A whole different game
Closed-Loop Strategy is a game changer Plus Plan, Create, Distribute, and Optimize CONTENT INDEX
INDEX Click on title to jump to Desired Section
B2B Marketing Content: A Whole Different Game 7 »» Complexity with a Capital "C": Why Content Chaos Plagues B2B Marketers...... 8
»» Moving from Chaos to Calm: Introducing a Fluid Cycle for Content Management...... 13
THE B2B MARKETING PLAYBOOK X2 INDEX
Plan 16 »» Budget for Content: Assessing Cost in the System...... 16 * Technology...... 17 * Channels...... 19 * Additional Resources...... 19
»» Assemble Your Stakeholders: Creating a Cross-Functional, Consistent Strategy...... 20 * Product Marketing...... 20 * Field Marketing...... 20 * Marketing and Sales Operations...... 20 * Demand Generation...... 21 * Digital and SEO...... 21 * Social/PR/AR...... 21
»» Define the Buyer's Journey, Sales Stages, and Content Map along the Way...... 22 * Definitions Matter...... 22
»» Develop and Align Your Personas: Content in a Consensus Sale...... 25 * Building Your Personas...... 25
»» Crowdsource Ideas: Getting Real Insights from the Right People...... 28
»» Build Timelines: From Big Picture to the Details...... 31
THE B2B MARKETING PLAYBOOK X3 INDEX
Create 36 »» Map the Process: Identifying Key Tasks and Roles...... 38
»» Establish a Team Structure: Aligning Process to People...... 39
»» Build Workflows: Planning Your Content Types...... 40
»» Set Smart Timelines: Assigning Deadlines for Major Initiatives...... 41 * Identify the Average Production Process for a Content Type.41 * Establish the Framework for Accountability...... 41 * Align Content Initiatives to Corporate Goals...... 42
»» Gain Visibility: Establishing Insight into the Content Production Cycle...... 42
»» Work Cross-Functionally: Collaborating across Teams without Chaos...... 43 * Establish an Internal Communications System...... 44 * Integrate Technologies for a More Efficient Workflow...... 44
»» Ensure Content Governance: Delivering Consistent, Streamlined Content...... 46 * Ensuring the Right Style – Building a Style Guide...... 46 * Put SEO into Your Process...... 47
THE B2B MARKETING PLAYBOOK X4 INDEX
Distribute 48 »» Creating a Closed-Loop Channel Strategy...... 48 * Maximize Your Internal Channels...... 49 * Avoid Internal Content Chaos: Build a Central Content Repository...... 50
»» Traditional PR Is Dead: Make a Splash with Influencers...... 51 * Leverage Channel Partners...... 51
»» Coordinate Technology: Distributing the Right Content through the Right Channels...... 52 • Email...... 53 * Segmentation and Targeted Messaging...... 53 * A/B Testing...... 53 • Blog...... 54 • Paid Advertising...... 54
»» Strategize for Social: Employing Tactics to Boost Amplification...... 55 • Integrate Social with Your Marketing Content Strategy...... 55 • Identify Relevant Social Channels...... 55 * LinkedIn...... 56 * Twitter...... 56 * SlideShare...... 56 * Facebook...... 56 * Pinterest...... 56 • Optimize and Analyze Social Engagement...... 56
»» Maximize Your Website for Inbound: Turning Your Site into a Content Conversion Machine...... 57 * Make Landing Pages Optimized, Primary Destinations...... 58 * Make Calls to Action Clear and Compelling...... 58 * Make Content Dynamic and Persona-Driven...... 59 * Make SEO a Priority...... 60
THE B2B MARKETING PLAYBOOK X5 INDEX
Optimize 61 »» Measure Results: Reporting on the Pillars of B2B Content Metrics...... 62 • Internal Reach: How Your Team Uses and Shares Content...... 63 • External Reach: Performance across Channels...... 64 • Conversions: Content’s Impact on Leads and Revenue...... 65 • Production: Finding and Clearing Inefficiencies...... 68 * Average Production Time...... 68 * Average On-Time Delivery Rate...... 68 * Bottlenecks and Challenges in Workflows...... 68 * Content Coverage Gaps...... 68
»» Create a Content Metrics Dashboard: Measuring and Optimizing Shared Goals across Teams...... 70
»» Incorporate Findings: Closing the Loop between Metrics and Strategy...... 71
Meet the B2B Marketing Challenge 72
THE B2B MARKETING PLAYBOOK X6 Introduction
THE B2B MARKETING PLAYBOOK A whole different game
The desired outcome dictates your strategy; this is true in any game or competition.
ut the tactics that win It’s not that there aren’t any similarities differ depending on your between B2B and B2C: the focus on [B]environment, allies, creating, delivering, and tracking competition, the rules of the game, and buyer-centric content—the lifeblood of the tools at your disposal. modern marketing—and the adoption of tools that support the content lifecycle The same is true in marketing— have evolved in both types of marketing particularly when comparing B2B and alike. B2C. But with B2B marketing, where the Across roles and functions—product stakes are high, the buying cycle long, marketing, demand generation, field and the decision makers many, the marketing, digital and web, content, or teams with a winning strategy are those communications—B2B marketers face that successfully address the complex distinct challenges. processes and outcomes of the B2B content lifecycle and buyer’s journey.
THE B2B MARKETING PLAYBOOK 7 Introduction
Complexity with a Capital “C”: The Consumer Why Content Chaos Plagues B2B Marketers
n B2C marketing, the process for managing the content lifecycle [I]is built around driving a single consumer to buy a product or service. The marketer’s job: engage and move that consumer to an immediate, impulse purchase. In this game, the B2C content strategy might look something like this: Awareness Lead Capture Purchase Content Goals Content Goals Content Goals Generate PR Database Growth Confirm Sale Purchase Consideration Content Types Content Types Content Types Social Posts Social Posts Emails Press Releases Emails Help Articles Online Ads Online Catalogues Videos Online Ads Metrics Metrics Metrics Page Views Web Traffic Clicks Impressions Subscriptions Sales Volume Press Mentions Impressions Clicks
The goals and tools of B2C strategy are brand affinity, repeat sales, social advocacy, and a lower price tag. But B2B marketing is a whole different ballgame.
THE B2B MARKETING PLAYBOOK 8 Introduction
Instead of targeting one And that trend is growing. consumer and driving a Nearly half (43%) of quick impulse buy, B2B B2B buyers said that the marketers must address number of people involved multiple stakeholders, in purchase decisions each needing specific has grown, meaning that information and proof of buyers need to reach more value depending on their stakeholders, and this goals and responsibilities. trend is rising. During just one B2B sales cycle, sales and marketing meet multiple players—all of them significant to the purchase.
Legal End User
Tech Evaluator Internal Champion
Budget Holder
B2B organizations must target many different stakeholders involved in the purchase process. Even more challenging is that separate teams within your company own the tools and channels that need to touch each of these buyers. Different teams are facilitating different stages of the buying journey.
THE B2B MARKETING PLAYBOOK 9 Introduction
The growing number of stakeholders and the silos between teams drag on the sales cycle. Forty percent of B2B buyers said they’re waiting longer to initiate contact with vendors. In order to move buyers through each stage of a longer sales cycle, B2B marketers need to use the right content, at the right stage, with the right KPIs to measure effectiveness. A B2B content journey might look like this:
Awareness Investigation Comparison Consideration Purchase Ownership
Content Goals Content Goals Content Goals Content Goals Content Goals Content Goals Thought Leadership Lead Acquisition Lead Qualification Equip Sales Team Confirm Value Onboard Engagement Lead Qualification Lead Flow Build Consensus Define Next Steps Ensure Success
Content Types Content Types Content Types Content Types Content Types Content Types Blog Posts Whitepapers Emails Brochures Onboarding Materials Blog Posts Infographics eBooks Case Studies Fact Sheets Presentations Infographics Educational Videos Webinar Video Testimonials Demo Videos Emails Educational Videos Online Ads Landing Pages Presentations Online Ads Press Releases Events Press Releases
Metrics Metrics Metrics Metrics Metrics Metrics Referral Traffic Registrations Opens Content Usage Content Usage Downloads Social Shares Downloads Click-Throughs Downloads Downloads Opens Channel Engagement New Leads Downloads Open Revenue Attribution Content Usage Downloads Lead Attribution Conversion Attribution Conversion Attribution Online Engagement
As you can see, B2B A clearly mapped content marketing involves many journey that extends different types of content across all functions that are targeted to within marketing is rare, specific buyers within a however. More common single organization, over is for each functionary or a multi-stage sales cycle, channel owner to work across channels owned by with little insight into different teams. the planning, production, and measurement of the content served. The result is an all-too-common state called Content Chaos.
THE B2B MARKETING PLAYBOOK 10 Introduction
CHAOS IN THE CONTENT LIFECYCLE Everyone creates content-mostly ad hoc, in silos with no way to measure impact PLAN Create Distribute Analyze
Customers Blogs, Social Posts, Product Launch & Corporate Vision Feature Content MQLs Corp Content Comms
Nurtures, Lead Gen Prospects Content, Top of Funnel Nurture, Offer, Demand Content Program Content Gen MQLs Inside On-the-fly, Content Calendar by Sales Prospect Specific Persona, Segment, Segment, Product, Demand Industry, Solution Competitive, Sales Content Suspects Gen On-the-fly & Advertising Sales Hair-on-fire Deal- Digital Ads & Copy specific Content Customer SQLs / Success Deal-specific Deals Implementation Events, Localized Content Partners Field Events, Regional Programs & Ad Hoc sales Marketing Content References, Customer Marketing Content, Post-sale Marketing
“The upshot of every Every role within marketing has its own tools, content marketing team being types, and channels to manage, each responsible for different aspects of the content and buyer lifecycle. a de facto publisher Without a strategy in place for coordinating all of is colloquially known these pieces, seeing the big picture of your marketing as ‘content chaos’—a impact is almost impossible. Not to mention, ad hoc content creation across departments leads scenario of overlapping, to duplicate, off-brand, or unnecessary content. invisible, and underused That’s why 65% of content goes unused in B2B brand assets and organizations, representing a massive cost center collaterals.” directly located within marketing. —The Forrester Wave™: Content Marketing Platforms, Q3 2015
THE B2B MARKETING PLAYBOOK 11 Introduction
The reality is that marketing content—which every disparate team creates and delivers to support internal teams and engage B2B buyers—needs to be managed as part of a holistic, integrated marketing strategy that addresses the needs of each decision maker at every stage in the purchase process.
