Marketing Interactions

JANUARY 19, 2020

Which B2B buyer personas, when engaged, will help marketers drive contribution to revenues? While you can build as many personas as you like, there’s a point of no return that you should be careful not to cross. Which B2B Buyer Personas Should You Build? Let’s take on both of those questions. Start by talking to your sales team.

Buyer Personas 121

Buyer Personas Enterprise Management Work Management B2B 121

Marketing Interactions

OCTOBER 8, 2020

Information to help buyers understand their problem and why to solve it. From creating brand awareness, positioning your products against competitors, and attracting your target audience to creating buying intent and building customer loyalty, lifetime value, and advocacy. Help Reps Use Sales Content to Advantage with Buyers.

Effectiveness 122

Effectiveness Work Management Content Marketing Management 122

Marketing Interactions

MARCH 7, 2022

This means there’s a higher probability that they still need to solve the problem—and it’s worth taking another shot to help them do so. Aren’t convinced you’ve sufficiently demonstrated how you’d help them mitigate risk. Questions like these can help buyers overcome doubts: What could have caused you not to buy X solution?

Ideal Customer Profiles 88

Ideal Customer Profiles B2B B2B Thought Leadership Peer-to-peer 88

Marketing Interactions

SEPTEMBER 14, 2021

We set expectations with one piece of content and then fail to deliver the full story to help them advance their thinking. Given the who and the learning, what other content do you have that either builds on that or leads your buyers to ask the question it answers? They want the easy button. But we often don’t give it to them.

B2B 149

B2B Lead Ranking Marketing Qualified Leads Content 149

Marketing Interactions

APRIL 26, 2022

The point is that to be more human—which results in building trust—requires that our audiences “feel” the experience is human—not that it actually is human-to-human. Help them perceive the humanness of us as an organization. And the perception of humanness in B2B content you’re counting on to build trust evaporates.

Top of Funnel 91

Top of Funnel B2B Content Terms and Conditions 91

Marketing Interactions

SEPTEMBER 26, 2022

Once you have a new list of roles to target, go interview them to build fresh personas. Do they use technology that will help them adapt? Doing so strategically by revisiting buyer personas and ICPs will help keep the chaos at bay. Then, ask your customers the situational questions above and try to validate what you’ve heard.

Ideal Customer Profiles 80

Ideal Customer Profiles Buyer Personas Marketing Analytics Tools B2B 80

Marketing Interactions

AUGUST 15, 2022

Together, the combo can help you combat the lack of consensus, the stallers, and the regret that looms large— at 56% of buying organizations —per Gartner’s research. You need to address their issues first, then show them how it helps the company achieve the overall objective. Building Confidence is Crucial for Consensus.

Buyer Personas 75

Buyer Personas Ideal Customer Profiles B2B Gartner 75

Marketing Interactions

APRIL 18, 2019

Instead, when you understand where your buyers are, you can create a shift that helps them start to see things a bit differently, because what you’re saying is based on a “truth” that already exists for them. Small shifts based on what your buyer already sees to help them see it a bit differently. See what I mean? Small steps.

Buyer Personas 119

Buyer Personas Buying Cycle Case Studies Case Study 119

Marketing Interactions

AUGUST 8, 2021

She’s been working to expose and close the gaps between buying and selling for years—and to share a process for helping people through their uncertainties so they can become buyers. This is because our marketing-to-sales models and processes are not built to help buyers buy. This is how Sharon Drew Morgen explains it.

Buy 62

Buy Work Management Lead Ranking Marketing Management 62

Marketing Interactions

JULY 18, 2021

Content is viewed as personalized when it helps the audience take the best action to advance their thinking at just the right time. Helpfulness on your part builds affinity that plays to both of those. I build this type of Q&A into the personas I create for my clients. Or did you leave them at a dead end?

B2B Marketing 75

B2B Marketing Personalization B2B Planning 75

Marketing Interactions

JANUARY 25, 2022

Buyers expect consistent, helpful interactions that build confidence in your organization—and in themselves in relation to solving the problem. You need to help them orchestrate their progress in solving the problem by making sure there are no potholes along their route. They expect commitment. The entire route.

B2B Marketing 69

B2B Marketing B2B Budget Programs Marketing & Strategy 69

Marketing Interactions

MARCH 25, 2023

As someone who reads a ton of B2B marketing content and works to help companies create meaningful, provocative, and forward-looking content, I agree it is hard to come by. Sixty-nine percent of customers are unlikely to expand contracts if content isn’t helpful or valuable. Yes, dare I say it – build or revamp buyer personas.

B2B Marketing 91

B2B Marketing Content Marketing B2B Content 91

Marketing Interactions

JANUARY 27, 2020

In a lot of the conversations I have with B2B marketers, many are overwhelmed when confronted with how to build truly actionable buyer personas. Building actionable personas takes a fair bit of time and effort. Focus Helps You Gain Efficiency and Effectiveness for Buyer Personas. And along with that, so is your persona project.

