Content Marketing: How To Find The True Value Of Your Marketing Funnel
Get Both Sides of the Brain into Gear in 2014
1.
2. We are entering the age of the empowered
customer …
Always on
Always connected
ON THE MOVE
HIGHLY OPINIONATED
Aberdeen Group, 2013
WITH AN amplified VOICE
47%
….
of the responsibility this customer experience
management lies with sales and marketing functions
7. iPhone Photography Awards 2013: You Will Not Believe
These Amazing Photos Were Taken With A Smart Phone
WEB 3.0
DEVICES
aamplify.co.nz
Huffington Post, 2013 7
15. The buyer considers
an initial set of brands,
based on brand perceptions
and exposure to recent
touch points.
http://www.mckinsey.com/insights/marketing_sales/the_consumer_decision_journey
16. Buyers add or subtract
brands as they evaluate
what they want...
Ultimately, the buyer
selects a brand at the
moment of purchase.
17. After purchasing a product or service, the buyer builds expectations based
on experience to inform the next decision journey.
45. USING TECHNOLOGY
TO LEVARAGE THE
LOYALTY LOOP
aamplify.co.nz
Corning: A Day Made of Glass
http://youtu.be/6Cf7IL_eZ38
45
46. RIGHT BRAIN
RECOMMENDATIONS
1. Really understand your buyers
journey – the qualitative aspects of it
2. Build “fit for purpose” content –
appropriate and tailored and
emotionally connected
3. Think about smart ways to use
video. One size does not fit all
Build your Marketing plans around
these changed paradigms
46
Hi All, and thank you for joining this live webinar, my name is Sara from Davanti Consulting. At Davanti we have been working with many companies in NZ and Australia for the last 4 years, helping implement sales and service processes to drive growth, improve customer experience and become more relevant. Over the last 12 months we have seen growth in Marketing and automation technology that has allowed our customers to Nurture and Qualify leads efficiently, Retain and extend customer relationships and to tighten the gap between Sales and Marketing. As seen in this slide 47% of the responsibility of Customer Experience Management lies with Sales and Marketing. Today we are very excited to be co hosting this webinar with Aamplify!Before I hand over to our speakers I will take you through the house keeping.So the normal House Keeping rules apply:All Users will be placed on Mute throughout the presentationThis webinar will be recorded and available online after the presentation. Details of this and references will be sent to attendees following the webinarThroughout the webinar please feel free to post questions and we will try and answer as many as possible at the end of the session.We will address both B2B and B2C Examples throughout the presentation
Now I would like to introduce our two speakers for today. *Our first speaker for today is Samuel Williams who will be speaking from a right brain point of view. Samuel is the Managing Partner at Aamplify. Aamplify is a Marketing Consultancy who help customers withBrand & communication Strategy, Social-digital marketing Programmes and Marketing Automation & Analytics.*Our second speaker for today is Ken Brickely who will be speaking from the left brain point of view. Ken is the CEO for Buddy Bid.com, the social platform inside of Facebook that helps brands to turn likes into sales.
Technology in business today means we have to plan for the internet of everything – where everything is connected from trains to wind turbines to medical records.I want to take a moment to talk about this and how it has come together over the last 20 years…
With the rise of the interent we saw vast quantitiies of information move into a digital form and the emergence of things like e-commerce – this has fundamentally changed how we shop – both as a B2B buyer and as a consumer.
With the social web, we started to connect people to information, and people to people in new ways like with skype and facebook – creating a different type of network where our lives started to play out in a digital-social world.
And in the latest iteration, we are seeing devices with sensors connect us, in new and powerful ways. Like a camera in a smart phone – it means, not just lots more photo’s of what people eat…. It is connecting us to higher quality images – so we can tell stories like this one, faster and better than before.
