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Get To The Heart Of What Your Buyers Want

By: Stacey Danheiser

As a B2B Marketing consultant, one of the questions I get asked most frequently is “how can I really know what my customers care about?” And, my answer is always the same — please do your research. If there’s one thing that has always confused me, it’s why businesses choose to skip doing market research. Maybe they find the task too time-consuming, or perhaps they think they already have all the answers. But this is a recipe for failure. According to surveys, only 41% of marketers even include market research in their budgets. Is it any wonder then that 58% of deals end in ‘no decision’? Or that only 30% of marketers claim to be “very effective” at content marketing?

Lack of proper research not only turns out to be a costly mistake (a whopping $958 million is wasted on ineffective marketing every year) but also cripples a company’s growth and success. I’ve covered four major risks associated with not doing your research in one of my previous posts. In this article, we’ll look at the brighter side of doing market research and how to get there.

Advantages of Doing Customer Research

Research doesn’t have to be a complicated, time-consuming and expensive process as many fear it is. And if you get it right, the upside is huge. Here are some of the key benefits your business experiences when you plan your processes based on thorough research.

Better reputation and more trust from prospective buyers.

Today, it’s not easy to gain the trust of your prospects. And if you fail to do so, you can be sure of one thing — sooner or later you’ll be pushed into obscurity by businesses that have earned that trust.

A company’s thought leadership has a tremendous influence on how customers perceive them. A recent survey reveals that 63% of business decision makers consider thought leadership as a critical factor in their vetting process. But how do you ensure that your thought leadership helps build trust and reputation? 79% of CXOs believe that the most effective thought leadership is the one that addresses the issues they would be interested in. That’s where customer research comes in handy. Done right, customer research equips you with the knowledge of what your buyers are interested in and what they really care about. This lays out a solid foundation for building your thought leadership strategy. Decrease in losing to competitors or ‘no decision’. While no one likes to losing out to competitors, ‘no decisions’ are oftentimes more frustrating. No decisions are the biggest dark spots in your sales. They are a huge waste of time, energy, resources, and money; plus, you are left in the lurch about what you could have done better to win the deal. The good news is, you can significantly reduce your no decision rate by investing more time into researching your customer’s purchase behaviors and preferences across every touch point, throughout the buying lifecycle. CSO Insights shows that companies with a thorough understanding of their customer’s “buying process” have experienced a 6.9% drop in their no decision rate. Maximizing your marketing budgets. When you know what your customers need to make a decision, you can focus all of your resources on producing effective content that resonates and helps move the sale forward. To that end, you have to gain a deeper understanding of where your potential customers place their trust, the size of the market for your product or service, and the cost of creating and disseminating the right content. Spend time to research the market to determine what type of communication your target audience is most receptive to and what it would cost to reach them in a way that will move the needle in sales.

Customer Research That Makes a Difference: Where to Start?

Now that you know how critical it is to get to know your customers, let’s talk about the methods you should be using to gather customer intelligence. We’ll split the method into two categories — secondary research and primary research.

Secondary Research - also called "Desk Research"

Secondary research is the collection of existing data and reports, and is where you should start your research. 3rd party Data.

Start by seeing what’s already out there. This includes 3rd party reports, trends and studies. Some of them are free, some of them are not. Many organizations we work with subscribe to analyst reports and databases that are produced by reputable firms. These can be a great place to start because the information is usually higher quality and validated from a reputable “expert”. For example, Gartner, Forrester and IDC are all good sources in the IT industry. Hoovers is also a great source for both industry and company-level information. Internet Research.

General internet searches can also be insightful. Think of different ways that your customers may be asking questions related to your product category. “What is a [product]?” “What are the benefits of [product]?” “What’s the difference between x and y solution?” – move the words around in the sentence and see the results. But don’t stop at the first page of your Google search results. Go to page 2 or 3, as you may find unique or helpful information there. It will also give you an insight into what words and phrases resonate with customers. Quora

Quora, a crowd-sourced Q&A platform — is another great resource where you can see what questions are being asked about your topic and the specific “words” that people are using to ask those questions. (This can also be considered Primary Research if you ask your own question).

Primary Research - also called "Field Research"

Primary research is the collection of new data and information, and can come in many shapes and sizes. Marketing and Sales data.

Looking at your own marketing and sales data can be useful to identify sales patterns, trends related to your products, web interactions, online engagement, customer service complaints, etc. If you are not currently collecting this type of data, it can be a great, low-cost place to start. 1:1 Conversations.

These can be formal or informal. For example, holding a focus group with a moderator and a set of pre-identified interview questions would be a formal collection approach. Personal interviews with an unstructured list questions would be a more casual and informal approach.

How frequently is your marketing team engaging in one on one conversations with your customers? Does your company attend tradeshows, sponsor events or seminars? This is a great opportunity to speak with your customers and prospects directly. But this is also an area that is often neglected. Too many times, I’ve seen marketers miss the opportunity to engage with customers because they aren’t sure how to approach the customer with the right questions. Or worse, they are unprepared to listen, a skill that is completely underutilized in business today.

Here’s a short sample list of questions you should focus on asking your customers to better understand their needs. Note – your questions should be open-ended to prompt the respondent to provide as much detail as possible. 

What are the biggest challenges you’re facing right now?

Where are your biggest opportunities?

Who do you view as our biggest competitor? Why?

If you had to divert all of your resources to one project, what would it be?

Who is generally involved in decisions related to [our product]? How has the buying process changed over the last couple of years?

How does our [product/ company] measure up?

Online Surveys. Do you conduct surveys? This is another easy and cost effective way to gather information from your customers. It can be especially helpful when you are trying to validate new marketing messages or product ideas and content themes or topics that customers may find valuable.

Win-Loss Analysis. Reviewing every sale — whether lost or won — is a great way to know what you may be doing right and what needs to change. To understand why the customer chose (or didn’t choose) your solution, make it a habit to collect valuable customer data and document the critical aspects of every sale to piece together a complete picture of what makes your customers do business with you. Knowing what makes your business tick can be a great way to replicate your wins.

Commissioned Research. 3rd party research companies exist for a reason. The fact is, customers may not tell you the entire truth when asked directly. They may feel uncomfortable sharing negative feedback, and thus, may tell you only what they think you want to hear. Depending on the type of data you are seeking, consider outsourcing your customer interviews to a neutral 3rd party.

In this day and age of shifting loyalties, it’s difficult to win and retain customers if you fail to provide them with a stellar — and consistent — service. In order to do that, you have to know what your buyers really want.

* This topic is covered in depth in my our marketing book, Value-ology: Aligning sales and marketing to shape and deliver profitable customer value propositions.

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How to Gather Competitor Intelligence

By: Stacey Danheiser

“Strike the right balance between respecting your rivals and focusing on how you can beat them, and you’ll have a winning formula.” – Richard Branson

It is impossible to be at the top of your game without first understanding what you are up against. Ask anyone that sells a “commodity”, and they will tell you that their customers are often confused about what differentiates their product from that of their competitors. Why?

Because after awhile, every business starts to sound the same — promising the same benefits, in the same time frame at roughly the same cost. In order to achieve a sustainable competitive advantage in the market, you need to conduct a thorough analysis of your competition.

Why you need to conduct a competitive analysis

A web search on “Competitor analysis” mostly brings up advice for small business owners preparing a business plan. Imagine if your organization never looked at the competitive landscape after they put together an initial business plan. This approach would likely land you in the same spot as the Taxi industry when Uber came on the scene. Completely blindsided.

Strangely, most large organizations have no formal process in place for collecting competitor intelligence. But here are some benefits to putting one in place:

Gaining an understanding of who else your customers are considering when making the decision about your product offering.

Understanding what products your competition is promoting and how they are communicating to prospects.

Knowing where your competitors are spending their marketing dollars (online ads, social media, sales events, etc).

Recognizing your competitors’ strengths and weaknesses.

Increasing intelligence and insights on where to focus and how to push your business to new levels.

Now that you understand why it’s important to get a handle on your competition, how should you get started?

3 steps to gather competitor intelligence

Conducting a competitive analysis doesn’t have to be a year-long, complex process. In fact, you are far more likely to make this part of your regular business approach if the process is simple.

With that in mind, here are 3 steps you can follow to start gaining competitive intelligence immediately.

1. Determine who your competitors are.

You may be able to easily come up with a list of companies that you compete with head-on. But in business, your list of potential competitors is much broader. Consider who else is vying for your prospects’ time and attention. (And if you don’t know, now is a good time to ask your customers for their input).

Competitors include:

Organizations that provide the same benefit and target the same market

Organizations that provide the same benefit but target a different market

Organizations that offer the same benefits in a different way

New Entrants or Other options to achieve the same result, such as building the capability in-house, upgrading equipment, etc.

Choosing to do nothing (This is by far your biggest competitor, as people generally hate to change)

2. What should you know about your competitors?

Once you have the list of your competitors ready to go, what information should you collect about them? You may want to conduct a formal SWOT analysis, or you can use the below questions as a starting point.

Who is the competitor targeting?

What does the competitor do well?

Where are they having success in the market?

Where does the competitor fall short?

What is their value proposition? Is it strong or weak?

What tone of voice do they use (Casual or Serious, Educational, Informative, etc)?

What content are they producing and promoting? What events are they participating in?

3. Where can you go to collect information about your competitors?

There are numerous ways to find information about your competition – online and offline:

Conduct a professional marketing research study whereby your competitors are interviewed or surveyed directly. This is best conducted by a 3rd party to increase participation rates and ensure that you gain an unbiased view.

