Leads are drying up in the cloud and hosting industry. Hosting Providers are discovering that the old marketing strategies aren't working anymore. Lead gen requires a commitment to make marketing a part of your overall growth plan, understanding your buyers and their pains, and following out regimented 6 step process to producing useful content for your target buyers. Originally presented at HostingCon 2015 in San Diego. One of the most popular presentations in the Sales and Marketing track.
2. My Goal for 2015:
‘Lose 10 lbs’
It wasn’t easy but I
was successful in
losing 10 lbs!
It took a full-time
commitment and
focusing on a
sustainable
healthy lifestyle.This is me!
Makiko Ara
3. If I wanted to lose 10 lbs by
next Monday, you could sell
me a bottle of Lipozin BUT…
- One bottle will only last you 10 days
- You’ll need to take it for at least 3 months to
maintain results
- You still need to combine it with a healthy
low fat/low carb diet, an healthy exercise
regiment, and cleansing
So is it even worth it?
Buy Lipozin for $22 a
bottle on Amazon.com
5. Like a Healthy Lifestyle…
Healthy Marketing
Requires Commitment
and a Regimented Plan
6. But I want to get everyone on a
healthy marketing regiment that
provides organic leads and leads
to the healthy growth of your
business.
We don’t have the magic pill to get leads
7. Lead Gen is the tip of
the iceberg
Marketing is the mass
below the surface
Leads
Marketing
9. First, lets get on the same page
The “New Norm”
- Phil Shih, Managing Director
Structure Research
10. The “New Norm” of Cloud and Hosting
• Consolidation (M&A)
• Competition
• Declining growth rates
• AWS the Juggernaut
• Not enough traffic and leads *
11. * Either you have
poor web presence or
your traffic isn’t
converting to leads.
Our journey to a healthier marketing strategy starts with traffic.
Let’s talk about Google.
12. B2B Buying Cycle Happens Online
40 to 70% of purchase research done
prior to contacting a sales person
So how do you get and nurture
these nameless prospects along
their Buyer’s Journey?
13. “Moment of Truth”
The “Moment of Truth” in bull fighting is the
moment when the matador goes in for the kill.
In sales, it’s when the customer and
organization have a one-to-one engagement
where the customer can either form or change
their opinion about a product or company. It is
when the salesman “makes the kill” or “closes
the deal”.
14. The reality is that the “Moment of Truth” in
the sales cycle has become insignificant.
Jeff in Sales doesn’t realize that he’s really
just a formality. The customer has done all
their research and made their decision even
before they ever talked with him.
“We’re going to get this deal!”
15. “Zero Moment of Truth”
Stimulus
ZMOT
Purchase Trial
The new critical moment is when a prospect recognizes a need or pain and goes online to
gather information regarding a potential solution.
Your brand needs to show up in that search phase.
16. Who is your buyer?
Meet Barry the IT Director.
17. Imagine Back Then (2005)
Barry the IT Director has too much corporate data.
18. He gets a list of providers but information is scarce.
Barry goes on Google…
He calls a few providers to get more information.
19. Fast Forward to Today (2015)
Barry the IT Director still has too much corporate
data.
20. Barry educates himself on Google (2015)
“
Cloud storage
”
“
Cloud for
Enterprise
”
“
Cloud storage
with auto sync
”
“
Best cloud storage
with auto sync for
SMB
”
Barry learns about the Cloud. He never calls anyone.
21. How do we get in front of Barry?
Once in front of him, how do we
control the sales process?
How do we move Barry down the
funnel?
What’s the answer?
22. You’re in luck!
Tech Buyers on average consume
14 pieces of online content before
making a purchase decision.
So what kind of content should you write?
23. 42
Years old
Who is Barry?
Brown
University
Acme
Global
Trading
Fear of
Downtime
24. The Buyer Journey
Buyer realizes
they have a pain
or problem.
Buyer learns
about solutions &
vendors.
Buyer shortlists
solutions and
vendors.
Get to know your customers
Awareness
Stage
Consideration
Stage
Decision
Stage
27. Google is Always trying To Understand User Intent
Users want
to learn
something
Users want
to find
something
Users want
to do
something
28. What is the user’s intent and
what content would be useful?
Google’s Rating System
1.
Useful
2.
Relevant
3.
Slightly
Relevant
4.
Useless
29. Common objections we hear/see about marketing
Marketing is
something you turn
on and off
It takes too much
of my time
My Engineers
don’t have time
to write
We need leads but…
30. I have
no time.
We need a
CULTURE SHIFT
to connect content
production to the
bottom line.
31. “We educate people about
Cloud Storage.
