How Content Marketing and Going Green Can Spring Up Buyers

The fast-growing green movement provides an ideal case study for the merits of content marketing.

You hear the questions every day, from corporations large and small: Should we go green? How can we be greener?

It’s a business decision with environmental consequences. And vice versa. So for companies that market green products and services (B2B and B2C), it’s in their best interests to deliver compelling content that educates and informs, providing buyers a better understanding of what going green is all about.

Today’s buyers are more informed than ever. They control the buying process. The more educated and in tune they are with your offer,  the better chance you have of keeping them engaged.

Back to the green example … an effective content marketing campaign would provide valuable information delivered in multiple formats and to different target audiences — company executives, employees and customers.

These campaigns would not only detail the benefits the business could attain, but also how going green benefits the environment — and how that business would be aiding the cause — all important considerations on which they’ll base their decisions.

Clover Green Supply Company found that educating and informing was the best sales practice they could use. They even installed an Earth-friendly, bamboo floor.

Just in time, too — they’ve had a stampede of customers who were ready to buy once they learned a little more about going green.

B2B MarCom Agency Puts Branding in ‘Wheel’ Perspective

To understand effective branding is the easy part. The challenge is figuring out what your strongest differentiators are to help you best stand out in a sea of sameness.

To separate your product or company from the pack and portray yours as truly new, different or unique is no small task. It requires a lot of research, market study and interaction with customers to develop common ground with a message that will resonate and gain traction.

It can be a complex process. So it was great to come across a model that puts it all in perspective, as the b-to-b marketing communications agency Arends has done.

Arends’ ingenious explanation uses a bicycle as the unifying model. By choosing a bicycle — “the noblest invention” — Arends’ philosophy revolves around the belief that “branding is propelled by human aspiration” and that brand experiences are “powered and directed by the customer.”

They developed a four-step process called The Arends Brand Criterium^TM (named after the classic format for cycling races) which uses the bicycle as a metaphor to illustrate. Here’s how they break it down:

• Stage 1: Explore new insights into customers and markets;
• Stage 2: Align your brand promise with customer aspirations;
• Stage 3: Engage your markets with communications that connect;
• Stage 4: Accelerate your brand through exceptional customer experiences. 

Arends makes it sound easy — which, after all, is the whole idea to successful branding. But it also takes company-wide collaboration to create a unified focus that elevates the relationship between your customers and your brand.

You never forget how to ride a bike. Likewise, Arends’ model makes a memorable impression and delivers lasting value to help better understand how a winning strategy works. Makes me want to hop in the saddle and start branding.

Picture This: For a Message That Sticks, Use Real-Life Stories

Put branding and b-to-b marketing together, and you have yourself a challenge. With so many decision-makers involved in the buying process, how can you make a lasting impression with your brand that resonates across the board?

“Stickiness” is the latest catch-word. Considering the average American is exposed to 3,000 commerical messages each day (Seth Godin, Permission Marketing), it takes more than just getting through. Your message must have staying power, particularly in complex, prolonged B2B sales cycles.

Image marketing is one way to make a memorable stamp. In a lot of ways, this is a form of engagement marketing because it requires participation from your buyers in a YouTube kind of way.

Never let the facts get in the way of good marketing strategy. Of course, you need to present the essential nuts and bolts of your offer. But you can do so in a compelling way. Use real-life analogies and stories that appeal on a human-interest level. Storytelling and case studies can be the sincerest forms of salesmanship — and often the most effective.

Providing stories that buyers relate to gets them thinking. The movie projector starts running in their head. They envision themselves in the same situation. Now you’ve reached them on an emotional level and further enhanced your credibility in the mind of the buyer.

And you will have succeeded in adding a bit of “stickiness” to your marketing message.

How Great Content Can Spark a Viral Marketing Campaign

As a marketing workhorse, great content is a powerful driver. Not only does it keep potential buyers engaged in the sales process, but it also keeps your brand top of mind.

