Bradley H. Smith >

Content Nurturing After the “No.”

Lead nurturing campaigns, both triggered and automated, should not be viewed only as pre-sale activities. The “buyers-journey” does not stop when a prospect makes a decision. Certainly, if your company wins the deal, the relationship (and the content) evolves from prospect to customer, but what about if the prospects says “no thank you?”

You keep nurturing.

You’ve built a relationship, you HAVE their permission… so keep it moving forward. In fact, you should template the lost deal nurtures at an ABM level strategy.

“Lost the Deal” Nurture

For those of us in the B2B industry, a loss deal only lasts as long as the prospect’s contract timeframe with the competitor that won the deal.

With lead nurturing, you can focus the customer’s attention onto the competitor’s implied weaknesses and set new standards for their satisfaction. The first hints of buyer’s remorse will often arise around one month after a deal is signed. Send your first piece around then. Keep it VERY informational. Industry-ish content.

Also, set a time-stamped trigger for 120 days before the anniversary of the initial contract date. NOTE: a 120 day trigger may vary depending on the onboarding and enterprise level of the product or service.)

“We Don’t Have Budget Right Now” Nurture

Of course, in B2B, you’ll often come across great prospects… but the timing is just a bit off. You see these a lot in the late third, early fourth quarter when managers use up their budgets and are waiting for a new fiscal year to reboot them. For this group, time your campaign to start just before the new fiscal year begins. For example, if the prospect is on a Jan 1 fiscal year, start a passive reminder drip of your value in early November.

“We’re Too Small to Buy” Nurture

There are many companies that will realize large value from your services, but they are too small for your fees. For these organizations, set a general “thought leadership” content nurture, however, give your products and services a stronger presence – ie case studies. This will remind the prospect of both your brand and your solutions… and what they’re missing out on.

Most importantly, create a Google or Owler Alert to be prepared to leap if the prospect publishes good news… specifically, new funding.  

“Ummm… Can You Call Me Back, I’m Too Buried” Nurture

We’re all understaffed and overworked - that’s why we automated marketing. When you are dealing with someone who is fighting a fire, your “now” may not be the best time for any number of business or personal reasons. Be understanding… we’ve all been at THAT place.

Readjust your nurture with elbow room. Pause any active nurture to give your prospect a reasonable time to put their fires out. That said, don’t take so long that they forget what was interesting about your company in the first place. 12 business days is a safe window.

Marketing automation allows your company to continually touch lost deal prospects without burdening sales people who need to nurture (chase!) unsigned prospects.

These prospects HAVE a problem. These prospects WERE shopping for a solution. These prospects ARE budgeted.

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BTW, I am hire-ready. https://www.linkedin.com/in/bradleyhsmith/ or www.iBradley.com

The Drive to Decision can be (marketing) magical

 

As I was recently sacked (i.e. acquisition synergies), I have free time to THINK about the craft of marketing rather the actual EXECUTION of.  NOTE: this free time will be limited.

So, while reviewing updated insights on marketing, one obvious point: content marketers LOVE to market their content about content marketing. The other obvious point is that we (I will lump myself in there) all are emphasizing the same strategy.

HERE IS MY SIMPLIFIED VERSION

1. Our prospective clients are now more in control than previous sales and marketing cycles... as buying research is ridiculously easy to accomplish via the web. Thus;
2. You need to deliver the 1.) appropriate content at the 2.) appropriate time and place. And this;
3. As step B. is all accomplished without sales people, marketing needs painfully detailed tracking to measure if you actually are delivering the 1.) appropriate content at the 2.) appropriate time and place.

I may have oversimplified Step B, but no general marketing blog is going to be able to identify you WHAT those appropriate whatevers are. I have come to believe that, regardless of the constant remodeling evolution of a “buyer’s journey,” the Drive to Decision ^TM  is the same for most all B2B marketing.  

I will comment that for many prospective accounts, their Drive to Decision has become complex – mostly as new tracking data is highlighting the ancillary influencers of a final decision. This exponentially affects marketing as the “1.) appropriate content at the 2.) appropriate time and place” is multiplied for each of those influencers, or in content marketing jargon – “personas.”  Account Based Marketing  (ABM) is a refreshened strategy for this, especially for large enterprise sales.

Regardless agile amoeba of the prospective accounts, a creation of the appropriate content can be organized in a Drive to Decision linear mindset:

AWARENESS

Content suggestions:

• Blog posts
• Articles
• Videos
• Press releases
• Infographics
• Social media

Awareness is about making your brand known and attracting buyers. Prospects want to gain knowledge about the industry and acquaint themselves with your company and the products/services it has to offer. The ideal content is concise, engaging pieces that position you as an industry expert and highlight your reputation in the marketplace. Be very creative at this stage.

INTEREST

Content suggestions:

• Whitepapers
• Slide decks
• Research reports
• Webinars

It’s time to create a relationship with prospects. They’ve identified that they have a professional need and begin to explore potential solutions. They’ve identified that your company can help them solve their problem…. but are not yet ready to make a commitment. Content at this stage in the process should include more in-depth pieces that provide key information about the industry, the buyer’s need, and how your organization fits as a solution.

EVALUATION

Content suggestions:

• Product information
• Data sheets
• Case studies
• Testimonials
• Product reviews
• ROI business cases
• Product demonstrations

Now, it is important to leverage content marketing in educating the prospect and, build trust in regard servicing their need. Prospects are ready to buy and are evaluating your company and assumedly your competitors, too.  They need information that will help them make a decision and feel confident that they made the right choice. It’s important that content for this stage adds value and makes a case for your company.