Buyer Personas 69

Buyer Personas Effectiveness B2B B2B Thought Leadership 69

Marketing Interactions

NOVEMBER 29, 2021

Even though we know better, we seem unable to give B2B buyers what they want > unfettered access to information that helps them consider and manage change in the solving of their critical problems. It will help to identify when and why to gate B2B content and when to set it free. Options for Helping Buyers Show Intent to Buy.

B2B 62

B2B Work Management Marketing Management B2B Thought Leadership 62

Marketing Interactions

FEBRUARY 20, 2022

The Mandate to Help B2B Buyers with Problem Blindness. It’s also when we’re doing our buyers a disservice by helping them buy a band aid when they really need surgery. Drive Momentum by Helping B2B Buyers Understand the Problem. We need to help our buyers recognize misguided self-diagnosis and correct course.

Top of Funnel 88

Top of Funnel B2B Peer-to-peer Lead Ranking 88

Marketing Interactions

SEPTEMBER 21, 2021

Offer insights that help me to better perform my day-to-day job” (58%) also seems to fall a bit short. I’d contend that all the content your marketing team produces needs to be human, be helpful, and be insightful. Put a stake in the ground and build on it. POV Builds Affinity…Or Not. Read that again….

B2B Thought Leadership 69

B2B Thought Leadership Thought Leadership B2B Content 69

Marketing Interactions

AUGUST 1, 2021

Therefore, brand building is defined as a long-term strategy that focuses on building brand awareness so when buyers become in-market your company is top of mind. It builds lasting memory structure in the minds of buyers that will trigger when these buyers become in-market. Fame helps build buyer confidence.

Demand 69

Demand B2B Marketing Branding Brand Identity 69

Marketing Interactions

OCTOBER 5, 2022

I’ve been involved in helping clients create a slew of retention programs—more so in the last few years—and I’d like to clear up a few things when thinking about and planning them: Retention programs and onboarding programs are not the same things. Economic, Functional, Experiential, Symbolic) How can you help them gain more value?

Ideal Customer Profiles 62

Ideal Customer Profiles B2B Marketing Enterprise Management Work Management 62

Marketing Interactions

APRIL 14, 2019

Marketing automation can help to orchestrate buying conversations and get salespeople in the conversation at the right time—if you use it as more than a glorified email blast tool. Content must be constructed to link ideas that build the story from problem to solution—and bring the buyer along for the journey. Dry content won’t cut it.

Conversion 86

Conversion Marketing Automation Services B2B Trigger Marketing 86

Marketing Interactions

AUGUST 15, 2021

The issue with scoring is that it’s mostly based on activity, not dependent on topic or viewing related topical pages that build a storyline based on problem-to-solution and would indicate interest level. Have they accessed pre-sales content that answers their change management questions and helps them decide to fix the problem?

Marketing Qualified Leads 62

Marketing Qualified Leads Lead Ranking Sales Qualified Leads High Quality Lead 62

Marketing Interactions

SEPTEMBER 9, 2021

ABM is a terrific vehicle for enabling marketers and sellers to work in parallel to help B2B buyers do their own discovery and complete their pre-buying work to enable them to buy what you’re selling. You’re not just engaging and helping one contact advance. They need help. ABM is a Great Construct for B2B Buyer Discovery.

Ideal Customer Profiles 62

Ideal Customer Profiles Account Based Marketing B2B ABM 62

Marketing Interactions

OCTOBER 24, 2021

Either it will be too high level to be helpful, or it will be irrelevant in the parts that speak to people other than that reader. The first thing I’d say is that trying to appeal to everyone at once—or within one content asset—means your content will be engaging to no one. That’s a specialty skill that needs translation for SMEs.

B2B Marketing 100

B2B Marketing Content Marketing Planning B2B 100

Marketing Interactions

AUGUST 24, 2021

They need information that helps them understand what to ask, do, understand, and evaluate. I agree with Gartner that this is a huge opportunity for marketers to help buyers by creating content that assists them with job completion. And, for those of you going there, helping buyers set a future vision isn’t always thought leadership.

B2B Thought Leadership 62

B2B Thought Leadership Thought Leadership B2B Gartner 62

Marketing Interactions

FEBRUARY 8, 2022

This is true if you’re only interested in learning about your customers so that you can extract more revenue from them, instead of focusing on serving and helping them. These are the types of perspective-based insights—translated intelligently—that help you understand what your buyers may choose to do next.

B2B 69

B2B Peer-to-peer Gartner Top of Funnel 69

Marketing Interactions

FEBRUARY 15, 2019

For those of you who know me, you know I spend much of my time talking to my clients’ customers to do the research necessary to build buyer personas that can truly inform content marketing, product marketing and sales enablement programs. What you learn from talking with your customers can help change this, as well.

