The Future of Demand Generation: How Revenue Marketing is Changing the Way We Sell
The future of demand generation is here, and the game has changed.
With the advent of revenue marketing, we have shifted our focus from simply generating leads to nurturing prospects in order to convert them into customers.
But how do you know if your strategy demand generation strategy is working? What metrics should be used to measure success?
And what are some best practices that will ensure you have a successful strategy for years to come?
This blog post will cover all these questions and more so that by the end of it, you’ll feel confident in your ability to generate more revenue with less effort!
What is demand generation?
Demand generation is the process of creating demand for a product or service. It’s been around since before marketing became an industry, and has evolved with technology to become more sophisticated over time as we’ve learned what works best in different circumstances.
Demand generation is now about generating revenue, not just leads. It’s also a much more strategic endeavor than it used to be because of the amount and type of information available in today’s marketing environment and how quickly that data can change with new developments or trends happening at any time.
With so many variables influencing your strategy from day one you need an approach that will allow flexibility while still being able to take advantage when opportunities arise without having wasted resources doing things outside its scope (like traditional lead gen).
What is the right strategy?
“Hey Ivan, you played chess professionally, what do you think about our strategy?”
Usually, my answer is another question: “Are you sure you have it?”
The first step is to set goals that are realistic, measurable, and well-defined.
This means you should define your B2B brand’s mission and vision, as well as core values.
But before that, you’ll need to figure out who your target audience is.
Who are your common B2B customers?
What are their problems, pain points, concerns, passions, interests, and so on?
What are they looking for in terms of efficiency, professionalism, and expertise?
Once you know who your ideal client is, you can determine your value proposition.
What are you bringing to the table?
What’s that unique feature you’re offering that will attract your ideal client?
These first two steps will help you in crafting your B2B brand story and defining your company’s core values, vision, and mission statement.
At this point, all decision-makers and C-level teams should be fully involved in determining the brand’s core values.
Your mission statement should be straightforward, concise, and easy to understand.
It should be able to express the company’s core values and vision, as well as how it brings value to consumers.
After all, this is set up properly, we can start talking about step zero.
How to harvest an existing demand
Harvesting demand is similar to matchmaking in that you’re looking for customers who are already interested in your product, service, or brand and matching them to whatever you have to offer.
The majority of digital channels are solely focused on harvesting existing demand. Consider this: both SEO and PPC depend on search frequency, which means that someone must be actively looking for words relevant to your product or service.
There are so many ways to more efficiently extract search volume that businesses that do it well find it to be so cost-effective (and usually effective) that they don’t need to do much else.
However, you will still be constrained by current demand, which is where generating demand comes into play.
Demand generation entails finding potential consumers who didn’t even realize they needed your product or service. When it comes to generating desire, the possibilities are endless… it’s just that it’s far more difficult than exploiting established interest.
You want to pair them at the end of the day. The key is to understand which marketing activities accomplish what and how these two approaches complement one another.
Let’s take it a step further.
Polarization: How to attract the right clients and create new demand
Trying to polarize the people and challenge the status quo in the B2B world can be the marketing kiss of death. Businesses often avoid polarizing ideas, whether new products, ad campaigns, or promotions. It was always easier to play safe and launch something mediocre.
Well, that time has passed. Welcome to a new era.
There is no time and money for mediocre effects, not responsible for creating new revenue.
In 2021, when we’re sure things will go full digital without any chance to reverse the process. It’s the right time to embrace the power of polarization as a step zero.
It’s simple. If you try to appeal to everyone, you won’t necessarily appeal to anyone in particular.
Think about that for a second.
Do you want to wait and play it safe with another mediocre emotionless campaign?
What are you afraid of?
Most companies want to create products or services to serve every demographic, social-economic background, and geographic location.
Going that route, you can only arrive in mediocre capital — the city of everlasting vanilla.
Instead, create great products/services that make segments of people very happy. Don’t be afraid if these products cause dissatisfaction in other segments. The worst-case scenario is to generate no passionate reactions at all, which happens when businesses try to please everybody.
Rookie business owners tend to believe that everyone in the world who may be interested in their products or services is a potential customer. They try to make everybody like their brand, based on this fallacy, by saying all the right things and never alienating anyone.