These same devices are changing patient experiences – with 62% of doctors in the USA using tablet devices professionally today.Survey: Doctors overwhelmingly favor mobile devices and apps for EHRs - FierceMobileHealthcare http://www.fiercemobilehealthcare.com/story/survey-doctors-overwhelmingly-favor-mobile-devices-and-apps-ehrs/2013-06-03#ixzz2fri0Dd7z
And changing the learning experience with embedded sensors that track attention and aptitude like this concept device… coming to a school near you in the not too distant future.
So what does this mean for us marketers? – while I’m focusing on the right side, there is some stuff from the left brain I want to cover too.
This internet of everything means you can measure marketing interaction and build a case for marketing investment – actually showing ROI, rapidly and more easily than before.
It means you can start to join the dots to create meaningful interaction and develop relationships, so that…
Instead of guessing, or randomly picking ways to connect with your audience…
You can start thinking in terms of designing your sales funnel… Our job as marketers has always been about developing a that funnel –even if we haven’t thought of it that way – however now we have the internet of everything so that we can map interactions – using a bit of the left brain…
In this model from McKinsey they argue the the pipeline is more like a loop… identifying 6 points to be aware of in a purchase cycle.When a purchase process is triggered, an initial set of brands are considered.
As the buyer evaluates their options, interestingly the number of brands considered expands, and then narrows as the buyer moves toward purchase.
Once the decision to buy has been made there is the post-purchase experience to consider.And as marketers (and as Sara pointed out in her opening slide), some 47% of the responsibility falls on our shoulders to understand and improve the post purchase experience, along with how to build loyalty with customers. So with this loop in mind, lets turn to the right brain…
.…If we use qualitative methods and research we can get to grips with how people are buying – what are their touchpoints … where are they going - to learn, consider and decide?
And who else was involved in this buying decision – and how did they impact it?
We can understand who this lady is influenced by and as well who she inspires…
What tthis man considered important in the buying decision – status, image, freedom- or just the sound of a hog. All great right brain stuff…
And the percieved barriers to purchase – real or not. In this street art, is perception reality, or just a bit of chalk between you and your destination? Understand some of these behaviours and you can design content that resonates – irrespective whether you are in B2B or B2C marketing.
Switching back to the left brain… once we have this qualitative understanding - we can then marry engaging sharable content to the relevant types of interaction on the buying journey…As an example, this slide shows examples of the relevance of different interaction types, to the purchase of cars in the UK. With this understanding of what content to use, coupled with a real time understanding of a buyers context eg that they are standing in store right now – we can put appropriate interesting and timely content in front of them. Speaking of appropriate content..
This is a quick test to see if you are all still paying attention… Content has to be appropriate - as marketers you don’t want to waste money or alienate your buyers with the wrong thing at the wrong time – or with just plain WRONG content. For some of us, In the right context this could be just what you are looking for….!!! Or NOT.
OK – let’s shift gears. As we move from understanding context and appropriate content – how does that play out in interaction over social media? Especially when thinking about the differences between B2B marketing and B2C. We have different sides to our own personalities to consider, when connecting with our respective audiences. This study by TNS last year, looked at our different behaviours around social and business media. What was interesting to think about is…
That AS A Business BUYER I am increasingly EXPECTing to be educated by OTHER Companies and brands that I trust on topics that are important to my career – learning about things that will help me make more money, get more efficient, and retain staff
When I Invest time online, as a business buyer I am seeking Knowledge that will Improve My Career Fortunes. So it is important to appeal to the emotional aspects of achievement, success and aspiration – much like when I’m at a business networking event.
Let’s contrast that with spending time on facebook or pinterest. I’m there in a causal mindset, often to pass time – essentially spending my time. Versus linkedin where I concoiusly think about the time I spend there in relation to business networking – again much like an after hours professional group. So as we think about B2C marketing…
Content here needs to give me something I want to talk about. So that as I spend time I have something funny and interesting to share with friends that is not at all serious. As a consumer though…
I am bombarded with messages everywhere I go, and we are all probably feeling saturated by messages…
So what is happening in this double screen world, is that I’m picking and choosing the ways I can be reached using social and brand based filters. OK so what can we as marketers do with this understanding? There are some new rules of thuumb for communication in 2014…
Irrespective of whether you want to reach me as a business decision maker or as a consumer… a picture is worth a 1000 words, and has greater potential to connect.
