UNLEASH THE POWER OF CONTENT TO ENGAGE YOUR PROSPECTS

Transcription

1 UNLEASH THE POWER OF CONTENT TO ENGAGE YOUR PROSPECTS May 5, 2010 Agenda Content Marketing The Drive to Deliver Relevant Content 8 Steps to a Solid Content Strategy Stephanie Tilton and Michele Linn How BreakingPoint Used Content to Increase New Customer Acquisition by 240% Pam O Neal How Kadient Built a Content Library that Maps to the Sales Cycle Amy Black

2 It s the End of the (B2B) World As We Know It Photo credit: zachwass2000 on flickr The Disconnect and the Implication Buyers only find relevant content 42% of the time. The lack of relevant content as perceived by buyers is responsible for reducing the vendor's chance of closing the sale by 45%. Source: IDG Communications

3 The Opportunity Almost 95% of recent purchasers said the solution provider they chose provided them with ample content to help navigate through each stage of the buying process. 66% of respondents indicated the consistent and relevant communication provided by both the sales and marketing organizations was a key influence in choosing that company as their solution provider. Source: DemandGen and Genius.com - Inside the Mind of the B2B Buyer to Beat the Competition vendors that get the right mix of content at the right time for influencers and decisions makers will significantly increase their chances of making a sale. - Bob Johnson, Vice President, Engagement Optimization at IDG Communications

4 What Does that Mean to You? Photo credit: HansKristian on flickr Deliver Valuable, Relevant Content Create the kind of online content that your buyers naturally gravitate to. - David Meerman Scott Author of The New Rules of Marketing & PR

5 Content Marketing is the Secret "Content marketing is a marketing technique of creating and distributing relevant and valuable content to attract, acquire, and engage a clearly defined and understood target audience - with the objective of driving profitable customer action. - Joe Pulizzi and Newt Barrett, Authors of Get Content. Get Customers. It Starts with Strategy Photo credit: KF on flickr

6 It Starts with Strategy Source: Joe Pulizzi Creating a Content Strategy Listen Develop buyer personas Map content to the buying cycle Think like a publisher Commit to remarkable content Extract maximum value from every asset Make your content easy to find, access, and share Measure

7 Google Alerts Twitter

8 Google Blog Search Understand Your Audience Top 5 influences, application developer Peers and colleagues (word of mouth) Vendor, industry trade, or professional Web sites Technology or business publications, magazines Consultants, value-added resellers, systems integrators Your direct vendor sales person Top 5 influences, enterprise architect Peers and colleagues (word of mouth) Your direct vendor salesperson Consultants, value-added resellers, or systems integrators Vendor, industry trade, or professional Web sites Technology or business publications, magazines Base: North American and European technology decision-makers at firms with 100 or more employees Forrester: For B2B Tech Companies, Demographics Shape Adoption

9 Understand Your Audience CIO Archetypes and Focus 1. Function head Achieving IT operational excellence 2. Transformational leader Creating enterprise-wide change 3. Business strategist Driving business strategy CIO Magazine: State of the CIO 2009 Develop Buyer Personas "a short biography of the typical customer, not just a job description but a person description. The buyer persona profile gives you a chance to truly empathize with target buyers, to step out of your role as someone who wants to promote a product and see, through your buyers' eyes, the circumstances that drive their decision process.

10 Bring Your Prospects to Life CIO Joe, CIO Transformational Leader Sample Persona

11 Map to the Buying Process Understand Content Preferences Best-in-class companies are: 5X more likely to maintain a library of collateral, copy, and messages that map to prospects' buying stages Better able to map content buying cycle stages based on prospect behavior Source: Aberdeen

12 Understand Content Preferences Understand Content Preferences Source: TechTarget Aberdeen 2009 Media Consumption Report: Mindset of the IT Pro During the Recession

13 Map to the Buying Cycle Map Content

14 Think Like a Publisher We tend to think of intimacy as being personal something for the salespeople. But we can do it by reliably delivering valuable content. Magazines have been doing it for years. Consistency, relevance, and quality create a very intimate relationship with readers. - Chris Koch, ITSMA Create an Editorial Calendar

15 Keys for the Editorial Calendar Be consistent DO: Deliver content on a regular basis DON T: Publish only when you have something new Commit to your content DO: Think about the content your audience prefers DON T: Try a lot of things but don t do anything well Map out content DO: Move people through the buying cycle DON T: String random pieces of content together Craft Valuable, Relevant Content Variables Target buyer Stage in buying cycle Topic Key message Content source Call to action Remarkable traits Considerations Who is this for? Where are they in the cycle? What are the buyer s concerns? How can we address these concerns? Who can provide information employees, partners, customers, analysts? What do we want the prospect to do next? What will make this worth sharing?