And that’s precisely where they go wrong.
Getting a brand that appeals to everyone is the same as not having one at all
Customers find it difficult to understand “is this the right thing for me?” when a brand is so bland and boring.
This isn’t even your most serious question. No, the biggest issue will only become clear in the coming months and years: coping with clients will become a complete nightmare.
Why is it necessary to exclude some types of individuals from your business?
Product businesses with minimal maintenance and customer service demands may never interact with the majority of their customers.
But it’s a completely different story for service and product companies that provide high-touch customer service: you stay in touch with the client during the project, and often for months afterward.
This form of engagement involves a close client-professional relationship. You devote a lot of time to communicating, brainstorming, discussing, presenting, and encouraging.
Every interaction has the potential for things to go wrong:
- Misunderstandings and miscommunication
- Difference in expectations
- Huge variation in client’s knowledge of your industry
- Unclear responsibilities
- Different standards of politeness and professionalism
The whole process is riddled with traps, and it doesn’t take long for things to go south — with a certain kind of person, that is.
You’ll learn what kinds of people you enjoy working with over time, and you’ll be able to identify them more quickly. It will be clear as day whether this person is your Dream Client or a Client From Hell based on the interaction (or anything in between).
But you know what? You don’t even have to wait for you to interact with people to weed out those you don’t want to work with — with a polarizing brand, you can do it even before you hear from them.
Branding serves two purposes: attracting the right kind of clients, and pushing away the wrong ones
When I say “right” and “wrong”, I don’t mean ethically or factually — I mean wrong for you.
We’re all different, and our preferences for friends and acquaintances are as well. It’s the same for clients: they’re the people with whom you spend a significant portion of your day, and you obviously want this time to be as enjoyable as possible.
If you haven’t already heard, I have some good news for you:
Work can be fun.
Not every aspect of work (although there are ways to make tasks more enjoyable), but at the very least the billable work you do when working with your clients should be enjoyable. Why bother if you don’t have to? Working in a coffee shop or a bank might provide you with health insurance and more vacation time.
Let me rephrase this: time spent engaging with your clients can and should be fun. If it’s not and you hate it, one of two things are happening:
- You’re performing the wrong service.
- You’re working with the wrong clients.
If your problem is the first one, I suggest you look at other choices because it’s not going to get any easier. If you’re certain it’s not that, you’ve come to the right place; I’ll tell you how to get better clients.
What is your buyer’s journey?
Think about your customers for a moment. Be honest.
Do they really want to be prospected, or demoed, or closed?
These steps add zero value to them.
They won’t like to be part of some funnel or other pre-defined process.
What do they really want instead?
They are looking for additional information about your product that can’t be found online.
They want deep understanding, personal connection, and empathy.
They want you to personalize your sales process to the buyer’s context by understanding the buyer’s journey.
The buyer’s journey is the process buyers go through to become aware of, consider and evaluate, and decide to purchase a new product or service.
The journey consists of a three-step process.
If you don’t have a deep understanding of your buyers, conduct a few interviews with your clients, prospects, and salespeople at your company to get a sense of the buying journey.
The active research process an individual goes through when buying a product or service is referred to as the buyer’s journey. This is a process that everybody goes through, whether they’re buying a home, choosing a restaurant for dinner, or even picking up a candy bar at the grocery store.
From a demand gen marketer’s perspective, you want to use the buyer’s journey as a framework to help you empathize with the buyer.
Your buyer is either recognizing their problem, understanding what options might alleviate their problem, or comparing their best options when they are ready to make a purchase, while you, the marketer, is focusing on creating content that fits into one of the stages of the demand generation methodology.
Here are some questions to consider when putting together the buyer’s journey for your company.
Awareness Stage
Buyers identify their challenge or an opportunity they want to explore during the Awareness stage. They also determine whether the goal or challenge should be prioritized. To completely comprehend the Awareness stage for your buyer, consider the following questions:
What words do customers use to identify their goals or challenges?
How will buyers learn more about these goals or challenges?
What are the consequences of the buyer’s inaction?
Are there any common misconceptions among buyers about how to address the goal or challenge?
What factors do buyers consider when deciding if a goal or a challenge should be prioritized?