To illustrate this – let’s look at the rise of vine – 6 seconds of video interaction, less than a year old and already 5 vines per second. Branded Vines are 4x More Likely To Be Shared Than Branded Videos.
And snapchat, while user numbers are unclear – most 13-25 year olds in the western world are using this regularly – with 25% of all UK mobile users and 50% of Norwegian mobile users – sending snapchats more than once a day.
And then there is Tinder – the latest app on the dating scene. With ½ a billion matches in 15 months you simply swipe left for no and right for yes – based on pictures of those special massage moments!!! OK so once again how do I apply this as a marketer?
Visual speak still means that stories connect us to content. Speeding up how quickly we can absorb information.Telling this story in words would have had little or no impact, compared to what the SPCA was able to do in 60 seconds. A minute of video is equivalent to 3600 webpages by the way. And this video has just under 11 million views since May last year.
Here is a B2B example that is 1 minute in length and had a production budget which we estimate to be under $10K. ------ Today Quality is up and production costs are down for video.
Here is another example of a video that achieved cut thru around a social issue. Production budget for this get up campaign for marriage equality in Oz was under $8K – filmed in a day, it has generated 56,000 shares, and over 12 million views in 15 months. CUT THRU with video is strong – not only is it fast to watch but rentention rates are high.
Video increases your reach – people will share your story, through their networks…This kmart video about shipping my pants generated 20 million views and 46,000 shares – worth a watch if you haven’t seen it.
For SEO, video is playing an increasingly important role. Use video on your website in the right way and your SEO results should change for the better. And onpage conversion can increase by as much as 70%.
Let’s tie this back to the business. If we look at content marketing from a B2B perspective…. The role of sales is transforming from hard cold sell, with role models like Chris Varick in the Boiler Room, into a much more consultative and expertise based role. And for marketers, delivering leads to sales….
our role is changing into that of inspiring educator, who tells stories about success, achievement and aspiration – like John Keating in dead poets society. Our job is to deliver better qualified opportunities that have been nurtured to be the best.
For B2C Marketers – it is no longer purely about stimulus- it’s a bit more like becoming a technical behavourial psychologist, where
understanding behaviour in between stimulus, to a product moving of the shelf becomes the key to success.
And connecting technology and behavioural understandingto the loyalty loop.
What have we learnt on the Right side of the brain1. It’s all about people – understand what’s important to them – map the steps.2. Understanding this means you can make content fit for purpose – so it is appropriate, tailored and emotionally connected- emotion is very important in video3. Think about video for SEO, conversion, and brand awareness – it need not blow your budget. And think visual.Plan for these changed paradigms…
IF the next big thing isn’t a thing at all, and rather the connectedness and internet of everything, the implications of this to left brain marketing are extraordinary.
We’re already seeing this with the explosion of programmatic media placement and optimization services. What I find interesting about the coming year, and why so many companies in this space are receiving funding – is that the entire category of marketing automation is entering an exciting phase of maturity -- where its effectiveness is now measurable and and proving to add significant ROI to those who are keeping up and implementing it correctly. In the short time we have I’ll introduce three high level trends and how to make sure you’re best positioned to get the most from them. And then I’ll get under the hood a bit and look at three related tactics you’ll want to get ahead of the curve on.
A wise man once said, always predict things 10 years in advance. That way if you get it wrong, no one will remember. Fortunately, there a few left brain marketing trends I can safely say are already picking up steam this year:Quantification of pipeline attribution and source analysis is getting exponentially more sophisticated and easier to implement. I’ll cover scoring and contenxtualpriceing when we look under the hood in a couple minutes. Marketing spend in 2014 will grow significantly. Brands are seeing ROI from their marketing tech investments. Doubling down investments to increase competitive advantage. 3) Connecting offline with online and online with offline. Examples include – B2B: trade shows – finally after all these years, attributing your expenditure at events with actual revenue B2C: closing the loop on restaurant or retail foot traffic from online marketing spend
The brands who lead in ROI from these left brain initiatives will safely have a few common characteristics…. First: Their Organizational Behavior toward ROI --- picking well defined owners of return on investment and holding them accountable. This department is no longer just the colouring in department.