B2B Buyers Journey: Anything But a Solo Act
Awareness
Post Sale Investigation
Prospects & Customers
Purchase Comparison
Consideration
Doing this effectively requires a shift in how you organize your marketing initiatives, and content is at the center of this effort. It takes integration, shared business objectives, and collaboration across internal marketing stakeholders, including product, field, demand generation, and digital marketing teams. Success in B2B marketing takes streamlined, collaborative strategies for tackling every stage of the content lifecycle.
THE B2B MARKETING PLAYBOOK 12 Introduction
"The reality that B2B marketers live in every day is that content creation is spread across experts that live across the organization, each in a silo. On top of that, the expertise required for content creation lives with some of our most expensive resources (product marketers, product managers). It costs us a lot of money to create and although many organizations think about it as being disposable, it Moving from Chaos to Calm: shouldn’t be." Introducing a Fluid Cycle for - Erin Provey Content Management Service Director, Sirius Decisions
2B organizations need to get a “one team-same [B]team” mentality among their departments and create aligned processes around organization-wide goals. They have to understand content needs, how to efficiently meet them, and how to measure the results. This is the only way to build a truly closed-loop strategy. Activating all internal stakeholders— from Product and Field Marketing to Demand Gen and Sales—requires enabling teams with the right tools and providing transparency into the content process. Without strategic alignment and involvement across departments, B2B organizations are missing a critical piece in their narrative, and can’t effectively meet content needs for every stage of the buyer’s journey.
THE B2B MARKETING PLAYBOOK 13 Introduction
A closed-loop strategy creates impactful, useable content that supports all of your channels and internal teams, delivers valuable and necessary information for prospects, and increases deal velocity. This process comes down to four steps: »»●Plan »»●Execute »»●Distribute »»●Optimize
Closed-Loop Strategy: The Four Steps to Success Content Strategy
Personas Insight-Based Planning
Content Campaigns Scoring INSIGHTS PLAN
Results Your Ideas Content
Distribute CREATE Digital Execution Distribution
Sales Channel Collaboration Distribution
THE B2B MARKETING PLAYBOOK 14 Introduction
In the pages that follow, these four steps are outlined to help you build a B2B marketing strategy that aligns your organization around shared objectives, delivers relevant and valuable content for every team and stage in the buyer’s journey, and helps you meet your goals as an individual marketer, as a marketing team, and as a company. This playbook is your foundation for a strong, efficient, and winning B2B marketing strategy. Let the games begin.
THE B2B MARKETING PLAYBOOK 15 CHapter 1: PLAN
01
“Teamwork is the ability to work together toward a common vision. The ability to direct individual accomplishments toward organizational objectives. It is the fuel that allows common people to attain uncommon results.”
— Andrew Carnegie
Budget for Content: Assessing Cost in the System
udget planning for B2B marketing teams can be tricky at best. It’s difficult to know where [B]to allocate funds for a winning strategy, including technology to purchase, resources to bring on board, and tactics to implement. It can feel like playing a heated game of darts while blindfolded; you take your best guess, but ultimately, you’re throwing blind. Start by aligning budget with your content goals. If your budget isn’t tied to clear marketing objectives, reporting on marketing ROI will likely end in headaches and finger-pointing.
THE B2B MARKETING PLAYBOOK 16 CHapter 1: PLAN
“In 2014, Forrester conducted a survey of 113 senior B2B marketers about how they organize their content marketing efforts and the results they achieve. Of those surveyed, only 6% rated their organization as optimized, and reported tying their content marketing objectives to specific business goals like customer acquisition, retention, and revenue growth.” — Laura Ramos, Brief: B2B CMOs Drive Content Marketing Results by Fostering Direct Involvement, Forrester Research, Inc., September 9, 2014
To get the dollar signs aligned for a killer marketing »»●CMS (WordPress, content strategy, first assess your goals and objectives. Drupal, Kentico, Then, evaluate the people, tools, and channels you Sitecore, Squarespace) need to meet these goals. This includes resources to collaborate internally, execute efficiently, deliver »»●Marketing content strategically, and measure the revenue impact automation (Marketo, of your initiatives. Eloqua, Pardot, HubSpot) Technology »»●CRM (Salesforce, One of the most important Here are the must-haves Microsoft Dynamics) parts of budgeting for for your B2B marketing an integrated marketing technology stack, and the »»●Content management strategy is knowing the foundation for creating platform (Kapost) tools and technologies content that is valuable, »»●Social media you need in order to trackable, and persona- platform scheduling, meet and measure based. monitoring, your goals for product, engagement demand generation, (Hootsuite, Sprout communications, and/or Social, Lithium) field marketing.
THE B2B MARKETING PLAYBOOK 17 CHapter 1: PLAN
Technologies should fit your marketing strategy and support collaboration across teams
Once these core platforms are in place, And the product marketer needs to identify the gaps that prevent you from sync with tools that gather, analyze, planning, executing, and measuring and distribute customer feedback and success efficiently. data. Event management or localization support might factor into a product For example, digital marketers need marketer’s technology purchases as tools to push and track ROI on content well. through paid channels like SEM and retargeting ads. Likewise, they need Technologies should fit your marketing to provide insight into the status of strategy and support collaboration search engine optimization (SEO) and across teams—but make sure they opportunities to drive more traffic. integrate and that you’ve defined consistent governance fields across Demand generation marketers might each, giving you consistent data for look to technologies to test and monitor analysis and optimization. conversions across contact forms and landing pages.
Integrate, Integrate, Integrate!
Make sure your chosen marketing automation platform integrates with your company’s CRM and marketing content platforms. By syncing these technologies, your sales funnel becomes streamlined from top to bottom, from first engagement to a closed deal. This makes cross-departmental communication and revenue tracking for your marketing activities more succinct and accurate. This will help your content and sales teams be more aligned and supported, as your C-Suite and Board of Directors can easily see the impact your content has across the entire sales funnel.
THE B2B MARKETING PLAYBOOK 18 CHapter 1: PLAN
Channels Additional Resources In addition to technology to manage Churning out consistent content across the planning and execution of your departments requires input from content, you also need to invest in the multiple stakeholders within your appropriate channels for delivering that organization. To actually make content content into the hands of the right B2B ideas a reality, it’s important to budget buyers across their purchasing journey. resources for freelancers or contractors who specialize in various stages of Some of the most important channels content execution, and use them to for B2B marketers to consider investing remove bottlenecks and fill important budget dollars in are: content gaps. » »●SEM/Retargeting Here are some contracted resources to »»●Content recommendation platforms consider factoring into your marketing »»●Email advertising budget: »»●Social media advertising »»●Writers and copyeditors »»●Content syndication »»●Graphic designers »»●Digital/interactive designers Even though certain strategies are »»●Videographers consistent across B2B organizations, your company’s products and target »»●SEO specialists audience are unique. Make sure you »»●Data and analysis specialists test and constantly evaluate the effectiveness of these channels so your Contractors can help accelerate marketing spend is adding value. your marketing functions. For example, Heather Drugge owns Go Communications, a firm of writers Heather Drugge manages 14 writers who focus on content for high-tech and biotech industries. For one particular to feed her technical blog suite client in the enterprise biotech industry, with the right content to attract & Heather oversees the ideation, creation, support buyers. and daily publication of content to three distinct—yet highly scientific and technical—blogs. She manages 14 writers to feed this digital channel with the right content to attract and support buyers, allowing the full-time marketing staff to focus on strategies to maximize their marketing impact.
THE B2B MARKETING PLAYBOOK 19 CHapter 1: PLAN
Assemble Your Stakeholders: Creating a “B2B Cross-Functional, Consistent Strategy MARKETING inning B2B marketing strategies are built CONTENT IS upon cross-functional, collaborative efforts ANYTHING BUT A [W]across marketing teams and departments. SOLO ACT.” Here are the major stakeholders that should weighin on your strategy.
1 2 3
Product Marketing Field Marketing Marketing and Sales Product marketers are Field marketing fosters Operations your go-to teammates key relationships with This may be represented for all things product- customers and prospects by one person or several, and market-related. By on the local and regional but you want to be sure digging into customer levels, driving strategies that your automated data and market research, to close new business emails, landing pages, working closely with and support retention of tracking URLs, and other product teams, and target accounts. The field channels associated with identifying opportunities marketer understands the each campaign work for your company to value of personalization, together seamlessly. address market needs, collaboration, and face This ensures an easy flow these marketers know time with customers and from one buyer stage to the true value of your prospects, often running another, driving a lead company’s solution in integrated marketing further into the sales the marketplace. Their campaigns and supporting funnel. Make sure that insights are crucial to sales in key markets and the appropriate sales reps B2B success, and they regions. know about an upcoming often serve as the bridge campaign in advance, between marketing and equip them with and sales, delivering the targeted messaging key content that helps and content they need sales reps prove value to to convert leads into prospects and shorten the customers. sales cycle.
