sales and marketing alignment starts with content marketing

Sales and Marketing Alignment Starts with Content Marketing

What’s Inside

•What marketing traditionally surfaces to sales about the buyer’s journey: Digital Body Language• Why interactive content marketing provides untapped potential for buyer insights and deeper lead profiles through the Digital Dialogue

Digital is more than half

of a Buyer’s Journey

Demand Metric Digital Body Language Benchmark Study, June 2015

of buyers go through their buying journey before talking to a sales rep

chiefmarketer.com

The way this digital journey gets surfaced to

sales is through Digital Body Language

What is Digital Body Language?• Website visits• Email opens/clicks• Content downloads• Social media touches• Form Data• Marketing automation scoring

Digital Body Language

A Salesperson’s View Of

It amounts to a list of emails sent, opened, clicked & pages visited & assets downloaded

50 %Say digital body language identifies interest & specific needs

DBL Data identifies interest& specific need

DBL Data identifies interest& hints at needs

But there’s a problem

36 %of salespeople say they never use digital body language

Not at all Significant gaps

Why doesn’t sales use digital body language?

Because it’s HardIt’s noisy, it’s confusing, it’s open to interpretation and it doesn’t help build empathy or understanding of the buyer.

• Noisy. An active prospect may be generating tens, or even hundreds, of signals and parsing out the key insights to help have a better sales conversation is next to impossible.

• Open to interpretation. Is a prospect who clicks the ‘getting started’ link really a hot lead? Maybe, maybe not.

• Undifferentiated. Every sales rep knows that an unqualified lead can generate a digital body language trail that looks frighteningly similar to a highly qualified, hot lead.

What sales wants to receive about a prospect is a far richer lead profile, helping to illuminate potential needs, pains, challenges, readiness and fit.

Digital body language surfaced from marketing automation into the CRM tends to be:

This is What Sales Really Want To Know

Contact information

Firmographic data (e.g. industry segment)

Role in purchase decision

Potential ROI from solution purchase

Budgeting for a solution

Decision timeframe

Specific pain points motivating purchase

Readiness to buy

Anticipation barriers to acquisition

Data Type Currently Receive Want to Receive

78% of respondents indicate that access to thistype of information would yield higher close rates:

What does all this have to do with content marketing?

Content – defined as all information components produced by marketing to

communicate ideas and transfer knowledge to buyer and seller audiences – plays a critical role

in driving demand. But when the type of content created does not align with buyers’

and sellers’ needs, it fails to support the types of conversations that are required to

move the buying process forward.

Sirius Decisions

of B2B marketersare creating more content

than they did a year ago

2015 B2B content marketing trends, Content Marketing Institute

But only 38% of marketers say their content marketing

is effective!

2015 B2C Content Marketing Trends, Content Marketing Institute

say their content doesn’t create any opportunity for engagement

Demand Metric, Enhancing the Buyer’s Journey,

And…

Because static content provides limited opportunity for content

engagement, rich lead profiles and buyer insights.

Contact information

Firmographic data (e.g. industry segment)

Role in purchase decision

Potential ROI from solution purchase

Budgeting for a solution

Decision timeframe

Specific pain points motivating purchase

Readiness to buy

Anticipation barriers to acquisition

Data Type Currently Receive Want to Receive

Remember all that stuff sales said they wanted to receive about their leads?

interactive content can solve for this

interactive content can engage your buyer

in a radically more effective manner while surfacing richer insights

to sales that helps to drive revenue.

But how do you deliver it?

Assessments Quiz Solution Builders

Solution Finders Calculators

Shows Intent

Identifies Need

Shows Engagement

Knowledge Gap or

Opportunity to Sell Into

Ideal Customer Profile

How does this support the sales person?

Qualification

Product Configuration

ROI - Does the Solution

Make Sense to the Buyer

Price Expectations

Point of Interest

The Tale of Two JourneysStatic content versus interactive content experiences & how

it impacts sales ability to win deals.

of buyers go through their buying journey before talking to a sales rep

chiefmarketer.com

72 %say the role of personal selling is

significant in closing deals

But also…

A Typical Journey through Static Content• View an infographic• Register to download a white paper• Click through an email to download a best

practices guide• Read a blog post• View product pages• Download a solution

brochure• View the “getting started”

page• Attend a webinar• Watch a video• Contact sales

• Interact with an interactive infographic

• Interact with an interactive white paper

• Register to download awhite paper

• Answer a 15-question self assessment

• Configure a solution builder• Use an ROI calculator • Use an implementation

calculator• Contact sales

A Typical Journey through Interactive Content

The Tale of Two Buyer Journeys

• View an infographic • Register to download a white

paper • Click through an email to

download a best practices guide

• Read a blog post • View product pages • Download a solution brochure • View the “getting started”

page • Attend a webinar • Watch a video • Contact sales

Pass/fail of static content with digital body language

• Interact with an interactive infographic

• Interact with an interactive white paper

• Complete a quiz • Register to download a white

paper • Answer a 15-question self

assessment • Configure a solution • Use an ROI calculator • Use an implementation calculator • Contact sales

Rich lead profiles and buyer insights with digital dialogue

It’s hard to surface buyer insights & meaningful digital

body language without interactions.