The buyer becomes conscious that something is wrong during the awareness stage. While there are signs of a problem, the buyer is unable to express their problem in a single, concise sentence.
Your goal as a company is to assist the buyer in identifying their problem. You’ll want to include content that will assist them in identifying their symptoms and understanding that their problem can be summarized in a single sentence.
Short whitepapers, checklists, and blog posts are several content formats to consider. This helps your brand to establish itself as a trustworthy source of knowledge for the buyer, and it allows your company to follow up immediately with information that will help them in the next stage of the buyer’s journey.
Consideration Stage
Buyers have clearly identified the goal or challenge and have committed to addressing it during the Consideration stage. They weigh the pros and cons of different approaches or strategies for achieving their goal or resolving their problem.
Consider the following question:
What category of solutions do buyers look into?
What is the best way for consumers to learn about the different categories?
What are the advantages and disadvantages of each group in the eyes of the buyers?
What factors do buyers consider when deciding which category is the best fit for them?
A buyer in the consideration stage is committed to researching options for resolving their newly defined issue. At this point, your customer just wants details and isn’t ready to buy a solution. This means you can create content that illustrates the different products or services the company provides and how they may be able to help the customer in their current situation.
You might consider offering customer testimonials, videos showcasing your products/services, and live webinars for demonstrations. All this will help your customer in deciding on a solution and moving forward in the decision stage.
Decision Stage
Buyers have already decided on a solution category during the Decision stage. They may, for example, make a pro/con list of unique offers and then choose the one that best meets their needs.
Here are some questions to consider when defining the Decision stage:
What criteria do buyers use to evaluate the different options?
What do buyers like about the company’s product when they compare it to alternatives? What are their concerns about your proposal?
Who needs to be a part of the decision-making process?
Do buyers want to be able to try the product before purchasing it?
Do buyers need to make any additional arrangements outside of buying, such as implementation plans or training strategies?
The buyer compares various brand choices during the decision stage before deciding to buy their solution. You want to make sure that the customer chooses your brand over your direct competitors once they’ve decided on a solution you offer.
As a company that has progressed this far along the buyer’s journey, you want to be offering solutions that persuade the buyer that your company is the best choice for their issue.
A free demo or trial, charts showing the competitive advantage you have over other products, and coupons are all examples of content that can be used to show why your product is the best option.
You will improve the chances of attracting consumers who are a good match for your products/services by empathizing with them and considering what information they need. This will result in a higher retention rate for your company, as well as promoters who will take more visitors to the top of the funnel.
A killer B2B strategy is built from the ground up with the target consumer in mind, which is why you must first define your buyer personas, then consider your buyer’s journey and finally determine which channels can generate the most leads.
The buyer’s journey describes the steps buyers take to become aware of, consider, and evaluate a new product or service before deciding to purchase it.
No matter what you sell or what industry you are targeting, the following key elements should be an integral part of your B2B strategy:
Clear Mission and Vision Goals
A company’s corporate plan is summarized in the form of a vision and mission statement, which can be easily shared and understood by stakeholders.
Vision and mission statements assist a business in articulating long-term priorities and concepts, and they should be considered when developing innovative strategic approaches to business issues or service expansion. The statements present policy in an easy-to-understand and articulate manner.
The Vision Statement
A vision statement explicitly and concisely states a company’s long-term priorities and expectations. It’s intended to encourage and empower workers by showing an image of the company’s potential course.
Managers should equate their strategic goals and tactical strategies to the vision statement, which serves as a reality check. It might be necessary to amend a planned course of action if it fails to bring the business closer to its vision.
The aim of vision is not to fit into the current reality. That’s when the greatest blunder occurs. Having a vision entails seeing a future that does not yet exist and motivating others to make it a fact. A company’s mission statement has nothing to do with what it does or how it does it.
A vision never mentions the products or services that one wishes to provide. If that were the case, the company’s vision would be limited to delivering only what was stated in the vision. (Not only that, but it’s still tedious and uninspiring.) Rather, the actions taken by an organization rationalize the vision’s stated purpose for existence — they make sense of it.
A vision statement must be written in limitless terms and cannot be changed after it has been determined. If the company’s vision shifts as a result of events such as business dynamics, current technologies, or social media movements, the company’s very basis for existence is jeopardized.
