11
Same Content More Leads An inside look at how progressive BtoB organizations are jumping off the treadmill of traditional, underperforming marketing channels and improving the efficiency of their sales and marketing by repurposing existing content and publishing it in new formats. Presented by Sponsored by

Same Content More Leads

Embed Size (px)

DESCRIPTION

A DemandGen Report custom white paper for Brainshark

Citation preview

Same Content More Leads

An inside look at how progressive BtoB organizations

are jumping off the treadmill of traditional,

underperforming marketing channels and improving

the efficiency of their sales and marketing by

repurposing existing content and publishing it in new

formats.

Presented by

Sponsored by

Sale.” “We can now easily create and share

video, podcasts, slide decks, widgets and

more.”

In an interview with DemandGen Report,

Albee said that some sectors are likely to

see increased open rates and click-thru rates

by delivering content in a variety of formats,

which is becoming the obvious preference of a

growing number of executives. “Embrace the

interactive opportunities and make sure your

keywords and titles help your content get found

by those searching,” Albee said. “Your web site

is not the only place for your content to live.

Spread it around and watch who participates

with it. You may be surprised by new market

insights you wouldn’t have otherwise thought to

consider.”

This white paper will provide an inside look

at how leading marketers are reaching more

prospects by repurposing existing content

and delivering it in a creative, targeted and

measurable format that fuels successful lead

generation—while also saving time and money.

Every day some 247 billion emails are sent.

That’s some 90 trillion per year. And the

reality of the flooded inbox is that traditional

media channels, such as email, only generate

response rates in the 1% to 3% range.

According to SiriusDecisions data, the number

of campaigns received per week for the average

buyer has increased 32% since 2006, with the

average buyer now receiving 20.3 campaigns

weekly.

So how do you ensure that your company’s

message is heard? How do you create

compelling and timely marketing content that

can stand out in the inbox and rise above the

clutter and competition? The old batch and

blast mentality of email marketing has clearly

passed its prime, and the overcrowding and low

turnout for webinars has made it harder to truly

engage prospects in that format.

To successfully get prospects to raise their

hands and engage with offers, BtoB marketers

need to provide content that is targeted,

engaging and delivered in a compelling

multimedia format, via multiple channels and

accessible on multiple types of devices.

Many progressive companies are refreshing

content that has grown stale sitting on the shelf

by updating the messaging and putting it into

new, more interactive formats. “The variety of

formats now available for marketers to use is

expanding fast” said Ardath Albee, author of the

book “eMarketing Strategies for the Complex

“The variety of formats now available for marketers to use

is expanding fast. We can now easily create and share

video, podcasts, slide decks, widgets and more.”

- Ardath Albee, author of eMarketing Strategies for the Complex Sale

2 • A DEMANDGEN REPORT WHITE PAPER

campaigns, provide no real engagement metrics

after a prospect downloads. “As a marketer,

you have no real idea if they read the paper or if

they passed it along to members of their team,”

Kardon said. “Tools like Brainshark give us

intelligence into when they viewed the content

and how long they stayed engaged.”

In addition to seeing increased “absorption”

and improved engagement metrics, Kardon

said multimedia platforms are helping BtoB

marketers stretch their marketing dollars by

migrating existing content messages into new

formats.

To engage prospects in their preferred medium,

progressive marketers have learned it is critical

to deliver their message in a customized,

targeted presentation that is short, to-the-point

and utilizes multimedia tools. To be heard above

the noise and clutter of email for example,

utilizing video, audio and tracking tools offer

a better response rate coupled with a better

return on investment than traditional benign

email blasts and bulky attachments.

THE CAMPAIGN REFRESHThe reality for most marketers today is that

they are being asked to do more with less.

They typically need to feed more leads—as well

as better qualified leads—to their sales team,

while working with budgets that are leaner

than in past years. In order to succeed in this

challenging climate, marketers need to have

at their disposal a pool of sales and marketing

content that they can glean from and craft

customized campaigns to reach prospects

at any time—quickly—throughout the buying

cycle. And that means continually refreshing

campaign content from multiple sources that

can be repurposed in creative ways that focus

on the specific areas of interest of your target

audiences.

Brian Kardon, CMO of Eloqua, one of the

top marketing automation providers, said

Eloqua, as well as many of his clients, are now

incorporating more on-demand multimedia

platforms like Brainshark into their demand

generation campaigns. “Every prospect has

a different way they like to absorb content,”

Kardon said. “Some people prefer traditional

white papers and webinars, but others are

looking for more interactive formats that they

can turn on at their leisure.”

