Scaling B2B Demand for Authentic Connections

Look ahead to now (scene set)

So before moving on from just the title, we want to stress why this is where we’re beginning. We’re all aware of it and we all feel it. The pace that things are changing within every role, within a modern marketing team, and really across every

Look ahead to nowSo before moving on from just the title, we want to stress why this is where we’re beginning. We’re all aware of it and we all feel it. The pace that things are changing is just breakneck within every role, within a modern marketing team, and really across every aspect of the business.

We’re stressing this because it plays a role in adding complexity to everything else. Almost nothing should be ever marked as done so to speak, revisiting and optimizing should be baked in to everything you do.

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Buying is already complex and is getting even more so. Attracting buyer attention is harder, and even harder still to earn their trust. This means we have to get smarter with our content and demand marketing.

...Information

The buyer landscape has irreversibly changed. There is more information out there. Way more

products. Furthermore, modern buyers have adapted to this and in a portion of cases even

prefer this, and devour a great deal of information prior to buying or speaking to a salesperson.

...Engagement with third parties

We already find ourselves in a state where the majority of information about our products come

from the peers, coworkers, and third parties of our buyers. Engaging your ideal audience where

they are and how they want is key.

...Decision makers

Buying groups are real, we stress that now more than ever, your buyer is plural. Very plural. The average stakeholders in a purchase decision has doubled from 5 to 10 in since 2015. Companies who take a holistic view at engaging buying groups close 40% more business.

source: Gartner CEB, The Challenger Customer

...Ad hoc projects

In the past year 43% of B2B purchase decisions were made more spontaneously than normally forecasted. It’s easy to plan sales activity based on annual budget cycles, but are you leaving money on the table? With 43% of purchases now made ad hoc, it’s more important than ever for marketers to help their sellers identify buying signals early.

source: Gartner CEB, The Challenger Customer

More...

Respond to more with less

43%

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Marketing teams are expected to continue delivering results and meet aggressive growth targets with the same/less resources. Best practices don’t remain ‘the best’ forever. Openness to leaving behind the status quo and adopting new processes is essential.

Marketing teams that are able to respond to this and succeed, have the following things in common:

Data paralysis to actionable insights

For many businesses, their customer database and book of business is the most valuable asset they possess. Making sure that this asset gets deployed to the maximum possible extent is essential. Very frequently data is captured and never really applied in practical

ways to create more value.

More content to more effective content

Use the rich profiles on your ideal customers and context of their engagement activity to address their unique concerns. Not only you can better serve your future customers, but

also leverage that to angle content to their respective needs.

Lead quantity to lead quality

Flooding your sales team with more leads than they can conceivably pursue and effectively convert, overloads both your marketing and sales organizations. Think more about the quality of these leads, and making sure the outreach is contextualized and setup for conversion success.

Trade low for high-value activities

Human capital is valuable and the limited capacity that this entails makes it all the more important to think carefully about how you deploy it. Strategically reserving this capacity for higher value touchpoints with your audiences can maximize engagement and connection.

from more to less

Creating success 3

We as marketers face two constraints, but these are really just one challenge with these two opposing forces that must be balanced to find success, and they aren’t as fundamentally opposing as first glance would indicate.

There are smart ways to increase your effectiveness to do more with the same resources and effort, and in part that can come from making sure your targets are the right targets. Furthermore, your outreach to these prospects can be optimized to yield better results, through contextualized outreach, elevated experiences, and delivering more timely value to your ideal customers.

Finding balance

Engagement and efficacy of our initiatives

It’s increasingly hard to stay effective and really engage your audience. Really getting them to listen requires more context and nuance than what is done traditionally.

If you’re running ragged trying to deliver as many MQLs as you can, some of that effort could be wasted. One could make the argument that the Q in MQL (quality that is) is the most important factor there, and we certainly advocate for this sort of thinking.

Scaling efforts to drive business success

You can’t run a successful business if you’re still in an ‘everything-is-a-one-off’ sort of scenario. There are smart ways of utilizing technology and process to allow you to still maximize your efficacy, while increasing scale.

