Marketing Interactions

OCTOBER 15, 2021

83% of a typical B2B purchase decision happens before a buyer engages with a vendor – therefore, marketing now owns impact across most of the buying process. The best thing we can do is empower marketers to address them—and help other teams do so, as well. Edelman/LinkedIn ).

B2B Marketing 131

B2B Marketing Lead Ranking B2B Paid Search Agency 131

Marketing Interactions

JULY 31, 2022

Content should be helpful for both customers and buyers…everyone consuming it. Because buying is a 2 nd job, they also jump in and out of buying activities making it tougher to pin down just where they are in their buying process—or even if they are actively in-market buyers. We created them to help us. Not so fast.

B2B 75

B2B Buyer's Journey Gartner B2B Sales 75

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. Where this happens is often in the review process.

B2B Marketing 91

B2B Marketing Content Marketing B2B Content 91

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. And what each of those represents in the moment may be different, depending on where your buyers are in their decision process. B2B buying is hard.

B2B 69

B2B Peer-to-peer Gartner Top of Funnel 69

Marketing Interactions

FEBRUARY 7, 2020

When I talk with clients about how to build a storyline across the entirety of the buying process, they often express hesitation…. This type of thinking has a few flaws, not the least of which is that marketers aren’t in charge of the buying process—their customers are. We must generate MQLs faster than that! People hate change.

B2B 114

B2B Content B2B Marketing Trust Marketing 114

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

FEBRUARY 20, 2022

Trying to change it, rather than fix it – make it more “welcome” by modifying the process or the technology, or shifting direction to avoid the problem as it’s perceived to be. The Mandate to Help B2B Buyers with Problem Blindness. Drive Momentum by Helping B2B Buyers Understand the Problem. Help them justify the fix.

Top of Funnel 88

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

Marketing Interactions

APRIL 26, 2022

Help them perceive the humanness of us as an organization. Help your buyers care because you’ve nailed their context with a relevant message, and you’ll get much farther. What about when something goes wrong on a website and there’s no easy way to ask for help? Buyers want to be active participants in their buying process.

Top of Funnel 91

Top of Funnel B2B Content Terms and Conditions 91

Marketing Interactions

JULY 18, 2021

In a business setting, responsibilities based on role, problem-to-solution process, industry, and company have more impact than knowing their shoe size or where they graduated from college. Content is viewed as personalized when it helps the audience take the best action to advance their thinking at just the right time.

B2B Marketing 75

B2B Marketing Personalization B2B Planning 75

Marketing Interactions

JANUARY 15, 2023

My friend, Dave Brock , recently penned a post, Buyers Using ChatGPT , where he approached it from a sales perspective and suggests his readers: “Think of the power available to buyers in leveraging these tools to help them think about their buying process.”. They need our help.

Marketing Management 80

Marketing Management B2B Vendors Buy 80

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. And for all my clients selling complex solutions, that’s a process—and it can be a long one. Based on context. No dead ends.

B2B 62

B2B Work Management Marketing Management B2B Thought Leadership 62

Marketing Interactions

JANUARY 19, 2020

Which B2B buyer personas, when engaged, will help marketers drive contribution to revenues? How long is the sales process from the time you get involved? The answers to these questions will help you form an initial list of buyer personas for consideration. Let’s take on both of those questions. What questions do they ask you?

Buyer Personas 121

Buyer Personas Enterprise Management Work Management B2B 121

Marketing Interactions

NOVEMBER 15, 2021

You can see in what city a user is located, but with remote working and companies that have staff across regions, that’s not helpful. There’s simply no match with the account’s place in the buying process. No indicated awareness your company exists on their active radar. The intent data lacks specificity.

Intent Data 124

Intent Data Intent B2B Marketing B2B 124

Marketing Interactions

JANUARY 27, 2020

In other words, if a persona represents a role that isn’t involved all the way through the buying process, is it worth your time to build a full-blown persona designed to inform your content marketing strategy across the entirety of the buying process? Focus Helps You Gain Efficiency and Effectiveness for Buyer Personas.

Buyer Personas 69

Buyer Personas Effectiveness B2B B2B Thought Leadership 69

Marketing Interactions

OCTOBER 8, 2020

Ultimately, buyers spend only about 20% of their buying process in conversations with sales reps. They tend to be unsure about the validity of their business case, revising it at least once during their buying process. Sales enablement, used well, helps sellers orchestrate better conversations, uniting buyers with sellers.

Buy 77

Buy B2B Peer-to-peer Work Management 77

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. Outside – in.

B2B Marketing 69

B2B Marketing B2B Budget Programs Marketing & Strategy 69

Marketing Interactions

FEBRUARY 17, 2020

I want insights that help me see things relevant to me in new ways. Our content is not helping us reach our goals consistently. How do we use it to help us win more deals? What to change – content that defines the problem and helping folks recognize it’s a problem. B2B Buyers say: Give me messaging I can understand.

