The Playbook For Developing 3D Buyer ProfilesAn Inside Look At How Modern Marketers Are Using Webinars And Other High-Value Content To Deliver Self-Declared Insights On Key Prospects

INTRODUCTION

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Marketers have an endless supply of data at their disposal. The challenge is obtaining the right type of data that will fuel the personalized, one-to-one experiences modern B2B buyers crave. According to research from Forrester, 70% of marketers reported that running a program with poor or inaccurate data wastes money, and 51% said that inaccurate data leads to loss of customers.

The key to creating and delivering campaigns and messaging that resonates with buyers and positions your company as an expert in your space is to have a 3D — or “three-data” — view of the buyer. This includes:

• Demographic data — the most wildly available data that is essentially the “who” of who you are marketing to;

• Behavioral data — the bread and butter of marketing that tells the “what;” and

• Declared data — the white whale of marketing data, which is the “why” of the people you’re marketing to.

70% of marketers reported that running a program with poor or inaccurate data wastes money, and 51% said that inaccurate data leads to loss of customers.

- Forrester

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This E-book will shine a spotlight on the third data set — self-declared data — which is essentially direct insight from the buyer based on a human-to-human interaction. It’s the kind of data that you can’t encapsulate in a standardized form fill. It’s challenging because most means of communication and interactions are facilitated through digital channels, so self-declared data gives marketers a huge opportunity to get smarter about the people they’re reaching out to, and gain a competitive advantage against those reliant on superficial sources.

In these pages, this guide will uncover:

• What self-declared data is and ways to obtain it;

• How to use this data to correlate intent and optimize content for key audiences;

• How a three-data view can fill gaps in the database, drive self-selected nurtures and warm up sales conversations;

• Why webinars are key to generating self-declared data;

• Best practices for extending engagement via Q&As, polls and widgets; and

• Success stories of how companies, such as Genesys, Hortonworks and Sage Intacct, are collecting and leveraging self-declared insights to enhance customer and prospect experiences.

The key to creating and delivering campaigns and messaging that resonates with buyers and positions your company as an expert in your space is to have a 3D — or “three-data” — view of the buyer.

Discovering The Power of Self-Declared DataSelf-declared data could be considered the first-person reporting of intent. It gives marketers the ability to glean buyer insights beyond the standard information obtained by a form. While there are many tools and technologies available that provide third-party means of helping marketers better understand their target buyers and where they are in the buying cycle, getting an understanding of the buyer — especially pain points and challenges — directly from the person is what will help companies stand out from the competition.

Delivering highly engaging digital content experiences is something all marketers strive for. While it’s easy to lock content behind a gate and ask buyers to fill out a form to engage with it, it’s difficult to later decipher whether or not the content was valuable, or even know whether all the content was consumed.

Self-declared data is powerful because it is not dependent on an algorithm’s binary interpretations of specific actions, such as search patterns, site visits, etc., that may lead to false positives. For example, a person doing competitive research could fool an algorithm into thinking they are a qualified buyer! Self-declared data helps lessen the dependence on number of activities, and gives marketers a way to understand the intent behind those activities. So, while there are a lot of ways to get data, no data is as influential as hearing from the person themselves. Pairing this self-declared data with both demographic and behavioral data is the key to developing a 3D view of the buyer.

With this granular view, marketers are able to:

Fill gaps in the database;

Drive self-selected nurtures;

Enhance ABM efforts;

Offer relevant content based on pain points and interests;

Optimize content for key audiences; and

Warm up sales conversations.

There are very few ways to gain this type of first-party insight from buyers digitally. Of course, one-on-one meetings and conversations at in-person events are the greatest form of self-declared data, but in terms of digital content, webinars can be the first format to look at to gain valuable, GDPR-compliant data. By leveraging webinars as a key part of a go-to-market strategy, B2B brands are better positioned to can gain deeper insights into potential customers directly from the source and use that information to cater sales outreach and marketing messages accordingly, ultimately, positioning companies for success.

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Obtaining Human-To-Human Insights From Digital ContentSiriusDecisions categorizes marketing tactics in four ways: human and non-human, and orchestrated and facilitated. Getting self-declared, first-party data can only be achieved by a human-to-human interaction that is facilitated. With that said, the only way to gather this knowledge digitally and at scale is through webinars, according to the firm.

Webinars have become a key channel for influencing buyers across all stages of the journey and helping marketing teams glean critical buyer information — a win-win for both. Demand Gen Report’s 2019 Content Preferences Survey revealed that 39% of buyers see webinars as a valuable influencer content format. In addition, 63% said they are willing to share information to access webinars.

