To see the greatest return on investment, it’s necessary to continually refine our decision stage content marketing. But in order to boost our efforts, we must understand our marketing objectives and how these differ by journey state. This audience includes people that are ready to buy our product or have already completed the purchase. In this episode, we explore the different ways to deliver content for a variety of marketers and organizations and how to successfully optimize and iterate our content for the ‘Do’ state.
In this episode, we discuss…
The Goal with ‘Do’ Audience (04:00 – 10:45)
- ‘Do’ state is the audience that is highly educated about the product and ready to purchase but wants to retain complete control.
- Our objective with the ‘Do’ state is to be a utility and ensure that matters run smoothly as they proceed through the buying journey.
- ‘Do’ state differs greatly from the ‘See’ and ‘Think’ stages in that our messaging is very commercialized.
- Direct response is used in the ‘Do’ state as opposed to offers and promotions engineered to create a sense of urgency in the previous states.
- ‘Do’ state. or decision stage, content is shaped to justify the decision, typically after the purchase.
- RESOURCES:
- Podcast Episode 27: A Deep Dive Into ‘See’ State
- Podcast Episode 16: See, Think, Do, Grow, Give
- Steve’s blog – “See – Think – Do: A Framework For Understanding Your Prospect’s State of Being”
‘Do’ State Content for B2B With a Sales Team (10:58 – 16:30)
- Our decision stage content marketing depends on the context of our business and varies tremendously.
- If we are functioning in a B2B scenario WITH a sales team:
- Our sales team is largely going to control who gets what content.
- Content will include things like pricing guides, onboarding processes and product configurators.
- The content will generally be provided to a decision-maker who will share with someone with approval authority or circulate within the organization.
- Metrics used to measure the effectiveness of content include:
- Avoid emailing PDFs; we have no way to measure what content is used to complete a sale.
- Make content easily accessible to the sales team via email templates.
- Use trackable download links as opposed to attachments.
- Utilize tools that allow engagement to be tracked on sales emails.
- For example, Marketo’s sales insight and Pardot’s Salesforce integration both allow the user to send and track emails from within Salesforce.
- Explore applications that allow collateral to be used for field sales and track usage.
- Be sure to measure usage and engagement of the content and filter out superfluous material.
‘Do’ State Content for B2B Without a Sales Team (17:10 – 19:48)
- If we are functioning in a B2B scenario WITHOUT a sales team (usually Software As A Service (SaaS) organizations):
- Slack is a prime example of an organization with no sales team for a very long time.
- Content will include things like adoption guides, pricing comparisons and onboarding processes.
- In this situation, the content will be primarily self-service and highly measurable because the downloads and engagement can be tracked.
- Iteration is slowed due to a decrease in the volume of usage
‘Do’ State Content for B2C – Considered Purchase (20:37 – 25:30)
- A Considered Purchase includes things like buying a washer and dryer, a car or healthcare.
- B2C is very similar to the aforementioned B2B but is comprised of a larger audience.
- With the increase in audience size, oftentimes the ‘Do’ state content isn’t proprietary.
- For example, Consumer Reports or Angie’s List provides consumer reviews or content from a third party.
- In an effort to help guide buyers along their journey, tools such as financing calculators or infographics are suitable content.
- Example: Ford.com has an entire section called “Shopping Tools” that houses all of the ‘Do’ content for the organization, the most popular tool being the trade-in calculator.
- Metrics used to measure the effectiveness of content include:
- The biggest challenge is due to the purchase occurring offline while the engagement in content is online, resulting in a guessing game of what pieces of ‘Do’ content were part of the buyer journey.
- An effective way to learn what’s working, or what is lacking, is to utilize a survey and review what buyers considered to be most helpful during their purchasing process.
‘Do’ State Content for B2C – Other and Non-Profits (25:32 – 30:50)
- For some consumer packaged goods like toothpaste, the ‘Do’ state can be a split-second with little consideration.
- This means our ‘Do’ content has to be where the consumer is doing their shopping, where space and time are limited.
- Some examples include e-commerce landing page content, packaging, signage and other things we wouldn’t consider as traditional “content marketing.”
- For non-profit organizations, our content is going to differ based on our audience.
- For example, small donors versus large donors versus volunteers.
- Whether we are asking for someone’s time, goods or a monetary donation, the content must be tailored to complement the call to action.
- The content should be shaped to put the donor in the driver’s seat and make them feel in control.
- Measurement and iteration can be achieved by utilizing an A/B test if the ‘Do’ content was printed or delivered in-person.
- If sent electronically, the same rules apply to B2B sales content. Try to avoid attachments for better tracking and provide templates to test different copy and subject lines.
Summary (31:00 – 31:40)
- Depending on the type of organization, the ‘Do’ state content will differ.
- Measurement and iteration will be different too.
- Oftentimes, low volume of data can make optimization and attribution very difficult so creativity is a must.
For more information on the charity in this episode, please visit Ocean Conservancy.
The Iterative Marketing Podcast, a production of Brilliant Metrics, ran from February 2016 to September 2017. Music by SeaStock Audio.
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