Check out your competitors’ website and marketing collateral. You can easily do this by going to their website and social media properties. Annual reports and other financial documents, as well as press releases also provide a great deal of information about where your competitor is focused and what their challenges are. Also, don’t forget to pick up sample sales collateral and marketing content while at trade shows or other industry events.

3rd party research. Think about the research and analyst firms that are relevant in your industry (such as Gartner or IDC for the IT Industry). They often publish agnostic reports detailing strengths and weaknesses of players in a specific category. You can also seek out product review sites to see what users are saying, such as CNET for electronics and Spiceworks for IT solutions.

Interview business colleagues, salespeople and industry influencers to understand what your competitors are doing and where they may be having success. These can be formal interviews or causal conversations at an industry networking event. A great source of information is new employees that just left their employment at your competitor.

Use online tools such as alerts, toolbar extensions and subscription services - all neatly outlined here by John Jantsch.

Ultimately the purpose of understanding where your competitors are and what they are doing is so that you can position your business for success. The information you collect will help determine where your company may have a unique advantage to provide and communicate to your prospects. And isn’t that what we all strive for?

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Want to learn how to be a better marketer? Download our new marketing strategy workbook, which includes a template to conduct a competitor analysis.

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6 Must-Haves For B2B Event Marketing Success

By: Stacey Danheiser

B2B marketers spend 20-30% of their budget on event marketing every year. According to a Gartner CMO report, it’s one of the top four spending areas — ahead of social media, customer intelligence, and email marketing. Between tradeshow sponsorships, seminars, and company-hosted events, this can be a great way to find new prospects, build customer relationships, and conduct face-to-face meetings.

But, while 67% of B2B marketers cite event marketing as their most effective strategy, organizations are struggling to leverage their significant investments post-event. In fact, several companies that I’ve worked with are putting renewed focus on understanding how to leverage event sponsorship well beyond the live event. And why not? Done right, in-person events can work brilliantly as a launching pad to build a platform for future marketing content and sales conversations. If you’re wondering how to maximize your event marketing spend, here’s how you can do it.

6 must-haves for B2B event marketing success[/caption]Make the most out of your event marketing budget

1. Set your objectives

This is so obvious, I feel like I almost don’t need to include it. But you’d be surprised by how many marketers start planning events without truly understanding what they want to get out of it and how the event aligns to their broader marketing and organization goals. Before you start thinking about event logistics, decide why you want to host or participate in an event in the first place. Set measurable goals such as the number of attendees, number of follow-up meetings, new sales, etc. This ensures that you have objective criteria to rate the effectiveness of your participation after the event

2. Create a consistent & compelling message

Whether you are hosting your own event or sponsoring a tradeshow, realize that attendees are there to learn. They didn’t sign up to hear a sales pitch. Study the agenda and determine how your company adds value to the conversation. Get sales involved to help craft the message. But don’t forget that your customers need to hear a consistent story from your organization — one that explains why they would choose to engage with your business.

If you’re among the 83% of marketers who are confused about this, here’s a 5-step process that will help you create a powerful value proposition that will resonate with attendees at the event. This topic is also covered in-depth in our new book, Value-ology: Aligning Sales and Marketing to Shape and Deliver Profitable Customer Value Propositions.

3. Get prepared with a value-added content plan

One of the crucial aspects of any successful event is having a content strategy that can help bring value to your customers so they keep coming back. Break down your content strategy for the event in a step-by-step manner. While this may not be an overnight job, once you have it all laid out, you’ll be better prepared with the right content along the event life cycle. Here’s how you can create a content strategy at every step of the event.

Before the event -- Promote event attendance. Content such as a compelling invite, agenda descriptions, a sample presentation, a sample video of the featured speaker, a designated landing page etc. are great resources to capture the attention of your target attendees and pique their interest. During the event -- Provide relevant content throughout the course of the event. It is obvious that you’ll need to develop presentation materials for any sessions you’ll be delivering. But also think about complementary content that helps establish your company as a thought leader. I recommend you have at least one piece of content available to help buyers at each stage of the event marketing funnel. Here’s a sample plan of what type of content will be helpful during each stage.

Awareness: Content such as white paper, eBooks, and educational content builds relevance by explaining the problems the attendees may be challenged with.

Comparison: Buying guides, checklists, and articles that discuss different options for solving those problems will help your audience decide whether they can draw any value from your event. If your content is able to strike a chord, your attendees will view you as someone who understands their problems and can help them with the right solutions.

Selection: Help your attendees make an informed choice at this stage by offering product collateral, fact sheets, and customer case studies.

After the event -- Put your communications plan into action. The days following the event are the best time to keep the conversation flowing by providing more value-added content, such as —

A summary of the key takeaways at the event

Your company’s perspective on one or two of the main topics discussed at the event

Tailored content to further educate your prospective buyers based on what they discussed with you and your team at the event

A white paper or article written by your featured speaker

An invite to a follow-up event or webinar around a relevant topic

A special offer, promotion or demonstration for attendees only

4. Go digital

Today, events are more than just traditional meet-and-greets. There’s a whole gamut of technology available to help you make the most out of your event spending. One of the best benefits of involving technology in your event marketing strategy is excellent brand communication — far more effective and cheaper than what traditional channels can offer.

But in order to make it work, you need to have a detailed digital strategy that covers pre-, during and post-event communications. Develop a list of potential people you’d like to meet at the event, then reach out to introduce yourself. Use social media to learn more about the individual and make arrangements to connect prior to the event.

While 88% of marketers are using social media to promote awareness for their events, only 54% are using social media to engage participants after an event. Keep the discussion going by posting quotes from featured speakers/ sessions, stats, photos and key takeaways from the event.

If you’re sponsoring an industry tradeshow or seminar, use common event hashtags, repost articles/ information about the event and share your enthusiasm for participating.

Not just brand communications; from event promotion, pre-event registrations to tracking post-event ROI— investing in the right technology can help throw light on most grey areas that continue to evade brands and event marketers. 5. Follow up

80% of trade show exhibitors don’t follow up with their ‘leads’. This is a startling stat considering the fact that marketers cite ‘lead generation’ as one of their primary event objectives. But follow-up doesn’t solely rest on the shoulders of marketing.

It’s important to work with your sales team to design a follow-up program that includes both marketing and sales touch points. Inside sales can also help play a critical role here to further qualify individuals who engaged with you at an event. Our advice is to map out your follow-up plan before the event so that your email, phone call, and in-person meeting strategy is designed and ready to go. 6. Get feedback

According to a recent report, marketers are measuring the success of events based on attendance, followed by revenue, attendee engagement, and registrations. While typical event marketing feedback sheets ask questions like “How was the food?” and “How was the venue?”, there are more important answers you should focus on extracting from the attendees.

But if there’s one question that adequately measures the success of an event, it is this — “Were the event objectives met?” You should get in the habit of looking at your events from this standpoint. And then, dive into whether the speakers were effective, whether attendees found the event a good use of their time, and whether the message was on target.

The feedback you get is critical in that it will help you identify the loopholes (if any) in your event and provide a stronger foundation to build your next event with greater success.

The benefits of event marketing are irrefutable. But too many organizations fail to reap all that a great event has to offer. They mismanage their event spending and end up losing touch with their bottom lines and ROI milestones. With a solid strategy, you are not only able to overcome these challenges but also create events that pay dividends far into the future.

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How CMO’s Can Become ‘Indispensable’ Growth Drivers

By: Stacey Danheiser

You may have heard that Coca-Cola’s Global CMO, Marcos de Quinto, is retiring this year, and they are not backfilling his position. Instead, they are consolidating marketing, customer and commercial leadership strategy under a new leader—the Chief Growth Officer. As a lifelong marketer, I’ll admit that this news stings a bit. But I’m not surprised. Trends have not been favorable for CMOs in the past several years due to digital disruption and the expectation that CMO’s need to be more growth-oriented, innovative and tech savvy than they’ve ever been.

CMO’s First To Get Fired 

According to this recent Accenture report, CEOs are most likely to fire the CMO first if growth targets are not met. This seems logical when you consider that CMOs—more so than any other C-suite position—are supposed to have an end-to-end view of the customer, identify trends, and make strategic recommendations to outsmart and surpass the competition.

This requires CMOs to step out of their traditional marketing functions and take on a broader role in creating relevant and memorable interactions at all touch points throughout the entire customer lifecycle. If they fail to do this, they risk losing customers, business revenue—and even their jobs.

Clearly, today’s CMOs are expected to fulfill a more challenging role than ever before. But, at the same time, they are being presented with the opportunity to step up and to lead the charge in building strategies and processes to drive ‘customer obsession’ across the organization. 

Today’s marketers need to be aligned with the customer

Customers are completing up to 70% of the buying process alone online before they contact your organization. This means that CMOs and the entire marketing department are now responsible for helping buyers navigate piles of information before they contact a sales person.

It also means that your marketing team better be aligned with how customers make decisions, what messages will resonate, and what type of content will help. But we all know that marketers are not spending enough time to figure this out. In fact, companies are only spending 4% of their marketing budget to conduct market research versus 30% on creating new content.

The result? Only 25% of CMOs are confident as to how to delight their customers. And over half feel that a large portion of their marketing budgets are wasted and not delivering the results the business expects.

