End of periodic marketing campaigns

The great era of periodic campaigns is over as the timing is out of sync with the buyers. Instead people want to find information on demand. This is where Content marketing comes into play as it is always available for people craving for information and knowledge for getting insight in their problems or solving their problems.
Content marketing is available 24 x 7 from anywhere on the Internet, whereas push marketing was only available during the campaigns.

The evolution from limited to multiple publishers

We have seen the evolution from an era where a limited number of publishers controlled the information creation, flows and streams to a world where almost anyone with an Internet connection can have a voice: creation of information and publishing it almost worldwide has become easy and feasible without the need for money and man power.

The hard sell is no longer effective

The hard sell has become less effective whereas the brand ‘voice’ takes the lead in creating interest which eventually becomes lead generation.
Buyers are no longer mainly influenced by marketing campaigns like advertising or direct mailings as they are put more value on the information they find on the Internet: web sites, forums and social media.
They want to learn themselves from their peers or from well written articles that give advice instead of being lured by pushy advertising.

The advice for content marketing

The conclusion is:
- Don’ sell but add value allowing to earn credibility
- Give free advice on subjects that matter to your potential customers
- Let them use your information or free advice for their own benefit as in the long run it will be beneficial to your company
- Learn from forums and social media what are the points of interest of your potential customers
- Publish clear understandable informative messages in order to leave a lasting impression and possible goodwill
- The goal is to become a trusted party where they can reference to during purchase cycle
- Build relationships with your content and the resulting conversations instead of customer relations pushed by marketing campaigns and selling

How effective is your content marketing ?

Many companies in B2B have a Partner Manager who should take care of the partners:
- Signing up new partners without getting conflicts with existing partners in the region
- Nurture partners
- Keep contact with partners for new deals
- Meet partners and be available on trade shows
- Follow-up on deals and projects
- Support partners in their sales cycle
- Solve issues with after sales
- Organizes the yearly Partner Event
In fact he should help partners to generate leads and close deals.

Often in real business the Partner Manager has become an administrator instead of a sales driven person as he:
- Uses qualification sheets and forms for new partners
- Obliges partners to pass tests and exams for certification
- Keeps track of revenue in Excel spreadsheets
- Prefers not to change the current structure of partners
- Isn’t really sales driven anymore
- Organizes the yearly Partner Event similar to all the previous years
In such case the added value of he Partner Manager should be questioned.

How much value does your partner Manager add ?

The perception influencers

As the perception by your clients and potential customers is utmost important for your company, your online presence needs to enhance or stimulate their perception.

Your online presence consist of very different content on different Internet sites:
- Your website
- Pages on social media
- Whatever is posted by others on forums and social media about your company or products.

While you can control the first two entirely, the latter is beyond your control. This “social input” requires to be monitored for all forums and social media in order to handle postings and issues as the reputation of your company can be at stake.

Negative news spreads faster than positive news

While a positive reputation takes years to cultivate, it can be torn apart with just a single bad review or complaint. This is why you need to monitor the social media using one or more web services.
Once an issue has been found it has to be handled with care and appropriately which can be very challenging. Hence it is not a job or function for the junior assistant but requires experience and wishful thinking. Any action should be considered twice before being published or replied – still within the shortest amount of time as negative news spreads faster than positive news.

How do you handle social media issues?

All companies have or should have a website for several reasons which all attribute to your success:

1. Discovery:
When people are looking for solutions to business or company problems and issues they will be enlightened by discovering your offering as it adds another solution or an alternative solution to their list.

2. Findability:
Not getting found on the Internet is the worst that can happen as it will leave the potential customer wondering why. Is the company too small to have a website. Is the company (getting) out of business?

3. Website off line:
The immediate or obvious reaction is that the company is out of business, which can only be verified by calling the company.

4. Trustworthy:
Trust in your company can be maintained or enhanced by being able to visit the website and getting confirmation on the already received information.

5. Craving knowledge:
As your website supplies ample information the need for craving knowledge will be satisfied.

6. Conversion:
All visitors have the possibility to eventually convert into customers. The website will play a major role in this before, during and after the purchase process.

7. Contact details:
The website provides contact details: email address or telephone number

8. Location:
For certain people the location of the company in certain cities or neighborhoods of cities are an indication of the success of the company.

9. Worldwide or countrywide presence:
As your website will list the office locations it will enhance the image of your company.

10. Management:
As management is/should be presented on the website it will give a face to the company and more identification.

How essential is your website for your business ?

Content marketing is the hype and results shows that is really effective. It has become one of the core marketing techniques or many companies in B2B. The currency of marketing instead of money.

However as all marketing actions content marketing requires a plan as deploying content marketing is a significant undertaking. Not just a bunch of content published on your website or the Internet.

The main topics your content marketing strategy must define:
1. What are the issues and resources that are relevant for potential customers and current clients ? Not all content is suited for your products or services.
2. Who will create the content ? In house or outsourced or both ?
3. How to achieve the content will be entertaining ?
4. What are the digital (website, eBook, press releases, webinar, white papers syndication,…) and physical (book, white paper, leaflet, …) formats for the content ?
5. What are the distribution channels for the content (Internet, website, partners, …)?
6. How will the content be distributed for the digital and physical channels ?
7. How will the content be promoted ? Great content still needs to be found.
8. Gating or not gating for your content ?
9. How will the link between the published content and the products of the company be made ?

