by William Walsh | Dec 2, 2024 | 2024
By Scott Gillum
Estimated read time: 6 Minutes
You’re damned if you do, and damned if you don’t. This expression applies when trying to create and execute “personalized” campaigns.
As defined by Google’s Gemini, “personalized campaigns in B2B marketing means tailoring your marketing efforts including advertising, offers, and communications to specifically address the unique needs and interests of each individual B2B customer.”
If you go too deep into understanding prospects or customer’s needs and preferences, you can’t scale the campaign. If you go too shallow, then the message lacks relevance and connection to buyers. It’s a challenge we’ve faced working with clients for years.
We can delve deeply into understanding the preferences and motivations of buyers, creating truly personalized offers, only to be limited by our ability to do it at scale. That was, until we discovered the 65/75 rule.
At its core, the 65/75 rule exists because birds of a feather actually do flock together. People with similar personalities are drawn to work in certain industries, roles and organizations. Not only that, they also learn, shop and buy products and services in very similar ways.
After years of researching and profiling the personalities of tens of thousands of buyers, we have found that at least sixty-five percent of industries, companies and roles are comprised of two dominant personality types (using the DISC personality type indicator).
Learn more by viewing the Using AI Enabled Personality Based Marketing to Design ABM Programs webinar.
In some areas it was higher. For example, we found that fifty-three percent of the CEO’s of Fortune 500 companies have the same personality type. Sixty-five percent of the Chief Information and Security Officers in the financial services industry, also – have the same personality type.
In fact, the more advanced degrees (or professional certifications) a person has, the more likely it is to reflect their personality type. Said differently, your personality will often dictate the profession you pick or pursue. If you are not happy in your current position it may go deeper than just the job and/or manager. It may be in fact, at odds with your personality.
Discovering this insight led us to learn that personality types have preferences in how they learn and consume information. Influencers (the “I” in DISC) were fond of light, quick information like animated videos and infographics. Their motivations were often seeking new information to share with others…hence the term “Influencer.”
The same is true for how personality types consume certain content assets (case studies, white papers, video, etc.). Combining this insight with the insights on industries, companies and roles, we can now build out specific assets to attract the exact audiences we are targeting.
We are able to use the right “bait” based on the body of water and type of fish we want to catch.
Register for the Understanding Online and Offline Behaviors to Find Real Buyers and Influencers webinar.
Years ago, Pat Spenner, co-author of The Challenger Customer, and I tried to assess a way to target and attract “Mobilizers”, a type of buyers identified in the research for the book. These buyers played various roles within the buying group. There were two types that were of particular interest and value to sales and marketers. These individuals were more likely to either be motivated to start or lead a buying journey.
We knew their personality attributes but couldn’t figure out how to target and attract them. In a sense, we knew the fish we wanted to catch, but not the best lure to catch them. At the time, we were missing the data and technology to solve the mystery – a mystery that has existed for years.
Now, because of predictive and generative AI, we have the answers. Those “high value” mobilizers can be identified by their personality traits. Understanding their personalities then leads us to finding them in certain industries, companies and roles.
Knowing who they are gives us insight into how to speak to them personally, and do it at scale. AI tools can be trained to create content in their preferred language. Engagement data matched with personality type then guides us to their preferred sales and marketing assets (case studies, videos, etc).
For the Conscientious (the “C” in DISC who are prone to be “skeptics”), we use data and research backed content in an analytical tone. To play that out, to catch the fish (CISOs) in the body of water (Fin Serv industry) we’ve identified the bait (research and data backed content). It’s not 100% certain they will “bite”, but they are more likely to engage.
This brings up another interesting insight into the behaviors of personalities. For the skeptics I just mentioned, credibility is everything. Their top four information sources are people to people channels (peers, analysts, etc.). So, even if they don’t bite, you’re not losing credibility with them by giving them information they may find to be overly promotional or lacking substance.
Finally, this leads us to where they will show up in the buying process. The 65/75 rule continues to apply based on the industry. In professional services for example, sixty-five to seventy-five percent of audiences, early in the buying process, will be made up of two distinct personality types (the DI of DISC). The middle and end of the journey is the same story. The personality types change with the skeptics showing up late, for example, but the rule is the same.
It is the final piece that completes my fishing analogy. We know where the fish are most likely to be in the vast ocean of opportunity. All this to say, teaching a marketer to fish (using personality based marketing described above) can not only “scale,” but can also keep the salesforce fed for the year.
by William Walsh | Oct 28, 2024 | 2024
Being a boutique agency, we don’t usually have the time or resources to do an award submission. In fact, this is the first and only time we’ve done it.