Conversion 93

Conversion Planning Buyer Personas Dwell 93

Marketing Interactions

JANUARY 30, 2017

Just as you can pick up a book and continue ready from where you left off, the culmination of the experiences your audience has must build momentum toward the outcome they expect and need. This is what builds engagement and progression toward the outcomes B2B audiences—and marketers—must achieve.

B2B Marketing 73

B2B Marketing Marketing & Strategy Marketing Strategy Webinar Metrics 73

Marketing Interactions

DECEMBER 29, 2016

Problem 2: Creating more content that’s not any more effective than what you already have is not going to help marketers reach their goals. These links will help you create transitions. Each of these decisions to take a next step with the help of your content builds engagement. Think continuum , not campaign.

B2B Marketing 81

B2B Marketing Content Marketing B2B Content 81

Marketing Interactions

SEPTEMBER 20, 2018

In this blog, I’ll cover best practices for B2B marketers to make the shift from funnels to lifecycles to increase ROI and help your customers stick with you for the long run. How can you help them get more value? Do you have programs to help power users bring along those that are more reluctant to embrace new ways of doing things?

Marketing Funnels 87

Marketing Funnels Top of Funnel B2B Marketing Work Management 87

Marketing Interactions

JULY 25, 2021

Messaging that helps them stretch and see things from a new perspective can serve as the trigger that helps them internalize an idea, thereby personalizing it—all on their own. But instead of throwing out what we’ve learned thus far to adopt the shiny new version, why not continue to build on solid, foundational marketing principles?

B2B Marketing 69

B2B Marketing B2B Paid Search Agency Buying Cycle 69

Marketing Interactions

JUNE 23, 2017

What do they need to build the business case? Even though they make the final decision, if most of the research, evaluation, and building of the business case is done at a lower level, that’s where your focus should be. Where did you find the most helpful information? Step 4: The B2B Buyer Persona Build.

Buyer Personas 74

Buyer Personas Enterprise Management B2B Marketing Marketing & Strategy 74

Marketing Interactions

MAY 23, 2018

Building a Business Case for B2B Content Operations. This means learning from content that didn’t work as intended and quickly evolving to content that does. A content operations function brings justifiable impact to the bottom line. To consistently contribute to business growth, any function within your company must evolve. Change is risk.

Top of Funnel 67

Top of Funnel Paid Search Agency Companies B2B 67

Marketing Interactions

JULY 25, 2019

In my work building personas, I find that often to be a low-ball count. And content that tells a disconnected story will only result in confusion that causes buyers to have a lack of faith that your company knows what it’s talking about and has the expertise to help them solve the problem. Let’s take an example.

Relevance 73

Relevance Work Management Marketing Management B2B Sales 73

Marketing Interactions

SEPTEMBER 30, 2018

The purpose of the RMM is to help digital marketers develop a culture of customer obsession that results in the level of relevance necessary to earn and sustain a competitive advantage in the markets your company serves. The post The Relevance Maturity Matrix Helps B2B Marketers Close the Gap appeared first on Marketing Interactions.

Relevance 58

Relevance B2B Marketing B2B Broadcasting 58

Marketing Interactions

JUNE 20, 2021

Customer success obsesses about helping customers find and sustain satisfaction from using your products, often tailoring messaging to each customer that may not reflect the overall brand message. There should be overlaps that bring consistency, as well as help them advance as they build confidence through learning what they need to know.

B2B 62

B2B Marketing Management Customer Satisfaction B2B Sales 62

Marketing Interactions

JUNE 4, 2017

Our customers have shown high engagement with these content assets; what can we create to continue the story or fill in the gaps to help them solve this problem? It takes campaigns out of the equation and focuses marketing, sales, and service attention on helping our target list of accounts get the job done—from start to finish.

Account Based Marketing 64

Account Based Marketing ABM Lead Ranking Lead Scoring 64

Marketing Interactions

JUNE 23, 2017

Her goals are to improve financial transparency and to increase efficiency in data utilization to prioritize key decisions that help the organization run profitably. Seeing both sides of a pain point is helpful when generating content to address a buyer persona’s needs. How do I build the business case? Orientation.

Buyer Personas 64

Buyer Personas Marketing & Strategy Marketing Strategy B2B Marketing 64

Marketing Interactions

DECEMBER 26, 2016

What can help us fast-track improvement is the concept of content operations. For it’s not about the quantity of consumption, but the quality of the engagement that content produces and how it impacts revenue that builds—and sustains—the business case. 37% have a documented content marketing strategy. Let’s take a look…. And it can be.

Lead Ranking 72

Lead Ranking Lead Scoring B2B Marketing Planning 72