16 Example: Competitive Comparisons Example: Shake Up Your Case Studies

17 Extract Maximum Value from Every Asset Click Repurposing to edit Master Content title style Don t... Simply put the same content in different channels Ask What more can I create? Consider content reuse as an afterthought Recycle the same content again and again Do... Customize content based on the channel (e.g. mobile) Ask How can give my readers a new way of understanding a key issue? Include a plan to reuse content from the start Customize your content for a certain audience, vertical or place in the buying cycle

18 Make Content Easy to Find, Access, and Share Make Content Easy to Find

19 Make Content Easy to Find Increasing Visibility of White Papers Strategy 1: Create more content available to be indexed by search engines Tactic: Creation of individual white paper landing pages to unlock long-tail keyword phrases Added hyperlinks that connected users (and search engines) to each applicable White Paper Executive Summary Page Source: KoMarketing Associates

20 Increasing Visibility of White Papers (cont.) Strategy 2: Enhance landing pages so there is both PPC and SEO value Simplified the conversion process by adding a request form to each landing page. RESULTS Organic search engine traffic increased by 225% from Q1 to Q4 of that year Increasing Visibility of Case Studies Approximately 100 case studies broken down into individual landing pages To aid lead generation efforts, we added an additional call-to-action and cross-links at the bottom of the page 33% growth in unique keywords sending traffic during the second month of the program

21 Make Content Easy to Access Make Content Easy to Share Source: Ecollo Media 2009 B2B Technology Collateral Survey Report

22 Make Content Easy to Share Measure the Impact Photo credit: Tyrone Shum on flickr

23 Case Study How BreakingPoint Leveraged Technical Content to Increase New Customer Acquisition by 240% Pam O Neal Vice President of Marketing BreakingPoint Systems, Inc. Do not interrupt what people are interested in; be what people are interested in. Jeff Lanctot Avenue A razorfish

24 Becoming Interesting Ask Customers Measure Results Understand Buyers Test Content & Copy Analyze Trends Monitor and Engage Influencers Developing Buyer Personae

25 Monitoring, Engaging, Prioritizing Mine for topics and opportunities (key influencers) Capture the conversation Analyze SEO keyword volume Monitor analytics to ID popular topics Identify and create content for buyer needs, issues Prioritize content by effort Identify opportunities Blog Web Page Video Webinar White Paper Methodology/ Download Speak to Your Buyers Create blog, forum, community Deliver role-based content Optimize for search Build community of interest Pull with conversation Pull with SEO, viral content Push with SEM, Monitor popular content Maintain with fresh valuable information

26 Seek to be Found - SEO Forget about your home page. Google is the new home page. Content Distribution Content Aggregation Spread the Word Key Messages and Thought Leadership Content Monthly Webcast Promotions Use Case Targeted Sales Presentations Membership in BreakingPont Group and Other Key Groups

27 Integrate with Drip Marketing Opportunity Captured LinkedIn Q&A on SRX Search Term firewall testing Offer Download Firewall Testing Methodology Webcast 5 Easy Ways to Test Firewalls Invite.... Measure and Optimize Results New and Return Web Visitors and Leads Return Visitor Growth Content Testing Sustained Growth in Inbound Leads * LAUNCH PHASE LEADERSHIP PHASE M-12 J-12 J-12 A-12 S-12 O-12 N-12 D-12 J-13 F-13 M-13 A-13 M-13 J-13 J-13 A-13 S-13

28 Case Study Building a Content Library that Maps to the Sales Cycle Amy Black Senior Marketing Communications Manager Kadient A Little Background

29 Cha-cha-cha-changes 57 Mapping Content to the Sales Cycle 58 What s your key objective for the piece? How else can you use it?

30 Kadient s Content Library A Sampling 59 Content Library: Top of Funnel /Lead Gen 60 How to Impart practical knowledge Provocative Challenge and introduce a new way to think Fresh format ebook, conversation style, images, video

31 Content Library: Nurturing 61 Entertain with relevant, attention-grabbing humor (also great for viral program) Content Library: Nurturing Harness customer voices Highlight third party validation

32 Content Library: Lead to Opportunity 63 Connect prospects with internal expertise 64 Content Library: Sales Opportunity to Close Making the iron clad case Showing how Kadient is different and better Getting over the hurdles

33 A Few Parting Thoughts 65 Remember who you are talking to Keep your key objective front and center Break through the clutter stand out! Entertainment Provocative POVs Video short, sweet and interesting Create content you can repurpose Listen to your sales team Pay attention to what is & isn t working Staying Connected Michele Linn, B2B Content Strategist, Linn Communications Connect: Contact: michele@linncommunications.com Stephanie Tilton, Content Marketing Consultant, Ten Ton Marketing Connect: Contact: stilton@tentonmarketing.com Pam O Neal, Vice President of Marketing, BreakingPoint Connect: Contact: poneal@breakingpoint.com Amy Black, Senior Marketing Communications Manager, Kadient Connect: Contact: ablack@kadient.com