THE B2B MARKETING PLAYBOOK 20 CHapter 1: PLAN
4 5 6
Demand Generation Digital and SEO Social/PR/AR Whether it’s paid ads or To grow your organic Your community blog posts, the players online reach, select managers and public/ responsible for driving strategic keywords that analyst relations teams leads through the entire are relevant and popular are the mouthpiece of funnel have to be looped to your target audience. your company. They into your marketing This should be deployed are responsible for content strategy. They across your owned web getting analysts and have insight into the properties, including your personas to quickly types of content that websites, blogs, and understand who you are, draw people further into social channels. Include what pain points you the buyer’s journey at whoever is responsible solve, and why you are every stage, and they for your SEO early in your the best solution in your can provide data-backed campaigns. Every asset industry. They can roll insights into what content that will be distributed a content campaign into to produce for each digitally should be press coverage around a campaign. optimized for search, be it product launch or other a blog post, landing page, correspondence that will or case study. Don’t let have a wider reach than your marketing content your content alone can. fly under the radar Trust us, you want these because you didn’t add folks looped into your keywords from the start. content strategy.
B2B marketing content is anything but a solo act. Creating consistent content for every stage of the purchase process requires B2B marketers within your organization to get on the same page, align around goals, and execute strategically.
THE B2B MARKETING PLAYBOOK 21 CHapter 1: PLAN
Define the Buyer’s Journey, miscommunication, and a lack of clarity across departments. This results in Sales Stages, and Associated convoluted tracking and reporting, Content Map along the Way and no clear visibility into the health of your pipeline and your strategy’s he secret to successful contribution to it. marketing content isn’t “create Below is an example of the buyer’s [T]more, faster.” If you’re not journey aligned with a closed-loop producing relevant, persona-based marketing-sales-support funnel. Use content that captivates potential buyers this as your template, and incorporate at every stage of the buyer’s journey, your own sales stages and goals into you’re wasting your time and resources. your strategy. Take note that the This is a consistent challenge for definitions you agree upon should be B2B marketers across functions and used across the company. This ensures industries. SiriusDecisions found that alignment on the specific pain points 65% of B2B content goes unused addressed as well as the content because content isn’t strategically objectives for each stage—which mapped to buyer interests and topics means teams across the organization they care about. will see value in and use this content more effectively. To have a truly closed-loop marketing approach, marketing, sales, and support teams all need to have a stake 65% OF B2B CONTENT in the revenue goals of your company. Used Content GOES UNUSED Therefore, each of these departments and the teams within them must be aligned across the buyer’s journey, equipped with relevant and valuable content at every single stage, and have a stake in your company’s revenue goals. Definitions Matter The first step toward tackling this 65% challenge is to get agreement across the company about each of the stages in your buyer’s journey. Many companies struggle with departments defining these stages differently, particularly among sales and marketing. The result is confusing messaging, UNUsed Content
THE B2B MARKETING PLAYBOOK 22 CHapter 1: PLAN
Potential Sales Teams Buyer Stage Buyer Activity Stage Definition Responsible
First interaction with Demand gen, field the brand—via social Marketing qualified marketing, business Awareness media, trade show, leads development, digital partner referral, organic marketing search
Filled out gated form Content marketing, on website, filled out demand gen, field Investigation/Research contact form at event/ Sales qualified leads marketing, digital trade show, requested to marketing, product speak with sales marketing
Initial assessment with sales development rep Business/sales Assess/ Comparison to determine if lead is Opportunity development reps, an actual opportunity product marketing with budget
Sales reps, sales engineer, account Lead has been executive, product Consideration transitioned to a sales/ Opportunity marketing, content account rep marketing, product management
Lead has decided to Sales rep, account Purchase Closed deal purchase manager
Customer success End users are identified, Implement Onboarding manager, customer onboarding begins success marketing
Customer receives Customer support, satisfactory support as customer success Support needs arise, resulting in Satisfaction manager, customer a positive ROI use case success marketing, with the product account reps
Customer success Customer success/ Renewal / Repeat marketing, customer account manager Customer Renewal or upsell success manager, upsells new product or account reps, product feature marketing
THE B2B MARKETING PLAYBOOK 23 CHapter 1: PLAN
With the buyer’s journey, sales stages, and team/ department goals defined, identify the content that supports each stage of the buyer’s journey to move leads from one stage to the next. Propelling a lead through the buyer’s journey is anything but a one-man job. As you can see above, there are many overlapping and shared goals across teams and departments. It takes concerted effort across your digital and demand generation, product marketing, sales, and customer support teams to accomplish a truly closed-loop strategy. Ongoing collaboration and communication is critical to a healthy B2B pipeline.
Awareness Investigation Comparison Consideration Purchase Post-Sale
Product Demand gen, Sales, product Sales, Customer marketing, Marcom, marketing ops, marketing, customer support, sales Team digital, social field marketing, product mgmt, support, customer consulting, sales consulting consulting marketing sales
Press Fact sheets, Onboarding Product releases, blog eBooks, landing case studies, FAQ sheets, Content docs, help collateral, posts, videos, pages, emails, videos, brochures, tech articles, events, Types infographics, webinars, events testimonials, guides presentations webinars social posts webinars
Content Thought Lead Lead Equip sales Confirm value, Onboard, leadership, acquisition, lead qualification, team, build define next ensure Goals engagement qualification lead flow consensus steps success
Referral Opens, click- Content usage, Content Downloads, traffic, social Registration, throughs, downloads, usage, opens, Key shares, downloads, downloads, opens, downloads, content channel new leads, lead Metrics conversion conversion revenue usage, online engagement, attribution attribution attribution attribution engagement downloads
THE B2B MARKETING PLAYBOOK 24 CHapter 1: PLAN
Develop and Align Your Personas: Content in a Consensus Sale
nlike B2C sales, B2B marketers have to address several personas within a single sale. Each [U]persona has unique information needs, goals, and concerns related to the purchase, and often join the decision-making process at different stages. B2B marketers are responsible for creating content that addresses the pain points of each of these buyers, at every stage of the buying cycle. Building Your Personas Developing personas that will drive results for your organization takes collaborative planning and input from across departments. Whether you’re trying to understand what your product has to offer a specific user, how your target audience consumes information, or what customer success stories you need to tell to increase deal velocity, strategic interviews—both inside and outside your company—are key to developing valuable persona-based content. Here are some key interviews to consider scheduling as you develop your personas.
THE B2B MARKETING PLAYBOOK 25 CHapter 1: PLAN
1. Your Sales Representatives 2. Your Customer Service Interview sales reps targeting different Representatives personas, regions, or company sizes to Your colleagues on the customer service get diverse insight on who they meet team onboard new customers, assess during the sales cycle, and what kind customer needs and challenges to help of information or content they need to them form best practices, and provide close a sale more quickly. ongoing support when new challenges arise. They have the deepest insight into both successful and struggling customers. By understanding the types Don’t only interview decision of customers who get consistent value out of your company’s products or makers or end users; talk services, and which types of customers to everyone involved in the typically fail and churn, you can purchasing process. target the right buyers from the get- go. Customer service reps also know the departmental structure of your customers, including the hierarchy of their roles and responsibilities.
3. Your Customers Input from internal staff is highly valuable when mapping out your personas, but perhaps the most insightful interviews are with your actual customers. By directly engaging the people who represent your personas, you can confirm or shift your marketing strategies to better address their needs and anticipate—then automate the delivery of—the content they need at every stage of the customer lifecycle. Don’t only interview decision makers or end users; talk to everyone involved in the purchasing process. These interviews provide a company-wide view into your customers and prospects, helping you create marketing content that’s driven by the actual needs of your personas. This process informs every part of marketing. It helps product marketers align specific features or packages to the pain points of personas, and support that story with examples or case studies from successful customers. Field marketing can evaluate the topics and strategies for engaging prospects in conversations and events that validate their needs, building relationships on trust and support. Marketers focused on demand generation can make decisions on the content they need to deliver earlier in the sales cycle to engage buyers and strategically introduce your company’s solution through nurture tracks and on-demand content.
THE B2B MARKETING PLAYBOOK 26 CHapter 1: PLAN
B2B MARKETING SPOTLIGHT: DUN & BRADSTREET’S PERSONA-DRIVEN CONTENT n the financial services Second, you have to work your industry, building trust is inside game—networking across [I]key, albeit challenging. the company to understand how those goals manifest themselves In fact, 76% of financial services from product to product, persona to professionals believe content persona, and then applying those marketing is the most effective learnings to content development. method to regain trust in this industry. Third, you have to 76% OF FINANCIAL SERVICES think of content as Equipped with this PROFESSIONALS BELIEVE a continuum and knowledge, Dun CONTENT MARKETING IS THE take responsibility & Bradstreet, a for integration Kapost customer, MOST EFFECTIVE METHOD and consistency of fully immersed TO REGAIN TRUST IN THIS storylines from top- themselves in INDUSTRY. of-funnel (really a collaborative, emotional, broader- detailed persona reaching stories) to end-of-funnel development process to clearly (promotional stuff that tells why define and drive their marketing your products and services are content strategy. better than the guy’s down the “We (now) have clear, concise use street). cases that map our customer pain And fourth, you have to learn points to the data-driven products to respond to the feedback that and services Dun & Bradstreet matters most: sure, your boss and offers,” says Brad Young, the global key business stakeholders, but content strategy leader for the more important the feedback you company. get from the data. To build this data-based marketing True success is in aligning engine driven by content, Young your approach to the mission suggests the following four steps: of the company and delivering “First, you have to actually know experiences that drive that home.” what the goals of the company are. Read the full story.
THE B2B MARKETING PLAYBOOK 27 CHapter 1: PLAN
Crowdsource Ideas: Getting Real Insights from the Right People
t probably Marketing should The only way to establish goes without not be the only team a high-functioning, [I]saying that B2B carrying the ideation integrated marketing marketers have a lot of responsibilities for your content operation responsibilities. The company. In fact, almost is through cross- constant demand for 70% of marketers want departmental buy-in original content ideas to to be able to crowdsource that’s bolstered by create valuable, persona- ideas more easily from executive support. Getting driven content can leave internal employees. Your your team involved and a marketer feeling wrung internal subject matter excited about content out like a towel that’s experts, sales reps, and promotes collaboration, been hung out to dry. In customer service teams which spotlights what fact, 99% of marketers are brimming with content your company say a constant stream of buyer-centric ideas; needs to create in order ideas is crucial to effective they just need to be to close deals and keep content marketing, but mined, appropriately and customers happy. It only 50% of marketers frequently. provides insight and believe they have enough access into marketing ideas to fuel their content initiatives, ultimately operations. resulting in a better buyer experience.