If it changes its vision on the spur of the moment, it will invariably perform poorly financially, operationally, technologically, or all three, because it will be making decisions based solely on short-term performance.
The vision does not serve as a roadmap, strategy, or concrete product/service execution plan, but it does serve as a reference for all of these. A goal is not to be confused with a vision.
A project is a time-bound assignment, has a particular aim and intent, and can be altered or modified depending on near-real-time business circumstances, i.e., it is what the leader needs to achieve right now, and it is finite.
The Mission Statement
A mission statement outlines the market in which an organization works as well as its primary objective. It explains what the organization does and why it does it. It also recognizes key stakeholders such as shareholders, clients, and staff, as well as how the organization conducts business.
A mission statement explains how workers’ contributions contribute to the company’s goals. It also aids other stakeholders in determining whether or not they want to do business with the company.
Strategic Management Process
The strategic management process necessitates the development of vision and mission statements. Managers should set strategic objectives that are consistent with the company’s long-term goals after identifying the organization’s vision and purpose.
Managers convert these strategic goals into a tactical plan that can be executed, tracked, and evaluated. The evaluation’s findings will decide whether the vision statement, mission statement, goals, or organizational plan need to be revised.
Alignment with Business Goals
A strategic management process is aligned to the company’s long-term objectives thanks to well-written vision and mission statements. Managers convey their priorities to stakeholders through simple and succinct vision and mission statements.
As employees’ everyday work is aligned with the vision and mission, they know where to concentrate their efforts. Customers, vendors, and shareholders can choose whether or not to do business with a company that has a clear vision and mission statement.
Website That Converts
Did you know that the average time it takes for a web page to load is just four seconds? Potential customers are more likely to work with you if there are fewer obstacles for them to overcome. It’s one of those things that most people overlook, but it has a significant impact on your visitors’ experience.
Mobile devices account for approximately 49% of website users, so people must be able to quickly access the website content from their tablets. Users should be able to read directly from their mobile devices if the website will adapt to devices of all sizes. Although some website builders allow you to change for mobile separately, you should look for a platform that does so automatically. You’ll have one less thing to be worried about.
Get ready for Web Core Vitals
Web Vitals is a new series of metrics developed by Google to assess the speed and usability of websites. Google revealed that these metrics would be used in a core algorithm update as new ways to judge and rate sites based on the page experience they provide. This update will be released in May-June 2021.
“Great page experiences allow people to get more done and engage more deeply; on the other hand, a bad page experience can prevent a person from finding the useful information on a page”, according to Google.
Enter Web Vitals
Early May 2020, Google announced Web Vitals — a thoroughly researched set of metrics to help anyone determine opportunities to improve the experience of their sites. Within those new metrics, there is a subset of metrics every site owner should focus on, the so-called Core Web Vitals. According to Google, “Core Web Vitals are a set of real-world, user-centered metrics that quantify key aspects of the user experience.”
In general, site speed metrics are difficult to understand. Besides that, they appear to shift slightly each time you test your site. It’s not always possible to get the same results. It’s safe to suggest that you just have to keep an eye on some numbers and hope they turn green.
Google has identified three “Core Web Vitals” out of all the possible metrics. In the coming year, these will be Google’s main focus. Google may add or change these metrics every year as they evaluate them over time.
Core Web Vitals are a subset of Web Vitals that apply to all websites, should be assessed by all site owners, and will appear in all Google tools. Each of the Core Web Vitals represents a unique aspect of the user experience, is field measurable, and reflects the real-world experience of a key user-centric outcome.
The three pillars of page experience
For now, the three pillars of page experience are:
- Loading performance (how fast does stuff appear on the screen?)
- Responsiveness (how fast does the page react to user input?)
- Visual stability (does stuff move around on the screen while loading?)
To measure these essential aspects of user experience, Google chose three corresponding metrics — aka the Core Web Vitals:
- LCP, Largest Contentful Paint: This is the time it takes for the largest piece of material on the screen to appear on the screen. This may be a picture or a paragraph of text. A high score gives users the feeling that the web loads quickly. A slow site can be frustrating.
- FIS, or First Input Delay: This metric tests how quickly the site responds to the first interaction. This may be anything as simple as pressing a button. A high score here indicates that a site is easy to respond to user input and, as a result, responsive. Slowness, once again, is a source of frustration.