B2B buyers are demanding content; it’s no longer a ‘nice to have’ – it’s a ‘must have.’ Importantly, content marketing does not replace the sales cycle or sales people. It allows the sales teams to bypass all the formal and informal generality (i.e who we are, what we do) and precisely hone into the last Drive to Decision points of a prospect needs to discuss.

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Bradley H. Smith is an enthusiastic marketing strategist, working within and consulting at organizations from start-up to well-established.  

With more than 20 years of medical technology and marketing technology experience, Bradley has held senior-level positions at leading brands including NASDAQ, Cision, and PR Newswire. He has a proven track-record of developing award-winning and ROI-based marketing programs, media & investor relations and brand strategies. Learn more about Bradley at www.ibradley.com.  

The 3 A(s) of Sales and Marketing ABM Alignment

From a strategic standpoint, Account Based Marketing (ABM) programs concentrate on the targeted account (the “company”) FIRST and then on the individual personas (possible contacts) within that specific company. Lead-gen marketing programs concentrate on the persona first; via traditional (but reliable) inbound strategies that tactically load as many people as possible into the “buyer’s journey” funnel, regardless if they're strategically qualified. Often, this will evolve into a raw numbers game, creating a common disconnect between sales and marketing. The two teams have different objectives and often misinterpret each other's departmental goals.

Successful enterprise-level sales teams laser onto “The Account.” End of story. They don’t want random marketing-qualified-leads. Sales people know it takes more than content or brand awareness of an individual lead to close a deal. B2B sales executives need leads within their target accounts... particularly if they’re selling large SaaS or cross-department packaged solutions which generally requires engagement across multiple personas within a targeted company - long before a purchasing decision can be made.

Counterproductive to sales, many CMOs place emphasis on individual lead generation and the subsequent measurement of value based on website visits, forms submitted and social media interactions. Their department’s goals aren’t specific to accounts, but center on attracting the largest number of people as possible to opt-in and engage with their content. The result is predictable… the marketing department meets its monthly lead quota, however, the lionshare of the leads prove to be valueless to sales.

With ABM, the CMO and the Head of Sales must unify and create the parameters that will pinpoint the “most-likely” accounts. The alliance of these two teams is crucial for productivity and revenue growth. Once these “most-likely” accounts are identified, content is created that resonates with the account first, and personas second.

The 3 A(s) of Sales and Marketing ABM Alignment

Agreement

1. Agree on what is a contact, a lead, an opportunity, revenue pipeline definition, the sales stages, and other key vocabulary
2. Agree on the objective of key accounts versus leads
3. Agree on the measurements that align and deliver accountability
4. Agree on incentives that drive productivity, accountability, and alignment
5. Agree on the process for handing off qualified leads and support this with a workflow process

Accomplishment

1. Collaborate to build sales and marketing playbooks
2. Deliver against playbooks
3. Measure productivity via a metrics dashboard
4. Concise weekly meetings to review dashboard, remove barriers, and provide continuous feedback amoung all sales and marketing teammates

Agility

1. Analysis playbook and metrics against results to determine what works and what doesn't
2. Uncover root causes of problem
3. Detect and agree on solutions
4. Directionally modify ABM and people accordingly to keep on goal

Selling into targeted accounts is not new. What is new is that the explosion of raw leads spawned from automated lead-gen persona-based programs have overwhelmed (and wasted) sales cycles. Moving beyond “lead scoring,” ABM delivers new energy because sales and marketing teams can measure the increased revenue generated together. They need a common target. A last collateral benefit from this tight alignment and target identification can mitigate the ROI battle over the attribution.

ABM is a shared success initiative.   

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Connect with me now www.ibradley.com  

ABM requires planning, persistence and patience

Account Based Marketing is hardly new, especially to enterprise sales people. What is new is that marketing technology platforms have caught up. Now it’s scalable, which is more inline with a CMO’s “persona / buyer’s journey” automated lead=gen mindset.  

Simply, ABM helps marketing and sales teams work together to build relationships with the key players in the individual client accounts which generate the most revenue. It’s a synchronized approach that engages sales, content marketing, services delivery and key executives toward achieving the client's business goals.

That’s right, marketing. You have to work with sales, so if you don’t have a competitive “win the deal” burn inside you, ABM will frustrate you as traditional funnel metrics, such as conversion rates, don’t apply here. The metrics such as wallet-share, annual spend, or customer renewal rate will be new metrics and demonstrate the return on your ABM investment. Sales can’t be out of step with any offerings, marketing messages, or campaign themes, as inconsistency can stop calculable success dead.

(Seriously, if you’re not a sales-friendly marketer, – like I am - don’t join the ABM team.)   

An ABM team’s top priority is influencing the people who matter at key accounts… and sales is initially the best SME on that. After a while, data will back up their instincts and offer new ideas.

The first activity is planning

Rather than focusing on new lead creation, ABM focuses on activating and engaging a smaller number of the right leads.Do you have the data (persona or at least raw contacts) of the right people in your database? How broad is your account data?

Also, ABM isn’t about randomly picking accounts with “big data.” It’s about identifying and targeting the most relevant, viable, and valuable accounts. By defining ideal customer profiles, marketers can answer the question, “What accounts should we pursue, and which accounts should we actually avoid?”

These metric tracks data quality and comprehensiveness and should inform your strategic plan:

• How many of your target accounts have you researched?
• Do you understand each division with your target account?
• How many accounts do you currently have account-specific custom content for?
• Have you identified the main stakeholders and points of contact within every account?
• Do you have their contact information?

ABM is marketing and selling to a team and to people with different roles in the process, across multiple touch-points, channels and even devices. These people need content personalized to their needs at various stages in the TOTAL account's buying journey. You will need to market to all these folks differently, yet simultaneously. 

We will talk about persistence and patience later.