Here are three ways to start regularly crowdsourcing content ideas.
THE B2B MARKETING PLAYBOOK 28 CHapter 1: PLAN
1. Find an Executive Sponsor 2. Establish a Content Committee This person will be your content Identify key stakeholders and subject advocate, particularly in the beginning matter experts across your company stages if you don’t yet have the hard and establish an official “content data to show the true ROI of your committee.” Consider pulling in content. Perhaps this is your CMO or representatives from the following another executive that reports to the teams: CEO, but an effective sponsor should » have insight into the company’s »Sales/business development overarching business goals and the »»Customer support strategy for achieving them. »»Customer success Find someone who can relay content »»Product marketing success up the ladder to an executive, »»Field marketing while also establishing credibility and »»Demand generation authority to the tactical executors. The goal is to get buy-in at the top so it »»Marcomm/PR doesn’t feel like an uphill battle every »»●Social and community time you try to gather the troops for ideation activity. By forming an official content committee, you can gain additional Reactive content strategies do insight into themes and content types that will resonate with buyers, while not translate into positive ROI for fostering buy-in and internal alignment your team and your company around marketing content.
3. Brainstorm, Then Cluster Ideas into Themes Many a content marketer has fallen into the trap of reactive content creation. You’ve probably experienced it before—a sales colleague requests a blog post responding to a question she was just asked by a prospect; a product manager wants a whitepaper yesterday addressing a new pain point the product will address. While these ideas may warrant consideration, reactive content strategies do not translate into positive ROI for your team and your company. Marketing must always be nimble, and one-off content assets just add to the pile of unused content when they aren’t aligned with the goals of your organization.
THE B2B MARKETING PLAYBOOK 29 CHapter 1: PLAN
As mentioned above, the But don’t try to tackle content committee should these requests one by have representation from one—if you do, you’ll fall buyer-facing teams such into the trap of creating as sales, support, and random acts of content. services. They will be able Instead, group ideas to source ideas for content into themes that can be from buyer feedback or approached strategically insights into their own and are aligned with role at the organization. larger business goals.
B2B MARKETING SPOTLIGHT: “Before Kapost, if we weren’t able write ideas down or if we would lose DATAVAIL CROWDSOURCES ideas in meeting notes, they were just IDEAS FOR GAME-CHANGING gone—you couldn’t get them back,” Megan said. Now, ideas are sourced, CONTENT organized, and accessible.
hink it takes an enterprise- Once these ideas move to production, sized marketing department efficient processes are key to staying for content to make a on track and on time. Kelley set [T] up workflows for each step in the significant impact? content creation process, ensuring Think again. that every stakeholder is given a task and deadline. “I can see where I am in In the case of Datavail, Kelley Bjella production with everything and which and Megan Isherwood blow that myth personas I’m hitting well and not out of the water. With a focused, others, or channels I’m hitting or not data-driven strategy in place, the hitting often enough,” Kelley said. content managed by their small—but “So it helps us fill in those gaps.” mighty—team now contributes to 75% of Datavail’s monthly revenue. Between more consistent idea generation and a streamlined process The team implemented monthly for managing content execution, roundtables with Datavail’s subject Kelley now successfully runs three matter experts, mining content ideas times the amount of campaigns that in a formal, systematic setting. The she used to, managing 37 active meetings function like question- campaigns in only seven months. and-answer sessions, and ideas are immediately pulled into Kapost. Read the full story.
THE B2B MARKETING PLAYBOOK 30 CHapter 1: PLAN
Build Timelines: From Big Picture to the Details
hen it comes to B2B marketing Launching new content, campaign planning, your messaging, or products into rallying cheer should be [W] the world isn’t an ad hoc, “communicate, communicate, and communicate some more!” siloed act. Launching new content, messaging, or products into the world isn’t an ad hoc, siloed act. A seamless, successful marketing campaign is the end result of department-wide visibility into timelines and responsibilities, in addition to streamlined workflows. Here’s the step-by-step timeline that we use at Kapost.
1 Step 1: Set Your Major Asset Deadline When building go-to-market strategies for marketing content or new product launches, start with the go-live or launch date of the major asset from which your other assets will build. Kapost’s content strategy uses the pillar model, where you create and build your campaigns around one major asset, such as an eBook, and build supporting assets from the pillar. You’ll work backward to fill in the supporting content deadlines relevant to your pillar launch date.
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2 Step 2: Set Deadlines for Supporting Assets Next, think through each supporting asset of your pillar launch and assign a deadline for each. Here is an easy template for assigning deadlines for assets supporting your pillar campaign:
Appetizer Entree (Pillar) Dessert Top-of-funnel, highly This is your conversion Product-centric piece engaging asset such as an piece. It is gated and focused on solution-based infographic, video, or blog brings new leads into your content that drives leads post. database for your team to to engage with sales. determine whether or not Time of launch: Same day they are sales qualified. Time of launch: After a as your pillar/campaign If this is the first asset lead has interacted with launch. This asset should that the new lead has the entree and become drive viewers to download interacted with, your team sales qualified. Your sales your pillar. should follow up with team uses this asset to drip emails to nurture drive leads further into them to interact with the sales cycle. your content even more, and implement content scoring to determine if they are ready for a sales rep to engage them directly. Time of launch: Day of campaign launch. Have your sales team send the pillar to their leads, and send an email to your existing database in an effort to make them sales qualified.
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Step 3: Assign Content Tasks and Workflows
»»●Content authors Assign a deadline and owner to every task to ensure »»●Content editors that internal stakeholders know their responsibilities while being able to see the status of others’ tasks »»●Content publishers within the same project or campaign. Identify every »»●Graphics task that needs to happen—and who is responsible for »»●Social optimization completing it—before and after the date of your pillar launch. Consider the tasks and owners to the left when »»●SEO optimization building workflows for each piece of content. 3
4
Step 4: Schedule Collaborative Meetings in Advance Pre-Production Post-Production »»●Content brainstorm »»●Update sales and customer support with relevant assets and email »»●Meet with PR, social/community templates from the campaign engagement, and events/field departments to align efforts with the »»●Formal review of campaign metrics campaign to determine what worked, what didn’t, and key takeaways for future »»●Plan SEO strategy for launch campaigns »»●Meet with design team to determine visual direction of campaign and associated assets »»●Determine digital strategy (e.g., landing pages, automated email campaigns, A/B testing strategy, etc.) »»●Final check-ins with all above parties in preparation for campaign launch
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#1
Content Champs
Plan Early, Win BIG
uilding out And while it might sound timelines up counterintuitive, early [B]front prevents planning makes your a strategy from taking team more agile and a reactive, ad hoc responsive when time- approach, and keeps sensitive, high-priority marketers from falling content does need to be into a state of content produced. By staying chaos. By planning your organized and scheduled campaign piece by piece, in advance, you give identifying owners early, your team more room and scheduling fixed to innovate, test, and meetings beforehand, you respond quickly to the set yourself up to have constantly changing and more room to improve shifting world of B2B and iterate on future marketing. campaign rollouts.
THE B2B MARKETING PLAYBOOK 34 CHapter 1: PLAN
Petulance, Planning, and Pea Guac: A Word from Ann Handley Author, Everybody Writes and Chief Content Officer, MarketingProfs
You and your significant other Then the CEO abruptly shifts bae are excited to be eating gears with a request that at a new Mexican restaurant doesn’t align with your plans. “Planned that you’ve heard great things about. At last! We are here! Requests that come out of marketing Best table in the place! left field are annoying and distressing and demoralizing. strategy” But then when you try to And when it happens order the pea guac (it sounds regularly, it derails any doesn’t weird—but just go with it), sense of shared purpose or mean the waiter informs you that teamwork. the menu has been changed that your overnight from Mexican to And worst of all, your Chinese. programs will be less marketing effective, because your team lacks No guac. Not even any salsa. doesn’t feel ownership of the process—including the spontaneity” But how about some bok critical outcome. choy? It’s a vegetable, right? -Ann Handley So. What’s the difference? By the way, a “planned marketing strategy” doesn’t Reactive marketing feels mean that your marketing like that. Your team is in lacks spontaneity. It just the groove; spirits are high. means that whatever creative Together you are in control or spontaneous programs and you own the results of you might consider should your marketing programs. align with a bigger marketing You’ve got this! High-fives all strategy around!
QVIDIAN Scaled content quickly LEARN HOW
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02
“Combining deep customer insights with deep discipline for execution is critical. And rare.”
— Matt Heinz, President, Heinz Marketing Inc.
On your mark. Get set. Go!
udgets have been drawn up, personas and sales stages have been mapped, and ideas have [B]been curated. You have all the tools you need to execute on a killer marketing content strategy. But when the pressure’s on—can you walk the talk? The content creation stage is often where marketing teams find themselves feeling overstretched and drowning in content chaos—often because they don’t have the right processes in place to automate their efforts. Managing the overall content production process can get so complicated that it was cited as a top challenge for B2B marketers in 2015. Inefficiencies in content production processes cost midsize-to-large companies a whopping $958 million each year.