We’re honored to be awarded a gold Davey Award for our work on @Trextel’s website redesign! 🏆
With great clients and support from our talented team (Shane, Joan, Joanna and Naheed), we refreshed the brand and the user experience. Oh, and we also won an award for the new logo design.🥈
The Davey’s are awarded to small agencies and it’s the largest agency awards program. Carbon Design only submitted too entries and won for both submissions, we’ll have to do this more often!
See the work for yourself: https://trextel.com/
Read more on our site: https://carbondesign.com/project/trextel/
by William Walsh | Oct 24, 2024 | 2024
There is a screenshot on my desktop that serves as a reminder. Every few months I click on it to remind myself of an important lesson not learned soon enough.
It reads, “If you don’t make time for your wellness, you will be forced to make time for your illness.” Twenty years ago, I was a management consultant working long days with weekly travel. During one stretch, I was away from the office (and from family) from Monday through Thursday, onsite at client headquarters in New Jersey.
When I wasn’t traveling, my commute to work was often an hour or more as a result of living in one of the most congested cities in the country. The stress and hours of the job led to terrible eating and sleeping habits. I’d eat whenever and wherever I could, at whatever hour I manage to take a break.
And because of the schedule, finding time to exercise was close to impossible. If I did have the time, I’d be too exhausted to do anything. As a result of this lifestyle, I gained twenty five pounds, but was in total denial that this was happening. My wife noticed, though, and encouraged me to get a physical. When the doctor told me I needed to drop some weight I was actually offended by the comment.
This period of time in my life is now affectionately referred to by my kids as my “Fat Dad” phase. Being many years removed from it, I can only now see the truth. It wasn’t until my pending fortieth birthday, when a friend suggested we’d celebrate the occasion by running a triathlon, I started to seriously consider the state of my health.
I am sharing this because I know I’m not alone. By your early thirties, you’re often married with young children and in the period of your career where you may have settled into a job or profession. You’re grinding away and focused on trying to make a name for yourself. This new found status of “family provider” often becomes the primary focus and you, in a sense, sacrifice your own wellbeing for that of the family.
So why am I talking about this now, twenty years later? Because yesterday I did something that I would not have done back then in those stress consuming days.
As the expression goes; “As you get older you don’t need to set an alarm because your troubles will wake you”. I awoke thinking of a big presentation only a few hours away. After having my coffee, I left the kitchen, but instead of heading directly up to my office, I went for a run.
During the forty-five minute route around our neighborhood, I organized the presentation in my head and thought of two new slides I needed to create. After showering, I put the finishing touches on the presentation in ten minutes.
Twenty years ago, I would have commuted the hour to my office, stared at my computer for a couple of hours, and tried to figure out how to complete the presentation. As I ran, I thought about how my approach of completing tasks like this has evolved in terms of efficiency, and the impact on my health.
The silver lining of Covid was the ability for employees to work remotely. According to The Association of Psychological Science, that period of time offered a whole host of mental and physical health benefits. Among them, reduced stress levels from not having to commute to the office, along with avoiding toxic co-employees in the workplace.
Another benefit was the ability to have greater control over your time. We can’t avoid Zoom calls, but we can take breaks throughout the day when needed. A chance to walk around the block, get in a workout at the gym and perhaps eat a healthier meal. According to the National Bureau of Economic Research, remote workers on average saved 72 minutes daily, which was then redistributed towards work related tasks (40%), leisure time (34%), and childcare (11%).
Now with the return to the office, old habits may also return. Cortisone levels may increase from the stress of the commute and the office environment. Office routines will return, grabbing a bite to eat if/when there is time, from whatever location is convenient. Feeling like there isn’t enough time to accomplish everything we need, may reignite the anxiety of years gone by.
But just because you may be returning to an unhealthy environment doesn’t mean you have to become a victim. Much has changed since COVID, companies have become much more aware of mental wellness and impact of long hours on the well being of their employees. The recent announcement by major investment banks to limit the hours of junior employees is the latest example.
Additionally, there is a slew of apps and wearable devices which can help to combat the routine and bad habits of the typical work day. All of this is great, but it still comes down to you. Acknowledge when you’re feeling overwhelmed.