As we address in section 4, there is a certain level of demand required to sustain a healthy business, and this is not one size fits all.

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The signal is the noiseRemember the humanity of your engaged audience by thinking of them as people as complex as you. Place yourself in their shoes, as a person trying to solve complex problems. They are more than a collection of demographics. Think about their thought processes, and bring this nuance to your audience personas.

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Accounts are peopleComplex profilesIncreasingly business decisions involve more and more individuals. All with different interests and problems to solve. These facts makes it important to recall that you’re seeking to convert an account, not a single persona.

Let this fact guide how you address all identities that ultimately contribute to a conversion. Multiple stakeholders with different appeals and pain-points, and ultimately multiple stages of decision making for your buyer.

Account-based marketing can be a laborious undertaking, however your strategy can incorporate principles of this methodology and gain many of the same benefits, without being truly ABM in the strict sense.

Don’t wait for a form fill out to get to know your audience. Know what they need to make a decision, and what they need to solve their unique problems even before they do.

There’s no time like real-timeThe current system of retroactive targeting based on long-past activity needs to evolve to more real time signals and quickly acting on them. In a world full of noise, it pays to be heard when the topic is still top of mind. In fact sometimes that is the only way to be heard at all.

With our ever-increasing data processing capabilities, we can understand user interest in ways never before possible and at an unprecedented scale and timliness. So it’s not so much that any one data point that is new, the value is in the novel ways user signals can be integrated into a meaningful one.

On an interpersonal level, your brain is constantly using raw sensory information that in a vacuum is nearly meaningless, but with proper context and interpretation can reveal the thoughts of another with incredible accuracy.

In the case of interpreting audience behavior, you’re also flooded with mostly meaningless data points, It’s in the contextualization and integration of this data that gives insight.

Try this Try this

Figure out what signals from your many buyers matter, and continuously integrate and enrich your audience data to get a clearer picture of the individual pressing the mouse button, and at the next desk over.

Employ a blended approach by focusing on your ideal customers based on firmographics and demographics but prioritize timely outreach with highly relelvant and valuable communication.

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Profiles for ideal buyers certainly aren’t a new concept, but in many cases need to change to be useful or even usable in the post-GDPR world. These profiles need to be as dynamic as the humans they are attempting to categorize.

A shift should occur to more dynamic real-time indicators of interest instead of estimating likely interest from demographics. Buyer identity is the essential baseline to any enhanced targeting strategy, with that established you can build atop that to increase effectiveness. Real time signals, and timeliness of action on engagement data that’s more than just a page view can help enable that.

People are humanPeople move fast, so should your profiles

An entire portion of the brain is devoted to continually taking in information to better construct an estimation of someone else’s thoughts. You’ve heard this called empathy.

Empathy is like speculative-telepathy, or at least the closest thing we’ve got to it. In the small scale, this prospect isn’t so daunting, but applying it en masse can introduce sizable but addressable complications. Your audience as well as product landscape rapidly and constantly evolve, so your conception of these personas must do the same to stay accurate or even useful.

Try this (to inspire people)

Empathy

InformFirst, you must know how topics are resonating with your accounts and then work hard to find data and information that can help make them more successful.

EntertainResearch shows people respond best to content that doesnt feel like a pitch. Think of how to be more bite-sized with a narrative, a series of talks is a great example.

PersuadeMoving people to take action is a combination of good storytelling, trust, and credibility. Find your sweet spot and make it repeatable.

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New data: new methodologiesLead scoring isn’t what we’re advocating, in the strict sense, but there is a need for a prioritization model. What you’re attempting to do is quantify the unquantifiable. Who’s to say if a great conversation was a 5-level influencing factor, or a 7-level. It’s arbitrary, and doesn’t give the full picture. There’s a level of nuance here that is missing, and it often shows when the handoff to sales occurs and there isn’t a clear way forward. Evolving campaign frameworks from static/rigid models to fluid and agile campaign engines. Pick up on real-time signals that help prioritize sales and marketing campaigns based on accounts and contacts that are in market right now.

