavior means that many leads are passed from marketing to sales that aren t sales-ready they may have met a high-level threshold for engagement, which doesn t necessarily mean they are educated. Instead, today s marketers need to measure true content consumption, not just take action based on assumptions. Buyers move at different rates of speed today: Some are fast-moving, some are slower. Marketers need to adapt creating more logical interactions and responding to the individual content needs of buyers not assume that every click is created equal. Qvidian, a leader in cloud-based solutions for sales and content teams, wanted to accelerate and improve the performance of leads that weren t quite sales-ready. The business development team at Qvidian knew that all leads weren t created equal: Some lead sources took less time and effort to convert, while some were taking too much time and energy. They needed a lead nurture program that empowers prospects to engage with more content quickly, easily and at their own pace. The solution for Qvidian was deploying a content engagement platform that optimized post-click engagement by serving up related content assets when a prospect viewed one. In this way, they could promote buyer self-education at any pace. The results: 80% increase in lead-to-meeting conversion Nearly 23% increase in conversion-toopportunity from third-party leads 23% increase in engagement with third-party leads, indicating that these prospects are recognizing value in the content shared by Qvidian 11% of prospects that clicked through from the engaged with more than one content asset, resulting in a 36% increase in time spent with content for these more highly engaged prospects. Next-Generation Nurturing Beyond the Click 6

7 More Content Requires Better Experiences Even in an era when B2B buyers are squeezed for time, research shows they need to engage with lots of content before they are sales-ready. An IDG Enterprise study on customer engagement, for example, found that B2B buyers on the hunt for technology solutions consume at least 7 pieces of content per persona before they make a decision to purchase. If you multiply this by the 6-10 people that typically are involved in an enterprise purchase process, according to SiriusDecisions, it s easy to see the importance of making sure demand gen and content are more coordinated. Marketers are still doing too much manually and arbitrarily, points out Joe Chernov, VP of marketing at InsightSquared. We make up our own content sequence, because we think it s the progression a company is likely to follow. But, he explains, that is changing in the world of B2B. The worm is turning, he says. In short order, machine learning will help us sequence content based not on what we assume readers want to consume next, but rather, what the machine knows they will. These days, much of this decisionmaking is informed by self-education and the marketer s content needs to help prospects learn as much as they want, as quickly as they want. For the fast-moving buyer, marketers need to help them quickly and efficiently consume the content they need, when they need it, in the sequence that works for them in an automated, data-driven Next-Generation Nurturing Beyond the Click 7

8 Content Engagement: What B2B Can Learn from B2C When it comes to rich content experiences and cutting-edge, relevant content, the B2C world has been ahead of the game, says Kevin Nichols, author of Enterprise Content Strategy and former content strategy director at Sapient Nitro. Retail, in particular, is an industry that has truly put consumers at the center of the experience, he says. The B2B market is now really starting to adopt some of these principles the notion of cross-channel user journeys and offering a seamless customer experience with content that offers real value. B2B marketers can also learn from digital media in the consumer space, in which publishers such as The New York Times and Sports Illustrated; e-commerce leaders including Amazon; and digital networks such as Netflix have made binge-reading and binge-watching a national craze. These companies know how to package content and use content recommendations to keep eyeballs on the page or allow viewers to choose a new series to devour. The latest-generation content technology now allows B2B marketers to do what B2C companies have long done: focus not just on the content itself but how it is organized, packaged, grouped, delivered and tracked. They can design rewarding content experiences after the click and match those experiences to the buyer s journey and behavior. The technology exists to do it B2B companies now have to get out of their silos and integrate so they can support the seamless consumer experience that the B2C world does, says Nichols. It s all about the relationship making the customer feel valued and learn things that help them to become more valuable within their own business. Next-Generation Nurturing Beyond the Click 8

9 The Content Binge Reality More and more marketers are starting to leverage content sequencing and packaging to gain deeper insight into what s working, to create better content experiences and develop deeper insights by measuring beyond the click. That is especially useful for prospects who want to binge on content that is, quickly go beyond the first asset and snack on a series of additional content assets. In a recent LinkedIn article, Your B2B Prospects Want to Binge Your Content, Jeffrey L. Cohen, author of the B2B Social Media Book, pointed out that companies should focus on getting and keeping their customer s attention in an age when they are not necessarily reading blogs, following 33% of engaged prospects will binge on B2B content if it s packaged in a way that is accessible. 7% of them will consume every piece of content you put in front of them in a single session. influencers or scrolling through Twitter, but instead watching seasons of their favorite shows on Netflix, Amazon and Hulu. It s now all about bingeing, Cohen said. Can a Content Binge Signal Sales Readiness? Cetera Financial, a retail investment advice platform, found that leads who chose to binge on content were 2.4X more likely to be sales-accepted. Potential customers hold the power in the B2B relationship by seeking out the information that is most helpful to their journey, he said, so the best way to compete for their attention is to provide relevant, helpful information as little or as much as customers want in an easy-to-consume format. What if they are getting on an airplane and they want to read six of your e-books and watch two recorded webinars? he said. You have created successful content, but you are not all the way there. You must make it easy for people to [access] more content. LookBookHQ analysis of client data comprising 24,000 sessions. Bingeing is defined as prospects consuming at least 2 content assets in the same session. Next-Generation Nurturing Beyond the Click 9

10 Conclusion Traditional lead nurturing, driven by the marketer s schedule, lacks consideration for today s empowered B2B buyer, who now directs her own journey. These buyers want content packaged and served to them in a way that caters to their individual needs. They want the same experience in their professional life as they do with their Netflix account. Views and clicks don t provide marketers with all the insights they need about true content engagement and sales-readiness. Looking beyond the click to what and how content is actually consumed is critical for marketers in order to keep up with fast-moving buyers. Engagement data allows you to align your content with your audience s behavior. By capturing visitor metrics, you can understand what s working and what s not and make adjustments that keep prospects wanting more and speeding the journey towards sales-readiness. Just as important for marketers is creating and making accessible multiple content assets that are part of a sequence of messages. That will enable buyers to remain in control of their journey and set their own pace for consumption. Scheduled marketing forces your audience to engage on your timeline rather than theirs. Some prospects and leads will be slow to make their decision. Others will be fast-moving buyers who just want to binge on a bunch of content all at once. Through your content offerings, make sure you accommodate both self-education and shopping styles. Ultimately, marketers should think in terms of content journeys, instead of one-and-done asset creation. Put content together that is relevant to the initial click, so you can hold your audience s attention while you have it. Next-Generation Nurturing Beyond the Click 10

11 About LookBookHQ 174 Spadina Ave Toronto, ON M5T 2C2 P: (416) LookBookHQ is the only content marketing automation platform. We help B2B marketers cultivate more informed, salesready buyers faster, by ensuring they always see the next most relevant content asset wherever and whenever they engage with your brand. Successful B2B marketers move their buyers both known prospects and anonymous visitors through a journey of relevant content to educate and influence their purchase decisions. LookBookHQ lets marketers deliver these content journeys faster and more effectively by automating the sequence and delivery of content into highly engaging, personalized experiences that allow buyers to consume multiple assets per session. About Demand Gen Report 411 State Route 17 South Suite 410 Hasbrouck Heights, NJ P: F: info@demandgenreport.com Demand Gen Report is a targeted online publication that uncovers the strategies and solutions that help companies better align their sales and marketing organizations, and ultimately, drive growth. A key component of the publication s editorial coverage focuses on the sales and marketing automation tools that enable companies to better measure and manage their multi-channel demand generation efforts. Next-Generation Nurturing Beyond the Click 11