As a marketer, you may be constantly collecting customer data but it really amounts to nothing if you’re not able to track it back to the individual customer as they flit across multiple channels. Nailing the customer identity is the key to creating positive and effective customer engagements.

The big question is…

Is your marketing team driving innovation and growth?

Besides being data-driven, CMOs need to focus on accelerating growth for their organization by adopting innovative approaches. If you aren’t there yet, you can start doing it by:

1. Nurturing a learning mindset

Marketing is a fast-paced field. Unless you are spending enough time and resources to constantly educate yourself and your team, it’s difficult to survive, let alone thrive in today’s business landscape. When it comes to training professionals, HR leaders recommend the 70:20:10 model — 70% of learning from on-job experiences, 20% learning from a coach, mentor, or boss, and 10% from external sources such as educational events. Try implementing this by allowing your team to attend online classes, conferences, etc. while piloting various tactics to involve them in an ongoing learning process. If you think you don’t have enough time for this, step back and rethink — are you using your time most effectively? If not, what are the things you could cut down from your schedule? By reassessing and delegating well, you could free up nearly a fifth of your time and spend it on more worthwhile tasks such as coaching your team or attending conferences and webinars to stay up-to-date with the latest trends and best practices.

2. Knowing what your customers value

Not all customers are created equally. They have different preferences and care about different things, which translates into what they are willing to spend money on. If you can’t crack this code, no marketing tactic will break through the clutter. For instance, more customers are now making purchases online and some are even willing to buy through social media. In today’s omni-channel world, neglecting any of these channels could be risky. Research suggests that only 12% of customers want to meet with a sales person while making a purchase decision, while 16% are willing to discuss with a sales representative over the phone. They prefer to do their own research — even spending three hours in the process for purchases worth more than $5,000. Marketers are, therefore, tasked with providing prospective customers with enough information that will help them make a well-informed decision and draw them into the sales funnel. CMOs must know how to interweave product knowledge with data analytics to strategize meaningful interactions across all human, physical and digital touch points.

3. Understanding what the business expects

Are your marketing goals aligned to corporate objectives? — This is a question that may provide an answer to why only 25% of marketing organizations have outcome driven objectives. A recent research study found that most successful CMOs not only understood their customers’ needs, but their companies’ needs too. They were great at striking the right balance between customer priorities and business objectives. For example, one way CMOs can create alignment between marketing and the C-Suite is by viewing customers as relationships rather than transactions. With solid customer engagement and retention strategies, they can turn repeat customers into lifelong loyalists, improving the profit margins. Starting to talk in terms of ROI and CLV — metrics that delight CEOs and top executives — CMOs can transform into business leaders with focus on long-terms benefits rather than short-term gains.  

4. Paying attention to new competitors 

This is something only 43% of CMOs are doing now. And considering how companies like Uber and Airbnb completely disrupted industries that were unprepared, not paying attention to new and evolving competitors is a recipe for failure. But at the same time, if you spend too much time obsessing over your competition, you can lose sight of your customers —an even bigger risk.   Therefore, as a marketer, you need to maintain a healthy balance of focusing on your own customers and tuning into what your competitors are doing.  In this ‘post-digital era’ where customers don’t think of their digital experiences as separate from physical ones, CMOs need to break out of the molds of traditional marketing and establish themselves as growth-oriented business leaders, not just marketing experts. That’s how they can become indispensable to their organization. 

If you’re struggling to stay in tune with what your customers value or feeling challenged to align your teams and processes around the customer, Value-ology: Aligning Sales and Marketing to Shape and Deliver Profitable Customer Value Propositions can put you on the right track.

Additional Reading

Advice for B2B Marketers: How to get Sales buy-in

Advice for Marketers: How to Drive More Sales

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Lack Of Preparation Kills Businesses: Why You Need To Do Your Homework

By: Stacey Danheiser

For me, the word “homework” conjures up college memories of late nights, vending machine meals and stress. Maybe this is why most of us aren’t very eager to do our homework when we finally get to the “real world” of business. But, as much as I hated homework, I know that it ultimately helped prepare me to get an “A” on the test. Similarly, in the world of business, doing your homework leads to more growth and profit.

Perhaps the most common area that I see businesses (of all sizes) neglect, is conducting customer research. According to a recent CMO survey, only 41% of CMO’s include marketing research in their budget. And “failure to understand customer needs and wants” is cited as the #1 reason for product failures. Why are organizations failing at this? Many believe they already have the answers.

Customer research can be difficult, expensive, painful and confusing. So instead of tackling it head first, organizations skip it altogether and rush to get to market with their ideas, untested business models, useless products and irrelevant content. The result? 72% of all new products fail to meet revenue goals. And $958 million is wasted on ineffective marketing every year.

There have been millions of articles written on the importance of knowing your customers. But let’s say you disregard all of that and decide to go to market with your new marketing campaign anyway.

4 risks of neglecting customer research:

1. You will create something that nobody wants

It doesn’t matter how brilliant your marketing and advertising campaign is – if you create a product that nobody wants, or that solves a problem nobody has, you will not sell it. Just look at the top 12 product failures in the U.S. by some of the most well-known brands around (Google, McDonald’s, Microsoft). Their tunnel vision caused them to spend billions of dollars to promote something that ultimately missed the mark.

And while many of these organizations conducted customer research prior to launching their products, there is an art form to asking the right questions so that you get the “real” answer instead of validating your current biases. A topic which I will cover in a future blog post.

2. You will sound like everyone else

How many companies claim to be “the best solution” or “end-to-end” and “world-class”? Using the exact same phrases as your competitors only confuses your customer, forces them to tune you out and further commoditizes your product.

As hilariously pointed out by Bob Hoffman, The Ad Contrarian, if you aren’t going to do the upfront work of discovering what your customers care about and how your brand is differentiated, you might as well use the universal creative brief. Because, ultimately, your communications will sound just like every other company.

3. You will focus on communicating the wrong things

When organizations are too internally focused, the product or marketing organization convinces themselves that they know exactly what the customer cares about. But YOU are not your customer.

Take this research from McKinsey, which illustrates this point. When asked what themes B2B companies considered most important for their brand to communicate – many cited product sustainability, social responsibility and global reach as the top. Whereas customers considered open and honest dialogue as the most important (which no organization in the sample emphasized), followed by specialist expertise and responsibility across the supply chain.

It just goes to show that what you value internally may not be aligned with what your customers want to hear.

4. You won’t get results

No matter how good your execution is, if your marketing content fails to connect with your prospective buyers, you’ve wasted your time and resources. This often confuses organizations, as they pour hours into the backend execution (writing emails, posting on social media, sponsoring events), but don’t see an increase in sales. Ultimately, marketing communications are measured by how well they help potential buyers move along their journey and relationship with your organization.

Although doing your homework isn't the most exciting exercise, it definitely prepares you and your business for future success.

“It’s not the will to win, but the will to prepare to win that makes the difference.” – Bear Bryant

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Advice for B2B Marketers: How to Get Sales Buy-in

By: Stacey Danheiser

According to John Kotter, author of Buy-In, “70% of all organizational change efforts fail, and one reason for this is executives simply don’t get enough buy-in, from enough people, for their initiatives and ideas.” As a marketer in any size organization, your success is dependent on how well you can create buy-in for your ideas. And at a time when CMO’s are the first person to get fired when growth targets aren’t met, it’s more important than ever.

But creating buy-in isn’t always easy. Especially when you throw into the mix different personalities, priorities and perspectives. If you want to be effective at selling in your ideas, it’s important to be open to receiving input and observations from others, then be willing to evolve your idea to create something that works for everyone. 

B2B Marketers must learn what the Sales organization needs

Whether you are creating a new marketing campaign, introducing a new product idea, or recommending a fresh approach to creating content, you must get Sales aligned with your program if you want to see results.

With that in mind, I asked seasoned B2B marketers for their advice on how they create buy-in from the sales team -- here’s a summary of what they said. 

1.     Understand the Sales role

 “Good marketing should always be focused on selling products or services or at least making the selling process easier and more efficient.” says John Bosserman. But to truly appreciate how to make the sales process easier, you need to first grasp how sales assists customers in making decisions. There are a ton of great books out there on this – SPIN Selling, Strategic Selling and The Challenger Sale are all good ones. Your organization may even have their own sales methodology or process. 

So, ask to attend the next internal sales training. You’d be surprised to learn how marketing can play a role in making every step of the sales journey more effective. 

2.     What’s in it for Sales?

Once you understand the sales role, you can more effectively outline how your new marketing initiative will benefit them. This is especially critical if you are asking the Sales team to do something different (such as track more customer information).

Possible benefits to sales could include: 

Prepping the prospect to be more likely to buy the product they're selling

Generating qualified leads

Helping to increase sales closing ratios

Helping to increase average value of each sale

Helping salesperson up-sell into an existing account

Improving efficiencies for servicing the account

Diminishing competitors' advantages

Making them feel good about what they're doing 

3.     Understand what Sales needs

It’s important to be in touch with what your sales team needs to win more business. Without this knowledge, you will be producing “content” that will never get used by the sales team. 

So, how often do you talk to your sales team? Sit down with them to understand their pain, barriers and challenges. “Find out how they qualify prospects to determine who to spend their precious time on. Ask what kinds of questions and objections they get from prospects who are on the fence or not yet ready to buy.” says Raj Khera. 

Sometimes it’s all about how you word the questions. Seeking advice and council from someone, for example, is a proven way to not only gain trust, but also leads to better solutions. 