Work Management 96

Work Management Marketing Management B2B Thought Leadership B2B 96

Marketing Interactions

MARCH 22, 2022

Given that 94% of B2B Buyers say they are very well informed or somewhat informed before they talk to a sales rep, there’s a lot of opportunity for marketers to help buyers self-qualify as ¾ of them push off engaging with sales until the end of their change process. We need to make quota for the month, quarter, or year.

Work Management 62

Work Management Marketing Management Ideal Customer Profiles Sales Qualified Leads 62

Marketing Interactions

DECEMBER 26, 2016

With such a high level of agreement, you’d think that B2B marketers would be moving swiftly to impact and own that 57%—more than half—of the buying process. But what I really want this report to help marketing and sales practitioners come to terms with is the consistency gap. But that’s just not the reality. It’s not easy.

Conversion 82

Conversion B2B Top of Funnel Stats 82

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

FEBRUARY 15, 2019

I also what to hear what the buying process is like for their buyers/customers. Note: I do this to gain a foundation of insight for the project, but also to involve sales and learn what they want to know that will help them buy into the persona project. What you learn from talking with your customers can help change this, as well.

Conversion 93

Conversion Planning Buyer Personas Dwell 93

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

Buyers say there’s too much content and much of it is too hard for them to understand, delaying their buying process, and often their decisions. 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.

Conversion 86

Conversion Marketing Automation Services B2B Trigger Marketing 86

Marketing Interactions

AUGUST 15, 2021

B2B buyers consume at least 13 content assets during their buying process. If buyer engagement isn’t telling you enough to understand their intent and where they are in the process, perhaps it’s time to re-evaluate how leads becomes a marketing qualified leads. I’ve seen it as high as 17. Pre-sales cycle content.

Marketing Qualified Leads 62

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

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. I think of them as Organizational Personas.

Buyer Personas 75

Buyer Personas Ideal Customer Profiles B2B Gartner 75

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. As such they are only geared for short-term outcomes (read: activity at a moment in time) when most B2B complex buying processes are longer term requiring sustained, progressive engagement.

B2B Marketing 81

B2B Marketing Content Marketing B2B Content 81

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. Look across the three pillars of people, process, and technology. That’s a specialty skill that needs translation for SMEs. In their words, matching their perspective. For which roles, in what context).

B2B Marketing 100

B2B Marketing Content Marketing Planning B2B 100

Marketing Interactions

JUNE 23, 2017

In a previous post, I shared a four-step process for creating in-depth B2B buyer personas. With the wealth of information gained during the process of determining buyer personas, you can now create the nine components for each persona. Examples: Automate processes to speed time to market by removing inefficient workflows.

Buyer Personas 64

Buyer Personas Marketing Strategy Marketing & Strategy B2B Marketing 64

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

JUNE 23, 2017

Identify obstacles impeding progress at each stage of the buying process. Reveal information needed throughout the buying process. Scheduling interviews (whether internal or external) is the most difficult part of the buyer persona development process. Where did you find the most helpful information? Everyone is busy.

Buyer Personas 74

Buyer Personas Enterprise Management B2B Marketing Marketing Strategy 74

Marketing Interactions

MAY 21, 2018

Here’s one example of the value of content operations: McKinsey found one global company that created a center of excellence for content operations and so was able to establish transparency, new governance, and improved processes across the organization. Process Challenges. People Challenges. Collaboration.

Cost 69

Cost Content Marketing Automation Services Work Management 69

Marketing Interactions

JANUARY 3, 2022

Customers have solved that problem with your (your solutions) help. Nurturing is the story that supports the journey of buying across the entirety of the change process. You are responsible for helping them connect the dots and make the transitions. Therefore, the same content isn’t useful for both contexts. It’s continuous.

B2B 69

B2B Paid Search Agency Lead Scoring Lead Ranking 69

Marketing Interactions

MAY 23, 2018

Products have road maps, development processes, releases, and a lot of other organization and structure around how they’re brought to market, as well as the management of each product’s lifecycle. In complex B2B buying scenarios, content is often directed to early and late stages of the buying process with a gap the size of the Grand Canyon.

Top of Funnel 67

Top of Funnel Paid Search Agency Companies B2B 67

Marketing Interactions

MAY 21, 2018

A content marketing strategy is a documented process for using content to achieve a business goal. This statement includes the target audience, the “what” we will help them learn, and the result they will get from the information. Take your marketing strategy to the next level and create a content operation that delivers results.

Webinar Metrics 74

Webinar Metrics Marketing Strategy Marketing & Strategy Dwell 74

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? ABM makes your company focus on the entirety of the buying or change management process. We need a campaign for Q2 to generate #X leads/demands for product A.

Account Based Marketing 64

Account Based Marketing ABM Lead Scoring Lead Ranking 64

Marketing Interactions

DECEMBER 26, 2016

This is because we haven’t formalized content marketing as a strategy or built sufficient process, workflow, and collaboration around its execution. What can help us fast-track improvement is the concept of content operations. We’ve been doing this for quite some time. 37% have a documented content marketing strategy. And it can be.

Lead Scoring 72

Lead Scoring Lead Ranking B2B Marketing Planning 72