Content Marketing to Your Sales Funnel

Marketing you can measureTM

Content marketing to your sales funnelWednesday, 9th November 2011

With Richard Brenkley - Managing Director, Coast Digital

@rbrenkley @coastdigital #b2bconf11


Sales and Marketing integration

Marketing Sales

Lead generation process


The needs of buyers

Demographic

• Job title

• Company size

• Geographic area

• Turnover

+ Psychographic

• Needs

• Wants

• Channels utilised

• Interactions


What is content marketing?

“Content marketing is marketers becoming publishers; owning the media instead of renting it. Attracting and retaining customers by creating / curating valuable, compelling and relevant content to maintain or change behaviour.”

- Joe Pulizzi, The Content Marketing Institute


Some key stats

70% of B2B buyers use search engines at the start of their

buying process

Nine in ten B2B organisations market with content

51% of B2B marketers plan to increase their content

marketing budgets within the next year

On average marketers spend more than 25% of their

budget on content marketing

- Marketing Sherpa 2012 SEO Benchmark report


Content is at the heart of every great campaign!

Understanding the issues and pull

from your target market will drive

the messaging of the campaign.

Results

Distribution

Content


Content centric thinking

Internal mindset

Content

Marketing strategy

Content

Website

Content


Map content to the buying cycle

“Content marketing is the process of identifying the needs of stakeholders, mapping the content requirements to satisfy these needs, creating and distributing the necessary content across relevant marketing channels at the appropriate time and measuring the impact this content is having on

KPIs.” - Econsultancy


1. To move your recipients behaviour in a particular direction.

2. Understand their mindset.

What are buyers asking about you? Answer all these convincingly!

What are we trying to achieve with content marketing?

What does your service do for me?

Is it right for me and my company?

Do I really understand how it works?

Do I trust this organisation?

“

”


Mapping content on to the prospect journey

What

challenge do

you solve?

Show where

you are

strong!

Tell a story!

Differentiate

and show

why you are

best!

Reassurance

Discover

Data – Tracking - CRM

Explore Research Compare Decide

Thought

leadership.

Infographics.

Videos.

Thought

leadership.

Webcasts.

Guest blogs.

Evidence.

Case studies.

Demos.

Evidence.

Calculators.

References.

Evidence.

Pricing guides.

Social vetting.


What types of content work well

Survey of types of content by usage

- Econsultancy

B2B Content Marketing: Formats, Distribution and Measurement Building a framework for your B2B content marketing process

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording or any information storage

and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. Copyright © Econsultancy.com Ltd 2011

There are even ways to measure the impact of your content once it has been shared by your

visitors across their networks, though this is by no means a perfect science. The fact is that with

the right thinking, planning and execution, you can prove the impact that content has on

commercial KPIs.

B2B marketers have embraced (among other formats) rich media, social media, webinars and

mobile. The ubiquitous printed corporate brochure is no longer the pièce de résistance, though

that’s n

o

t to s

a

y it d oesn’t have its place.

Table of content formats used by B2B marketers5

Customer needs can be complicated and B2B buying cycles convoluted; we all want to receive

information in our own way and each company will have its own process for accessing and

digesting this information. B2B marketers need to understand the full range of content formats at

their disposal and how to deliver their content to get maximum impact.

Content marketing is more than the basic publication of content; it demands a multi-disciplined

approach to ensure that content is accessible to the people who want it, when they want it, to help

them make intelligent decisions. Content marketing is an important commercial tool.

5 Content Marketing Institute blog (September 15th, 2010): http://www.contentmarketinginstitute.com/2010/09/b2b-content-marketing/

B2B Content Marketing: Formats, Distribution and Measurement Building a framework for your B2B content marketing process Page 11

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording or any information storage

and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. Copyright © Econsultancy.com Ltd 2011

There are even ways to measure the impact of your content once it has been shared by your

visitors across their networks, though this is by no means a perfect science. The fact is that with

the right thinking, planning and execution, you can prove the impact that content has on

commercial KPIs.

B2B marketers have embraced (among other formats) rich media, social media, webinars and

mobile. The ubiquitous printed corporate brochure is no longer the pièce de résistance, though

that’s n

o

t to s

a

y it d oesn’t have its place.

Table of content formats used by B2B marketers5

Customer needs can be complicated and B2B buying cycles convoluted; we all want to receive

information in our own way and each company will have its own process for accessing and

digesting this information. B2B marketers need to understand the full range of content formats at

their disposal and how to deliver their content to get maximum impact.

Content marketing is more than the basic publication of content; it demands a multi-disciplined

approach to ensure that content is accessible to the people who want it, when they want it, to help

them make intelligent decisions. Content marketing is an important commercial tool.

5 Content Marketing Institute blog (September 15th, 2010): http://www.contentmarketinginstitute.com/2010/09/b2b-content-marketing/


What types of content work well – the Five Pillars

1. Editorial-based (or long-form) content. It must tell a relevant, valuable story. Must be informative, educational or entertaining.

2. Marketing-backed. The content has underlying marketing and sales objectives that a corporation is trying to accomplish.

3. Behaviour-driven. Seeks out to maintain or alter the recipient’s behaviour.

4. Multi-platform (print, digital, audio, video, events). It can be, does not have to be, integrated.

5. Targeted toward a specific audience. If you can’t name the audience, it’s not content marketing.

- Joe Pulizzi, The Content Marketing Institute


How would it work in practice?

Content format

• Infographic/video

• Publications/stats

• Webcasts

• Case studies

• Events

• Blog series

Distribution channels

• Email

• Search (SEO/PPC)

• Social media

• YouTube

• Display

• Industry publications

Potential campaign outline

Measures

• Traffic

• Conversions

• Comments

• Re-tweets

• Downloads

• Plays


Creating that content – getting the messaging right

Let’s ask your target market

Develop personas, talk to your suspects/prospects, understand their issues and

make sure you speak their language!

Utilise your key people

You are the experts in your field – your technical consultants, the sales team –

you have done this over and over again!

Social media is a hidden gem

What is the market saying, what questions are being asked, what phrases are

being searched – use that data!


What is in it for marketers?

A better user journey & experience

Develop brand advocates, willing to recommend you

More consistent marketing with personalisation &

targeting

Additional Benefits with SEO, PPC Quality Scores & Social interaction


Where would we start?

Run a workshop and establish the campaign goals

Get the messaging for creating great content

Create at least five content formats

Distribute the content to our target market

Analyse and understand the results


Marketing you can measure™

• Measure traffic generated by individual pieces of

content

• Measure calls, enquiries, leads, orders and revenue

generated by visits from individual pieces of content

• Measure conversion rates for visits from specific

content

• Measure customer engagement with content on

your website (bounce rate, time on site, pages per

visit)

• Measure the number of times specific content is

shared with other people – Social Media


Some considerations...

Customer pull replaces vendor push

Listening not just talking

Think needs and wants not just job titles and geography

Don’t rent data, build it, own it, love it!

The quality bar has been raised


Steps to success

• Develop a new relationship between sales and marketing

• Start with curation if you aren't quite ready

• Listen to your audience - talk with them, not at them

• Think about personas before content

• Map out your funnel

• Segment to 1:1; build data, own it and love it

• Analytics is central

• Don’t forget your website – start there! Keyword research is key!


www.coastdigital.co.uk

@coastdigital

Coast Digital

/digitalmarketingagency

Blog

coastdigital.co.uk/blog

[email protected]

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Content Marketing to Your Sales Funnel

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