If you’re stuck on what to ask the sales team, I’ve covered this in more detail in a previous article, Advice for Marketers: Talk to your sales team.  

4.     Be a sales person for a day

Do you really understand the role of the salesperson and how hard it is to close business? It’s easy to sit back in the corporate office and tell sales what they “should” be doing or saying, but unless you’ve actually sold to a real customer – your opinion isn’t taken seriously. So shadow a sales person for a week or even longer, if possible to find out their challenges and concerns firsthand. “Heck if you can even take the challenge of closing an actual sale from prospecting to closure you'll definitely gain the respect of your sales team.” says Victor Chin. 

5.     Include Sales in your planning process We conducted a survey last year amongst B2B marketing and Sales professionals and found that  42% of salespeople said they have never been asked by marketing for input! While it may not be feasible to talk to everyone in your sales org, a silo’d approach to marketing will never produce the best results. Consider starting a Sales advisory board to collect input and feedback for all new content creation, campaign ideas and new product designs. 

And don’t forget to ask sales for their involvement in course corrections. Frequently, you will discover new insights once sales has a chance to test your message with their customers. 

6.     Don’t forget about Internal marketing

So much time goes into producing customer-facing marketing initiatives, that you may forget about your efforts to align internal resources. But without a consistent internal message, your customer-facing teams may be confused about where to focus their time and energy. “Employees are unified and inspired by a common sense of purpose and identity,” says Colin Mitchell in HBR’s Selling the Brand Inside. 

Your marketing ideas and initiatives need to stay top of mind for the sales team. “Always think of a creative way to market your initiative internally, even if it is just a program name that sticks to get sales bought in.” says Nicky Zaayman. 

7.     Provide frequent updates

The best way to keep up the momentum with your initiative is to be proactive and communicate what’s happening throughout the sales organization. Share both good and bad results, what’s working (or not), and agreed upon next steps. If you don’t provide updates, your initiative will quickly be forgotten (and de-prioritized).  

While Marketing & sales alignment continues to be an ongoing challenge, follow this advice and you should be well on your way to creating marketing programs and content that your sales team wants and will naturally support. 

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This topic is covered in-depth in our new business book, Value-ology: Aligning Sales and Marketing to shape and deliver profitable customer value propositions.

Additional Reading

Advice for B2B Marketers: How to Drive More Sales

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Make Marketing and Sales Great Again - Take Back Control

By: Simon Kelly

Oh no, I hear you say, not just another Trump analogy but one combined with Brexit. Why do we have to suffer this? I didn't really want to go there, honest, but….

My sporadic blogging was once again fired into action by a post I read on the illustrious Brandchannel 'Powered by Interbrand' guest blog ' Brand Consistency Drives Business - It Worked for Trump' by Joe Pantigoso, Senior Director in Global Branding at SAP.

Stick to a theme and win

The central point Joe makes is that Trump was clear and consistent throughout the US Presidential Election campaign. His promise was to 'Make America Great Again' and to 'Put America first'. Clearly, themes that resonated with his target audience to give him the 46.2% of the popular vote that got him over the line.

Way back in the pre-Brexit halcyon days of June 2016, @Mark Ritson, correctly called the Brexit election results in his lead article for Marketing Week.

With clever use of Marketing Theory 101 tying features to benefits, Mark articulated that for Brexit the product feature was leaving the EU and the benefit was about sovereignty. The emotional benefit of Brexit was "To prevent the UK being over-run by a growing tide of foreigners who will weaken the national spirit and use up its precious resources to our detriment."

Mark correctly called the result as he felt the Brexit campaign was repeatedly pushing emotional benefits while the Remain campaign focused on the rational benefits of economic stability.

What both articles seem to suggest is that, by analogy, good marketing is about communicating to customers consistently in themes. These themes should be about the benefits that will be delivered, and need to resonate at both a rational and emotional level.

What really woke me from my blogging slumber this time though was the closing line in Joe's blog. "However, this is difficult to achieve when managing a brand across various lines of business, geographies and stakeholders. But it's a winning formula worth striving for, as evidenced by this case" (Trump Election).

Getting to a theme is hard work…but worth it

OK, so getting to the customer themes can be effortful. In order to tune into the customer issues you need to understand what they are, then use a combination of analysis and creativity to arrive at the themes. Then the hard-work starts, the bigger the organisation, the harder it can be.

Getting buy-in from everyone that communicating these themes consistently is the right way to go

Stopping the Product Marketing obsession with feature-led content

Working with sales to move from top level themes to specific customer conversations.

In the world of B2B, often having the courage to lead with emotional benefits can be a blocker.

So…if we are to draw the political analogies forward we all need to look in the mirror, then at our web sites, our marketing collateral and sales decks and ask…

"Are we making Marketing and Sales Great Again?" and "Are we taking back control?", by developing themes that we know resonate with customers.

Maybe this is not new news to you…but are you doing it?

The evidence is stacked against you because most organisations are not doing this.

We know because:

94% of customers say they have tuned you out because of irrelevant content you sent them (CEB research)

Only 16% of B2B C-level executives make a major purchase based on the product

58% of B2B decisions end in “no deal” because value has not been communicated

We know because if we look at your web site you will inevitably be using language like “end-to-end”, “world class” or “seamless”. These are not customer themes!

You need to elevate yourselves to the place worth striving for where you have hit on themes that resonate rationally and emotionally with your customers. It's a winning formula.

Our recently published book value-ology can help you do this.  

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5 steps to creating a powerful value proposition

By: Stacey Danheiser

If you’ve been in B2B marketing or sales for the last few years, you’ve definitely noticed some changes - longer and more complex sales cycles, more buyers involved in the decision making process, and more buyers coming to your organization with a clear idea of what they want.  

As buying cycles become more complicated, now more than ever, it’s critical to have a compelling value proposition that connects the dots for potential buyers and clearly illustrates how your solution solves their problem. But this is easier said than done, as recent research shows that 83% of marketers have no idea how to develop or apply a customer value proposition!

But don’t stress. As it turns out, there’s a formula to articulate a powerful message, which we cover in depth in our upcoming book Value-ology: Aligning sales and marketing to shape and deliver profitable customer value propositions.

Breaking down the value proposition

From our perspective, a value proposition is “a promise of expected future value illustrating that future relevant and distinct benefits will outweigh total cost of ownership.”

In order to create a strong value proposition, you need to be able to answer these 5 questions:

1.     Who are you talking to?

It all starts with getting a clear picture of your ideal customer. Who are they? How do they make decisions? What do they care about? What are their likes/ dislikes? Having a clear picture of your buyer helps you create content that will be useful to them.  The more details you learn and collect about your potential customer, the easier it will be to get them engaged. One of the best tools to use is buyer personas.

2.     What problem do you solve? Think about your potential customers and what they really want to achieve. Articulate the problem and the challenges facing your customers using language that resonates with them. Avoid using a ton of industry jargon – as this just confuses your message. Start by putting yourself in your customers’ shoes.  Don’t assume your customer knows what they want. It’s your job to explain the problem (in simple terms) and the potential dangers involved if your customer chooses not to solve the problem. 

3.     How does your organization solve this problem? Think about how your solution makes your customers’ lives better. It can be helpful to write out a before and after scenario, depicting the benefits a potential customer receives from using your product. Many firms are tempted to throw in a bunch of product features at this stage, which entirely misses the point. Your customer isn’t buying your product because of a feature that it has, they are buying it because they have a problem that they are trying to fix. The more you can communicate the benefits and outcomes that your product offers, the more likely it is that you will make a sale.  

4.     Why are you unique? Don’t make your customer read through pages of website copy to figure out why your solution is different than all of the other solutions out there. Do you know what your competition is saying? Explain why your organization is uniquely positioned to solve their problem. Get them to envision what life would be like after purchasing/ using your product. And remember, it’s not relevant if your “uniqueness” isn’t useful to your potential buyers. 

5.     Where’s the proof? Your value proposition isn’t just a fluffy marketing messaging. You need to be able to financially justify the value you provide and have the proof to back up your claims. MHI Global reports that buyers are putting more emphasis on identifying and calculating the benefits of any potential purchase. This means you better be able to demonstrate the ROI of your solution, using real customer testimonials or case studies. 

For example, let’s say you are targeting a VP of Marketing to offer them your new customer analytics software. Based on your customer research (see #1 and 2 above), you know their biggest pain points are to create efficiency within their department, and generate more qualified leads for the sales team. Thus, your value could be articulated as “On average, the Acme analytics solution increases productivity within your marketing department by 20% while increasing the # of qualified sales leads by 40% - all within the first 3 months.” People will pay extra for your product if you can demonstrate how it will make their lives better. 

Once you’ve answered these five questions, you will be well on your way to creating a message that not only resonates with customers, but also provides you with a solid foundation from which to develop strong marketing content, useful sales meetings and higher win rates.

Want more help? We give you step-by-step instructions to create a winning value proposition in our free e-book, Rock your Customers World.

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Why More Isn’t Always Better

“Quality is much better than quantity. One home run is better than two doubles.” – Steve Jobs

By: Stacey Danheiser

It’s the time of the year when many of us tend to over-indulge. Whether it’s saying yes to one more party. One more cookie. One more glass of wine. We get tricked into thinking that more is always better.

