Content, Context, Customers & EngagementDeveloping A Process For Success

Robert Rose (@Robert_Rose)Scott Liewehr (@sliewehr)Chief Troublemaker, Big Blue MooseLead Analyst, WCM, Outsell Gilbane

What can you expect from today?

•Roll up your sleeves

•Be prepared to interact

•Your expertise: Bring it!

•Skinning cats

•Get comfortable…

It’s a W-O-R-Kshop!

1. The Business CaseWhy engage? Why integrate

content into marketing?

1. Building the WHOUnderstanding the engagement

cycle and building buyer personas

2. Building the WHEREContext and The Channel plan. Re-using content on the Social

Web

3. Enabling TechnologyThe options available in the

Marketer’s tool bag

1. Review the dayReview, answer questions and

explore a little deeper

The Power Has Shifted

•We made our bed

•Consumer defenses are up

•Trust of “the man” is down

•Peers are always right…sometimes

Brands that view this phenomenon as an opportunity and proactively manage it

will win

A Digital Marketer Must . . .

•Be open

•Be a good listener

•Be prepared

•Be knowledgeable

•Be consistent

•Deliver value

Listen. Be relevant. Engage.

Brand

The Art of Engagement“Engagement occurs when a consumer interacts with a brand, and elects to invest in it physically, financially or emotionally.”

•Most valued currency of the web•Requires the ability to listen and communicate•Tipping point: gaining the consumer’s attention and trust

It’s All About Communication

•Consumer has granted their consent

•You must be relevant

•Opportunity may be brief

•The business team owns the website, not IT

•SME’s don’t always reside in marketing

The Engagement Journey

The biggest risk to engagement is the failure of a single interaction.

Confusion abound• Web Content Management

• Web Experience Management

• Web Engagement Management

• Customer Experience Management

• Customer Engagement Management

We’re all publishersthese days

Subscribers to our brand...

90%

Old News: It starts with a search…

SEO = Answers. Not Engagement

News: Brand Subscriber = Business Value

23%

13%

Premium ValueFully Engaged

DiscountFully

Disengaged**CE11 – Gallup Customer Engagement As Core Strategy

Content Marketing

The art of understanding what your customersneed/want to know and delivering it to them

in a compelling way to create or change a behavior

Why it works

Content, if good, will be accepted and spread by your customers.

NO TECHNOLOGY BARRIERS.

Reach/Circulation no longer an issue (where are your customers and prospects?).

Transparency and immediate communication (most companies are not good at this).

More effective measurement…

EHTP - Small Non-Profit(6 People)

Won 1st Round of ChaseCommunity Giving

Small team, blog, Facebook, Twitter and

content.

Now: 800+ Facebook Fans and growing and $65,000

richer.

Size doesn’t matter

“Content is asImportant asCode”. - Dharmesh Shah

Size doesn’t matter

WEM - Starts And EndsWith One Thing….

Content….

Have we ever been innovative?

The business case for innovation...

Small Adaptive ExperimentsA skunk works? Directing a piece of budget outside the box

New Types Of Internal Networking Groups“Open Innovation” – Henry Chesbrough. IT guys – might have good ideas.

An Actual Innovation Business Plan?Challenge Outcomes Risk Who Actions Budget Deliverables

and the big red “Oh Shit” button…

Engagement Funnel

Brand AwarenessYour blog, your thought leadership, webinars,

Lead Conversion & NurturingResource center, your e-newsletter, your business

case, your “ROI calculators”

Customer ConversionProof points, testimonials, case studies

Customer UpsellThe community, your login page, support content

Passionate SubscribersSocial media, your compelling, SHAREABLE

story.

Deciding where...

How big an opportunity is it….Develop your TAM…. Yes again….

Understanding the target’s needs first…Don’t look at what you’ve got to say and figure out how it will work… learn from

Steve Jobs…

Feel the pain….CM will most likely be an enhancement to your existing strategy… Where are

we already being successful….

What’s the BIG idea…What happens if we actually DO create an idea bigger than ourselves…

How does CM affect….

Pay Per Click Advertising

Changing your call to action can help decrease CPL Advertising content can drive better traffic

Using the re-targeting network can drive higher CTR’sUsing Google re-targeting capabilities you can use content to drive lead

nurturing with content

But watch out for….It’s easy to get lulled into “more traffic” – make sure you’re measuring the quality

of that traffic…

How does CM affect….

Public Relations

Establishing as thought leader can drive interest from pubsBy creating a thought leadership center of gravity, you will draw interest.

Transforming content efforts into a “newsroom” “real-time” content marketing can drive exponential attention and engagement

But watch out for….It’s easy to want to comment on “everything”… Having a strong editorial process

is critical

How does CM affect….

