Combining the Powers of Sales, Product Management & Marketing
As marketers, we are the superheroes of content. We use our superhuman content powers to nurture, guide, help, inform, entertain, etc. In fact, 91% of B2B marketers use content marketing to build their overall marketing approach. In a recent post, we illustrated the importance of providing valuable content at all possible touch points of the customer's journey.
Creating a highly engaged B2B customer experience is not only possible, but profitable.
First, we must recognize one simple truth: the foundation of a B2B sale is people. People interacting and identifying a problem. People agreeing on the need for a solution. People investigating relevant options. And people deciding which option is best suited for their personal and corporate benefit. The transaction occurs not between two businesses, but rather between motivated individuals.
In the previous blog, we explained the 3 w's of gated content and how it relates to lead scoring. We described the necessity to map a customer journey based on their buying persona so you can understand their business objectives, buying patterns, needs, objections, etc. Using the map, we can analyze and look for content gaps, and then can build relevant materials to address persona-driven needs throughout the sales cycle. Notice the 1 to 1 style vs. the 1 to many approach of yester-year.
How do we fill this funnel with the 'right' type of content at the 'right' stage?
In order to attract, nurture and convert visitors to leads, we must understand the intricacies of the sales funnel. However, finding the right content fit and knowing which pieces are effective and which are not at each stage can be challenging.
Never fear, every superhero needs a trusted sidekick (or two). After all, who would Ironman be without The Avengers, or Batman without Robin?
A Powerful Team: Sales, Product Management & Marketing
The guardians of the customer universe are sworn to protect clients from a bad buying experience. Their remit is to ensure client interactions with the organization (brand, product, service, people, etc.) from beginning to end at all touch points from awareness to purchase and beyond whether in-person or online result in a positive engagement. The best way to provide customer-centricity is through tight alignment between our organization's superheros: Sales, Product Management and Marketing.
Having all three teams pulling in the same direction confers massive benefits to content creation and content mapping which in turn delivers more effective lead and demand generation, account-based marketing and pipeline marketing. Each team provides insights:
- Sales are the eyes and ears in the marketplace. They're the people working directly with potential customers. They know the questions clients are asking, the problems they encounter and the issues they need help with, particularly overcoming objections or maintaining value during negotiations.
- Product Managers know the product or service intimately. They know the product lifecycle, market share and competitive landscape, and they know the ROI required to breakeven.
- Marketers own a lot of the customer data and know how to communicate effectively to meet the expectations of clients and to attract future customers.
Like the old saying goes, there is no "I" in "team". This cross-functional team must abandon competing interests and begin to act as one vying to accomplish a unified business goal. This may require executive leaders to establish a new set of business metrics and KPIs to facilitate the alignment, but transparency between the departments is vital. It's important for the customer to feel like they are engaging with one continuous voice as they progress through the funnel.
Superteam United
Great - now that we are thinking as one team with the customer at the forefront, and are focused on meeting our business objective(s)... what's next?
Once we have the buying persona's journey identified, we use our newly formed superteam to match or create the most appropriate content to use at each stage of the sales funnel. Most content can be mapped to three stages, but your funnel might be different. The key is to work with the funnel and progression through the pipeline your organization has established - why reinvent the wheel?
Sales Funnel Breakdown
A typical sales funnel consists of three stages a prospective client moves through leading up to a purchase. At any given time, potential customers are at all different points in the sales funnel. It's marketing's job to understand their intent and nurture them along the funnel filtering and qualifying the leads along the way. Using the insights from sales and product management, marketing can effectively deliver a seamless customer experience throughout the entire sales funnel.
The below graphic from The Success Hub is a great visual aid to depict the content and goals you might create at each stage.
The Success Hub
TOFU (Top of Funnel/Awareness)
In the awareness stage, you'll want to keep the content educational and demonstrate expertise. Remember, these are people searching for information and answers to a pain point or curiosity that ultimately may lead them to a product/service. Most of this stage is completed independently. B2B buyers complete 57% of the buying decision before they are willing to talk to a sales representative.
Content ideas include high-value blog posts, ebooks, white papers, etc. using original research. Mixing in videos, podcasts and other mediums of educational content with your written pieces gives some variety.
Often product management and technical sales are great resources for supporting and curating this type of content because they have the domain knowledge of what problems the personas are facing. They also know where to find these like-minded individuals.
Adaptability and agility are critical traits needed to attract and validate new contacts. Product managers and marketers should be adept at maneuvering content and testing channels to capture and qualify the best leads possible as fast as possible.
MOFU (Middle of Funnel/Consideration)
This is the stage where persona maps play a critical role. Having a well-defined MOFU or consideration stage is important to progressing a lead to purchase. Knowing what your persona's buying journey looks like tells you exactly what they want in order to progress. Companies with a refined, personalized MOFU/consideration stage see a 4-10 times higher response rate compared to generic email blasts and outreach.
Personalization is necessary, because blogs and social posts are great for attracting contacts but they lack the personal engagement and tailored messaging needed to help qualify prospects, nurture relationships and relate to specific pain points of the person's role.
Evaluation is also essential at this stage, because this is when people start eliminating solutions that aren't a good fit.
People at the consideration stage are likely to be looking for content that specifically meets their pain point. Product marketing and product management can help craft effective pieces like customer testimonials, case studies, demonstration videos and the live interactions that help the prospect gain understanding of your product's capabilities.
BOFU (Bottom of Funnel/Purchase)
By themselves, BOFU tactics like calls-to-action, promotions, value calculators, estimators and trial offers will attract the occasional tire-kicker, but are far more effective when combined with a content strategy mapped to the customer's buying journey. Clients are more receptive to taking this final action when they believe you have demonstrated sufficient credibility and support during the previous two stages.
At purchase stage, content like trail offers, business cases and live 1:1 demonstrations are most effective. Sales is the MVP of this stage. By this time, the contact has received personalized information about the product/service and is ready for 1:1 interaction with an actual person to guide them to purchase.
Supercharging Your Funnel
The whole goal of this massive undertaking is to drive more quality leads through the funnel. Much like superheroes are stronger in numbers, by building your team, you can supercharge your conversion rates.
As a team, you're better equipped to convert contacts to customers by qualifying them along their journey. Each business, industry, etc. has a unique sales funnel requiring their own set of strategies around their buyer's journey in order to score leads and convert customers. When mapping your customer journey to your funnel, there are a few factors to consider:
- Understand your buying persona intimately
- Develop your sales funnel around your industry and customer intent
- To effectively convert visitors to customers, create a content marketing strategy mapped to all stages of the customer's buying journey.
- Finally and most importantly, build your Super Team. Unify your sales, product management and marketing teams as one. Each of the above points aren't as effective without the cooperation and collaboration of the Super Team. Remember thinking as one with the same goal.
Do this well, and the process will have tremendous impact on your customer relationships, lead qualifications and overall conversions.