There’s a similar deception happening in the marketing world related to content production. Companies think they need to create more and more content - brochures, videos, webinars, white papers, infographics to keep up with the never-ending demands of the internet.  But organizations that adopt this “more is better” mentality often get stuck, frustrated and eventually fail to produce any meaningful results.

Is it any surprise then, according to CMI’s 2017 Benchmark study that only 22% of content marketers consider their content marketing approach successful? Many marketers are rushing to create “content” without a well-thought out strategy. In fact, only 37% of organizations even have a documented content marketing strategy, and yet 70% of organizations state that they expect to create MORE content in 2017 compared with 2016.

Before you rush to create more, more, more, consider how you can make a difference in the lives of your buyers, versus contributing to the noise.

Adopt a habit of quality.

Developing high quality content starts with having a strategy and a commitment to producing excellent and useful materials for your buyers. Like all commitments, it becomes easier and more natural once we start practicing.

The natural question that needs to be addressed is “what does quality look like for our organization?”  If you work in an organization where multiple people or departments are responsible for creating content, it is essential to gain agreement on what excellent vs. sub-par content looks like and how it will help accomplish your goals. That way, everyone can help reinforce the standards amongst all content creators and prevent “crap” from being published.

5 ways to ensure quality content production:

Focus. Do you find yourself seeking more customers instead of focusing on seeking the right customers? It all starts with having a solid understanding of who you are targeting. Buyer Personas are a great tool to help you achieve this clarity.  

Be Purposeful. Your marketing team may be small, but don’t make the mistake of trying to use the same piece of content to talk to a variety of audiences. A generic approach doesn’t work. If you are not talking to one specific audience, then you are talking to nobody. Instead, think about how your content may help your buyer get educated and move them along their journey with your organization.

Prepare. Stop rushing to create something just because you have a deadline. Keep an inspiration file. Talk to your customers to understand what their challenges and motivations are. Do your research ahead of time so that you always have ideas related to what your audience cares about. Here’s a quick source of inspiration from around the web for when you feel stuck. 

Plan. You’ve heard the quote by Benjamin Franklin “If you fail to plan, you are planning to fail.” Without a content strategy in place, you surely won’t produce high quality content. Your strategy and plan should be documented and outline exactly to whom you are trying to reach, what you hope to achieve, and how you will get there.

Measure. Start measuring the success of your program based on engagement, customer conversations, and how it contributes to advancing the buying process. Of course, you should also seek informal feedback from customers and your sales team. What’s most helpful? What’s least helpful? You’d be surprised what you can learn if you just ask the right questions.

In summary, more content does not automatically equal more followers. More followers do not equal more sales. More sales do not equal more profit. So, before you think about producing more noise, remember the words of Zig Ziglar – “Don’t count the things you do, do the things that count.”

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What Marketers Can Learn From Top Chefs

By: Stacey Danheiser

I’ve been obsessed with reality TV cooking competitions lately. One of the more entertaining shows is “Chopped”, which features talented chefs on the Food Network. Each episode, four chefs must compete against each other in the creation of three courses: Appetizer, Entrée and Dessert. They are given a ‘basket’ of food featuring 3-5 mystery ingredients that they must use in their recipes. In addition, they have access to the refrigerator and pantry – stocked with a variety of ingredients.  After each course, the judges critique the dishes and eliminate one of the contestants. The final winner is selected based on the presentation, taste and creativity of their entire meal.

So what does this have to do with marketing? Like the chefs on the TV show, marketers all have access to the same “ingredients”–  such as social media platforms, marketing automation solutions, webinar platforms, graphic design programs, etc. Yet, some companies create magic using these tools, while others produce generic, boring and ill-performing content and sales messages. So what's the secret behind these successful companies?

Let's look at top chefs for a little inspiration on how to be a better marketer:

You have to know your audience. Restaurants are guaranteed a certain death if they aren’t staying timely and relevant with what their customers value. Consider how different the cuisines are in NYC, London, Paris and Los Angeles. Mexican-infused dishes may do well in Los Angeles, but they are way less popular in Beijing. Likewise, top marketers know that in order to generate more sales, it all starts by first putting yourself in the shoes of your customer. You need to understand what motivates your customers, what their preferences are, why and how they make decisions. (I’ve written about this extensively on the blog). Without this information, it’s impossible to create products, sales messages or marketing content that will truly resonate with your customers.

Get creative. The world’s best chefs are constantly innovating on the same old ingredients (hello, chicken!?). They combine new flavor combinations, try new cooking techniques or use different ingredients from around the world. Equally, marketers must be willing to get outside of their comfort zone and try new approaches to reach prospects, connect with existing customers and create brand loyalty.

Commit to quality. Some restaurants just want to get the food on your plate, as quick as possible, without any regard to quality. But not top chefs. They take pride in sourcing the best ingredients, cooking it to perfection and arranging it flawlessly on your plate. Similarly, some marketers produce content without any real purpose or depth. In this era of information overload, marketers must be mindful to produce high-quality, relevant and useful content for their audience. Otherwise – they shouldn’t be creating it in the first place. Follow the 3 C's of Content Marketing.

Be agile. Top chefs learn to operate on the fly. What happens if the arugula looks wilted? Or they run out of a certain type of mushroom? Being able to quickly make decisions in the kitchen ensures that customers stay well-fed and happy. Marketers can learn from this, as there is something to be said for those that can mine through data, analyze it and use it to make decisions quickly. On the flip side, marketers who collect endless amounts of data and waste weeks (or months) before they feel comfortable making a decision ultimately cost their organizations time and money.

Just as top chefs must stay on top of their game, so too, do marketers. Remember - not everything you try will work out (think - peanut butter & pickle sandwiches). But the fun part is getting outside of your comfort zone and testing new strategies to achieve results for your business.

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Need help creating a compelling customer value proposition? Download our Free Ebook, Rock Your Customers' World!

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My Definition of a Boombastic Jazz Style Value Proposition

By: Simon Kelly

After 2 years of sporadic blogging, I've decided that bouncing off of other folks articles and blogs is the way I roll. For rousing me from my latest slumber, I’d like to thank Jonathan Earle (Commercial Marketing Director at Dixons Carphone) for his recent post A product is not a proposition. So why do people mix the two up?

I like Jonathan's pint of Guinness model, not least because it puts an image of my favourite Dublin bar in my mind. The model adds products, service, communications, participation, distribution and price onto product to draw out how a proposition differs from a product.

Of course if the elements you add onto a product are things that the customer values and you offer them together then the sum of the parts should outweigh the individual elements. If this is the case then mutual value is delivered, customers are happy and revenue and profits grow. A Flexible working solution that includes all the piece parts a busy traveling executive needs to do her job, including the service wrap, should provide much more value than the individual product elements bought separately. Jonathan cites his time at O2 as a time where 'every commercial metric was smashed' through this type of approach.

I can identify strongly with this view as I have seen this uptick of results in organisations I have worked for or with by developing a more customer value based approach, which I’ve written about here. This kind of success dates back 15 years to my time at BT where we experienced  stellar performance by focusing  on developing propositions, akin to Jonathan's pints of Guinness, that solved customer problems.

Although Jonathan's blog was about the confusion between products and propositions what it brought home to me most was about the loose meaning of words commonly used in business parlance today. Way back in 1997 McKinsey consultants Ralf Leszinski and Mike Marn said that: ‘Value may be one of the most overused and misused terms in marketing and pricing’. The other two terms I would add to this are Marketing and Value Proposition.

The discussion about Marketing I will leave for another time. In our upcoming book Value-ology: Aligning sales and marketing to shape and deliver profitable customer value propositions, my co-authors Dr Paul Johnston, Stacey Danheiser and I spend the first two chapters emphasizing that organisations have got to try and get to a base level definition of what a value and value propositions means for them.

You've only got to have worked in a firm that's merged or acquired another company to observe lots of people talking past each other (there are some great anecdotes in "Value-ology") using the same words but meaning completely different things. If you take the 'typical' attrition rate in B2b sales forces to be around 20% as Aberdeen Group surveys suggest, you are hiring in 1 in 5 guys who might well have a completely different perspective to you - and communicate this to your customers!

If you're interested in more depth on definitions of value then take a look at Paul Johnston's blog 10 essentials for creating effective value propositions.

In 'value-ology' we provide our own view on what a value proposition is, and what it should include. We take the view that a strong value propositions should be MUSICAL.

From our perspective a value proposition is a promise of expected future value illustrating future relevant and distinct benefits will outweigh total cost of ownership

Note the word future; a value proposition can only be a promise of value which will be experienced in the future. Too many organisations don't follow up with the customer to review if the value promised was actually delivered. The gap between what was originally promised versus what was experienced is often at the root of why customers ditch services and move to more user friendly alternatives, as was the case with CRM systems.

To hit all the right notes and resonate with your customer a value proposition should be MUSICAL:

Monetary calculation - of financial benefits minus costs

Unique - things that sets you apart from competitors

Spend (costs) - how much the customer is prepared to pay

Impact - how it will positively impact the customer organisation

Capability - what it is that you can do for the customer to make this impact

ALigned - to the key needs of the customer

For what it's worth an individual product can deliver a value proposition and so can a more all-encompassing solution (proposition). Accepting that if you've crafted a solution you know customers want then it's more likely to be unique and will deliver more mutual value that a single product.

So, next time you use words like value, value proposition, solution, proposition blah, blah….. check that there is a shared understanding in the room. It happened to me just yesterday when I was talking to an accountant about sustainability (he started it!). Better still, make it clear what your organisation means by value proposition so that when the C-level folk say it they are on the same page as the sales guys when they develop value propositions for customers.