Events

Content isn’t always content…. Creating experiences is ALSO content marketing – and can be effective.

A combination of content, and experience is the magic Can you create a “human-driven” experience that delivers value?

But watch out for….Scaling…. These are usually high-touch and expensive… Use with deliberation..

How does CM affect….

Search Engine Optimization

A high velocity of good, sharable content – just works Putting out content can help you “own” a search term

Content that is shared – gets the Google loveNew Google updates (including Panda) take the social graph much more into

account. Also, links from outside blogs, and other sites gives you “Google cred”

But be careful…. Remember, it’s easy to provide “data”… You need to tell stories!

How does CM affect….

Customer Retention - Upsell

Keeping customers engaged AFTER the sale… Especially important if customers “subscribe” to your service

You are creating a subscriber to the brand – NOT the service Content, in some ways, is just as important as the product…

But watch out for….Nothing…. This is extraordinarily important!

1One innovative idea for using

CM to enhance an existing tactic

2One idea of a NEW tactic for which

you could use CM

Monday Morning Takeaway

1.Pick one. Where might content actually help decrease the

friction in your sales funnel?

2.B2B? Review Your Resource CenterWhat would happen if you gave away 90% of that

content.

1. The Business CaseWhy engage? Why integrate

content into marketing?

1. Building the WHOUnderstanding the engagement

cycle and building buyer personas

2. Building the WHEREContext and The Channel plan. Re-using content on the Social

Web

3. Enabling TechnologyThe options available in the

Marketer’s tool bag

1. Review the dayReview, answer questions and

explore a little deeper

Why a segmentation plan?

46

“We’re getting leads –

But – they’re all tire-kickers.”

“We don’t need MORE leads. We need BETTER lead

s.”

“Tell me why I should fund your Content Marketing plan?”

“Is our messaging wrong?”

“Who IS our target audience?”

Some questions we’ll be able to answer?• What kind of leads is Google PPC (or any tactic) delivering? Are they tire

kickers or last-minute shoppers?• What content resonates best with my best customers?

• Who are my targets? How many (of each) am I currently attracting?

What we can deliver…• A lead nurturing plan to move tire-kickers down the sales funnel

• A breakdown of how content marketing contributes to leads, opportunities and sales

• A detailed breakout of our target audiences – and a unique selling proposition for each.

Why? – So We Have Answers…

The Persona & Content Segmentation Plan

Our example for today… • WIMPY Technology

• Product is Windows Integrated Management Program (WIMP)

• Targeting IT Directors and CFO’s at financial institutions

• Use them as our example throughout today

What Does Success Look Like?

What does success look like?

•What does insight look like?

IT CFO

What does an “A Ha” Moment look like?

Customer Conversions

One Buyer Persona For Every Group• Job title, Vertical, Power in organization

• Different products or services?• It’s the WHO you are marketing to

Let’s Start With Our WIMP Solution• Director of IT – the “tech guy”

• CFO

Step 1 – Developing Buyer Personas

Jeremy

• Mid 30’s – Coffee lover• Works at a bank • Responds to email; phonenot so much.

• Frustrated because hiscompany is growing toofast to keep up with support

• Personal USP: Enable Jeremy to be 25% more effective!

Step 1 – Jeremy Our IT Buyer

Put your Journalist hat on:

• WHO is the persona… emotionally attached• WHAT does she do? What does his day look like?

• WHERE is the gap in his needs/wants?• WHEN does he need to close this gap?• WHY does he care about us?

Step 1 - Buyer Persona Profiles

Your turn.

Gender: MaleAge: 50’s

Profession: College Professor

Clip

SEAN McGUIRE (52) sits on the roof of his apartment building in a beat-up lawn chair. Well-built and fairly muscular, he

stares blankly out over the city. Sean would think himself FORMAL but seems slightly out of place in his wrinkled sport coat. There is a look about this man that tells us he has faced hard times. This is a man who fought his way through

life. He has a lonely stare. He is a teacher. But tired of teaching, tired of life, he finds himself resigned to the tedium of teaching core classes to an indifferent student

body.

Sean is a counseling teacher at lowly "Bunker Hill Community College" in the Boston area. He does therapy on the side, and takes up the challenge to counsel Will at the request of an old college buddy who now represents everything Sean hates

about a career in education.

Exercise….

58

Just with our Sales Funnel?(this is the easiest)

Just with Buying Process?(this is more accurate – but aligned

with sales?)