It’s the right now and real-time in that previous point that must be stressed. These are signals you need to act on very quickly, building confidence with your sales department by delivering insights, not data.

Data dies in the dark, put it to useFor many businesses, their customer database and book of business is the most valuable asset they possess. Making sure that this asset gets deployed to the maximum possible extent is essential. Very frequently data is captured and never really applied in practical ways to create more value.

Use the rich profiles on your ideal customers and context of their engagement activity to address their unique concerns. Not only you can better serve your future customers, but also leverage that to angle content to their respective needs. This endeavor doesn’t have to be laborious in every case, some practical applications can be quite simple.

A great deal of your content likely has broad appeal and with simple modifications could be separately positioned to be more appealing to specific targets. This modification can be as simple as the cover, title and promotion, or can extend into the content itself.

On average prospects engage with 10 pieces of content before a purchasing decision is made. (LinkedIn, 2017)

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Creating Authentic ConnectionsCommunicating from a place of authenticity lends a sense of genuine appeal in recipients and makes a brand feel more human, making connection more likely.

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What is authenticityAuthenticity as a personAuthenticity comes quite a bit more naturally when acting as a person rather than as a brand, but that’s not to say that it is ‘easy’. However the tenets are shared between brand and human authenticity, because at the core it is still humans connecting with humans. Being authentic starts with truly knowing yourself and knowing your intentions and goals. From here communicating honestly and desiring to connect on commonalities with your audience.

Authenticity as a brandFirstly you must develop a point of view that’s authentic to the business and the personal brand. This is the guidepost to being an authentic brand and the starting point from which your communication strategy should spring. Be transparent knowing that you’re not giving away any secrets. Audiences already know you’re selling products, fooling them isn’t a goal or even possible. Instead craft stories about challenges in the market that position your products as a natural answer. Create value for your audiences through your content.

For more information on creating connections with your audience prioritizing authenticity and storytelling check out Three Steps to Authentic Connections in B2B:

Download the eBook

Looks like, feels likeFrom the perspective of the reciever, authentic communication and connection not only leaves a positive impression and greater appeal, it also has a symbiotic effect in promoting openness and authenticity in other parties. When people and brands are genuine, responses tend to be genuine in kind, this makes them more open to what you have to say, or what you’re advocating for.

How it can be doneLead with why this is relevant to the target audience through the lens of the problem that it is solving. Product pitches are a turn-off when buyers are getting to know you. To showcase products, get a customer to talk about a popular use case or create an explainer video that positions your unique strengths.

Challenges arise in how to make something that feels personal become repeatable and scalable, these challenges can be overcome by building frameworks to craft stories through the lens of your brand.

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Foundation for long-term connections

1. Consistency creates credibilityBe a consistent voice to these professionals, create value for them, and make your presence known. In our case, we’ve consistently worked with thought leaders in the industries we focus on. As a result we’ve had a decade of audience growth with 500,000 monthly attendees. This consistency leads to building credibility with the audience.

2. Credibility creates trustThrough credibility you can really create trust with your target audience, and individuals you engage with and wish to do business with. This credibility is where the halo effect from your credible content and value, begin to create more general trust in your brand.

3. Trust creates likabilityThis is when users become advocates for your brand and create momentum to grow. Our communities are driving this.

4. Likability requires transparencyTruly being real with audiences, being open honest, share information, to share ideas and create value. Guide a strategy or benefit them. This sort of interaction creates a long term deep connection.

5. Transparency encourages authenticityTruly being real with audiences, being open honest, share information, to share ideas and create value. Guide a strategy or benefit them. This sort of interaction creates a long term deep connection.

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Level of effort

High

Low

Chain of likabilityThe level of effort can be high on the front end of this cascade, but the value is cumulative from the start. You want your target audience to develop a relationship to your content and the value it brings, and let that extend to your brand as a whole. We have found this chain of likability as our audience and communities have built around us.

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Being HumanBeing human in more than one dimensionDue to the nature of business today, the majority of connections are made online. A great gauge of how intimately your recipients can engage with you and just how authentic you can be, is comparing the experience to an offline human interaction and shaping the online experience to approximate the offline as much as possible. This can allow you to be human in the online environment.