- CLS, or Cumulative Layout Shift: This metric assesses the site’s visual stability. To put it another way, does something move around on the screen as it loads, and if so, how often? There’s nothing more aggravating than having to press a button when a slow-loading advertisement appears in the same place.
Google’s John Mueller has said that all three metrics must appear green if you want your site to get a ranking boost. Note, of course, you shouldn’t optimize your site to get green scores — but having green scores absolutely will be beneficial for your visitors. It’s all about happy visitors — and great content, of course!
While the Page Experience update is coming soon, it probably won’t have a massive impact from the start. Google’s Danny Sullivan has said that it will be introduced gradually and that it might become more important over time.
Get straight to the point and have a clear CTA
The 1st rule about making a great CTA for your web pages is there are no rules.
Everyone seems to have their own style, ideas, and approach.
If you followed the advice of 10 different marketing experts about the essential components of a successful CTA, you’d probably get 10 different answers.
So, as you already know, I love to keep things simple and get straight to the point.
Your entire marketing strategy has revolved around one core concept: providing value, whether through education or entertainment.
If you can do them both, you hit the jackpot.
CTAs that don’t work are those that disregard the concept.
Because you provided value, your marketing efforts were successful.
So, what’s the simplest way to ensure that your CTA is effective?
Continue to provide value.
The clearer your point is, the stronger.
You’ve already determined what your target audience needs. You’ll be fine as long as your CTA is customized to those needs.
Your CTA will not resonate with your target audience if it is self-serving or does not fulfill their needs.
Simple as that.
If you try to analyze some successful and effective CTAs you’ll probably find some patterns.
- Appeal to the consumer’s needs.
- Make your CTA easy to find.
- Guide the consumer to the next stage.
Your CTA has a better chance of being successful and driving conversions if those three criteria are met.
Go niche or go home
Since they want to be open to all, some practitioners resist restricting their niche. It’s only normal for business owners to act in this manner. But, to be honest, you aren’t going to be the best match for everybody. You, on the other hand, are the perfect practitioner for others.
The key is to figure out which customers can profit the most from your assistance. Use language on your website that communicates directly to your client base after you’ve identified it. In the end, it’s up to individuals to choose the right service provider to meet their unique requirements.
Write for your audience
Your clients may not be experts in your profession, but you are. On your website, avoid using industry-specific terminology. This kind of language can come across as cold or impersonal. Use friendly, straightforward language to help prospective customers understand what you do and why you do it. To leave a positive impression on prospective customers, you don’t need to use complicated words. Filler language such as “Welcome” and “Thank you for being here” should also be avoided.
From the first line, the audience should be able to tell what your expertise is. Concentrate your writing on the needs and desires of the clients you represent. Then decide the next step you’d like them to take. Do you want to schedule a consultation? Do you want to send an email? If you want to fill out a contact form? Please inform them. People want to be driven and steered in the right direction. Make the next move for your potential clients as simple as possible by including a call-to-action, such as “Get in Touch” or “Schedule an Appointment.”
Shift the focus to your clients
Examine your website once more. How much of it is devoted to you?
It’s normal for business owners to want to use their website to promote themselves. Your website, on the other hand, should be all about your customers. Consider what qualifies you as the ideal candidate for them.
Reframing the strategy in this way will make a huge difference.
Your website should provide information about you that is important and useful to your customer. You can also provide your qualifications, but you’ll need to clarify how these degrees and licenses can help them.
Make it look professional
It’s normal to want to cram as much graphics, color, and copy as possible into your website. However, since potential clients are looking for a specialist, your website design should be polished and represent your expertise and personality.
Your website only needs to be usable and reflective of who you are, regardless of how many dos and don’ts are out there.
Create the right type of content for each stage of the buyer’s journey
Simply follow the buyer’s path and think about this question “How do we attract and engage this individual so that they become a customer?”
Whether you follow the funnel or the flywheel method, earning business from your prospects boils down to three simple things:
Attracting strangers
Engaging prospects
Delighting customers
You’ll consider the stage they’re at in their journey and the best channels to bring the content in front of them when you create content that performs these functions.