The first instance of self-declared data achieved via a webinar is the act of registration. When a prospect or buyer registers for a webinar that covers a specific topic or pain point, that’s the first indication of them saying, “Yes, I have that challenge and I want to learn how to alleviate it.”

Later, during the webinar, tracking the attendees’ level of engagement is the ultimate way to attain self-declared data. Modern webinar experiences are interactive and offer several ways for marketers to gain an understanding of buyer intent, including time watched, questions asked, polls and surveys answered, downloads of additional content resources relevant to the topic discussed during the webinar, and more. These features are where the self-declared data truly lies.

Think of webinars as a digital channel for your company to have a two-way conversation with your buyers. By giving attendees a chance to engage and share their pain points and questions throughout the presentation, marketing and sales teams are positioned to provide the ultimate level of personalization.

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Promoting Engagement With Q&As & IncentivesAsking your audience questions before, during and after the webinar can help glean real insights directly from the buyer. The more specific the question, the greater the data. Questions can range from, “What’s your biggest challenge with [topic]?” to “How often do you measure ?”

The key here is to make sure you’re responding to attendees’ answers and integrating them into the presentation. This can provoke follow-up questions to further engagement and inspire other attendees to ask questions, given that they realize people are getting answers to their most important pain points. Sprinkle a few Q&As throughout the webinar, as opposed to just leaving them for the end, to really drive engagement at all times.

To take it a step further, allow registrants to send questions they’d like covered during the webinar before the live air. These requests can be included within the registration form, or in a follow-up/confirmation email after the person signs up for the event. Furthermore, post-webinar Q&As can better position marketers to send proper follow-up content.

Webinar hosts can also offer an incentive to promote engagement with the Q&A or survey. This can include sending a T-shirt or other type of swag to those with the best responses or to those who answered the most questions. Not only does this get people’s juice flowing, but it adds an aspect of fun and turns the webinar into a two-way conversation.

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Sprinkle a few Q&As throughout the webinar, as opposed to just leaving them for the end, to really drive engagement at all times.

Sage Intacct Drives 15% Of Marketing Pipeline With Webinars Cloud accounting software solution Sage Intacct needed a content strategy that captured and maintained its audience’s attention throughout their buying journey. The company started a webinar series called “Coffee Break Demo” to enhance their ABM efforts and provide target accounts with an opportunity to engage with the company as often as possible.

The 30-minute simu-live webinars are held at the same time every day and focus on sharing interesting insights into the Sage Intacct solution. The webinars are heavily promoted through email, social and video pop-ups. Once the content is created, the company is

positioned to run the same content every day to different audiences, adding a human-to-human connection that feels personalized at the same time.

The company uses ON24’s Q&A widget to get attendees to ask questions during the simu-live session, while on the backend, the company can have the host answer them in real-time while sending detailed information to SDRs. Sage Intacct’s efforts for the Coffee Break Demo alone have produced 50% of its pipeline opportunities.

Read the full case study here.

Case In Point:

“Our goal is to encircle these people and hit them in a variety of ways, using a variety of content. So, at the end of our ABM program, one of the things that we do is try to book-end a webinar as a call to action for that audience.”

- Nick Ezzo, VP of Demand Generation, Sage Intacct

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Leveraging Real-Time, Self-Declared Insights To Fuel Follow-Up ConversationsSimilar to a Q&A, polls and surveys allow the webinar audience to share key insights about themselves in a quick and easy way. Including a poll allows the audience to benchmark their efforts against other attendees, while giving the webinar hosts insights into leads. For example, the data can be captured and integrated into Marketo or Salesforce and used to enhance lead scores according to attendee interest. Companies can trigger immediate actions based on the self-declared data and use it to facilitate better sales conversations to, ultimately, help solve problems.

Other engagement tools, such as links to relevant content, webinars or events, or even a sales meeting request form, also allow attendees to engage with the webinar hosts on their own terms — without having to answer a question or poll — while still providing the host with self-declared data. This type of data can be gleaned from a simple download of an asset within the resource center.

The resource center can house all complementing content the company has to offer on the specific webinar topic. This can include infographics, supporting E-books and research. The attendees’ action of downloading the content signals intent and positions the host to learn more about the person based on the type of content they downloaded, which can lead to better nurturing efforts and follow-up conversations.

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The attendees’ action of downloading the content signals intent and positions the host to learn more about the person based on the type of content they downloaded.

Hortonworks Boosts Attendee Engagement By 28%With a small budget and team, yet massive growth, Hortonworks, an open-source data management company, needed a solution to scale with their ambitions while boosting engagement and enabling sales to generate more revenue. The company opted to enhance its webinar efforts while maintaining the same budget and team.

