Whether you are a funnel-purist, who still firmly believes in this construct, or you think marketing has gotten way more complicated and customers enter the process at various stages through various means, there is still some value in using the funnel as a means to represent the overall approach of the marketing itself.
I call this the content funnel and it sits alongside the B2B buyer’s funnel. You create different kinds of content at each stage of the funnel to move buyers through the process of becoming a customer. Most content marketers focus on the top of the funnel, but important to think about content at all buyer stages.
Top of the funnel is the high level, helpful content that attracts the most people to your company. While not all B2B companies practice this form of content marketing, many do share content that they hope will work at the top of the funnel. For the sake of this conversation, let’s say that your content is entertaining, solves business problems and provides value to your prospects. They gladly fill out your lead form in exchange for your artisanal, lovingly crafted content.
They are now in your marketing database. What happens next?
They download the content, review it and form an opinion about your company. The next move is up to you.
Email them. Spam them. Nurture them. Ignore them.
You may think you know the right answer, but the answer may be it depends. You may actually want to ignore them to see if they do something else. Downloading an educational ebook does not demonstrate product interest. Ask any overzealous inside sales rep who followed up with a phone call. Maybe a high lead score precipitated this call, but the prospect may still not be product or sales ready.
What about an email thanking them for the download? Even though you are really thanking them for surrendering their email address so you can contact them again. But what is the most important thing in that email? A link to the content they just downloaded. That’s right. Here’s the thing that you just looked at in your browser. Or on your mobile device. It’s not always easy to save these things when you are reading them, especially on your smartphone. This also ensures that this email is specific to the content they just downloaded, rather than a generic email with links to other unrelated ebooks. If I downloaded something about social media management I really don’t need to know that you have more information about mobile marketing.
So what about that content funnel idea?
You need to follow-up with something that moves them closer to your product or service. Are they interested in what you have to offer? If your top of funnel content is good, you may have no idea if a prospect has any interest in ever becoming a customer. But if they show some interest in a case study or how a customer has found success in their business by working with your company, they have moved to the middle of the funnel. They have a problem that they are looking to solve.
These middle of the funnel customer stories could be videos. They could be Slideshare decks. They could even be a series of animated GIFs. You can definitely include these in follow-up or nurture emails, along with other relevant top of funnel content. Remember that you are building a relationship with this prospect. If one ebook solved a problem, maybe another one will solve a related problem.
And why is this marketing funnel just as leaky as the sales funnel? Because you can also share this middle of the funnel content on the company social channels. And if they are smart, well-produced content pieces that tell good stories, they will attract buyers who may already be looking for a solution to their problems. And they never saw the top of the funnel.
Next is where content marketers start to get twitchy. The bottom of the funnel. We’re not responsible for that, they say. That’s sales’ job. Or product marketing. I don’t create content about the product. That’s like selling on social media. Oh wait, we do that now.
This makes a lot of sense if you think of this like a funnel and you have the content experts manage the whole process. Start at the top with the theory and strategy of how to do things. Follow that up with how specific customers have succeeded by doing those things. And finally, show how you do those same things with your products. Think of this as storytelling and the funnel moves your marketing from a general and theoretical place to one that is very specific. Rather than disjointed content across the different stages of the buyers’ journey, it is all connected.
And whether the buyers find and follow all this content themselves through search or social media or it is supported by nurture emails or sales reps, they will get a clearer picture of how your company can solve their problems. No matter what stage they are at when they discover your content.
Photo credit: Flickr
From Social Media B2B http://ift.tt/1TTdVmy
This post appeared first on Socialmediab2b.com
0 التعليقات:
Post a Comment