The internet has made it easier for marketers to use content marketing to engage consumers at different stages of their journey. That’s one of the key reasons why 60% of marketers consider content to be “very important” or “highly important” to their overall strategy.
However, creating the best content for the right people at the right time can be challenging.
Marketing Channels for Each Stage of the Funnel
Identifying the channels through which you’ll reach your audience is the first step in developing a content strategy.
Marketing Channels for the Attract Stage
Remember that when you start attracting prospects, the vast majority of them may only be in the awareness stage of their buyer’s journey. That means your goal is to alleviate their pains/problems by producing content that is simple to find and consume.
A buyer is trying to solve problems, obtain information, or meet a need at this point. They’re searching for high-quality educational material, such as blog posts, social media content, and ebooks, to guide them to a solution. Since there’s no assurance that they’ll buy from you, their lead value is low.
Those who find your content useful and interesting, on the other hand, may advance to the middle of the funnel.
The following are some of the best channels for your attract stage:
Search Engine Marketing
Social Media Marketing
Blogging
Marketing Channels for the Engage Stage
When a person enters the middle of your funnel, it means you’ve captured their attention. They’re aware that they have a problem to solve, and they’re now attempting to find the best solution. As they consider their choices, the need for a potential purchasing commitment emerges.
Although the top of the funnel is designed to educate a prospect, this is the stage in which you want to demonstrate why your solutions are the best fit in particular.
(You should also assist people in determining whether they are a good match, as this will be critical later for customer retention.) If you persuade customers to buy who aren’t a good match for your business, you can end up shooting yourself in the foot with a high churn rate later.)
In the middle of the funnel, you’re usually cultivating a lead, building a relationship, and creating trust between your audience and your brand.
The following channels are ideal for your engagement stage:
- Email Marketing
- Retargeting/Remarketing
- Social Media
You also need to engage prospects at the bottom of your funnel.
The bottom of the funnel is where someone is making the actual purchase decision. They’re ready to buy, but that still doesn’t guarantee that they’re going to buy from you. That’s the last choice they have to make: Where do they get the solution they’re seeking?
Most of the time leads at the bottom of your funnel just need a final nudge and a compelling call-to-action to convince them to buy. At this point, the right offer and content can have a big impact on your conversions.
Consider using sales outreach to engage qualified customers and then using personalization and contextual marketing to keep them engaged.
Marketing Channels for the Delight Stage
Once someone becomes a customer, marketing should not stop. Beyond the sale, cultivating a relationship with your consumer will result in higher customer lifetime value, as well as word-of-mouth referrals and other benefits.
The key here is to go above and beyond their expectations and provide a customer experience that’s easy and frictionless.
The ideal channels for your delight stage may include:
- Email Marketing
- Retargeting/Remarketing
- Self-Service Channels Such as Knowledge Bases
- Live Chat and Chatbots for Service
- Loyalty Programs
On the surface, this process appears to be very linear, but you can use different channels to target different stages of the buyer’s journey.
For example, you may be able to attract someone in the consideration stage or delight someone who isn’t yet a customer. Someone in the consideration stage may be persuaded to buy because of your excellent service, or someone in the awareness stage may use your chatbot to find the information they need.
Thinking beyond the box is one of the most enjoyable aspects of content marketing.
Creating Content for Each Stage of the Buyer’s Journey
Once you’ve identified who your buyer persona is and which channels would be most effective for your business, you can start creating content for them at various stages and tailoring it to each channel.
This will help you in mapping the content to the appropriate stages of the buyer’s journey in order to create your funnel.
Top of the Funnel: The “awareness” stage, where people look for answers, resources, education, research data, opinions, and insight.
Blog Post
Social Media Post
Whitepaper
Checklist
How-To Video
Kit or Tool
Ebook or Tip Sheet
Educational Webinar
Middle of the Funnel: The “evaluation” stage of the funnel, where people are doing extensive research to determine whether or not your product or service is a good match for them.
Product Comparison Guide
Case Study
Free Sample
Bottom of the Funnel: The “purchase” stage, in which people are determining what it takes to become a customer.