Feel free to drink a Guinness and go create some MUSICAL value propositions!

Read more in our upcoming book Value-ology 

For specific help on value propositions you can download our free ebook at http://www.shakemktg.com/resources.html

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10 Essentials To Creating Effective Value Propositions

By: Dr. Paul Johnston

Create effective value propositions by deeply understanding the nature of customer value.

1. Always think ‘it depends’

How much do you think this car is worth?

I bet one of the first things you would say is ‘well it depends’ and by saying that, you are acknowledging something crucial and fundamental about this thing we call ‘customer value’. Saying ‘it depends’ means we recognise that value is unique to the person who decides the value and the circumstances in which they are making the decision.

So in the case of the rusty old Volkswagen Beetle like this one the scrapyard dealer might be thinking of the monetary value of the scrap metal, the VW owner who needs a scarce part might be thinking how their break down problem has been solved now that s/he has found a rare engine part, the car renovator might be thinking about how perfect the car shell is for their next custom car project, the grandson tracing his family history might over the moon that he has finally found his grandfather’s car that he drove around Europe in the early sixties and met the woman who was to become his wife. What we ‘get’ for our money is so much more than just the thing itself

2. Put value at the heart of every marketing conversation you have

As a cornerstone of business activity in general and marketing management in particular understanding value is the primary commercial concern. Marketing shorthand for value is typically ‘the benefit’ or ‘the solution’. It is so fundamental that almost everybody in a firm from the tea boy to the CEO has a view about what the customer values. If you don’t deeply understand value as a concept and what value in particular means to your customers your chances of success are greatly impaired.

3. Make value the touchstone of every marketing decision and action

Understanding value seems so obvious it hardly warrants further comment and so marketers often give more time and attention to marketing implementation rather than making sure actions are aligned to fundamental value drivers.  Marketers  can easily end up focussing on the interesting rather than the important. To paraphrase Peter Senge when they do this marketers run the risk of chasing the latest fads thinking they are being proactive when all they are doing is reacting and overlooking fundamentals.

4. Cover all the value bases

Over the years it’s become clear that the idea of value is a multi-dimensional constantly moving target. It is unique to each and every customer, it is relative to the competition and it is a weird mix of the monetary, functional and meaningful. For that reason it’s probably one of the most challenging topics in marketing.

Key thought leaders who have produced value definitions and frameworks include:

Park, Jawarski, and MacInnis (1986) from function to experience

Valerie Zeithaml (1988) from give to get

Robert Woodruff (1997) from product attributes to satisfaction

Sheth Newman and Gross (1991) from function to social

Morris Holbrook (1998) from efficiency to spirituality

Ulaga (2003) from attentiveness to expertise

Khalifa(2004) from trade off to means ends

Brock and Colgate (2007) from money to symbols

Value is a complex combination of different things.

Some are more important in b2c and others more relevant to b2b. The important thing to note is that it is a blend of these things, unique to each customer and each market situation. This means value is never fixed and constant.

Key value elements include:

Economic value – what is the asking price or utility of something

Perceived value – what you think something is worth

Relationship value – how much a long term and close trading worth

Experiential value – how interacting with your brand feels

Symbolic value – what something means

Knowledgable value – how helpful something is in improving life and business in general

These different facets of value engage the purchaser in both rational and emotional decision making simultaneously. The big debate in b2b is just how much purchases depend on objective financial factors and how much on subjective factors such as relational warmth. Is clarifying what value actually is on your marketing agenda.

5. Don’t confuse Values with Value

There is a lot of contemporary talk in professional marketing circles about moving from attribute to values based marketing. The idea here is that if you tap into the psyche of customer by understanding their deeply held beliefs and life goals this is more relevant persuasive and influential than addressing economic, functional and perceived value. We claim that choosing either attributes or values presents a false dichotomy. In practice it’s not really the case of choosing either attribute or values based marketing. Also in a b2b context there might be a very clear need for specific technical expertise, or financial attributes that are deemed of immediate value rather than a more values based value view of purchase drivers such as loyalty or trust.

Value and values are of course closely related. The distinction needs to be made clear nevertheless. Frequently people hear the word value being mentioned and proceed to talk about their company values. Value is what is the customer gets (which might include resonating with personal values). Values on the other hand are the profound beliefs that people hold which guide how they act in the world. Value and values are not the same thing. Is distinguishing value and values on your marketing agenda?

6. Ensure everyone in the team has the same take on value

One of the most frequent problems we hear about when working with organisations is that there is a problem with communications. People don’t keep their colleagues informed, there is a lack of feedback or information is simply not shared.

These things obviously create communication challenges however there is something much more profound about how we communicate that is often overlooked. That thing is declaring your assumptions or explaining where you are coming from. We take our assumptions for granted and so we often don’t bother talking about them or revealing them to others. People tend to rush into selling and enthusing about their ideas and proposals without establishing a baseline of understanding. They assume they are talking about the same thing when often they are not. One person may be talking about economic value and the other about symbolic value; another may be referring to value and the other to values. Always be clear about ‘what’ you are talking about. Is understanding different internal value perspectives on your marketing agenda?

7. Avoid customer worship - The establishment of marketing philosophy and principles in the management psyche is probably one of the most successful selling jobs ever.

Marketing speak is everywhere, people who don’t even work in marketing talk of brands, positions, segments, targets, benefits, competition and differentiation. Where there is talk of customers instead of patients, where there is talk of customers rather than students, where there is talk of customers not citizens that’s marketing talking. Philip Kotler crystalised the idea that marketing touches every aspect of life from business, hospitals, schools and churches in his 1972 article The Generic Concept of Marketing. We can call this the marketisation of everything and the assumption that this is obviously a good thing, but is it? Customer centricity is a key marketing idea.

Customer centricity is  epitomised by the idea that the ‘the customer is king’. If you are not careful this can lead to customer worship and the potential of going out of business. I worked many years in the gambling industry. When we researched players they always said they wanted  ‘the jackpot’ every time they played a slot machine. Did we give the customer what they wanted? Of course not! Value has to be created for all parties for the deal to work. The players were given a win chance and a run for their money and the slot operator got a profit per game played. Esteemed marketing expert Evert Gummesson recently called the pursuit of customer centricity a wild goose chase. Getting the balance right between the value the customer wants and the value the supplier needs is called  value appropriation.

8. Deeply understand value in use and value co-creation

How many people in your firm actually know what co-creation of value means?

Do they really understand  the principles of The Service Dominant Logic of Marketing proposed by Robert Vargo and Stephen Lusch where the notion of co-creation was first presented?Many marketers use the term co-creation to mean working with the customer to develop new products and services. For sure an element of joint or co-creation takes place. Often this is called co-production too.

When talking co-creation of value  Vargo and Lusch mean something else entirely. They challenge the very basis modern marketing management by claiming that the whole profession is built on focussing on just one, very particular,  idea that philosopher and economist Adam Smith had about value. This idea was the exchange of valuewhich he set out in his book Wealth of Nations. In this treatise Smith made the case that for nations to grow their wealth in the global economy they needed to add value by the production of products which is then exchanged for money by exporting to international markets. The idea of value exchange has been the basis of marketing ever since.

Adam Smith was making a specific economic case in relation to exporting; as a philosopher Smith also understood that value was only really co-created at the point of consumption. So we have value in use rather than value in exchange.  Their point is subtle and important.

The claim that value can only ever be created in the moment of use means that value creation is reciprocal – in other words co-created for the supplier and the customer at the same time not passed from one to the other. Value therefore cannot be ‘added into’ anything and embedded by the supplier prior to purchase. Thinking about value in use ensures that firms don’t run away with a technological or product perspective and always focus on the value the customer will derive when the solution that is offered is used. Co-creation is not really about co-development.

9. Remember you are always aiming at a moving target

Can we ever really know what the customer wants, needs or values at any point in time? Sure we can have broad idea of the sorts of problems and aspirations customers have and sure we can propose generic solutions to satisfy what the customer might be seeking. But can we actually know in advance what is driving a particular customer purchase? The context of every purchase is unique every time. Only the customer can decide what is relevant to their situation and so this means that businesses can only propose value. What this means is that being continuously tuned into what is relevant to your customers is vital. This is what makes face to face interactions in b2b marketing so important. Without relevance your marketing efforts run this risk of missing the target. Is solution and value proposition development for value in context on your marketing agenda?

10. Create, deliver and communicate differentiated customer value with Value-ology

If you want to learn more about the essential topic of customer value in business to business and more about methods of implementation and capabilities to make things happen discover further ideas and insights in our forthcoming book Value-ology – Aligning sales and marketing to shape and deliver profitable customer value propositions due for release by Palgrave Macmillan January  2017

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Know more, grow more…simple…or is it?

By: Simon Kelly

After burning a large amount of calories completing our soon to be published book Value-Ology: Aligning sales and marketing to shape and deliver profitable customer value propositions, we went into the usual period of self-doubt wondering if we'd created, in bake off terms a 'soggy-bottom'.

We were pleasantly snapped out of this by a series of three articles that appeared in the September edition of Harvard Business Review (HBR) achieving cover headlines under the 'what does your customer really want?' banner. So, customer understanding was being taken seriously by HBR, a central theme of our value-ology book - vindication indeed!