And oh by the way, we also sell, implement and support
companies that need cloud storage”.
CULTURE SHIFT
32. A Healthy Marketing Regiment
6 Step Process
1. Understand unique value proposition
2. Identify buyer persona
3. Understand the buyer in their journey
4. Keyword analysis (volume, competition)
5. Intent of Keyword
6. Write useful content that addresses the buyers’
pains
33. The Buyers Journey
AWARENESS CONSIDERATION DECISION
Example Keywords
block dropbox group policy
block dropbox cisco asa
Example Keywords
corporate data storage policy
cloud vs on premise backup
Example Keywords
cloud storage cost comparison 2015
corporate data storage costs
34. Google wants the
best for its users
• Google “knows all”
• clickthroughs
• time on page
• bounce rate
• mobile friendly
Free junk
is getting
harder to
give away
—
35. How about relying on PPC as a last ditch?
PPC is good as a part of an
overall marketing strategy.
NOT the answer when things are
going bad or if you need a “jolt” of
leads.
Put the money towards paying your
Engineers to write some content.
36. Organic > Paid
• It’s there for a reason.
• it earned its way through your
clicks and trust.
• it didn’t bulldoze its way there
through money.
Paid vs. Natural
Click Distribution
Natural
Search
Paid
Search
Of the 1.4 billion successful search queries, the vast majority
ended up with natural results being clicked.
- GroupM and Nielsons
When is the last time you clicked
on a paid ad?
38. 1. Make a Commitment
- If that means changing the culture of your company, it may need to start there.
2. Understand Your Buyers
- Really get to know your Barry.
1. Follow Our 6 Step Regimented Process
- Write useful and relevant content that intersects with your buyer’s journey
through Google.
Simply Put…
39. A Case Study
Cloud Spectator
The insight you need to move with confidence to the Cloud
—
C L O U D S P E C T A T O R . C O M
40. CloudSpecator is a leading cloud benchmarking company that works with both the Enterprise
for cloud adoption/migration projects; and with Hosting Providers that want to benchmark their
performance against other leading providers.
We’ve know Kenny Li, CEO of CloudSpectator for several years now, but he wasn’t quite ready
to commit to Marketing when we first met him. But about a year ago he came to us with his
commitment to make marketing a part of his business plan in 2015, in order to move his
business to the next level.
We began in earnest in late November of 2014. As with all engagements, we went through a
process of understanding their business model, their goals, revenue streams, and the
marketplace.
The new message we developed for CloudSpectator is:
The insight you need to move with confidence to the cloud.
42. The Annual Cloud Benchmark Report
In November, Ken Balazs, VP of Sales and Marketing for
CloudSpectator, came to us with their annual analysis of the top
10 IaaS providers.
The goal was to extend their reach beyond the hosting and
cloud industry and get in front of buyers like Charles the
Consultant and Richard the Enterprise CIO.
43. Timeline of Process
Monday, Jan 5, 2015
• Lead Conversion
• Owned Media
• Earned shares from
bloggers, news
• Email campaign
Dec 2014
• Keyword research and analysis
• Value proposition and target
audience
• Cover and landing page design
44. KW = cloud vendor benchmark 2015 pdf download
Included more popular KW’s:
• “Vendor benchmark”
• “Cloud vendor benchmark”
• “Cloud vendor benchmark 2015”
Not a penny was spent on PPC.
45. Ingredients for this campaign
High quality
content
Understanding of
Buyer Persona,
Behavior, Buyer
Journey
+ +
Key Word
Research and
Analysis
46. Results for January 2015
848
Total Views
364
Submissions
Graph of Page Views by Source in January
47. 3430
Total Views
Views over 20 Weeks
Graph of Page Views by Source from January 5 to May 25, 2015 (20 weeks)
48. Leads from February 1 to May 25
30
Leads per Week
(previously 6-7/wk)
120
Leads per Month
(previously ~30/mo)
50. Referral traffic dried
up after 3 days
Social requires
continuous feeding
Traffic Sources Other than Organic Search…
Referral traffic is critical, but dies down
quickly as content is pushed down on 3rd
party sites.
Social media traffic is also valuable but
requires continued effort to keep it
visible. Only new NEWS is NEWS.
51. Traffic Source Organic traffic is Evergreen
Organic traffic to the page
continues to grow
55. Implementing the 6 Step Process
Understand
unique value proposition
Identify
buyer persona
Understand the
buyer’s needs in their
journey
Keyword
Analysis
Intent of
Keyword
Useful content that
addresses buyer’s pains
56. C L O U D S P E C T A T O R . C O M
"TPM is more than a strategic partner, they are an extension of my team. They have
provided both strategic and tactical expertise to help drive growth. By fully understanding the
issues and trends around Cloud and Enterprise Hosting, they are able to provide deep insight
into the customer and have been a critical element, significantly increasing web traffic, leads
and sales through their online strategies and digital marketing programs.”