Free Trial or Live Demo
Consultation Offer
Coupon
Depending on your industry, business model, product, pricing, and target audience, your funnel can look very different. When compared to B2B customers, who need much more nurturing, engagement, and relationship building before making a purchase, some B2C customers spend very little time in the middle of the funnel. When it comes to purchasing decisions, a $50 pair of shoes, for example, needs much less guidance than a $10,000 investment in business software.
Persona research is critical since audiences will differ greatly depending on industry and intent. You can only create a truly effective content marketing plan, jam-packed with personalized content that best supports their path toward making a purchase if you understand their unique process for awareness and evaluation.
Every business has its unique sales funnel, which is sculpted and designed around its unique buyer’s journey. It’s not a formula that can be easily transferred from one business to another. There are a variety of factors unique to your business to consider when creating your own buyer’s journey.
That being said, the general strategy remains the same: know your audience, build your funnel around your industry and audience intent, and create a recorded content marketing strategy that maps custom content to each stage of their funnel journey.
If you do it right, this process will have the biggest impact on your customer relationships, as well as the biggest boost in overall conversions.
Distribute the right content at the right time to the right people
We live in a time when B2B is still a mystical concept. We think of it as generic, unoriginal, slow, and without personality. That is, I suppose, why it is mystical.
Things, however, have changed. Every business has a team of people working behind the scenes. We aren’t dealing with physical objects (although we tend to forget that quite often). We work with and market to people.
It takes longer to sell something in B2B than it does in B2C. There are many reasons for this. Longer implementation and onboarding times, costly products or services, existing vendors, and company decision-making processes. It all affects the buyer’s journey’s speed. And not only that.
Companies produce content for search engines rather than for humans. Consumable content does not exist. Sure, it will carry traffic eventually, but will it be the right traffic? Would it include decision-makers and others who can affect their decisions? Certainly not.
We’ve come to a point where we realize that content distribution is more important than the content itself.
B2B needs to learn how to use branding and emotions to make their content more personal.
“When you create a great content machine for distributing that content, you’ll see that, when you’re focused on the long-term goals when you don’t measure each and every piece of content, you get the results even in the short-term.” — Nemanja Zivkovic, How to create a B2B content machine.
Before we get into creating content, we need to figure out who we’re talking to and for whom we’re creating this content.
I won’t go into detail on this, but we need to know where different people are in their buyer’s journey so that we can approach them with the right topics and themes. Finding the right topics and themes we’re going to cover is essential.
With people who have no idea they have a problem or that they need a solution. We come up with a new viewpoint, a dream, a bigger vision, just to get them to think about what they need to do to get there — about a problem or frustration.
When they realize they have a problem, it’s time to talk about how to solve it, so we’re talking about the resources we provide that can help them in solving their problems.
Finally, once they know that they have a problem and that you have a solution, talk to them about details. People at this point are ready to buy; they’re just weighing their options, so you need to convince them to hire me rather than someone else.
Once you have a strategy, it’s time to come up with a plan.
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Content planning
Strategy without implementation doesn’t mean anything.
For starters, we need to determine the communication channels we’re gonna use. We do that by overlooking the channels that best suit me plus the channels that best suit my potential clients. It’s great that we’re able to produce different content, from text to videos and audio, so I don’t have a restraint like that.
We are going all-in on Linkedin, followed by Facebook, and then YouTube, Instagram, and Twitter, when it comes to Social Media. Linkedin is where our ideal clients are. If you’re in B2B, or you’re a business professional, it’s a no-brainer that Linkedin is a #1 place to be.
Facebook is another channel where we can reach ideal clients, mostly through ads.
Instagram and Twitter are less-strategic-more-relaxed kinds of channels for us (we don’t get business from there).
YouTube and Medium are great for content distribution.
Each channel needs a planned campaign, no matter if it is paid or organic, followed by the workflow and the calendar. We do that so we don’t get stuck. Doing a lot can often turn into doing nothing, and we are trying to avoid that. You should do it, too.
When we have planning set up, it is time to get into the content creation phase.
Content Creation
In this phase, research is the most important part. If we do the research right, all other steps in creating content are relatively easy. Do the detailed research and create the outlines of each piece of content you are creating.
After doing that you can finally sit down and do the creative work aka write copy, record videos, or create visual solutions.
Producing epic content will be one of the core skills as a B2B marketer.
Let’s not be squeamish about it.