Although webinars are typically offered on-

demand, Kardon pointed out that they are

somewhat “time-locked,” which can limit

their effectiveness. And white papers, which

are still a staple of many demand generation

“Every prospect has a different

way they like to absorb content.

Some people prefer traditional

white papers and webinars,

but others are looking for more

interactive formats that they can

turn on at their leisure.”

- Brian Kardon, CMO of Eloqua

3 • A DEMANDGEN REPORT WHITE PAPER

are all fueled by content. Lots of it,” Albee said.

“That puts a lot of pressure on limited marketing

resources to churn out not only volume, but

also quality content that delivers a consistent

storyline to a variety of target markets and

customers.”

For example, one white paper can help you

create five ancillary pieces of content:

• A series of articles or blog posts;

• Several articles and a few blog posts;

• Several scripts for multimedia slidecasts

(slides plus audio);

• A webinar on the same topic (give the

white paper away as a bonus);

• Targeted, multimedia emails;

Further, the Rule of Five is designed to help

marketers provide targeted content all along the

purchasing cycle—quickly and efficiently. But

the trick today is to take that content and deliver

it via formats that resonate with the target

MAPPING CONTENTThe reality of engaging prospects across

different mediums with different messages

requires a coordinated library of content where

you can cherry-pick the message, data and

information that you need to reach specific

customers or a database of prospects. And,

working with budget constraints, most

marketers need to accomplish this at a

reasonable cost. Albee advises marketers to

create an editorial/content calendar to help

identify how content development efficiencies

can be achieved.

Albee is an advocate of the “Rule of Five” when

it comes to content. The Rule of Five simply

states that each and every content development

undertaking should produce content assets

that can be used five different ways in order

to increase the efficiency of your spend and

engage prospects in their preferred medium.

“Lead nurturing, inbound pull, social networks,

blogs, email and other e-marketing activities

“In order to get attention, marketers must develop

valuable, relevant, compelling and consistent messages so

that prospects actually ‘opt-in’ to receive the marketing. It’s the

ultimate non-sell. Tomorrow’s marketing is all about publishing.”

- Joe Pulizzi, Chief Content Officer of Junta42

4 • A DEMANDGEN REPORT WHITE PAPER

Pulizzi said marketers need to create consistent

and compelling content like any publisher.

And in today’s world, that requires utilizing

multiple channels. It’s also important to get

more mileage out of your content by slicing

and dicing it to target prospects all along the

discovery through purchasing cycle.

Another key point marketers need to

remember—in thinking as publishers—is that

their content must be more attractive and

compelling than the other offers arriving on a

reader’s desk or landing in their inbox. That

includes the delivery vehicle too. Sending out

a broad benign email coupled with a 50-slide

PowerPoint attachment is guaranteed to end

up in the trash bin. “You have to examine the

analytics and see what works and what does

not, so you can adjust and deliver messaging

that is on target and engaging,” Pulizzi said.

Further, it’s important to create within your

company—like any publisher worth his/her

salt—analytic tools to gain deep knowledge of

audience. This approach greatly increases the

odds that it will be opened and ideally tracked

to facilitate a targeted sales call designed to

personally engage a prospect.

THINKING LIKE A PUBLISHERAccording to Joe Pulizzi, co-author of the

book “Get Content, Get Customers” and

Chief Content Officer of Junta42, a web site

that focuses on custom content strategies,

marketers should view themselves as publishers

and their customers and prospects as readers.

The increased focus on feeding social media,

search engine optimization and lead generation

has led to what Pulizzi has called the “perfect

storm of content.”

Recent research from Junta42 supports the

premise that content continues to be king, as

more and more marketers shift their spending

to conversational messages. The 2010 Content

Marketing Survey found 59% of marketing

professionals plan to increase their spending

on content marketing this year. The marketing

professionals polled in the survey indicated

they are planning to allocate an all-time high of

33% of their overall budget to custom efforts.

“Customers are finding more ways to block

unwanted messages,” Pulizzi said. “In order to

get attention, marketers must develop valuable,

relevant, compelling and consistent messages

so that prospects actually ‘opt-in’ to receive the

marketing. It’s the ultimate non-sell. Tomorrow’s

marketing is all about publishing.”

“By eliminating the need for registration in order to gain

access to your white papers, eBooks, and other valuable

content, you remove the initial barriers to building

relationships with prospects.”

- Jon Miller, VP of Marketing of Marketo

5 • A DEMANDGEN REPORT WHITE PAPER

your customers/readers. And that entails having

real-time tools in place to capture data in order

to push out targeted and engaging content to

increase product interest, lead generation and,

ultimately, sales.