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COST OF INEFFICIENCIES IN CONTENT PROCESS $958 FOR MIDSIZE-TO- MILLION LARGE COMPANIES
Managing the content A study by Gleanster Research found production process is the top that B2B firms with over 250 employees estimate that in an average month, challenge for B2B marketers. marketing staff allocates 62% of their time to content production. But without So why is the content production a rock-solid plan of attack, valuable process causing headaches time is wasted trying to work around and internal turmoil? inefficient content processes. To put it simply—it’s complicated. Marketers who are effective at With potentially dozens of assets being producing content at volume have created simultaneously, and multiple efficient workflows and structured players owning different pieces of the operations. They set smart deadlines, creation process, asset generation give their internal teams visibility into essentially operates on an assembly the production cycle, and effectively line, and needs a machine to power it. collaborate across departments and teams.
Time B2B firms of over 250 employees spend in content production 62%
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Map the Process: Identifying Key Tasks and Roles
ack of process is the most common opponent to content [L]productivity, eating up time and frustrating even the strongest teams. Without the right processes in place to fuel content creation, assets After establishing a process to are constantly stalled in the production phase, with no real insight as to why. manage their asset production, And process has a real impact on USGBC saw a 79% improvement in performance. While only 45% of production time. average-performing companies use workflows or templates to streamline Manual production management the production of similar content assets, eats up valuable time and resources, 80% of marketing top-performers stifling opportunities. When the U.S. implement these steps into their Green Building Council (USGBC) content processes, creating a solid initiated their content operation, foundation for meeting and exceeding their marketing team was overwhelmed their revenue goals. with how much content they needed to create, and had no process in place to manage it. After establishing a process to manage their asset production, USGBC cut down their review time from seven days to 12 hours, and saw a 79% improvement in production time. Having a documented content 80% production process in place streamlines Of top-performing companies utilize workflows and unites efforts across campaigns, asset types, and even templates to streamline content internal teams, allowing marketers production. to focus on creating high-quality, targeted content to meet their goals, whether that means generating revenue, driving more marketing qualified leads, reducing churn, or supporting sales. So, what’s your first move?
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Establish a Team Structure: Aligning Process to People
veryone in your specific people organizes Chaos ensues when there organization is a everyone’s place within are too many variables/ [E]content creator. a workflow, which can players and not enough From marketing to sales help teams immediately clarity around how to customer success, your identify “who’s up next” something needs to be internal stakeholders all in the queue. completed. When roles have skin in the game. and responsibilities Ambiguity in roles and For example, when are transparent and responsibilities within a initiating the content assignments are team structure can quickly type “landing page,” the consistent, workflows leave marketers and other demand generation team are streamlined and less stakeholders wondering, will likely own creating time is spent managing “Who’s on first?” when the email within your production cycles. they should be rounding organization’s email second base. automation system. The beauty of consistency However, they probably is faster execution on To map people to the aren’t responsible for valuable content that process, decide who’s writing the copy or impacts your business. responsible for what, and creating images for the keep it consistent across page. content types. Assigning responsibilities to
Chaos ensues when there are too many variables / players and not enough clarity around how something needs to be completed.
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Build Workflows: Planning Your Content Types
ot all content types are created Example of a blog post workflow: equal. Each content type has [N]its own nuances to consider 1. Identify SEO keywords and steps to follow. To cover all the 2. Assign asset to author bases, list out every type of asset your Submit copy organization creates (or plans to create). 3. Some examples include: 4. Add image »»eBook 5. Complete SEO »»Whitepaper 6. Edit/review »»●Webinar 7. Final approval »»●Product sheet 8. Publish »»●Workbook 9. Schedule social »»●Blog post 10. Evaluate metrics »»●Infographic »»●Landing page Revisit your established workflows »»●Email annually and take a magnifying glass to Next, list out every task to be completed the process. for each asset before it can go into Where are there bottlenecks? Are completion status. Be as detailed as there steps that need to be added possible. or eliminated? Workflows do not necessarily have to be set in stone. Try testing a few strategies and see what works best for your team—don’t be afraid to fine-tune. WORKFLOWS DO NOT NECESSARILY HAVE TO BE SET IN STONE.
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Set Smart Timelines: Assigning Deadlines for Major Initiatives
eeting task deadlines is where be consistent in the amount of time marketers struggle most in it takes to complete. When 72% of [M]the production process—yet marketers say they consistently miss deadlines are one of the best indicators their content creation deadlines, of efficiency. Deadlines help marketers that’s telling evidence that either: stay on track, measure their progress, (a) processes are inefficient or (b) and identify bottlenecks. deadlines are unrealistic. However, deadlines are not arbitrary Establish the Framework for dates set simply to motivate us. Smart Accountability deadlines take into consideration the average production time per content Many hands make light work—until one type—preferably with some wiggle of the hands forgets, or didn’t get the room. They provide framework for memo. accountability, and they align with Just as there are many steps involved broader corporate goals. in creating a single piece of content, Identify the Average Production typically there are many stakeholders responsible for different tasks in the Process for a Content Type workflow. When you assign a deadline Understanding how long it to individual tasks, it takes to produce a single 72% of marketers keeps all stakeholders type of content is the accountable for their piece. first step in setting smart say they consistently This also eliminates the deadlines. It gives marketers miss their content need for excessive email clarity on how long it should creation deadlines. correspondence, which take to complete all the quickly burns time and kills required steps, and it sets efficiency. realistic expectations. Underestimating the time it takes to complete an asset By communicating deadlines from can quickly lead to burnout among your start to finish before beginning a teams, resulting in sub-par content project, your team starts off with clear quality. expectations and eliminates surprises. When considering how long it takes to complete each asset type, use content workflows to frame your planning. Each step in the workflow should
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When marketing aligns its goals with broader organizational Align Content Initiatives objectives and initiatives, to Corporate Goals content becomes strategic and As mentioned before, strategic marketing content is meant to serve the mission critical, rather than ad needs of the entire B2B organization. hoc and reactive. When setting deadlines for major content initiatives, consider other major deadlines within the organization. Is the product team planning a new release? Is the field marketing team Gain Visibility: attending an event? Establishing Insight into the By leveraging broader company Content Production Cycle initiatives to build your deadline framework, you not only establish a s mentioned before, content clear purpose and alignment that you creation often requires input can measure and track; you create a [A]from many different players richer experience for your audience all across departments and marketing around. teams. One of the greatest “confusion factors” in content execution stems For example, if an executive goal is to from not having visibility on the sell more of a product package that status of a specific piece of content. the product team is about to release, Likewise, not having a broader view of marketing can create campaigns around all deadlines across a project, from start that release, taking all the stakeholders’ to finish and across every stakeholder, needs into account. Marketing may keeps a content strategy from being produce an eBook and derivative assets successful—and puts it at great risk for to drive traffic and lead volume, but failure. they can also tailor those assets to serve the needs of sales and customer success Using a central calendar system gives teams. all internal stakeholders visibility into the content production process and also When marketing aligns its goals with gives marketers insight into what else is broader organizational objectives and happening within the organization. initiatives, content becomes strategic and mission critical, rather than ad hoc Using a content calendar cross- and reactive. The result? Your content functionally enables teams to consumers are delivered a consistent collaborate easier and align goals and and complete brand narrative. initiatives across teams.
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Work Cross-Functionally: Collaborating across Teams without Chaos
Charles Darwin once said, “In the long For example, when multinational history of humankind, those who learned computer tech company Lenovo realized to collaborate and improvise most there was no visibility into their content effectively have prevailed.” operation and internal teams were being siloed, they knew they had a big Just like we, as humans, have learned problem. Not only was lack of visibility to work together toward greater slowing down their production cycles, innovation, creating marketing it was also causing ad hoc content content is a creation, which concerted effort “We had four to five static Excel sheets often results that transcends per segment with hyperlinks to content. in off-brand a single team. messaging Marketers may We didn’t have any history, including and redundant create the majority which campaign it was part of, how it efforts. To solve of content, but was produced, or the measurement on the problem, they rely on the they invested expertise of their the back end. We had no visibility into in streamlining internal teams to any of it.” their content garner relevant marketing information, gain —Steve Barnard, Lenovo program across access to key departments, customers, ideate, effectively and, often, get final approval. doubling their asset production over two As a marketer, you need to leverage your years. internal teams as subject matter experts Which leaves us with the burning to build an authentic and credible question, how do you manage content voice for the brand. Successful content across teams efficiently? creation depends on gathering all of that knowledge from internal contributors 81% of marketers struggle without letting it get lost in the shuffle. Because when it’s hard to collaborate, with collaboration and it simply doesn’t happen. And it’s a coordination between prevalent issue, too. In fact, 81% of content production marketers struggle with collaboration and coordination between content resources. production resources.
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Establish an Internal Communications System First and foremost, identify how and where you’re communicating with all your teams. Content creation can be seriously stagnated when internal teams don’t know where to find it. Establish a singular location where content will live throughout its entire production cycle, and give all stakeholders access to it.
Integrate Technologies for a More Efficient Workflow When teams are working with different tools and technologies, managing the content creation process becomes more complex. If sales teams are doing the majority of their work in Salesforce, asking them to access another platform or integrate another technology into their workflow can be daunting, and often falls flat. When assessing your marketing technology needs, be sure that you can integrate as many of your tools as possible. This is particularly important among your marketing automation software and CRM platform, as the flow between initial engagement to sales qualified lead can be more smooth, trackable, and measurable. It’s a win for both sales and marketing.
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B2B MARKETING SPOTLIGHT: FIVE9 TRIPLES CONTENT LEADS USING ALIGNED WORKFLOWS
hat’s the result of After building a complete content establishing a content operation that addressed the [W]production workflow needs for structure, deadlines, and that’s aligned across a marketing accountability, Pat saw a dramatic organization? shift in the way he and his team were working, communicating, and A beautifully executed pillar collaborating together. campaign that launches on time and yields triple the leads and quadruple “We created double the number the revenue. of assets for the pillar campaign than we had for the previous two When Pat Oldenburg campaigns combined,” became the Senior Pat said. Manager of Content “We created double the Marketing at Five9, number of assets for the The substantial growth everyone was creating in content production content—and it was a pillar campaign than we also yielded substantial mess. had for the previous two growth in lead campaigns combined” volume and revenue. “A lot of people After implementing in marketing were processes and creating content in workflows that enabled persona- one form or another. PR was making specific content, Pat’s team content for media pitches and press produced three times the number releases. Product marketing was of leads and four times the amount creating data sheets and whitepapers of revenue over their previous two for our product. But nobody was campaigns. creating anything that was buyer- centric content,” Pat said. “We’ve heard anecdotally from our sales folks that after this campaign Facing growing expectations for they’ve had some of the best demand generation and lead growth, conversations with prospects that Pat needed a process that would they they’ve ever had,” he said. enable him to create buyer-centric content at volume and collaborate Read the full story. with all of his key players.