And, done effectively, you can create a viral effect and get even higher mileage from your content marketing.

The key — as it is with all content marketing — is offering information that is in sync with what that target market is seeking. It must be useful, relevant and important enough to them that they’re compelled to stay tuned in.

That makes them much more likely to pass on your content to like-minded prospects. That’s viral marketing at its best. It goes beyond the mere suggestion of  “Feel free to forward this message to a friend” you see at the end of so many emails.

Instead, a truly viral message is one where your content — be it a report, article, research, poll, whatever — is forwarded with a personalized “Thought you might be interested in this …” tag.

Providing content that’s worthy of sharing expands your marketing reach by encouraging interaction among those in your target market – both current customers and incoming  prospects.  It makes engagement marketing viral.

Quality content is the spark. Viral marketing can help it spread like wildfire.   

For Their Information, Good Content is What You Must Give Them

Ours is a world of instant gratification. For example, just think how impatient we become when a web page takes more than half a second to load.

“Why is this taking soooo long??”

But good content marketing takes time — because it’s not done with the quick-hit, in-your-face tactics of interruption marketing. Instead, it’s all about engaging and educating, two of the best strategies for effective marketing these days.

Despite the desire to “have it now,” buyers don’t often make on-the-spot decisions. They want to be well-informed. They want their purchase to be based on solid research and sound reasoning — especially for complex, big-ticket sales in B2B that often involve  committees of decision-makers.

In any scenario, providing them with useful information on a consistent basis will move them closer to buying.

It’s a form of nurturing, sure. But it’s also about meeting the informational needs of your target audiences — and doing so consistently. Feed them regularly with relevant content.

And don’t make the mistake of applying a one-size-fits-all approach. Segmentation is highly important, because the key is keeping each audience engaged. If you miss the mark by delivering content they don’t relate to, it increases the likelihood they’ll wander off.

Blogs, articles, Ezines and web sites all offer opportunities to expand your reach and inform. Go beyond just showcasing your company. Draw your prospects into the process with content that compels them to learn more. And keep giving it to ‘em.

What Ranks Highest in Your Search Engine?

The cool thing about SEO is that it delivers interested prospects to your doorstep.  Unlike traditional, “interrupt marketing,” it doesn’t require any jumping up and down to get buyers’ attention — just the power of keywords and search engines.

In b-to-b, the trend is profound. According to a MarketingSherpa survey, fully 80 percent of decision-makers felt THEY were the ones who found their solution — vs. 20 percent who said the solution came to them.

Clearly, this illustrates how decision-makers are doing extensive research to find the products and people who can help them.  

But as mentioned in yesterday’s post, marketers who stuff every cranny of their web site with keywords often do their business a disservice. Just because you present content that’s chock-full of keywords doesn’t mean it will be effective.

Put yourself in the prospects’ shoes and ask yourself: Is the content useful? Does it address their needs? Is it relevant to what they’re looking for? Does it engage their interests?

Think customers and relationships first. Keyword-laden copy may be attractive to the search engines, but your buyers are the ones that rank highest. Reward them first with quality content written for them, rather than a contrived collection of keywords and phrases.

In SEO, Is There Such a Thing as Too Much Information?

While strategizing with a client recently, she was intent on using a “less is more” approach for product descriptions on the company’s b-to-b web site.

I offered a different opinion, and our discussion went back and forth over the merits of long vs. short. She contended the company’s target audience was informed and knew what it was looking for; I reasoned that, even if that’s the case for every prospect, there’s no such thing as too much information if it’s quality, compelling content.

I understood her desire for brevity and a clean, neat presentation. But, while pictures and graphics can support your message, they CAN’T tell the story. Nor do they do much of the grunt work when it comes to flagging down search engines with keywords.

As Seth Godin opines in his latest book, Meatball Sundae, “The best SEO is great content.”