— Ken Balazs, VP Sales and Marketing, Cloud Spectator
58. Makiko Ara, Director of Digital Media
—
makiko@totalproductmarketing.com
Call 1.855.646.8662
1.855.6.GOTOMARKET
www.totalproductmarketing.com
Editor's Notes
In bull fighting, there is a point in the bull fight called, “The Moment of Truth”. It is the moment when the matador makes the kill.
The “Moment of Truth” concept is also used in Sales. It’s usually defined as the moment when the customer and the organization have a one-on-one engagement where the customer has the opportunity to either form or change their impression about the firm.
For the Salesman, it’s the chance to “make the kill” or “close the deal”.
Now, this moment still occurs. It’s the moment when Jeff in sales jumps up, pumps his fists in the air and proclaims, “We’re going to get this deal!”
, given that the customers have done all their research and made their decision even before they talked to Jeff. Poor Jeff was just a formality.
So what’s the answer?
Your Mission is this…
Consider a culture shift where… your engineers are no longer technicians who provision servers. They are educators. Helping customers improve their businesses through the cloud.
You are now in the market of educating people about Cloud Storage. And oh by the way, you sell, implement and support cloud storage.
In addition to the fact that buyers generally do not click on paid ads, it’s a bit like taking Lipozin.
Once you stop taking the pill, or pumping money into your Ad Words campaign, it’s gone forever. The traffic to your page drops to zero and the leads dry up.
Organic is evergreen. If you’ve done the research and found a good quality keyterm and written a quality piece that is useful to your buyer, then you will naturally begin to see results in 3 to 6 months.
You do have to ensure that your page is optimized for Google to find you and index you correctly, but those are the nuts and bolts of SEO and I could rattle them off to you now but I know most of you know these:
Ensuring your keyterm is in your title and it’s within 60 characters
Ensuring your keyterm is in H1 and H2 tags
Ensuring you have quality images with descriptive alt tags
Ensuring your meta description is within 160 characters
I didn’t put these in the slide because I don’t want you to get hung up on these things. You can easily Google them as well. “How to optimize a page for Google”.
We internally refer to this as Content SEO and Performance SEO.
The point I do want you to take away from this presentation is that
You make a commitment. If that means changing the culture of your company, it may need to start there.
Understand your buyers. Really get to know Barry. Now technology and the market are moving, so this is NOT a one-time exercise.
Follow our 6 steps to writing useful and relevant content that intersects with your buyers journey through Google.
On that note, I’d like to present a Case Study of one of our clients.
Cloud Specator is a leading cloud benchmarking company that works with both enteprises for cloud adoption/ migration projects;
And with hosting providers that want to benchmark their performance against other leading providers.
In preparing for this presentation at HostingCon, I wanted to develop a case study for a client with whom you could relate, but not necessarily take the examples we give literally.
So CloudSpecator was a good fit.
Their new message we developed for CloudSpectator is: The insight you need to move with confidence to the cloud.
We’ve know Kenny Li, CEO of CloudSpectator for several years now, but he wasn’t quite ready to commit to Marketing when we first met him. But about a year ago he came to us with his commitment to make marketing a part of his business plan in 2015, in order to move his business to the next level.
We began in earnest in late November of 2014. As with all engagements, we went through a process of understanding their business model, their goals, revenue streams, and the marketplace.
Keep in mind about one thing: we did not spend a SINGLE dollar on PPC or any other advertising.
I compiled this data on May 25th, which was around the time this presentation was due. This provided us with exactly 20 weeks worth of data from January 5th.
This plots views by source.
Over those 20 weeks, there were 3,430 views of this one page.
We have had 919 submissions to download the report. That’s a 26.5% conversion rate.
This is an incredibly high conversion rate, considering industry standards are about 10-15%.
It might be a bit hard to read this data, but we’ll get into the sources of views shortly.
As a percentage of the total leads,
Organic provided 18% of the total leads when we first released the report in January.
By May, 77% of all leads were coming from organic search!
There are regional and user behaviour which affect search results, but the landing page has ranked #1 since January for our keyword “cloud vendor benchmark 2015 pdf download”.
One critical term that CloudSpecator now ranks #1 for: “cloud benchmarking”.
We have successfully knocked their competitor from this position.
Yeah! Everyone is happy. We’ve got Leads Leads Leads!
Now that we are capturing emails for our prospective customers, it was time to identify their specific pains and offer solutions for them.