REMOVING THE GATESWhile the traditional strategy to marry content

marketing with lead generation was built

around putting offers such as white papers and

webinars out through gated registration forms—

requiring prospects to supply their contact

information in exchange for the content—the

explosion of social media has rewritten the rules

on content distribution.

David Meerman Scott, author of “New Rules

of Marketing & PR,” recently estimates content

from white papers and eBooks would be

downloaded between 20 times to 50 times more

if they were offered without a registration gate in

front of the download.

In a recent blog post titled “Seed Nurturing and

the Future of Lead Nurturing,” Jon Miller, VP

of marketing at marketing automation vendor

Marketo, agrees that social media is changing

the rules of communicating with prospects. “By

eliminating the need for registration in order

to gain access to your white papers, eBooks,

and other valuable content, you remove the

initial barriers to building relationships with

prospects,” Miller wrote.

However, shifting to ungated delivery models

doesn’t mean sales and marketing can afford

to give up on measurement. It is now more

important than ever that content messaging

be measured, analyzed and repurposed in

multiple formats and media to continually target

prospects throughout the purchasing cycle.

IMPACTING THE SELLING PROCESSTim Riesterer, a 20-year marketing veteran

with a diverse sales, marketing and advertising

corporate portfolio, and co-author of

“Customer Message Management: Increase

Marketing’s Impact on Selling,” has become an

evangelist for on-demand presentations, stating

that they are the best sales tool marketing has

ever created.

“What we discovered is that a very brief email

that compels somebody to click on a link to

watch something with the promise that it will

be brief, hard hitting and insightful, is way more

powerful than email alone,” he said.

As CMO of Corporate Visions, a Nevada-based

company that helps clients create, deliver and

sustain messages that offer a differentiated

customer experience at the point of sale,

Riesterer knows about compressing complex

sales messages. The firm helps companies

translate the 30,000-foot company message

into a three-foot customer conversation in a

way that sets them apart from competitors,

communicates value and wins more profitable

business.

Riesterer explains that his company doesn’t

send out a single email without a Brainshark

6 • A DEMANDGEN REPORT WHITE PAPER

a 70% improvement in the ability to get hold

of someone following a Brainshark email,

compared to when we just sent out a regular

email in the past,” notes Riesterer.

Riesterer also says people have tuned-out

regular email solicitations—and the low

response rates reflect that downward spiral.

With spam filters and firewalls blocking emails

with attachments, the odds further decrease

that your email will ever being opened. “Even

click-through or open rates have been a poor

judge to determine if a person has any qualified

interest ... because you can’t tell how serious

that person is about your product, which

can burn a lot of marketing cycles on poorly

qualified interest leads,” he says.

Utilizing Brainshark, Riesterer can respond

to serious prospects fast because the

sophisticated tracking mechanism allows him

to know what the prospect is focused on. For

example, he points to a webcast sent out to

prospects and found that it quickly went viral

and was passed around to 100 different people

who viewed the presentation. “This was spurred

from one original viewer who passed it along,

and we tracked it, which enabled us to track the

behavior of as it went around the inside of our

prospect’s company,” he said.

Because Brainshark is used for all lead-

generation digital marketing initiatives, Riesterer

says 45% of his qualified leads in the sales

link to it. Riesterer uses Brainshark email

campaigns to launch new products, notify

customers of events, and share industry

research and thought-leadership content.

“Basically the email contains one sentence and

three bullet points that compel a reader to click

the link to watch a two-minute presentation,”

Riesterer explains, adding: “We drive people

quickly to the online presentation—which is

trackable—and then we can follow up with a

phone call.”

Knowing the analytics of what recipients viewed

and how long they viewed a presentation,

provides immediate feedback to the sales team.

Sales can then tailor a follow-up call based on

the touch points of the recipient captured from

the analytics.

And because the sales team is armed with

exact knowledge of a prospect’s interest, the

odds increase dramatically to reach prospects

with a follow-up phone call because the sales

team can strike a chord with the viewer’s

top-of-mind interest. “I’d say we have seen

7 • A DEMANDGEN REPORT WHITE PAPER

the investigative and purchasing cycle. Further,

the company knows that its technical product

information has to reach numerous people

involved in purchasing decisions. And, that

information needs to be direct in order to stave-

off distortion that can occur when information is

passed from one person to another—especially

when targeting a diverse global technical

community.

A tall order, indeed. But Malvern’s marketing

team discovered a strategy that allows it to

craft—and repurpose—its library of print, digital

and event marketing materials to increase lead

generation and response rates, and to better

communicate with its existing customer base.

