Today’s guest post is from Cosmo Mariano from GetLift. Cosmo is a demand-gen, content marketing strategist and almost as importantly, Cosmo and Jason Miller from LinkedIn will be speaking on an amazing Funnelholic webinar on content marketing: 3 Steps to Creating Content that Converts Like Crazy. — Join us on September 24, 2014 10AM Pacific Standard Time.
A couple of weeks ago, I was on a flight from Toronto to Austin. The flight was about to take off just as I was trying to wrap up a conference call when the stewardess walked by and politely asked me to put my phone away. I nodded and lowered the phone from my ear. But I didn’t hang up as the call was at a critical point and the plane wasn’t moving yet. About 20 seconds later, I was asked to confirm an action item on the call. Just as I emitted my whisper of acknowledgment, the stewardess paused beside me and gave me a disappointed look and sternly said in a voice much more audible than my whisper “C’mon Sir. You’re better than this”. Sufficiently embarrassed, I hung up, fumbled an apology and slumped shamefully in my seat.
C’mon Marketing. You’re better than this.
Marketers face various degrees of shame and disappointment on a regular basis. Every time our carefully crafted content isn’t shared or liked. Every time our leads are soundly rejected by sales. Every time we execute an integrated campaign that wildly misses our targets.
What are some of the reasons for marketing failure? Well, it’s no secret that Marketers are constantly trying to do too much in too little time. According to a Content Marketing Institute study in 2014, the best-in-class B2B marketer is using 15 tactics and 7 social media platforms.
Remove the guesswork from your campaigns.
One of the by-products of constantly being in execution mode is that it’s very difficult to take time to validate the inputs of our campaigns. Specifically, I’m talking about inputs such as buyer personas, the buying cycle mapping and all the unique customer insights. For many best-in-class marketing departments, these foundational elements drive decisions around messaging and themes as well as campaign strategy and tactics.
A shared view of the customer journey.
These marketers have removed the guesswork from many of their decisions by using a company-wide agreed-upon view of the customer’s buyer journey. Investing the effort to develop their buyer personas and map the buying cycle allows them to know what content matters, where this content should be found, what triggers a buying journey, what milestones much be achieved to progress along the journey and who’s involved in the journey.
So the next time you’re faced with trying to explain a campaign that misses targets, go back to the beginning and look at the assumptions, facts and data that you used and make sure that they are not undermining your success.
If you are a marketer who want’s to convert content like crazy, join us for : 3 Steps to Creating Content that Converts Like Crazy — September 24, 2014 10AM Pacific Standard Time.
Cosmo is a demand-gen visionary, best-practice marketing performance Yoda and key strategist. Certified in SiriusDecisions best practices and Eloqua marketing automation, Cosmo assists client executive teams in overcoming roadblocks so they can become customer-centric, drive engagement and grow sales pipeline contribution. Armed with his visionary approach and belief in customer centricity, Cosmo has been instrumental in bridging the gap between product marketing and lead generation for corporations across North America.
Image provided by Richard Masoner