B2B Lead Management / Content Marketing

Terms and References

Attraction Marketing• Inbound Marketing with intent – pull marketing versus push

marketing• Using your content to build engagement with purpose, targeted

at your specific audience• When you create content that pulls prospects, you are

differentiating your brand– Customers recognise the value and follow trail back to your base

(website) to engage with you– To ensure this works – create contagious content

• Your content will move buyers along in their buying process to become a live sales opportunity in time

Leads• Lead Management

– The process of generating revenue from leads by collecting, qualifying and interacting with individuals in relevant ways throughout the buying process

• Lead Nurturing– Process of building relationships with qualified prospects regardless of

their timing to buy, with the goal of earning their business when they are ready

• Lead scoring– The process of determining the sales readiness of leads using a pre-

determined scoring methodology and ranking• Lead Database

– A system used to collect lead info – based on BANT, behaviourial data, firmogrpahics etc..

The Sales Funnel

Traditional Funnel

The problem

B2B lead development gap• Buyers engaging with sales further down the funnel as they

research more online• Leads are not properly qualified by the marketing team before

they are handed over to sales• There is no way of identifying accurately when a lead is ready to

be passed to sales as no clear definition of a lead• There is no systematic process in place for managing and scoring

leads• When a lead is disqualified by sales it does not go into a lead

nurturing programme• There is no visibility where exactly leads fall out of the funnel• There is no connection between leads and converted sales

The solution

Buyer Journeys, Lead Management and Content Marketing

The Buyer Process

Understanding the Buyer Journey

• Status Quo: prospects have not yet recognised the problem as one they need to resolve

• Priority: problem recognised but prospect unsure which route is best option

• Research: Prospects actively engaged in learning what they need to know, and building confidence

• Options: Learning about solution sets that will best fit immediate and future needs

• Step Backs: Something happens to make prospect return to an earlier phase to verify beliefs

• Validation: You are on the short list – need to prove you can deliver• Choice: Decision to buy moves from intent to reality

Buyer Stage Q & A

Roadmap to implement B2B Lead to Sales solutions

The 7 Key Rules for Connected Marketer

1. Develop Buyer Personas– Understand your prospects, based on who they are, how they

behave, and where they interact in the sales cycle

2. Align content with buyers– Determine what types of information your prospects will need,

based on who they are, how they behave and where they are in their buying process

3. Consistency across channels– Leverage as many channels as possible to get your message out –

and keep messages consistent

4. Let experts do the talking – Solve problems – find experts who can articulate and discuss

problems and solutions

The 7 Key Rules for Connected Marketer

5. Multi-channel distibutions– Buyers have different preferences for consuming information –

you need to make sure content is accessible from all these channels (Blogs, website, rss, twitter, facebook, business portals)

6. Automate the process (4 Rs)– Reach: Use social media to engage with a broad audience (track all

interactions)– Response: measure all response and their nature– Relationship: Build relationship by delivering timely and

personalised message based on behaviour and profile– Revenue: Lead nurturing must feed sales

7. Get Connected– Make yourself a valuable resource for your prospects

Lead Management Process

Preparational Considerations

• Characteristics of best customers– Who typically buys from you, who are least demading customers,

characteristics of easily and profitable closed sales• Understanding the “Buyer Journey”

– Where did best leads come from, how do leads advance along the funnel, which activities do your deals participate in (webinars, demos etc..)

– How can you identify if a prospect has stalled• Lead Qualification

– What are the specific characteristics of a marketing qualified lead– What MQL (marekting qualified leads) typically convert– What are the characteristics of leads that typcially need to go

through a nurturing programme

Key lessons to implement lead management

Integrated Content Marketing Programme

• Always provide relevant information to buyers – not huge amounts of it– Through segmentation and testing you can target relevant

information to specific personas• Cultivate an engaging and conversation voice in all buyer related

collateral– Be frank and direct and focus content on the bottom line for buyers

(get to the nub of the issue upfront and the explain)• Converse rather than intrude with prospectives

– Provide segmented targetted information on an opt-in basis (notify prospects of upcoming webinars, new research, collaborative reports etc..) – that they will find valuable

Relevant B2B Content

Advantages of Lead Management

• Optimises marketing impact on sales– Gives marketers better visibility into the sales pipeline, helps marketing

deliver better ready-to-buy leads to sales, – reduces cost of acquistion to generate sales, enables more efficient

sales force• Ties sales and marketing closer together

– Ties marketing process directly to the bottom line - # of marketing qualified leads to converted sales, connects online buyer behaviour with readiness to buy

• Helps marketing treat customer relationships like corporate assets– Extend lead management to live customers– Foster and nurture closer customer relationships, develop an engaged

community, create customer advocates

Content Programme

What we want our content to do• Attention - your content needs to get noticed - and not just by anyone - by the audience you've

targeted. Awareness - once people have engaged with your content, they should have some thoughts about your company - preferably favorable ones worth remembering.

• Mindshare - we need people to spend enough time with our content to actually "get" the ideas it's sharing.

• Anchor - once people have ingested the ideas, your content needs to work to make sure that those ideas take precedence in forming how your audience thinks about the topic.

• Action - your content is sent out on a mission to get people to DO something.• Conversation - beyond the action your content requests, it needs to ensure that the audience has

a clear enough understanding that they can now talk with others and share your ideas with them in their own words.?

• Confidence - the learning your content provides needs to help people feel certain that they know what they need to take the next step...and just what that might be.

• Competence - your content must provide evidence that your company can actually do what it says it can.

• Invitation - content must entice people to spend more time with your company - whether through opting in for a newsletter, attending a webinar, subscribing to an RSS feedAuthority - content must inspire reliance on your company for consistently valuable insights

Content Strategy B2B

• Listen and Understand your audience and their behaviour patterns

• Map out all the stages of your buyer cycles• Create specific personas for your prospects and clients• Identify specific needs for each of your buyer personas along the

buyer cycle• Develop content for each buyer stage• Develop a content development schedule• Allocate resources or identify third parties to produce specific

content• Develop a clear voice and personality for your content• Solicit feedback from your prospects, customers and community

B2B content marketing

• Create valuable content that is of real interest to your customers, community or prospects

• Prospective customers engage with sales teams later in the funnel due to online information

• Providing content that pre-identified types and roles of customers want and need

• Providing content that maps directly to the different stages of the buyer cycle

• Producing and sharing content that your community and prospective customers need, value and will potentially share

• Distributing content where your customers and prospects coalesce online

Business to Business Case Studies

Altimeter Group

CrownPeak

American Express

Alterian

Marketo

Intuit Business Services

Eloqua

MarketBright

Salesforce.com