Once webinars were in full swing, the Hortonworks team put a heavy emphasis on engagement by leveraging ON24’s widgets — including polls and resource distribution

among others — to encourage participation and drive attention throughout the event. The company then used the ON24 analytics tool to assess overall engagement, what messages and resources resonated and how far along the funnel the attendee is.

These small but mighty efforts helped the Hortonworks team to boost engagement by 28% and drive pipeline increased by 120%.

Read the full case study here.

Case In Point:

“No other channel would give you 15, 30 minutes or even three seconds of engagement. For us, our webinar programs are one of the top revenue drivers.”

- Sudeep Misra, Director of Demand Generation, Global Campaigns, Hortonworks

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Fueling Follow-Up Conversations & Content With Self-Declared Data Once self-declared data is attained and hosts have developed a three-data view of buyers by combining it with demographic and behavioral data, it’s crucial to leverage the information with ongoing and proper follow-up.

All of these insights can help sales teams tailor their messaging to groups or individual people. If a buyer highlighted a very specific pain point through a poll or survey, a follow-up email should include messaging and content that will help them alleviate that challenge and continue down a journey. This, ultimately, positions the company and the sales rep on top when they are ready to make a purchase.

On-demand webinars also provide the same level of insights as live sessions — the only difference is that they allow the audience to view and engage with content on their own terms. It also allows sales team to leverage past webinar content for new prospects and audiences in a more personalized way based on insights they already have.

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If a buyer highlighted a very specific pain point through a poll or survey, a follow-up email should include messaging and content that will help them alleviate that challenge and continue down a journey.

Genesys Increases Pipeline 127% With On-Demand Webinar StrategyGenesys, an omnichannel customer experience & contact center solutions provider, needed a way to use its digital events to support its ABM initiatives. Instead of creating one-off webinars, the company now uses online events throughout the buying cycle and across all of its marketing and campaigns.

Genesys integrated ON24 with its CRM to flow data seamlessly from one platform to the other. It leverages the ON24 Engagement Profile tool to gauge pre-, during- and post-

webinar interaction, which is then fed directly to Salesforce. The insights then fuel the sales team with the right post-event follow up.

The company also leverages on-demand webinars as a channel, allowing the company to recycle webinar content and even personalize it to specific audiences for a more engaging content experience. Genesys’ efforts have resulted in increased pipeline for sales by 127% and reduced costs.

Read the full case study here.

Case In Point:

“Since shifting our approach, we’ve seen an increase in engagement score, registration and a 127.6% increase in our pipeline. But what gets me jazzed about that number is that this is the first time we’ve actually delivered revenue from the online events program!”

- Liz Weida, Director of Demand Generation, Genesys

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conclusion

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Today’s tools and technologies are positioned to provide marketers with an endless supply of buyer data right at their fingertips. But, none of that data is as insightful as information delivered directly from the buyer themselves.

Marketers must use a combination of demographic, behavioral and self-declared data to get a complete view of the buyer. This digital human-to-human connection better positions companies to cater experiences to target audiences and, ultimately, close deals.

Webinars have proven to be a beneficial content format for both buyers and marketers. With more than a third of buyers highlighting webinars as a preferred influencer content format, its critical for marketing teams to provide quality experiences to generate quality buyer insights in return.

“Clicking an ad doesn’t declare anything about yourself. Filling out a form might, but it’s not really the most trustworthy thing. You can get declared data from emails, but it’s a very manual process. Webinars really are the key; they are the only way to do it at scale. You have someone’s attention for 50-60 minutes [during a webinar] and if you’re creating engaging content, they’re going to want to speak back to you.”

- Jack Wildt, ON24

ON24 is on a mission to transform the way marketers market, powering the live, always-on and personalized experiences that businesses need to create engagement, deliver data, find demand and drive revenue. Through the ON24 Platform, marketers can create data-rich, interactive webinar and content experiences, understand audience behavior and turn that intelligence into action. Informed by more than a billion engagement minutes -- including 12 million polls, 1.3 million surveys, 1.5 million conversations, and conversion of over 17 million resources -- marketers drive more revenue from ON24 experiences than any other digital channel. Headquartered in San Francisco, ON24 has a wide global footprint with eight offices in key regions, including London, Munich, Singapore, Stockholm and Sydney.

For more information, visit https://www.on24.com.

Demand Gen Report is a targeted online publication that uncovers the strategies and solutions that help companies better align their sales and marketing organizations, and ultimately, drive growth. A key component of the publication’s editorial coverage focuses on the sales and marketing automation tools that enable companies to better measure and manage their multi-channel demand generation efforts.

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