Fortunately, my client compromised. We kept all the pictures and graphics — fine by me, because they do make a difference for buyers in the decision-making process. But we also bulked up the content for each page and product description. The result? Visually attractive presentations integrated with detailed information that a serious buyer wants and needs.

Customized Marketing Plans Can Make A Big Difference in B2B

A common rut that b-to-b marketers often fall into is the “assumption trap.”  They assume since a segmented set of prospects are all very similar on the surface, they likely share identical needs.

So they take a one-size-fits-all approach to their marketing, figuring the response will be the same across the board.

But just as two people from the same background and demographic can have vast differences (heck, even siblings, for that matter!), so too, can seemingly identical businesses.

Kevin Akerman of Experian Marketing Information illustrated a great example of this in last month’s DM News.  His hypothetical compared  two small businesses in the home construction industry. Each had been operating for more than five years, had less than 10 employees and enjoyed a good commercial credit history.

The similarities ended there, however.

It turns out one of the businesses specialized in customized luxury homes for wealthy clientele who could afford mortgages in the $700K range. The other business was focused primarily in constructing low-income housing developments.

Further research of each business owner revealed the luxury home builder to have an annual income of $250K, nearly five times that of his counterpart.

Clearly, marketing to these two business owners in the same way would be counter-productive. It’s easy to see how market segmentation would group them as similar targets, but their contrasts require two very different offers.

In this case — as in most — it’s critical that B2B marketers do their homework and develop a clear picture, prospect by prospect. With a sharper focus on  each target, a customized marketing approach can be applied, and chances for a direct hit are increased.

Sweat the small stuff, indeed.   

When They Want Substance, Straight Forward Marketing is Good Style

Does this description apply to your prospects?

Introverted. Very technical. Love the internet. Don’t like sales people.

Maybe not entirely, but they likely share some similarities with the electronics engineers who were described that way in a recent profile.

Like them, most of your prospects don’t have much time or tolerance for marketing emails and calls. What they want are facts, not fluff.

The same can be said for most b-to-b prospects. They tend to know what they want, and it’s not marketing mumbo-jumbo. They want answers and solutions to their problems right now, requiring a straight forward marketing message that addresses their needs.

For B2B marketers, the premium is not only on being in the right place at the right time, but being there with relevant information. They don’t have to be electronics engineers to qualify; that’s a truism across virtually all B2B markets.

That doesn’t mean the message has to be all “business,” however. Texas Instruments is a good example of a large company that struck a balance. TI effectively delivered substance and technical data while also communicating brand with human-interest stories on its customer support offerings and its environmental efforts, to name a few.

The marketing model has been a winner on two fronts; first, by providing valuable information their prospects need and expect and then;  second, by enhancing people’s perceptions through compelling stories that portray them as a company people enjoy doing business with.

Befriend Your Prospects First, Talk Sales Later

As you know, B2B marketing is often a long-term endeavor. With complex sales and decisions-by-committee, it can take months - even years - to turn prospects into customers.

So why would you want to make the process even longer? Well, patience has its rewards, provided you effectively nurture each lead from the start.

Brian Carroll touched on this in an excellent post recently at B2B Lead Generation. The gist of his message was to buck the tradtional sales practice of waiting to talk with prospects until they’re ready to buy. Instead, establish a relationship with them before they’re considering to buy.

No sales pitches necessary at that point. Just friendly conversation to familiarize yourselves with each other and lay the groundwork to what may become a highly beneficial relationship for you both.

It goes back to the “people buy from people” motto. No matter how superior your product or service, the final decision almost always comes down to trust and believeability.

Simple conversations can be a powerful marketing tactic. Provide your prospects with valuable, useful insights and information initially, and save the sales talk for later. When they view you as a trusted advisor, your messages will resonate. They’ll be much more receptive to you, and more likely to ignore the typical sales pitches from your competitors.

After all, lead nurturing is a lot like courtship. You didn’t propose on the first date, did you?