2) Selecting and implementing the right technology and measurements for your business.
2a - Don’t get caught up in measuring everything. There are a lot of things to measure, so frankly ignore what’s not relevant to you. Pick what matters to your biz.
2b - Plan for attribution measurement up front in the process. Example: We know we’re spending x online and expecting y foot traffic across these retail outlets. How can we close the loop on that foot traffic in a meaningful and engaging way? Mitre 10 executed this well recently, where details from your receipts were used for your entry into the contest.
2 c - Get started today.
Leadership within org need to be onboard 100% to sustain the implementation. Most importantly, pick which battles to win. What data is important to you? How are you going to capture it? And how are you going to put it to use? KEEP IT NARROWED TO: INCREASING MARGININCREASING VOLUMEMAKING THAT MOMENT OF TRUTH BETTER FOR CUSTOMERThink about your last major purchase – in a consumer or business capcity.;.. , the most emotional and positive moment of buying a product is BUYING THE PRODUCT. This is grossly underestimated and for those brands who get it right, they soar above their competition. How can you create more purchase moments with your customers to bring that excitement and emotion to the surface?
Three specific areas of left brain marketing that are picking up steam in 2014: Attribution , Scoring & Pricing.
Anecdotally I know social marketing works because I see some foodie friends of mine enjoying a new restaurant via a promoted post on Facebook’s newsfeed and I decide to go check it out. But when I walk in the front door, how does that owner really know their dollars are working for them? Asking me? Please! I don’t think so.
What is attribution? Attribution is the tagging of a lead at every point possible and then adding all those touch points up when they become a customer. This graphic is now old school and in practice everywhere – particularly e-commerce where the purchase is easily measured by a click…. but a trend I see in 2014 is applying this to the offline world. Think of foot traffic coming into that restaurant, or into Mitre 10, or any retail for that matter.
The more sophisticated use of attribution is when you offer content to ONLY THOSE WHO WALK IN YOUR STORE. No one else will ever see that link except the lucky people who dined at your restaurant. We treat this page the same way we treat a “thank you page” in an ecommerce storefront. We “close the loop” on those customers and we know they are instore customer. We then compare that user against all the previous advertising they have seen from our brand. Perhaps how many times or what areas of the web site they’ve visited. i.e. “they saw the menu online.” Surprise surprise but 1/3 of restaurants in NZ don’t have a web site. And 1/3 of those who do, don’t have a published menu on their web site.
B2B example: Any company who invests in attending trade shows. How to close the loop beyond business cards and scanners? Give everyone spoke with, or saw our branding, who may have appeared to be only tire kickers a piece of engaging content. Planning for this up front using marketing automation systems will help! Treat each person on the trade show floor like a customer in that restaurant, except you’ll measure the purchase online (or offline) at a later point. The way to close the loop in offline B2B is to offer unique “welcome to” or “thank you for your business” content where you can later attribute them to the sale. Let’s just ask a question…. Sara, at Davanti, what formal communications to you offer to new clients who have just signed up with you? ENGAGEMENT LETTER> Right. An engagement letter…. Include that unique link that is ONLY SHARED with new clients on your engagement letter. If you’ve planned correctly, you’ll be able to attribute all those blog posts, webinars, etc. back to this new customer. And more important, divest time being spent on items that bring no conversion. This is attribution. And it’s easier and easier to implement and makes justifying marketing budgets easier and easier.
Scoring – assigning a numeric value to prospects depending on a myriad of criteria including touch points, engagement, propensity to purchase, and the list goes on.But marketing automation software is making this much easier to implement now – especially for long cycle sales.
