Access the full webcast here: https://dg-r.co/2LhxSVI
In this session, David Fortino, SVP of Audience and Product at NetLine, will discuss his observations on content consumption and demand based on findings from the company’s 2018 State of B2B Content Consumption and Demand Report. Fortino will dissect some of the stand-out data, such as consumption gap trends with C-level professionals and the significance of appealing to the larger active audience comprised of Individual Contributors.
The webcast will also feature Valerie Riley, Director of Marketing for ITProTV, who will share her experience and perspective on the efficacy of content syndication. Specifically, she will discuss:
* The challenges she faced to pilot a new, successful lead generation program prior to launching campaigns; and
* The winning strategy that led to over 1,500% ROI that can help other B2B marketers discover or expand their lead gen tactics.
Lessons From The State Of B2B Content Consumption & Demand Report And Real-World Tactics That Achieved 1500% ROI
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Lessons From The State Of B2B Content Consumption & Demand
Report And Real-World Tactics That Achieved 1500% ROI
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3. February 25–27, 2019
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Questions, Tweets, Resources, Survey
9. The Struggle is Real...
In the past 12 months,
long-form business
content consumption
activity increased by
36%.
Market Validation of
B2B Content Demand
10. Content Consumption Insights
#
While data is great, the logic is not really rocket science: who are
making decisions in an organization versus researching them and
influencing decisions?
Influencers report into
decision-makers: they're
active in taking ownership
of their role in purchase
decisions.
HACKING THE ORG CHART
11. Content Consumption Insights
#
C-level takes 21% longer to read
the content they've requested
compared to Managers
VPs are taking less time to
consume content they've
requested compared to last year.
12. www.netline.com
C-LEVEL HAS THE BEST
INTENTIONS TO
CONSUME CONTENT
BUT REQUIRES MORE
EFFORT TO READ IT.
INDIVIDUAL CONTRIBUTORS
Does the C-Suite...
Research
vendors?
Lack
distractions?
Have lots of
free time?
18. 1. Attack the Influencers
Build deeper influence within the organization by expanding your
target range outside senior leadership and target the professionals
that advise them. Deeper influence within the organization will directly
translate into greater credibility, an often underestimated attribute
associated to the vendor selection process.
22. • IT training in a TV show format for IT
professionals
• 2013 - B2C model
• $7 million
• B2B grew to 30% with no marketing
About us
23. The blank
slate
• Building a B2B model from
scratch
• Redeployed marketing team
• New SDR team
• Increased sales reps
24. Finding a content-
driven solution
• Content in paid search - social is effective, but
can be slow
• Syndication moves fast – qualified leads in just
days
25. 1,500%
ROI
• In 5 months:
• Reporting for more precise pivoting of campaign tactics, conversions, ease of use
• Hyper-target lead profile
• Lead scoring and non-automated qualification systematically delivered SQLs
26. Divergence for
success
• Breaking the impressions-based model as a basis for
lead gen
• Risks – 0, CPL means paying for only the leads
you want based on the criteria you establish and
control
• Benefits – measurable and real outcomes
delivered straight to sales
• Content that builds brand and solution-
awareness to relevant audience
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Editor's Notes
Ok, let’s dig-in! What you see before you is the single most detailed content consumption analysis of the research patterns exhibited by B2B Professionals across the web.
The 2018 State of B2B Content Consumption and Demand Report for Marketers reports on the real content consumption activity taking place across the NetLine Network
This report offers a deep dive look into the millions of gated content requests and leads we generated for our clients over the past year. In doing so, we analyzed the active audience researching topics alongside the competitive landscape of marketers’ target personas to extract meaningful insights B2B marketers can use to optimize their content marketing and lead generation strategies.
What first became apparent is that it’s becoming increasingly difficult to capture mindshare from your prospects. Countless competitors are churning out amazing content at breakneck pace which doesn’t seem to be stopping anytime soon.
Demand for long-form content to feed the needs of professional is only rising and creating a growing opportunity for marketers positioned with content that directly speaks to their situations. For marketers, this means optimizing content and targeting strategies to combat the competition and challenges of reaching decision makers for higher-quality leads. The 2018 Demand Gen Benchmark Survey Report surveyed marketers on how they will be measured and KPIs that will influence strategy.
73% of marketers will have a greater focus on quality of leads over quantity, 53% to expand their content library to drive campaigns, and 28% are operating against revenue-based quotas. This means marketers need to be competitive and selective at the same time.
So, how can you communicate with your target audiences in a way that is complimentary to their discrete needs and more importantly aligned with your goals?
With all of that content littering the landscape, let’s dig-in a bit deeper and observe the consumption patterns from at a functional level.
Content consumption activity by job level reported Individual Contributors as the most active professionals, generating nearly 30% of total consumption activity.
Mid-level professionals drove the majority of activity, including: Managers and Directors.
Senior-level leadership accounted for less than 15% of consumption volume, including: VP (6%), C-level (5%), and Senior Directors at (2%).