Write down your strategy and start creating your content.

All CxO’s and managers of companies are convinced and in favor of marketing. Marketing creates the great expectations for the future.

However the biggest failure of marketing is calculating the ROI of marketing events and actions. When no ROI can be presented the investment in marketing becomes uncertain and arguably. Especially in B2B where the marketing event or action is difficult to prove due to the long sales cycles.

In order to calculate and indicate the ROI on marketing investment:
The items that can be accounted for:
- Website traffic
- Increase in website traffic
- Number of inquiries
- Increase in number of inquiries
- Number of leads
- Increase in number of leads
- Requests for quotes or proposals
- Increase for quotes or proposals

Not or hard to measure as these are not quantitative:
- Changed perceptions of the company or products
- Brand name awareness
- Satisfaction of customers

How do you calculate the ROI on your marketing ?

Your partner events require attendants in order to make them successful. For the participants it is an investment as participation costs money due to the time it requires, the travel costs and the lodging. So there has to be a Return On Investment.
The people interested in being present at your partner event need to sell their participation internally. In order to help out you could offer them a motivation and approval letter that they could complete and present to their CxO.

Dear [CxO],

[Your name]

This Motivation and Approval letter will help to sell the participation and thus increase your number of attendees.

Would this letter increase your partner event participation ?

The partner Event

Most larger and even mid-sized companies organize their yearly partner event. The problem is getting and convincing the partners to visit the event.
As typically these events last 2 days the participation will cost the partner at least $2000 to $3000 per person attending. This expense needs to be covered by the additional sales the partner can make by participation of the event.

Reasons for participation

People can have personal reasons for participation like seeking another job, but that is not beneficial for the company paying for the expenses. Thus in order to get people participating they need to sell the event to their Director or CxO.

Event Justification Toolkit

In order to make the internal sale successful the event organizing company should provide event approval documents, just like most Research groups do. They supply documents for justification of participation:
- A customizable letter to Director or CxO, which is a Word template with a cost/benefit analysis.
- A ROI Worksheet which is a Word template for convenient organized note-taking onsite during sessions, analyst briefings and face-to-face meetings.
- A customizable Customizable Trip Report which is a Word template to help you easily report your ROI from the conference.
- A post-event brief which is a Conference Summary Report highlighting what was new and notable, key takeaways, interactive polling results, and exhibit showcase highlights.

Selling internally

These event approval and justification documents help to sell the current participation of the event internally and create reports to be used as proof for the future events.

How successful by participation are your company partner events ?

Do you really know why you are selling your products or services ?
Can you define exactly the benefits ?
What makes people buy your stuff ?

In order to know take this test:

Our target market or typical customers are _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
(Who are the companies buying ?)

The need for our solution is defined by _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
(The manager, the business owner, the CxO, …: who do you need to address)

The validation of our solution is done by _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
(The staff members who will always ask more questions but will never take the decision to buy: they need to be motivated)

The decision to purchase will be taken by _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
(Manager, business owner, CxO, … : the decision maker is important to know)

Our products or services solve your problem of _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
(What is the real problem your stuff solves for your customer ?)

The advantages of our solution over nearest competitors are _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
(Advantages sell to managers)

The tangible business benefits of the proposed solution are _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
The intangible business benefits of the proposed solution are _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
(Benefits sell to CxO’s)

The value proposition of our solution is _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
(This more or less sums up previous statements)

Our references, testimonials, certifications are _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
(You better have these on hand as it create trust)

Complete the sentences in order to have your elevator platform or pitch.

Were you able to complete the sentences ? What would you add as questions ?

Massive content creation

A few years ago the hype of content marketing started. At first it proved to be really successful. Meanwhile most marketers create or let create ever more content hoping to catch the attention of the potential customers. This massive content creation will only increase adding on to the large volumes of content already present on the Internet which is content overflow.

As content is the hype, the word content is used in all possible contexts in order to sell marketing services.
Marketing agencies have shifted their business services from SEO, copy writing and advertising to content creation and social media influencers.

Quality content ?

Not all content has the same quality and value. It is utmost necessary to create quality content as lesser quality content can harm more than bring additional sales. However it is hard to define what is quality content and create quality content as it not only requires creativity and skills like writing or imaging, but also knowing what to write matching the interests of the target market segment. In the end the content produced needs to be consumed by the potential customers and preferably ‘liked’ on social media or forwarded to peers.

Crap content

As new concepts, creativity and producing quality content are not standard services you can order or self-produce easily, it is likely much of the content created has and will have a lower value due to:
- Copy content
- One or two concepts or ideas are being spread over many pages
- The same concept or solution is repackaged many times over
- Nothing new but old stuff
- Not unique
- Avoiding the innovation as it is too disruptive

The end of content marketing hype

In the end we will be flooded mostly by average or even crappy content that nobody takes interest in.
This might lead to the end of the content marketing hype as too much content and especially non-quality content will tun people off.

If you can only publish you quality content as it will increase the perception of your company or brand.

How would you describe and evaluate your content ?