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Ensure Content Governance: Delivering Consistent, Streamlined Content
o simply say marketers publish a lot of content An editorial style guide is an understatement. A study by the Content should include: Marketing Institute found that nearly half of [T] »»●Your company’s all marketers are publishing new content weekly. And to get it all done, marketers across functions rely on a mission and tagline wide range of sources to create it. »»●A preferred word list for the company (for That’s a lot of different Ensure the Right Style – example: do you use voices and styles—not Building a Style Guide “email,” or “e-mail”?) to mention words— » to monitor and keep Marketing content helps »●A section describing consistent. companies establish the company’s tone and trust and authority, voice Having a unique voice and supports the entire »»●A brief section on is important, but if it customer lifecycle. But troublesome grammar doesn’t align with the if your content doesn’t voice of the overall have a consistent look brand, there’s a problem. and feel, it’s confusing If you’re starting from Audiences trust sources for your audiences, and scratch, use this style that are accurate and with multiple contributors guide template to help consistent. If your working to create content, you navigate the tone content doesn’t reflect it can be difficult to and style needs of your a singular tone and manage. marketing content. message across the buying experience, from first To avoid inconsistency in touch to onboarding, style and ensure quality you risk hurting the content every time, trustworthiness and develop an editorial credibility of your style guide and a visual brand. style guide that you can share with your content creators.
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“Your prospects are searching based on pain points, needs, desires. They are looking for solutions they don’t yet know exist. The better you can speak your prospect’s language, the better you will be able to align your content with prospect intent.” — Matt Heinz, President, Heinz Marketing Inc.
Put SEO into Your Process To incorporate SEO into the content production process, marketers need to Optimizing content for organic search do three things: is critical to its success, yet it’s an area that often leaves marketers scratching 1. Include it as a key task in your their heads, unsure of how to tackle content workflows. SEO should be part the elusive search engine. Only 52% of of the content creation process, not an marketing organizations are aligning afterthought. SEO to their content, while the other 2. Write meta titles and descriptions. 39% are falling behind, hidden on page It’s an extra step, but it comes with big three of Google search results. payoffs. By incorporating SEO directly into the 3. Be keyword-aware vs. keyword- content production process, marketers driven. Keyword research is essential to can stress less about whether their SEO. However, relevant, quality content content is optimized for search, because will always trump content that is jam- it’s included in the production process. packed with keywords. The point of marketing content is to serve the needs of your audience and drive impact. Poorly chosen, keyword-heavy content doesn’t support that ultimate goal
Start Creating Better Content CONTACT KAPOST
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03
“Your content strategy starts with your story. We need to write or articulate our story, and then share it across the organization to get everyone on the same page, literally. It’s crazy hard to construct a content strategy when we have no story as scaffolding.” —Ann Handley, Author, Everybody Writes; Chief Content Officer, MarketingProfs
Creating a Closed-Loop Channel Strategy
uilding a closed-loop channel strategy isn’t an easy undertaking, but the rewards are sweet. [B]By amplifying content through your sales, customer support, influencers, partners, and digital channels, you gain an unbeatable advantage over your competition. The following section highlights the major channels to consider in your distribution plan. Ah, can’t you hear the roaring crowd and cheers of victory already?
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Maximize Your Internal Channels As a modern marketer, when you consider your distribution channels, it’s easy to think only of your digital channels like your website and social media. While these are certainly key to any successful B2B marketing strategy, in the age of all things digital, it’s easy to forget about significant human channels, both internal and external. Some of these channels include sales, field marketing, customer support and success, industry influencers, and channel partners. Failing to leverage these channels does a massive disservice to your overall B2B market strategy, and is a missed opportunity for deeper reach and brand awareness.
Business Development Customer Success Field Marketing and Sales A good customer success Field marketing fosters Whether you’re a product, team becomes an key relationships with demand generation, or invaluable partner and customers and prospects digital marketer, getting trusted resource to their on the local and regional content to your sales team customers. They know levels, driving strategies is absolutely critical to your customers’ pain to close new business determine your team’s points and upselling and support retention of ROI to closed deals. As opportunities more target accounts. These marketing becomes more than anyone else in your team members get quality data- and results-driven company. Leverage this face-to-face time with with the rise of better, internal channel with potential customers— smarter technology plenty of upsell content equip them with valuable, solutions, top executives and content around best- actionable content, and will hold marketing practice use and other start seeing new leads increasingly accountable supporting assets. pouring into your funnel. for its contributions to new revenue. By getting the right content into the hands of your sales and business development teams at the right time, you ensure your team’s value and ROI to your company as you support sales. It’s a win- win.
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Avoid Internal Content Chaos: As marketing expert Barry Feldman puts Build a Central Content Repository it, “It’s like pouring money and resources into works of art, only to store them in the You know that equipping your internal hallway closet.” channels with quality content will result in big returns for your marketing And this isn’t an anecdotal issue, either. strategy. But even though you’re pumping out endless streams of content While 91% of B2B marketers use content for these channels, chances are these marketing, 65% of B2B content goes teams still aren’t finding and using that unused. content appropriately. When considering how to reorganize Needless to say, it’s frustrating for your content into a central repository, everyone involved, including the sales remember that successful content guy who still can’t remember where to becomes “ART”: find the right content. »»●Accessible Basically, while your content lives in a »»●Relevant nebulous file somewhere, other teams »»●Trackable don’t even know it exists, where to find it, or how to use it effectively. We wrote an entire eBook on building It’s expensive, it’s wasteful, and, internal content repositories. unfortunately, it’s extremely common. Check it out here.
91% 65%
B2B MArketers that use content Amount of that contetnt that goes unused
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Traditional PR Is Dead: It’s important to Make a Splash with Influencers remember to build a While social sharing, paid ads, and organic traffic sound public relations are critical to getting leads into your pipeline, it’s strategy. But modern important to remember to build a sound public relations strategy. But modern marketers know that marketers know that PR as we knew it in the 90s no longer exists. PR for the PR as we knew it in the modern marketer is all about engaging influencers in 90s no longer exists. your space.
Start by researching what media outlets, Once that relationship is built, you can analysts, and influencers are covering reach out to them with requests and your industry already: who are the major story ideas that would interest that mouthpieces in your space? particular outlet, and your influencers will become engaged and enthusiastic Form relationships with the most channel partners for your company. impactful and relevant influencers among your target personas. If you have few or no media relationships already Leverage Channel Partners established, start off by researching Leveraging your channel partners is individual reporters covering specific the difference between a first-base hit beats relevant to your company. and a home run, and strong channel partnerships guarantee a more robust Once you’ve identified key contacts, reach for your content. reach out to them directly and introduce yourself as an expert on an industry- By maximizing your partner related topic, and offer to help them relationships, you: with any stories they’re working on. For media outlets, make sure you’re not 1. Gain access to large, new networks giving them a hard pitch quite yet. You that will distribute your content and need to establish yourself as an expert increase your brand awareness and a value-add for other related articles 2. Gain a partnership that resells first. For influencers, invite them to your product in the marketplace guest post to your company’s blog, or request their permission to quote them via their existing channels and from a book they’ve authored. The key is networks, maximizing your reach and to form a trusted relationship. increasing your revenue opportunities
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Coordinate Technology: Distributing the Right Content through the Right Channels “Content fuels not only the top of funnel, but also accelerates pipeline throughout our sales cycle.” —Doug Sechrist, Vice President of Demand Marketing, Five9
or even the savviest, most experienced marketers, integrating and coordinating your matrix of marketing [F]technologies can be the stuff of nightmares. You’ve got marketing automation, CRM, CMS, and social media channels. How do you get them to all play nice with each other to create a winning strategy that moves a lead seamlessly and intuitively through your sales pipeline? Let’s start by breaking down the major digital channels you’ll likely use to distribute your B2B content, and what to coordinate for a truly integrated B2B marketing content strategy. You’ve got marketing automation, CRM, CMS, and social media channels. How do you get them to all play nice with each other to create a winning strategy that moves a lead seamlessly and intuitively through your sales pipeline?
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Email There are so many tools for email out there, how does one even choose? The key here is integration. Integrate your email campaigns with your chosen marketing automation tool, CRM, and marketing content platform. By aligning email campaigns with the right technology, you can get more accurate insight into which emails work or fall flat among the different segments of your database. Likewise, make sure your automation system integrates with your CRM platform. Otherwise, you risk your contacts getting lost and disorganized as they transition from one system into another, costing your team valuable data about a lead’s activity, and ultimately, the revenue-based impact your content has on closed deals. Here are some things to consider when rolling out your email campaigns.
Segmentation and Targeted Messaging A/B Testing Successful email marketing is like Most marketing automation software reading the field and choosing the will let you implement A/B testing in appropriate play. You have to know your email campaigns. Leverage this your opponent inside and out—it takes feature heavily—it will make your tedious study, precision, and discipline. marketing smarter and sharper, and Even if you think that quirky move of will result in increased ROI from your yours will delight your audience, the content. data might show you otherwise. Test your subject lines and dynamic If your data says your audience likes content. Often. straightforward messaging, or case studies over product videos, you need to Do your different personas prefer soft, deliver that to them—or face ultimate “you’ve got a friend in me” language to defeat, via really embarrassing open and more academic and to-the-point subject click-through rates. lines? Do your personas prefer short, no- nonsense body copy that gets right to the point, or do they enjoy a bit of humor threaded within it? Does the blue or gray call-to-action button attract more clicks? You get the idea.