With a mix of both(most complex and most accurate)

Step 2 – The Buying Cycle / Sales Funnel

59

Step 2 – The Sales Funnel

Contacts

Leads

Qualified Opportunities

Finalist

Verbal

Step 2 – The Buying Cycle

Step 2 – Putting It Together

The Sales Funnel• Build up the Sales Funnel process• Identify all the stages of this process

The Buying Process• Understand the buying process of our customers

• Identify it by product – and determine if we need separate maps

• Then, map it into the sales funnel

Step 2 - Summing Up

Your turn.

Taking inventory can be complex….• Goal is to identify the content• Good enough is in many cases… Good Enough• Identify ALL the different types of marketing content

• This becomes our well from which we’ll draw…

Step 3 – Content Marketing Inventory

Step 3 – The Inventory Dashboard

TITLE AUTHOR META DATA.

Step 4 - Building The Segmentation Grid

Perceptive Content

Measuring the Level of Engagement

Understanding the audience and where they are on the journey is a business asset.

Progressive / Organic Profiling

Visitor

•Implicit and explicit information gathered over time

•Insight gained via:•Browser / cookie data•Referring site•Search•Web & behavioral analytics•Social•User-generated content (UGC)

•More…

1. The Business CaseWhy engage? Why integrate

content into marketing?

1. Building the WHOUnderstanding the engagement

cycle and building buyer personas

2. Building the WHEREContext and The Channel plan. Re-using content on the Social

Web

3. Enabling TechnologyThe options available in the

Marketer’s tool bag

1. Review the dayReview, answer questions and

explore a little deeper

The context effect

How we uniquely respond to a

situation

Inference & Context

Decision & Context

Contextual Conditioning

The ContextEffect

The ContextEffect

Up Until 2008

1 Web Site

Publishing Model

Optimize andManage slowly…

NOW

Channels – ESPECIALLY MOBILE Are Contextual

Two Main Changes:

Digital content is now a conversation – a two way street

The number of interfaces we have to account for…

The Bottom Line is:Mobile is a waste if you don’t apply the right context to channels…

Creating Our Channel Plan

1. Situational AnalysisFed from business case, your personas, your story.

What to do/change/stop in order for us to tell this story more effectively

2. Channel ObjectivesThe objectives of the channel.. its purpose, personality, velocity,

other initiatives

3. Content/Conversation PlanMapping to the larger story? When does it enter the story?

What will be the content?

Creating Our Channel Plan

4. MetricsExpectations for the channel – not measurement goals.

5. Personas AddressedWhich personas are addressed by this channel

6. Editorial CalendarIt’s fed by multiple initiatives – it should be balanced

Velocity, tone, Desired Action, Structure

Putting it all together…

TIME PERMITING

YOUR TURN

Case Study:Startup Software Co. – Targeting Enterprise Customers

5 Years old – so hardly “new”. In well established space. They think of themselves as disruptive.

Personas CIO and CMO’s at very large enterprises – very complex, global organizations.

Challenge:They own an amazing url – basically industry.com and are considering launching a content marketing portal that could be the best-practices

destination. They will have to hire an editor and build and manage the portal - $150,000 first year investment. Basically 25% of their total marketing spend.

1. The Business CaseWhy engage? Why integrate

content into marketing?

1. Building the WHOUnderstanding the engagement

cycle and building buyer personas

2. Building the WHEREContext and The Channel plan. Re-using content on the Social

Web

3. Enabling TechnologyThe options available in the

Marketer’s tool bag

1. Review the dayReview, answer questions and

explore a little deeper

Digital Engagement: Puzzling, Isn’t It?

•Engagement is complex

•Multiple variables

•Nearly infinite combinations

•Handful of solutions

•Practice makes perfect

•Proven techniques exist

Engagement complexities aided by

technology• Channelization

• Optimization

• Individualization

• Localization

• Socialization

Engagement complexities aided by

technology• Channelization

• Optimization

• Individualization

• Localization

• Socialization

Channelization: What’s involved?

Engagement complexities aided by

technology• Channelization

• Optimization

• Individualization

• Localization

• Socialization

Testing

• Provides insight to visitor behavior and content feedback

• Shamefully uncommon practice

• Two versions and a metric

• No Cadillac required

Testing

What should we test?

• The call to action’s wording, size, color and placement

• Headline or product description

• Form’s length and types of fields

• Layout and style of website

• Product pricing and promotional offers

• Images on landing and product pages

• Amount of text on the page

Engagement complexities aided by

technology• Channelization

• Optimization

• Individualization

• Localization

• Socialization

Engagement complexities aided by

technology• Channelization

• Optimization

• Individualization

• Localization

• Socialization

Engagement complexities aided by

technology• Channelization

• Optimization

• Individualization

• Localization

• Socialization

Questions / Answers

And Your Challenges….