In-person connections are high-value, but capacity is limited by their very nature. By being more genuine and focusing on communicating as a human first and a brand second, you can bring the same benefits to all your mediums. Counterintuitively your objectives can be more easily achieved by focusing less on your objective and more on building trust through connection. Deliver value to your audience, and listen as much as you say.

By being a more human brand you can cut through the noise and truly reach your audience.

Delivering experiences Don’t focus on one medium. Diversify your content formats for the variety of ways audiences prefer to engage. You must create experiences to grab the attention of your audience and be memorable.

Use technology to bridge the digital divide. There are countless ways to move in this direction Through video, audio, and interactivity. Furthermore live experiences are where connections are made, with exchange and interaction baked in.

BrightTALK is acting on this through online amplification of offline industry events through BrightTALK @ Summits. These online events allow attendees who might not otherwise be able to attend to feel involved in the energy of a tradeshow and come away with valuable learnings. These blended-experience events also amplify the exposure of brands attempting to reach these audiences. In 2018, we doubled down on our belief that live experiences are exceptionally valuable through our BrightTALK Local series, which sought to create connections between thought leaders and brands within local markets. These events are exclusively about creating connections, building trust and delivering valuable experiences.

Unique experiencesRich online experiences are universally valuable, but without contextualization of experiences some of the value is being left on the table. Content should be thoughtfully angled on two dimensions, both across profiles and through the buyer’s journey. Mapping your content in these dimensions can massively impact the relevance of your content to your audience.

This customization can be done efficiently through department collaboration on sourcing, restructuring content with specific tweaks, and modified repurposing of existing content.

For more information on making content that maximizes engagement across the buyer’s journey check our our ebook, Mapping B2B Content to Each Stage of the Sales Funnel:

Download the eBook

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Achieve scale remain authentic

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Layering demand, building scale

Lead mix

20% Intent LeadsTarget audience engaging with topics that matter to us, but very likely would be interested in our content and products.

60% Summit LeadsTarget audience engaging with relevant content from online events we sponsor.

20%Content Leads

High value engagement, target audience is engaging directly with our content.

Layers of DemandAll successful demand programs create strong awareness while generating marketing-sourced pipeline. The challenge is finding a program mix that is efficient and cost-effective. Here’s how our clients create an ‘always-on’ layered system of demand.

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Account-level targeting is becoming more accessible due to the ability to intelligently aggregate user data and better identify buying groups. The challenge is that most available intent data tells you that a company’s research activity is surging. But you don’t know where, in what context and most importantly, who? It’s the combination of measurable engagement and actionable contact data that turns intent data into a growth accelerator.

Drive 40% booking growth With Gartner reporting 43% of buying decisions made ad hoc and the average buying group size up to 10 stakeholders, identifying buying interest early is key. Companies who act on this close as much as 40% more business.

Focus activityUse measurable engagement to prioritize campaigns. When you can measure who is the most engaged and you can get contact data for those leads, you’ll be able to focus marketing and sales campaigns like never before.

Intent as an accelerator

Augment your marketingTarget account lists and contacts are defined by sales and marketing. Growth-focused marketers augment this with AI-powered monitoring to spot new accounts entering the market and uncover popular topics with buying groups.

Identify accounts and leads with buying intent using BrightTALK Intent Leads

Discover the buying groups researching topics you care about on BrightTALK

Monitor trending topics to find more opportunities

Know when new accounts and contacts enter a buying cycle based on topics that indicate relevant intent. Our

AI-powered recommendation engine (Ada) monitors topic activity across an account so you don’t miss any

opportunities.

Drive business growth with powerful algorithms and easy integrations

Leverage AI-powered intent scoring from viewing frequency, time, downloads, questions, ratings, votes and surging activity. Enjoy easy Salesforce, Marketo, HubSpot, Pardot, Eloqua connectors that are set up in minutes.

Detect purchase interest and stakeholders early

Track intent with measurable engagement across 8M+ professionals who join over 100,000 free talks on BrightTALK. Enjoy an active feed of BrightTALK Intent Leads watching relevant content on our platform.