Understanding your customers’ jobs to be done

One of the articles "Know your customers' "jobs to be done" had immediate appeal as it was co-authored by Clayton Christensen, the Harvard professor who makes a virtue of drawing simplicity from complex situations.  Their interesting take on decades of watching companies fail, is that the quest for more customer knowledge has lead companies to wrongly focus on correlation. What they need to be looking at is what a customer hopes to achieve in a given circumstance. This is what Christensen calls "jobs to be done". The notion is that we hire products to fulfill jobs for us and retain or fire them depending on how well they do the job.

On the face of it this sounds easy, but is it? The article provides a powerful case study of how a friend of theirs, Bob Moesta, who was called in to help a Detroit condominium company bolster sales.

They were targeting 'downsizers'- retired people looking to trade down from their family home. The company was getting a lot of viewings and wondered why they were not selling so well. 

After interviewing people who did buy, it seemed that it all came down to the dining room table in their existing house.  What was stopping buyers was the anxiety of losing the old dining room table where so many family celebrations had taken place in the past.  This helped them realise that they were not in the business of construction but of "moving lives".  This resulted in changes being made. Space was sacrificed in the second bedroom to create space for the dining room table. The architect also provided a 'sorting room' so that residents could sort through all the things they'd accumulated in life at their leisure. Brilliant, but is it that easy?

Deep customer research is the key to unlocking customer inertia

Well, the fact that the condominium company had not performed this type of research in the first place tells you that it's not. It seems that they felt that being loosely aware that a bunch of potential customers would want to 'downsize' was enough. Not understanding the customers' circumstances was causing inertia, or no-decision. We know this is a problem facing many organisations, according to Qvidian research, the top two reasons for not achieving sales quota are: 42% of deals end up in “no decision” with sales not communicating value effectively following close behind at 41%. Selling the condominiums would be better served with a "We can help you move your life" value proposition rather than a "we can sell someone like you a condo".

Maybe viewing this as the only job to be done is a little simplistic. Focusing on the retirees, it could be that many of them do want to 'downsize' to release capital to travel more, or have more available disposable income for leisure activities.  Understanding this can help condo sellers develop a solution that helps provide this freedom. What's clear here is that just a surface level understanding of the benefits the customer is looking for is not enough.

After the fact research got the condo sellers to a deeper level of understanding where the word 'downsizing' was not helpful in shaping the value proposition. The potential buyers clearly didn’t want to downsize their dining table and sacrifice their ability to entertain family and friends. So, constructing an offer that helped 'move lives' unlocked inertia and increased sales.

Do you still talk in terms of your product and not the problems it helps to solve?

If you've moved to a more 'customer-centred' view do you still talk in generic value terms like the downsizing example?

Have you done any real customer research that takes you below the surface level that helps you understand the 'jobs to be done' in order to move closer to the condo equivalent of 'moving lives'? Do you have the in-house expertise to get underneath these issues?

Can sales and marketing articulate the value you can offer to customers in a way that resonates with them?

Our book Value-ology helps provide the answers to some of these, apparently, simple questions.

[shakemktg]

Gain A Winning Edge Through Competitive Analysis

“It’s not the will to win, but the will to prepare to win that makes the difference.” – Bear Bryant

By: Stacey Danheiser

Football season is finally here! For many fans of the sport, this means wearing your lucky jersey, participating in fantasy football and cheering on your favorite team to victory. For players, this means plenty of drills, practice, and film study. In the NFL, film study has two objectives – to provide a learning opportunity for the team to dissect and improve upon their performance from the last game, and to prepare for the week’s upcoming opponent. Taking film study seriously can mean the difference between an A and B player, and the difference between winning and losing the game.

So how does this relate to business? Like professional athletes, it is impossible to be at the top of your game without first understanding what you are up against. Ask anyone that sells a "commodity", and they will tell you that their customers are often confused about what differentiates their product from that of their competitors. Why?

Because after awhile, every business starts to sound the same -- promising the same benefits, in the same time frame at roughly the same cost. In order to achieve a sustainable competitive advantage in the market, you need to conduct a thorough analysis of your competition, just like athletes and teams do with film study.

Why you need to gather competitor intelligence

Think about football legend Peyton Manning. When he stepped up to the line of scrimmage, most times he knew exactly what he was going to do with the ball. In other words, depending on what he learned about the defense, he may have yelled out “OMAHA, OMAHA” to flip the play to go the opposite direction. This is because he’s watched hours and hours of film on every defense and every defensive formation, gathering strengths and weaknesses, and deciphering trends. Ultimately, this provided him with a killer advantage over his opponent.

A web search on “Competitor analysis” brings up mostly advice for small business owners preparing a business plan. Imagine if your organization never looked at the competitive landscape after they put together an initial business plan. This approach would likely land you in the same spot as the Taxi industry when Uber came on the scene. Yet strangely, most large organizations have no interest, much less a formal process for collecting competitor intelligence on a regular basis.

The benefits of collecting intelligence on your competitors include:

Gaining knowledge around who else your customers are considering when making the decision about your product offering

Understanding what products your competition is promoting and how they are communicating to prospects

Knowing where your competitors are spending their marketing dollars (online ads, social media, sales events, etc)

Recognizing your competitors’ strengths and weaknesses

Understanding how to position your offering so that it stands out

Increasing intelligence and insight on where to focus and how to push your business to new levels

Conducting a competitor analysis doesn’t have to be a year-long, complex process. In fact, you are far more likely to make this part of your regular business approach if the process is simple and uncomplicated. NFL teams and players don’t take a week off to study endless amounts of past games. Rather, they have a regimented but integrated approach each week to watch film in order to gain critical knowledge about their next competitor.

Think about how you can start to gather competitor insights as part of your regular business routine. For example, browsing your competitors' websites and press releases, seeking opinions about your competitors from industry experts and research firms, and asking your customers directly what they think about your competitors are all simple ways to gain a better grasp of what you're up against.

Understanding your competition is a team sport

Great football teams don’t just make the coaches or star players study their opponents. They know that every player has a different job to perform on the field. This means the quarterback is studying the opponents’ defense and when they blitz, while the cornerback is focused on understanding where the wide receivers line up and what patterns they run.

Likewise, everyone in your organization can benefit from understanding who your competitors are and how they operate. Your marketing team should understand how your products are positioned relative to the competition, which markets they serve and which marketing strategies and tactics are being utilized. Whereas your HR team will want to understand how your competitor stacks up in the area of benefits, compensation and advancement opportunities. Even your Accounting department may come up with creative billing options to offer customers just by understanding how your competitors do business.

Ultimately the purpose of understanding who your competitors are and what they are doing is so that you can position your business for success. The information you collect will help determine where your company may have a unique value proposition, which you can then provide and communicate to your prospective customers.

In a future post, I'll cover exactly how to conduct a competitive analysis and share a template that you can use to get started.

In the meantime, as you cheer on your favorite NFL team this week and your defense snuffs out that screen play to the half-back, realize that the defense didn’t just get lucky. Rather, they knew from their film study and competitive analysis of the opposing team that the offense runs that play five times a game and always on 3rd down. And stopping that 3rd down conversion is what allows your team to win. And aren’t these insights what we all strive for in our business?

[shakemktg]

4 Scenarios When To Outsource Marketing

By: Stacey Danheiser

No matter the size of your organization, chances are the perception is that you and your marketing team can handle it all. From redesigning the website, to launching a new campaign, and from generating industry buzz to developing compelling customer content for the sales team to use.

But when should you look at bringing in outside help? This is a question that comes up a lot with our clients - as they try to stretch already thin budgets. Based on working as both a client and a consultant, here are my thoughts on when you should consider outsourcing your project.

1. Does the project require specialized skills & expertise?

The best reason to bring in external consultants is for their specialized skills. Many consultants have spent decades perfecting their craft – whether they are organizational experts, marketing strategists, web designers or advertising gurus. Because of their in-depth experience, they can quickly and easily see things that others miss. For example, I worked with one organization that was trying to develop in-house expertise around messaging and content development. After a couple of years of producing unengaging and ineffective content, they realized that, while they had the internal competencies to execute (their materials always looked great), they lacked the competencies to strategize and plan (the content lacked substance and purpose).  

In addition, consultants often have unique and proprietary methods, processes and tools to walk your organization through – which takes the pressure off of your internal team to come up with a method to get the project done. And consider those with specialized industry, product, or service expertise, which isn’t easily duplicated.  They can bring a unique perspective (including a view on your competitors) as well as access to specialized databases and reports which your organization won’t have to spend money on for potential 1x use.

2. Are you trying to create lasting change? 

Let’s say you are trying to introduce a new process to get the marketing and sales team to work together to develop content.  On the surface this looks like a straightforward initiative. You may call an internal meeting, introduce your ideas on how the teams can better work together to create content, and even follow-up the meeting with a new written process based on your discussion…but then nobody follows through. What happened?  Well, we all know how hard it is to change. It is especially hard to get a group of your internal peers to change.  That’s why an external resource can be valuable when it comes to helping to get people to go along with something new.  Creating lasting change within an organization takes vision, communication and strong leadership. Often it seems that firms underestimate the scale of a change program they are embarking on. For example, moving the organization from a product-pushing sales and marketing approach to a value-led approach.

People also need a validation point.  Think about parenting a child…we can tell our kids something and it feels like we’re talking to a wall. But if they hear the same thing from another parent, teacher, coach, therapist, etc. then it finally resonates and validates your point all along, causing the change to occur. The same is true within your organization. Sometimes just bringing in a 3rd party to provide support and endorse your approach is all it takes to get your initiative to take off.