Those findings only compound themselves within larger organizations. The larger the organization, the less likely senior leadership will be proactively searching, engaging, and consuming long-form content.
One of the most talked-about facts from this year's report has been the Consumption Gap data on C-level executives. Job level targeting data points to the disparity in time to consume content when compared to the manager-level employee. B2B marketers are vying for the C-level lead to convert with ease but realistically, they are in high-demand, their time is at a premium so while they do want content and consume it
On average, the C-suite takes 21% longer to consume content. Because of that, there must be awareness that a follow-up should reasonably take place after at least a full day or two have passed to ensure they've had time to read the content.
With that in our back pocket, let’s try to create some context via some rhetorical questions.
Look around your own organization for a moment, would you generally say that your C-Suite has time to casually traverse the web researching new vendors?
Do they lack distractions, meetings, and daily fires?
Surely they have an abundance of time to read at their leisure right?! HAHA
I know each of you answered “Hell No!” to those questions.
In reality, this simply comes down to common-sense. The C-suite is entirely too busy to be researching and reading long-form content.
So what to do? Consider the individual contributor.
Considering the individual contributor allows you to deploy a marketing strategy focused on diving deeper within the organizational structure to professionals who are absolutely influencing and driving purchasing decisions.
Data shows time and time again, that today’s buying decisions are mostly collaborative, consensus-driven activities, that involve groups of people with different roles in the organization, and the size of those buying groups is growing.
As smart marketers, we must digest market realities and weaponize these facts into real-world executables that impact campaign performance. Ignoring this important funnel diagnostic is nothing short of putting your head in the sand.
Now that you’re armed with raw market intelligence detailing the actual influencers engaging with content, it’s integral that you align yourself with vendors predisposed to drive campaign success with your content.
When it comes to lead generation, the right content is critical. But, equally important is putting that content in front of a rich target audience. To get the best lead gen performance from your campaign, you must understand how the lead gen landscape.
Unfortunately, marketers often end up with low-quality leads and no idea why. By asking vendors more in-depth questions before signing up, marketers can avoid running failed campaigns.
So what should marketers look for in a content distribution vendor and what kinds of questions should they ask?
I spend a good amount of time talking with our clients and agency partners on the concept of discerning value from vapor.
As you can imagine, it’s particularly discouraging to see your campaign aspirations go up in smoke. It doesn’t need to be that way and it most certainly shouldn’t be guess work on your side.
Asking non-traditional questions of your vendors will help you differentiate the good, from the bad, from the downright irrelevant.
Are you actively soliciting customer feedback and sharing publicly via a 3rd party review site such as G2crowd?
Understand the underlying pricing model for the program. If it’s not CPL, I’m pulling the alarm.
If the vendor is a platform, ask to see or be given access to the vendor’s software to see how they communicate with their ‘trusted partners’ and distribution channels.
Ask to see sample leads from similar recent campaigns. Pay close attention and ask yourself whether the lead data look too perfect to be from user generated requests?
Have you seen the final campaign creative tactics (such as HTML email inclusions, landing pages, native posts, etc.) used to drive leads for your campaigns?
Great! If so, ask to see an impression report...
Please promise me that you won’t be one of those Marketers left holding the empty bucket with your budget poured down the drain.
B2B marketing success in today’s competitive environment is dependent upon making smarter decisions driven by actionable data.
Marketers must make a cognizant effort to establish funnel diagnostics across each of their marketing programs that take into consideration the content consumption patterns and realities of their key personas.
I know we covered a lot of ground rather quickly. With that in mind, I’d like to distill our findings and leave you with 2 key take-away’s:
Senior leadership will remain an important target for lead generation campaigns; however, they quite simply do not drive the same level of content consumption activity.
Pivot your focus to the influencers, the diverse profile of professionals within the organizational buying committee that include Managers, Senior Employees, and Individual Contributors.
Build deeper influence within the organization by expanding your target range outside senior leadership and target the professionals that advise them.
This deeper influence with your prospects will directly translate into greater credibility, an often underestimated attribute associated to the vendor selection process.
As we touched on earlier,73% of the 2018 Demand Generation Benchmark Survey respondents indicated a greater focus on quality of leads over quantity of leads and 53% responded that they intend to expand their content library to drive campaigns. These are key indicators that in 2018, marketers are looking at how to better target and convert with content.
In order to do that successfully, you need to adhere to a Performance Based (CPL) Lead Generation model. Beyond the model, make sure that you push your vendors to validate all of those glorious proclamations.
So, with those insights under our belts and the philosophy behind content syndication well-established, we're turning it over to our client and friend Valerie Riley of ITProTV. We felt it made a ton of sense to have Valerie explain the successful application of all elements we've discussed; her campaigns have yielded phenomenal ROI. Val, over to you.
Valerie to introduce herself and ITProTv, a bit of background about her professional experience relevant to marketing/content syndication.
Thanks Val – it was great to get your perspective and learn your keys to success! We appreciate you taking the time to help provide the insight that comes from experience and real-world application of content syndication for lead generation. I’ll turn it back over to Klaudia for the Q&A.