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Awareness with online eventsAttract leads from influential online events with BrightTALK Summits

Sponsor industry-leading online Summits and showcase your expertiseIt’s a familiar story - marketing teams are being pushed to do more with less. While this can lead to stress and long hours, it doesn’t have to. It’s an opportunity to get smarter about running campaigns that are more simple, impactful and scalable. Online and hybrid events are a powerful tactic to achieve this and when done right, they help engage new audiences and acquire more customers.

Reach your community where they areFind the online events that are already happening in your industry and leverage them to showcase your brand and expertise. Sponsoring these online events is an easy way to build awareness at scale and generate interest.

Amplify your reach and awarenessWith online events the reach your brand and content has is magnified by the halo effect of the online event.

Amplify your in-person event strategyEvents are a substantial investment. Yes you’ll get pipeline and partnerships from networking. But it’s the marketers that harness the on-location experts, partners and customers to create and distribute live and on-demand video that crush their ROI.

Motivate your tribeRoadshows and happy hours are an awesome way to nurture customers, partners and hot prospects. Keep the buzz alive with your own exclusive online events. Just be sure to pick a single vendor solution to make sure it’s easy and cost-effective.

Inspire with live video from industry shows

Join us at top industry shows with BrightTALK @ Summits. Participate in easy, hassle-free video panels and interviews on hot topics, streamed live from the show to online Summits on BrightTALK. Instantly add impactful video to your campaigns

and acquire quality leads who engage with your content.

Showcase your business with exclusive online events

Run your own Summit on BrightTALK to acquire new customers and grow existing customer relationships with a BrightTALK Customer Summit.

Build awareness at scale and generate quality leads

Sponsor BrightTALK Community Summits that attract 30,000 attendees per month and feature world-class experts covering topics your ideal audience cares about. Build awareness at scale and generate quality leads from people viewing your content and attending the event.

Awareness

ReachYour Content

Peer’s Content

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Demand growth from webinarsWebinars are consistently among the top-performing demand generation tactics. They require a substantial time investment, but it’s worth it. There are definitely ways to get time back from managing webinars - mixing them up with webcam talks is one way. But most importantly, the opportunity lies in finding ways to drive more ideal audiences to your webinars.

Know where your leads come from Generating audiences for webinars is hard. That’s why many content syndication vendors outsource to third parties which reduces lead quality. Make sure your leads are sourced authentically and use vendors with robust demand platforms, not spreadsheets.

Insist on your ideal audience

Inviting the right person to your webinar at the right time is easier said than done. That’s why most paid webinar programs don’t include filter guarantees. That puts all the work back on you and it increases your acquisition costs. Only pay for leads that meet your audience filters.

Strike while the iron’s hotWebinar leads are often considered marketing qualified leads, especially when they meet your ideal audience profile. That said, be sure to follow up with those leads within 24-48 hours or you’ll be but a distant memory. Focus on media partners who can easily integrate with your marketing automation.

Acquire leads that engage with your webinars and videos using BrightTALK Content Leads

Drive decision makers to your content as they research on BrightTALK

Improve lead quality with AI-powered targeting

Acquire leads that engage with your content from 8M+ professionals who join 100,000 free Talks on BrightTALK. Our AI-powered recommendation engine (Ada) ensures we connect your content with the right person at the right time.

Act instantly on engagement with your content

Uncover powerful analytics on who’s watching, their contact details and what’s resonating with your ideal audience. Enjoy easy Salesforce/Marketo/HubSpot/Pardot/Eloqua connectors that are set up in minutes

and enable your Marketing and Sales teams to act upon engagement in real time.

Increase pipeline contribution & reduce acquisition cost

Grow demand by generating high-quality BrightTALK Content Leads who have engaged with your content,

guaranteed. Reduce your acquisition cost and only pay for leads that meet your audience filters.

Awareness

ReachYour Content

Peer’s Content

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Learn more about leveraging your content marketing efforts to build demand and effectively reach and convert targets at scale, visit business.brighttalk.com

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BrightTALK Demand