3. Do you lack internal resources? Does your internal team have the bandwidth to take on more projects? Think about the number of initiatives that are already on their plate. We see this happen over and over again. The team is too stretched to take on more work - especially strategic initiatives that are a “top priority”.  Unfortunately piling more on to already full plates is a sure-fire way to lead to employee frustration and burnout, causing all work to come to a screeching halt.

When you bring in someone to work on your behalf, the project will also come to fruition much sooner than it would if you were to tackle it on your own. It’s amazing how many internal projects are delayed (by multiple quarters) because of the lack of focus and availability. The benefit of having external help is that you know your project is being worked on – without straining internal resources.

4. Are you looking for a neutral recommendation? If the project owner of your strategic initiative is also filling a full-time role within the organization, it’s hard to believe that they would be able to maintain a neutral view.  For example, the product manager for a specific product would likely never admit that their product is irrelevant in the marketplace or recommend that it be put to rest. Their recommendations could be perceived as self-serving, which is especially dangerous when it comes to interpreting customer data (and looking only for data that reinforces your current assumptions). But a consultant can take an agnostic view and make a recommendation based on themes or patterns within the data, as well as drawing on what they’ve learned from working with past clients.

We know that any time an outside consultant or vendor is considered for an internal project, the question always arises about how to measure the benefits. While some things are hard to quantify, ask yourself what value the 3rd party brings to the table – whether you are seeking unique skills and expertise, a neutral perspective or just lack the bandwidth to handle the project yourself – sometimes calling in for help is the best path to success.

[shakemktg]

Advice For B2B Marketers: How to Drive More Sales

 By: Stacey Danheiser

Over the past decade I’ve had the opportunity to work with Sales teams of all sizes. My formal degree and passion are in Marketing, but I learned early on that in order for any of my marketing programs to be successful, I needed to build relationships with the sales team – across all levels of the organization (Field sales, sales leadership, inside sales, etc).  After all, marketing’s job (should be) to help close more business.  Yet many organizations still operate in complete silos, not yet in tune that they are both trying to achieve the same thing – happier customers, and more of them.  We’ve talked a lot about the misalignment between sales and marketing here.

Earlier this year we conducted a survey amongst our marketing and sales peers. We found some interesting stats amongst the respondents: - Over 50% said that they aren’t crystal clear why their customers choose to buy from them vs. the competition. - Only 22% of marketers said they have a clear idea of what content the sales team uses - Less than 50% of marketers involve their sales team in the creation of new content - 42% of sales people said their marketing team reaches out to them quarterly or less (and half of these said “never”!)

So marketing – here’s my advice: Talk to your sales team. But beware, the perception from sales is that you don’t do anything with the information they give you! And maybe, historically you haven’t done anything but compile the feedback and share it with a couple of co-workers or use it to solve short-term problems.

Imagine how frustrating it is for your sales team to provide loads of information on how you can help improve customer perceptions of your firm, only to see it go into a big black hole.

Ok, you say, but what should I talk to them about?

Their customers.  Ask them about their customers, and more specifically about the conversations they are having with customers about the value your firm provides. What are the key customer pain points that they keep hearing over and over? What really motivates their customer to make a decision? What do they think the customer likes about your company’s offering? What does the customer say is missing from your offering (for example, product features, tailored offers and prompt customer service)? 

The tools they need - 88% of our survey respondents have no idea what content their sales team needs. So what exactly are they creating? Bringing in customers at the top end of the funnel is certainly important, but if your sales team is ill-equipped to close the sale, it’s time to shift your focus to create tools that will help. Ask your sales team:

What do they need to really wow the customer? (You may get some lofty responses here such as “Superbowl Tickets!” or “Radio ads!” Just be prepared to listen and evaluate the potential impact of their input).

What’s the #1 tool that would help enable them to sell more?

Do they feel like they know what your firm’s value proposition is? Can they tailor it and deliver it to multiple decision makers?

What content best captures the attention of their customers?

What valuable tools/ resources are being shared with the customer by your competition?

What’s getting in their way? Look, your sales team has a lot of pressure to close deals. They may work for months on one deal, only to lose out to a competitor. Do you understand why this is happening so you can help fix it? What objections do they face from customers? What competition are they up against?  Why are they losing business? This is an opportunity for you to share insights too. For example – if you are noticing certain customer trends from website data or win-loss analysis. Oftentimes this information is not passed on to sales (in a meaningful way that leads to action), so think about how you can help improve where and how they spend their time.

How can we work together? Most salespeople are eager and willing to work with marketing IF they think it will help them close more business. If you work in an organization where Sales doesn’t interact with Marketing, it’s time to fix that.  Start by involving them in the creation of new marketing content and campaign plans.  I guarantee your sales team has great ideas – but you have to ask the right questions. For example – what content would make you proud to send to your customers?  What do you think it takes to change/ influence your customer? What do you say when the customer asks about our competitors? Tell me about a recent sale that was “easy” and why you think so.

By getting out and talking to your sales team, not only will you start to create a great working relationship, you will also learn valuable insights and information about the very customers you are trying to reach!

Additional Reading

Advice for B2B Marketers: How to get Sales Buy-in

[shakemktg]

The Reason Why Your Content Marketing Isn’t Working

By: Stacey Danheiser

“If you aim at nothing, you’ll hit it every time.” - Zig Ziglar

I love this old saying by Zig Ziglar. Not just because it’s packed with truth and life-lessons but also because it brilliantly sums up a classic content marketing mistake — moving without a target.

I’ve had several clients that appeared to have great marketing execution – in other words, they produced a lot of “stuff” (whitepapers, email campaigns, articles, etc). But when digging deeper to understand their lack of results, as it turns out, they invest most of their energies into creating content for everyone rather than for a specific and well-defined target audience.

Know Thy Customer Or Waste Thy Money

Not knowing your customers can be a costly mistake. According to a recent survey, $958 million is wasted on ineffective marketing every year by B2B companies.

Of course, you know that not everyone will buy what you are selling. Then why would you want to create content that you don’t know for sure will attract the right kind of buyers? For instance, if you’re a company selling software to large enterprises and your content is mostly getting views from consumers or small business owners, what value is that piece of content bringing to your business? Zero. Nada. Zilch.

I might sound like a broken record when I say that you have to have a deep understanding of who your audience is and where they are on their way down the path to purchase before you can put together a healthy marketing plan, but it’s something that bears repeating. No matter how many times. Why? Because knowing your target audience is the basic formula for any successful marketing program. Without a target to aim for, you’ll be shooting in the dark and worse, won’t even know if it’s a hit or a miss.

Now that you know your content marketing amounts to nothing if you’re not paying attention to targeting, let’s discuss some ways you can remedy that situation.

Aim for the Dead Center of the Target – The Buyer Personas

To create targeted content that hits the bull’s eye, the first step is to define WHO you are trying to reach. The most successful tool to help with this is to create buyer personas. But buyer personas are not based on your average demographic data. A recent B2B marketers’ report by Cintell found that companies having comprehensive buyer personas based on the buyers’ motivations, pain points, and specific roles in the buying process tend to generate more annual revenue as compared to companies that simply use demographic data in their buyer personas. I have discussed in one of my previous articles how you can create effective buyer personas.

Understand Where Your Buyer is in Their Journey

Giving your target audience what they want, both in terms of the information they need and when they need it helps producing engaging content. For example, depending on where your audience is seated in the buying cycle, they may need content that:

Creates awareness by helping them understand what your company does and how you can address their pain-points and solve the particular problems they face.

Informs them about the products or services you sell, which can solve their problems.

Differentiates you from your competitors based on your knowledge, expertise, and high-quality products and services, helping them make an informed decision.

Encourages your prospect to take action by providing everything he or she needs to confidently purchase your products and services.

When you plan your content around these specific goals, it’s better targeted to meet those goals, and ultimately create value for your audience.

Know What Content Formats Your Audience is Interested In

You may be tempted to create a compelling white paper because you’ve heard it serves as an excellent marketing tool for B2B customers. But consider this: In a global survey of 500 business executives and 500 marketers, The Economist Group asked respondents which content formats were the most helpful for a business-related matter and they found: 

Seventy-one percent (71%) said articles

Fifty-one percent (51%) said research reports

Twenty-seven percent (27%) said briefing papers

Nineteen percent (19%) said newsletters

Eight percent (8%) said events

Eighty-five percent (85%) said they prefer text content to video or audio

Your target customer could fall into any one of those categories. The point is, you could waste precious hours and manpower creating a white paper if your target audience prefers shorter pieces like articles or non-textual content like videos and podcasts. 

When You Go Without a Plan, You Plan to Fail

Lastly, you need a plan to reach your target audience. Latest stats suggest that only 28% of B2B content marketers have a documented editorial plan for their target audience. But I think the situation is far worse. For one, plenty of B2B businesses are still going by the attitude of “doing something is better than doing nothing” — they make it a point to religiously churn out something in the name of content marketing. That explains why the Internet is flooded with content that seems stale, irrelevant, and unfocused. Don't fall into this trap. Stay focused on delivering quality content and keep asking the question - "will this help my customer?" If the answer is no, don't produce it. To sum it up, if you’ve been wandering the content marketing landscape aimlessly, you’ve already poured a lot of effort and investment down the drain. It's time to get serious about defining and aiming for the bullseye so that you create a win-win situation for both your organization and your customers.