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Blog Paid Advertising For many B2B companies, the Make sure that whoever manages your corporate blog is one of the most paid and SEM advertising is plugged successful top-of-funnel channels. It into your campaign launches. Paid inspires anonymous users to become ads can attract new leads in ways known leads and eventual customers. your organic leads won’t. Ensure that Be sure each blog post ends with a your messaging is aligned so you’re clear call to action that drives leads to attracting the right leads. either: Consider implementing content 1. Subscribe to the blog so you have promotion tools like Outbrain, which their email information for future will help promote your content on top media sites where your target audience campaigns is already engaged. 2. Download gated content via one of your landing pages, thereby raising their content score and pushing them further into the funnel
Also, make sure your blog is synced with your automation system so it can track which calls to action are the most successful among your subscribers.
For many B2B companies, the corporate blog is one of the most successful top-of-funnel channels
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Strategize for Social: Employing Tactics to Boost Amplification
“Social can play a major role in accelerating the buyer cycle, driving revenue, and encouraging customer loyalty. But you must have the technology in place to measure its impact. That technology is marketing automation, and it’s powered by good content and a smart marketing team.” —Jason Miller, Welcome to the Funnel
Along with your company blog, a key top-of-funnel channel is social media. However, it often gets a bad rap for not driving people deeper into the funnel. But a sound social strategy that’s aligned with your overall marketing goals can be a killer revenue generator for your company, driving mass amounts of eyes (and future leads) to your landing pages. But you need a sound strategy to optimize this channel. Here are some key things to consider when building out your social strategy. Integrate Social with Your Identify Relevant Social Channels Marketing Content Strategy It can feel like a different social channel If you’re creating excellent content, pops up every day, but to get the most you already have a strong foundation out of social, you need to choose the for social. Here are a few ways to ones that resonate most deeply with incorporate social seamlessly into your your target buyers. With that in mind, overall marketing content strategy. consider the following channels for your B2B content. »»Break down larger content assets into shareable, bite-sized pieces “[If] content is fire, social media »»●Focus on building a conversation is gasoline.” from your content-sharing activity —Jay Baer, Content Marketing Expert »»●Ensure that share buttons are easily and President, Convince and Convert accessible on every piece of content to make it easier for others to distribute to their networks
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LinkedIn Twitter SlideShare LinkedIn can be a There are over 500 million SlideShare is an excellent powerful distribution users on this idea-sharing channel for top-of-funnel channel for B2B tool. Twitter is a great tool engagement. To date, it’s marketers—in fact, it’s for having discussions the largest presentation- ranked as the top source with your audience sharing community that for professional content. and answering their exists online. It has There are strategic ways questions in a less formal approximately 60 million to use LinkedIn to build environment. Identify visitors per month, relationships and drive trending conversations and it’s largely used by conversion. Start by in your industry by using businesses. SlideShare engaging in LinkedIn hashtags. Hashtagify can easily integrate into groups associated with is free and helps you blog posts and emails, so your industry, and join identify which hashtags you can repurpose your conversations that relate are trending among your presentations for several to your target personas. audience. different channels. Also, you can use the Column Five Media publishing platform to referred to SlideShare share thought leadership as the “quiet giant of and push your content to content marketing.” new audiences.
Facebook Pinterest Optimize and Analyze Generally speaking, Depending on your Social Engagement Facebook is used most audience, Pinterest can be commonly for B2C a lucrative tool for your To understand the value of marketing, but it can visual content. Used for your social strategy, and still be a great tool if it’s visual content sharing to see which channels and a channel your audience such as infographics, blog content types resonate engages with frequently. header images, eBook with your target personas, Identifying potential covers, and photos, people you need to measure personas’ preferred in your industry may be the impact. There are a engagement channels searching for business- variety of social tools out is key to avoid wasting related content that can there to track conversions time and resources on an be easily digestible and and engagement. Choose irrelevant channel. “pin-able.” Consider one that integrates with adding this to your social your other technologies so toolbox. you can dig into the data and begin refining your strategy to better fit your personas.
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Maximize Your Website for Inbound: Turning Your Site into a Content Conversion Machine
hink of your website as your B2B marketing hub, the mechanism for converting anonymous visitors to B2B marketers [T]qualified leads and eventually paying customers. invest $10-$20 Building a website optimized for content conversion is a billion annually major undertaking and investment, but it’s worth it. Your in mid-funnel website shouldn’t be a static entity serving as nothing more technology like than a digital brochure. It has to be interactive, delighting email marketing those who visit with high-quality content that drives the and marketing right people to become leads and pushes them further into automation, but the sales funnel. 75% of marketers [who’ve invested] How do you maximize your website to become a conversion say the #1 reason machine? Here are some key aspects of your website to that marketing consider focusing on. automation fails is the lack of content and processes.
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Make Landing Pages Optimized, Primary Destinations Landing pages are the ultimate power play for turning a person from interested visitor to qualified lead in your pipeline. When you gate your most valuable content, such as whitepapers, templates, or eBooks, you draw in anonymous visitors to engage with your content in a more valuable way—one that merits higher content scores than simply reading a blog or liking a tweet. Many of your B2B marketing channels will drive to a landing page or contact form, and you need to make sure these pieces are highly optimized for maximum conversion. Things to consider when building landing pages:
»»Ensure your message »»●A/B test your landing »»Be honest. The last is clear and value- pages. When you’re thing you want is for focused. Make your value targeting different an interested person to proposition immediately personas, try two find your landing page obvious to a reader—they different landing pages compelling enough to have to know that the for the same persona fill out your form and sacrifice of their former and see which messaging download the content, anonymity will be worth is more compelling for just to find that the it. them. Test different content is not what was button colors and promised to them. In the locations. Test different B2B world, click-baiting form fields. This will will only end in failure. help you refine your You may get more clicks messaging across all of and traffic initially, your marketing activities but you’ll end up with and result in more less revenue-based ROI quality leads for your and a bad reputation. sales team. Resist the temptation, and be real with your prospective buyers.
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Make Calls to Action Clear and Compelling If landing pages are the doors to conversion, CTAs are the keys that unlock them. Messaging throughout your entire website is key. But the messaging in your calls to action is perhaps the most important part, because this is the piece that sparks the initial content conversion. Make sure your messaging is compelling and speaks directly to persona pain points. It has to pique enough interest to merit the visitor giving you his or her contact information. In other words, the offer has to promise a value exchange.
Make Content Dynamic and Persona-Driven You want your website to immediately speak to the persona you’re targeting. If you’re like many other B2B companies, you’re targeting multiple personas within a single organization—each important to closing your sale. So how do you focus your messaging on your website to speak to all of them?
Dynamic content. It takes a hefty investment to personalize your website to your personas, but the result is powerful. Picture this: a company sells software to healthcare providers, and they target administrative heads as well as clinical practitioners. The pain points and value props for these two types of B2B buyers are very different.
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With dynamic content, digital marketers Make SEO a Priority can optimize a website to serve up specific messaging based on previous Nothing could be more depressing to user engagement or known demographic a marketer’s ears than a beautiful, information, such as industry and content-rich (and expensive) website title. So, if a medical administrator that never gets any traffic attention. downloaded two whitepapers that SEO should be a high priority for every focused on better interdepartmental website. Research and identify target communication or improving board- keywords early in the development of administration relations, your website your website, rather than having to could continue to offer administration- go back and rework your messaging to focused content instead of clinically- fit keywords. Work with your web and focused content. This creates a tailored digital experts to get SEO nailed down user experience on your website, from day one delivering only the content that’s relevant to a visitor. This engages the buyer more effectively, as they immediately understand the value as it relates to them. With this strategy, marketers can further impact the buyer’s journey in a positive way and contribute to a shorter sales cycle.
Hach Amplified Content Across Channels READ MORE
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More than half of the average annual marketing budget is dedicated to content
arketing budgets are growing. Now more than ever, marketers are feeling the pressure [M]to prove, and quantify, the value of their operations. With B2B firms in North America spending over $5.2 billion a year on content creation efforts alone—that’s 55% of overall marketing budgets—top- level executives want to see the impact. Yet, 50% of B2B enterprise marketers say measuring content effectiveness is a challenge. So, what gives? Content must be tied to revenue to show real value. This means marketers need metrics that give them insight into how content drives quantifiable impact on business goals. Optimizing content for ROI means digging deeper than top-of-funnel reach metrics to measure how content influences a prospect’s decision to buy.
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Otherwise it’s a game of content roulette, and the results aren’t pretty. To measure content’s full impact across the buyer’s journey, marketers need to track and measure the pillars of B2B content metrics according to their goals and objectives.
Measure Results: Reporting on the Pillars of B2B Content Metrics
arketing content has become a major priority Without insight for B2B marketers; more time is being spent into performance [M]creating and managing content, and bigger at every stage budget dollars are being allocated to it. of the purchase B2B marketers create content for a complex matrix of process, buyer personas and sales stages that—when working marketers can’t efficiently—reach the target audience every time. prove that their But top-of-funnel metrics don’t tell the full story. strategic content Without insight into performance at every stage of initiatives the purchase process, marketers can’t prove that their contribute to strategic content initiatives contribute to revenue. revenue. To measure the full impact of content driving the right engagement, converting buyers at every stage of the funnel, and supporting internal teams to close new business more quickly, B2B marketers have to track performance at every stage of the content and buyer lifecycle.