Let’s take a closer look at what this looks like…

Early Stage

A visitor clicks on a tweet and engages with an interactive infographic. We know every element he interacts with.

Early Stage

Marketing places a cookie on the visitor for marketing automation & retargeting.

At This Point, We Know

STATIC INTERACTIVE

VSWe know a visitor viewed the infographic

Sales knows which stats the visitor interacted with

Early Stage

The visitor is retargeted with specific banner ads that pick upwhere his affinity for the infographic left off. He clicks!

Early Stage

He lands and engages with an interactive white paper. Sales knows every element he interacts with, and how much of

the white paper he consumed.

STATIC INTERACTIVE

VSWe know a visitor hit a landing page

We know which sections of the white paper content the visitor interacted with,

how much of the white paper was consumed.

Early Stage

He decides he wants the PDF version emailed to him.

Now he converts from an anonymous visitor to Bill. Our new prospect.

Early Stage

Bill is added to a nurture campaign.

Early Stage

Bill gets an email offering an assessment.

Mid Stage

Bill completes the assessment.

Mid Stage

Bill’s key behaviors and responses are being recorded and surfaced to sales in their Sell Side view.

Bill starts to show up as a high scored lead in the MAP notifications to sales. Sales reviews all of the rich data provided in Sell-Side to start to understand

prospect profile, need, interests, etc.

Mid Stage

STATIC INTERACTIVE

VSWe know he downloaded an

assessment document

We know how Bill answered each

assessment question and his ultimate score. Sales knows his pains!

Mid Stage

Marketing’s next nurture email to Bill is triggeredbased on his previous responses.

Mid Stage

Bill clicks through and uses a solution builder.

Mid Stage

Bill bubbles up to sales as an active lead in the MAP. Sales sees Bill’s responses in the Sell Side, and reaches out to begin a dialogue,

starting at his point of interest.

STATIC INTERACTIVE

VS Sales knows the solution Bill configured based on his specific

situation without talking to him..

We know Bill downloaded a

product brochure & hit a solution page on our

website.

Late Stage

Sales reaches out to Bill with a compelling, specific, targeted message and voicemail that speaks directly to the needs and

pain that Bill has surfaced throughout his digital dialogue.

After their call, sales sends Bill an ROI calculator.

Late Stage

Bill’s data is captured and surfaced to sales.

Late Stage

Sales is able to answer Bill’s questions specifically and support the results of solution Bill built and the ROI he uncovered based upon the gaps that were

revealed from Bill’s interaction with the assessment.

STATIC INTERACTIVE

VS Bill’s specific ROI

1. We know

Sales sent an email

2. We know Sales

captured all notes in the CRM

Late Stage

Bill & sales discuss set up, using an implementation configurator together.

STATIC INTERACTIVE

VS All the implementation

details, timelines, stakeholders, roles are all

recorded in the CRM and sell-side

timeline.

We know sales and the buyer talked about

implementation details

Late Stage

Bill is thinking and planning his implementation details and program goals. Bill is talking to procurement and doing legwork.

Sales wins the deal! Bill is a new customer.

What does the Digital Body Language from interactive

content look like?

Well, it can look like this…. Just like Digital Body Language from static content:

Typical View Of Interactive Content Insights

Typical View of Interactive Content Insights

But there’s a better, easier way to decode the insights from

interactive content: viewing it as a digital dialogue.

What does the digital dialogue look like?

(We call it a “Sell-Side” view, created just for sales people.)

Send a Sell-Side Specific Link to the CRM Record

A sales person clicks a link on a lead record in their CRM…

They see a visual timeline view of that lead’s interactive content interactions

They dive into each piece of content to see meaningful data about the buyer

interactions, like content consumption…

…and how the buyer answered questions in an online assessment…

…even inputs they selected in a calculator, with price results shown in context.

What does this meanfor the organization?

Content that your audience wants to

consume—that they will engage with and use

Better engaged/educated prospects

Sales can meet the buyer at the point

of interest

Better sales and marketing alignment

Moreopportunities for sales

Morecustomers

Thanks!Please take a moment to connect with us. Learn how we can rapidly deploy effective, engaging interactive content experiences that generate qualified leads & create deep prospect profile for your sales team.Twitter: @ioninteractiveSales: 561-235-7474 info@ioninteractive.com

sales and marketing alignment starts with content marketing

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