“Scientists thirst for good information, and

because they live on the web, they want it

now,” says Randy Byrne, VP of Marketing, at

Malvern’s U.S. headquarters in Westborough,

MA. “But many people in our industry

(marketing) still approach marketing like they

did 20 years ago … information today has to be

targeted, delivered fast and measured,” he said.

pipeline were generated from utilizing the data

captured from a Brainshark marketing initiative.

“I can tell you the source,” he explains, “and

that basically is the fabric of our demand-

generation promotional campaigns, event

promotions, and sales follow-up. Every product

we have has a Brainshark, so when somebody

asks me about our products, we don’t send a

two-page overview, we send a Brainshark,” he

adds.

Riesterer stresses that Brainshark puts his sales

and marketing team in a position to guide and

facilitate their messaging throughout the buying

cycle—with real analytical knowledge—rather

than just “hoping that they watched or read

something,” he said.

CASE IN POINT: A NEW WAY TO DELIVER YOUR MESSAGE — AND INCREASE RESPONSEAs a leading supplier of analytical solutions and

instruments that measure the complexities of

macro molecules and nanomaterials, Malvern

Instruments serves a global—and highly

technical—customer base. Headquartered in

the United Kingdom, Malvern constantly strives

to engage highly technical decision-makers with

need-to-know-now data, specifications and

information—fast.

And that requires Malvern to utilize an array

of digital marketing tools that can be quickly

crafted—and delivered—during every stage of

8 • A DEMANDGEN REPORT WHITE PAPER

can examine the analytics and follow-up with a

phone call—knowing that the prospect already

has expressed interest in a specific product or

solution.

“When we send out an email blast, we’ll say

up front how long the presentation is so the

recipient can either view it immediately or set

aside time to view the presentation later,” Byrne

said. He adds that because the Brainshark

emails capture the recipient’s data, “we can

continue to send that person very specific

emails because we already know they have

expressed interest in a specific product.”

To that end, Malvern initiated an email strategy

using the Brainshark application that delivers

targeted, engaging, and most importantly,

measurable marketing and sales information

that increases response rates to the point where

they don’t even measure ROI anymore.

“We call it switching on the light,” explained

Byrne. The “light” he refers to is the lead-

generation response rate attained by sending

out targeted emails powered by Brainshark.

Here’s how it works: Byrne will generally

email out audio/video presentations to a

targeted audience gleaned from its customer/

prospect database. The key is to keep the

email introduction short and move the recipient

to click to the presentation. Here again, the

recipient is informed that the presentation

will only take a few minutes of his/her time.

When the prospect opens the email and clicks

the link to the presentation, the prospect’s

information is captured and the marketing team

9 • A DEMANDGEN REPORT WHITE PAPER

“Information today has to be targeted, delivered fast

and measured.”- Randy Byrne, VP of Marketing of Malvern

CONCLUSION

By graduating from a one-and-done approach to content marketing, leading BtoB

organizations are optimizing their offers by transforming stale content into more

immersive, interactive mediums. Since executives are more comfortable accessing

content in digital formats, they are able to measure and track prospect engagement

beyond simple open rates to get detailed analytical data.

“Marketers need to consider that every touch point leaves an impression,” Albee said.

“When consistent, the cumulative effect of these impressions builds credibility through

the delivery of information and insights considered valuable from the prospect’s

perspective. This is why one-off touches don’t work well. They tend to be all over the

board based on whatever the company thinks is important at the time. This tells a

disjointed story in the eyes of your audience.”

Rather than living with the low response rates of traditional email marketing or settling

for less than half of webinar registrants actually showing up for the event, many

marketers are taking steps to stop pouring their budgets into the same old channels.

As a successful alternative, many progressive companies are breaking out of the

traditional e-mail blast and webinar cycle and attracting qualified prospects with more

desirable and differentiated offers utilizing interactive and measurable platforms.

10 • A DEMANDGEN REPORT WHITE PAPER

ABOUT BRAINSHARK

Brainshark is the leader in on-demand multimedia for business.

The company’s Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) platform enables

businesspeople to create relevant, timely, measurable content

that their audiences can access anytime, anywhere, on almost

any type of device. Marketers use Brainshark to drive demand,

launch new products, and increase mindshare with their

prospects, customers, employees and partners.

ABOUT DEMANDGEN REPORT

DemandGen Report is a targeted e-media publication spotlighting

the strategies and solutions that help companies better align

their sales and marketing organizations, and ultimately, drive

growth. A key component of our coverage focuses on the sales

and marketing automation tools that enable companies to better

measure and manage their multi-channel demand generation

efforts.