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Internal Reach: By tracking the way internal teams How Your Team Uses consume and distribute content, assets and Shares Content can be optimized for better targeting and results. Effective B2B marketing content is not created solely for top-of-funnel To measure internal content use, audiences. content needs to be stored in one single, accessible content repository In the complex matrix of B2B selling, where internal teams can discover and internal teams use content to build distribute it. Content should be tagged buyer and customer engagement at to specific objectives, such as campaign, early, late, and post-sale stages of sales stage, persona, and asset type, so the customer journey. Content helps internal stakeholders can quickly, and sales and customer success teams easily, find the relevant content the establish authority and build trusting need. relationships with prospective or current clients. But to gauge if your product, field, or digital marketing content serves the Content plays a critical role in moving needs of your internal teams, you need buyers toward a closed deal and to benchmark and track the following: increasing customer retention; it should be tracked, reported on, and measured »»●How much of the content is used by against in context of these goals. internal teams? Think of every division of your »»Are teams using content to drive organization as a distribution channel. engagement? Internal teams are using content »»What kind of buyer engagement is to communicate through one-on- being facilitated as a result of internal one channels such as email, offering content shares? content to meet the specific needs of individuals based on their role, sales stage, product use case, and interests.
Content plays a critical role in moving buyers toward a purchase.
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»»# Month over Month internal views of assets Internal »»# MoM internal downloads of assets Consumption
»»# MoM internal shares of assets To see impact Internal via email or social at every stage Shares of the content lifecycle, track »»# MoM referral traffic from internal shares the metrics Referrals that matter. Get Earned started with this B2B metrics template.
External Reach: Performance across Channels Tracking types and number of engagements is part of external reach metrics, but marketers must also look at how content creates engagement across channels, and which tools were used to spark valuable action. Insights that delve into the how, when, and where of content engagement give marketers a full picture of how content performs at different stages and through different channels. These insights explain where our target audience goes to find relevant content, and how they react to it depending on who they are and where they are in the buying process.
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»»# Engagements per month by type of engagement (i.e. views, Cross- downloads, opens, etc.) Channel »»Traffic by channel category (i.e. Direct, Paid, Organic, etc.) Reach »»Referral percentage by channel source »»# Engagements by content type (i.e. blog post, video, email, etc.) Engagement »»# Engagements by buyer persona by Category »»# Engagements by sales stages
Top »»10 most engaged assets per quarter Engaged »»10 most shared assets per quarter Assets
Conversions: Content’s Impact on Leads and Revenue Tying content to revenue is one of the But how do you do it? greatest challenges modern marketers To determine a content score for any face. Using a content scoring model, type of content, you first need to marketers can determine the value evaluate a buyer’s movement through and role of their content throughout each stage of the sales funnel, and the all stages of the sales funnel. Content content consumed during that stage. conversion metrics provide invaluable Divide the number of conversions by the insights into marketing content number of content pieces consumed, effectiveness, pulling results at various broken down into asset categories. stages of the buyer’s journey and identifying opportunities to optimize for Including content conversions in your greater results. dashboard yields the best insights into how well your content is ultimately performing. Attaching numeric value to content assets not only makes it easier to compare the performance of specific assets at various stages of the funnel; it also gives you concrete evidence that shows how your content is working.
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Stages of Volume in Stage Metrics to Capture Pipeline »»Content Score by Asset »»Content Score by Campaign MQLs (multiple assets and content types) 600 »»Content Score by Category (multiple content types and campaigns)
»» Content Score by Asset SALs »» Content Score by Campaign (multiple assets and content types) 200 »» Content Score by Category (multiple content types and campaigns)
»» Content Score by Asset »» Content Score by Campaign (multiple assets and content types) Closed »» Content Score by Category (multiple content types and campaigns) 20 »» Revenue by asset Deals »» Revenue by campaign (multiple assets and content types) »» Revenue by category (multiple content types and campaigns)
“Our biggest competitor isn’t another technology company,” says Guy Weismantel, SVP of Marketing at Vertafore. “Our biggest competitor is the status quo.” -Guy Weismantel Vertafore
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B2B MARKETING SPOTLIGHT: VERTAFORE USES CONTENT ANALYTICS TO PROVE IMPACT ON REVENUE
“Our biggest competitor isn’t another technology company,” says Guy Weismantel, SVP of Marketing at Vertafore. “Our biggest competitor is the status quo.”
t Vertafore, Guy »»●What is our content conversion Weismantel’s primary goal rate for leads, opportunities, and [A]is to activate their audience revenue? with relevant content, validate wins, » and optimize for future success. But »●What changes need to be made to feed a hungry sales pipeline and to our strategy or budget to reflect prove the impact of their efforts, Guy what the data is telling us? needed data-backed evidence to know To find out, Guy implemented what was working, and what failed. a closed-loop reporting system “Marketing at large has matured that tied actual revenue to his beyond a ‘spray and see what sticks’ buyer persona-informed content approach,” Guy says. And in order development. to report on his content operation, By tracking content performance he needed the answers to burning throughout its lifecycle and tying it questions: to specific buyer personas and sales »»●What content is resonating the stages, Guy was able to easily—and most? accurately—determine which content was effective and which was not, »»●Which marketing channel is enabling him to hold his marketing delivering the best results? team accountable for their impact on revenue. »»●Where are we strong and where are we weak [in our content production] by buyer persona and product line?
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Production: Finding and Clearing Inefficiencies Time wasted is money spent. Inefficiencies in the content production process cost businesses money—and it’s often the most ignored area in content measurement. Content is the product of content marketing, and marketers need to know how long it takes to get that product to market, find and eliminate bottlenecks in the process, and identify content coverage gaps. It starts with these four areas of measurement. Average Production Time Bottlenecks and In order to gauge process efficiencies Challenges in Workflows from ideation to distribution, start by Since workflows guide content creation, benchmarking the amount of time it marketers need to pinpoint which tasks takes to create content in days, per slow down production. These could be asset. big steps like submitting or designing Once a benchmark has been established, content, or smaller, yet critical, steps use these benchmarks to identify such as approvals or copyedits. To workflow bottlenecks and clear away measure this, compare the average time inefficiencies in the process. it takes to complete a specific task in a workflow against how often that task is Average On-Time Delivery Rate completed late. Armed with this data, marketers can tackle bottlenecks, many Marketers struggle most with delivering of which are easy to fix but typically content on time. While pushed deadlines hidden. have almost become a given, without metrics to measure what content is Content Coverage Gaps being delivered late, and which step in the workflow is delaying the process, In B2B marketing, mapping content marketers have no way of addressing the to specific buyer personas and sales issue. stages is critical; it’s the only way to consistently develop targeted, relevant, To quantify the late-content problem, and timely content. By aligning content marketers need to capture how often to the buyer’s journey (as well as other deadlines are missed, by asset type and key objectives like regions, business contributor. units, etc.), marketers can locate gaps in coverage and address them strategically. Otherwise, marketers will continue to rely on guesswork to fill important gaps, rather than actual data.
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»»Average number of days to »»Average of content produce content delivered late / past »»Reported per asset deadline type »» Reported per asset type Average Average On- Production Time Delivery Time Rate
Content Bottlenecks / Coverage Challenges in »»Number MAp Workflow »» Average of assets in number of days to production by complete workflow persona and sales task stage »» Measured by days and percentage of time delivered late »»Reported per asset
Content is the product of content marketing, and marketers need to know how long it takes to get that product to market, find and eliminate bottlenecks in the process, and identify content coverage gaps.
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Create a Content Metrics Dashboard: Measuring and Optimizing Shared Goals across Teams
nderstanding how your content is performing across its entire lifecycle not only tells you where your high [U]performers are; it also lets you know how you’re reaching your goals. To do this, set up a content measurement dashboard. A content measurement dashboard Remember, success is not singular. should include the metrics examined Your content helps your sales and above, mainly: customer success teams close deals and generate more revenue. Being able to » »The health of the content measure how marketing content—from production cycle product spec sheets to case studies to »»Internal and external content whitepapers to nurture tracks—supports engagement the broader organization and helps »»Conversions and content score other teams meet their goals. Metrics showing your content’s ROI will increase With a consistent dashboard that tracks buy-in for an integrated marketing performance month over month, quarter content strategy and company-wide over quarter, and year over year, B2B collaboration. marketers can take important steps toward benchmarking success and sharing quantifiable results with the broader marketing organization and team.
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B2B MARKETING SPOTLIGHT: LINKEDIN’S DATA-BACKED CONTENT INSIGHTS
ith 29 unique content types and 23 multi- [W]channel campaigns under their belt, it’s safe to say content is at the heart of LinkedIn’s marketing Incorporate Findings: operations. Closing the Loop between After having great success with the rollout of their first campaigns, the Metrics and Strategy marketing team at LinkedIn needed he final step is to take your to scale their content operation. findings and results and LinkedIn uses an analytics [T]incorporate them back into your dashboard to find out which assets planning stages for content creation. are working and which aren’t. Using This is the key to optimization. By attribution modeling, or “content measuring the right metrics, you’ll be scoring,” LinkedIn is able to able to make more strategic decisions pinpoint assets and campaigns that across the content lifecycle. worked in order to optimize content For example, if you find that customers for future campaigns, ultimately who watch a video testimonial are resulting in stronger ROI. purchasing two times faster than average, ramp up video testimonial production to address all your personas and decision makers. Or, if you notice that customers who learn about your company through Facebook ads convert to qualified leads only .0008% of the time, invest your dollars elsewhere. Optimization should always feed back into your overarching go-to-market strategy—and with the data to back up your decisions, you’ll be able to execute even more quickly, with the support you need from across the organization
THE B2B MARKETING PLAYBOOK 71 MEET THE B2B MARKETING CHALLENGE B2B marketers, you’re on top of your game. Now your team is no longer a cost center, as B2B marketers drive and track revenue across complex sales cycles with persona-driven and data-backed marketing content. But to manage the process requires a strategy for collaboration at every stage of the content lifecycle: plan, create, distribute, and optimize. It’s time to get out of content chaos with a streamlined, integrated B2B marketing strategy. When you play smart, you win big. Ready? Time to take the field, B2B marketers.
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