And it’s heartbreaking when all of your hard work in creating content is for naught.
Unfortunately, this is more often the rule than the exception.
The issue arises from the fact that most content lacks a well-defined strategy for maximizing its potential and distributing it in a variety of formats.
The reality is that you owe it to yourself and your business to make the most of any core piece of content because if you don’t, you’ll be squandering valuable opportunities to interact with consumers while still providing good value.
“This week on the program, we’ll be saying “no more”, “no more waste”, and “delivering the highest ROI for anything you and your team produce” from now on.
To do so, you’ll need a plan and a road map, which we’ll go through and motivate you to develop.
As a result of having this technique established and implemented, you will be able to free up more of your time throughout the process.” — This is from a podcast where Nemanja and James Rostance talk about how to create a B2B content machine, check out the full podcast here:
https://the414.net/how-to-create-a-b2b-content-machine
SEOs are being forced to adapt by the search engines and SEO is now shifting to a topic cluster model.
In the topic cluster model, a single “pillar” page acts as the main hub of content for an overarching topic, and multiple content pages related to the same topic link back to the pillar page and each other.
This linking behavior shows to search engines that the pillar page is an authority on the topic, and the page will gradually rise in search engine rankings for the subject it covers.
The topic cluster model is, at its most basic level, a method of organizing a site’s content pages into a more structured and deliberate site architecture.
The primary driver for the topic cluster approach is changing behavior. Marketers and SEO experts, on the other hand, aren’t going to the trouble of reworking their websites just to keep up with consumer trends. Since search engines’ algorithms have evolved in response to changes in consumer behavior, they’re being pushed to do so.
People used to type in fragmented keyword queries into search engines to find answers to their questions. Most people nowadays are confident in asking complicated questions to a search engine and expecting a detailed and timely answer. People who are searching for a specific answer use a variety of words. Now, search engines are smart enough to recognize cross-query relations.
Algorithms have advanced to the point that they can understand the topical context of a search purpose, relate it to previous searches, and generate web pages that best answer the question.
The first big change in this direction occurred with Google’s Hummingbird update in 2013. Rather than focusing exclusively on keywords, the search algorithm began to parse phrases. According to many SEO experts, Hummingbird is commonly regarded as Google’s official change from a keyword to a subject emphasis.
The next big step toward relying on topics was taken with Google’s RankBrain update. Google’s RankBrain is a machine-learning algorithm that recognizes the context of people’s search queries. It was released for the first time in 2015. It associates previous searches with common themes and pulls multiple keywords and phrases similar to the search query to find the best results.
Topic clusters have been used to reorganize the website design. The content clusters that cover a subject area connect to a central pillar page that summarizes the topic definitively (yet broadly). Search engines such as Google, Bing, and Yandex will easily check all internal content within a topic by linking it to a pillar page.
The cluster structure also shows to search engines that the content has real scope and depth, indicating that the pillar page has more authority on the topic. Algorithms like Google’s RankBrain reward higher search placement.
Remember that pillar pages should cover the entire topic you’re focusing on so that all cluster content linked to it makes sense. Cluster content that focuses on only one of the pillar page’s topics should be created or refined. If you have a pillar page on SEO, for example, a cluster content page can explain how to configure the site layout for search engines.
Instead of individual keywords, think of your content assets in terms of topics in which you want your company to compete. Although keywords will continue to play a role in your overall strategy, topics will now act as the umbrella under which your keyword strategy will operate under.
Tactical Pointers for Getting Started With Topic Clusters
Choosing a focus topic and creating cluster content plans can be challenging, and auditing historical content, particularly if your company has a large archive, can be painful. Today, we’ve got a few ideas for organizing and creating subject clusters.
Make a list of five to ten of your buyer persona’s most pressing issues. To collect data, use surveys, conduct interviews, and conduct secondary research within online communities.
Sort the issues into broad categories.
Using keyword analysis, flesh out each of the main themes with subtopics.
Create a list of content ideas that relate to each of the main topics and subtopics.
Conduct market and competitor analysis to back up each proposal.
Produce material, assess its effectiveness, and make adjustments as required.
Test, measure, fine-tune, and execute hard.
If it works, repeat. Over and over again.
Create one, publish it everywhere, distribute forever.
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