Here’s how it works. You want to nurture your leads with the right context and at the appropriate time of sale. If I’ve hit your web site, I’m less important than someone who has hit your web site and downloaded a white paper. But if I’ve shared that white paper 10x with colleagues around the office, I may be in a different stage of the buying cycle and should be scored differently. Think of scoring as creating and managing many lists. The smaller and more accurate your lists are, the more likely you are to move me from one list to the next…. Through your sales funnel. Communicating with me out of context can be annoying, as is communicating with me in the right context can seem magical and serendipitous to the right customer. These lists can be translated into better advertising comms across Facebook or LinkedIn or Google Display Network, as well as email communications and adjusting content on your corporate homepage to suit the audience viewing that content.
Let’s use an example from the insurance industry…. I’m in the market for commercial marine insurance and I’m prepared to spend 100k over next year with a new provider. I’ve just met with an insurance representative and they assure me they are experts at commercial marine insurance.
The salesperson sends me a thank you email moments after our meeting and I open it – tagging (and scoring me) as interested in commercial marine insurance.
Later that day, week, month, as I research the competition in this space, I find comfort in the fact that with this particular inusrance provider, one of the pieces of content ON THEIR CORPORATE HOMEPAGE is highlighting Commercial Marine Insurance.
My score affected the representation of this web site and in turn my propensity to purchase. On the left, their corporate web site. On the right, their corporate web site for me, the buyer of commercial marine insurance. In this case, the application and proper USE of scoring has vastly affected the context in which I’m experiencing this brand.This notion of context isn’t just limited to messaging….
Borrowing a line from Accenture -- Pricing is for poets and profit maximizers…. And the last area under the hood this morning. Pricing is one of the most important decisions a company makes. Yet too often this left brain exercise is reduced to a simple set of list prices or bundles or discounts and really given thought only in times of euphoria “Let’s Raise Prices!” or distressed times of despair, or excess inventory. A great book recently published on this subject titled Contextual Pricing -- heralded by the likes of GE and Coca-Cola – talks about price elasticity by micro-segments and customer context. Think about all those lists you’ve created in your marketing automation software, each with different scores. Could your prices or packaging of services be ever so slightly changed based on scores? Absolutely!!!! A great local example is House of Travel.
Here’s a company leading in the space of social commerce, holding Facebook auctions every Friday at noon. Now, in addition to being highly viral content and engaging and right brainy, there is some interesting left brain activity going on when you look closer. This is an example of a company transforming their content marketing into Transactional Content. ROI-based. Totally measurable. And creating small opportunities for customers to feel excited in the process of doing business with their brand. In this case, they’re using Price Discovery as their tactic, in the form of a Facebook Auction. Their goal is to create customers, but also to engage with and identify which fans have purchase intent and as important, the TIMING of that purchase intent.
You can see as a result of multiple people engaged in this auction, House of Travel is identifying the names and contact details of every bidder, along with highest bid amount, intended destination, demographics, and a whole host of interesting remarketing information. Where it’s getting interesting is using the scoring data collected to begin marketing to these new leads with contextual pricing. Instead of a 5 night trip to Sydney, perhaps it’s a 4 night trip?! The takeaways here are: Content can be transactional. And Context applies to pricing as well messaging.In 2014, I predict more left brain pricing strategies and a move away from fluffy Facebook giveaways toward a far more sophisticated forms of social commerce.
Let’s not forget -- The goal is to create LOYAL RECURRING CUSTOMERS. The most emotional part of buying a product is buying the product. We don’t get this emotion without a transaction. So throughout the nurturing phase of marketing & presales, creating as many trial close opportunities as possible with marketing automation is a sound strategy. Everything else, albeit important steps in the sales funnel, is the equivalent of standing on the sidewalk in front of a shop window …. Pressing the LIKE button. Content has to be able to deliver the ultimate emotional experience and it can’t do this without that transactional element.
Thank you for your time today. We’re happy to take specific questions and get into detail in any of these areas.