Be conscientious of creating a balance between stress and stress relief. Take advantage of resources available to you, and don’t be too proud to admit to yourself (or others) that you might not be able to get it all done in a day.
One of the best pieces of advice I was given happened when I was in my late twenties. I was newly married, working full time, and going to grad school at night, totally stressed out. So I asked a colleague who was a single mom and managed close to 200 employees (another 200 kids as she would say) how she was able to do it and she said; “I do as much as I can…and then there’s tomorrow.”
by William Walsh | Sep 16, 2024 | 2024
As previously published on 9/11/24 in MarTech
Create high-impact content by understanding buyer preferences and leveraging existing assets.
We now can generate more content than ever before, but should we? What if we knew what buyers wanted and made more of that instead of producing what’s fast and/or easy?
Last month, I shared insights from our research highlighting the gap between content marketing and the buyer’s journey.
Specifically, roughly 80% of closed sales deals we evaluated couldn’t be connected to marketing content. Naturally, that led us to the question: what content did we find that we could connect to the journey?
The types of content that resonate with clients
We analyzed client sales and marketing data from five industries and conducted primary research with buyers and sales representatives (SDR/BDR/AM/CSMs). The content we discovered fit into one of the following four categories.
Case studies/use cases
Contrary to conventional wisdom, we found that case studies were used/consumed at the beginning of the buyer’s journey rather than later. BDRs/SDRs used industry case studies or solution-specific use cases to build credibility early in the conversation.
Events
Content related to user events received considerable attention. Industry events where companies sponsored or provided speakers also performed very well.
Webinars were hit or miss. Most interest went toward topics related to industry trends or use cases. We also found that attendee-to-lead conversion was increasingly more difficult in late 2023 and 2024.
Research
Research performed well in certain industries. In professional services, cybersecurity and life sciences research on hot topics (AI, threats, market dynamics) were the best performers.
We found that content syndication generated interest but didn’t convert well to sales-qualified leads (SQLs). Additionally, interviews revealed that research was, for the most part, under-leveraged by sales.
Website
While not traditional content marketing, a website is a source of content. Using GA, Demandbase and 6Sense, we found that buyers hit the web at the beginning and end of the sales process.
However, we didn’t find a consistent pattern. Because marketing directed audiences to specific landing pages, it is difficult to measure genuine interest. We did notice that email campaigns, unlike content syndication campaigns, led to spikes in web traffic.
Recognizing your audience’s content preferences
This is in no way a complete list. As I mentioned, visibility issues between sales and marketing systems did limit our ability to see all content.
Even so, here’s the point. Prospects have a preference for certain content. The same can be said for buyers and customers. Understanding that preference could present an opportunity to do more with less.
Think of it this way: We found that some companies have a piece of content that is, in a sense, a “brand.” It could be something well-known in the industry or produced annually, like the report mentioned above.
Instead of being on the content hamster wheel, pumping out more and more content, you could focus on getting additional value out of the branded content and “atomizing” it.
What does that mean? For example, the research report I just mentioned can be mined for new, smaller pieces of content. Most reports have a heavier cognitive load than most attention spans will tolerate at one time, so breaking the insights into smaller pieces will increase consumption.
Take a section each quarter and turn it into an ebook featuring one topic. Use eye-catching graphs for monthly social media posts. Create a quarterly webinar on a finding and use the attendees to build your survey list for next year’s report.
The same thing can be done with events. Over six months, tease the speakers, venue, attendees, presentation, etc.
There is an undervalued opportunity to create better-performing assets by leveraging what you have already built rather than building new ones. It’s hard to gain mindshare with audiences. If you have known content, keep reinforcing the value of the information.
The goal of content marketing is consumption, not creation. Focusing more of your efforts and resources on doing more with what is being consumed will reduce the need for creating new content.
by William Walsh | Aug 4, 2024 | 2024
As previously published on 8/1/24 in MarTech
Struggling to connect content with your buyer’s journey? Here’s how to leverage personality insights for better results.
Our agency conducted an extensive two-year analysis of content consumption across four industries, examining over 50 closed deals. The results? Eight out of 10 times, we couldn’t make a connection. In other words, we only saw a connection between content engagement and the buyer’s journey in 20% of closed, won deals.
The findings showed that, despite marketing’s best efforts to match the right content to the right stage of the buyer’s journey, they got it wrong the majority of the time. But it’s not all bad news for marketers.
5 reasons why we’re not seeing the connection between content and the buyer’s journey
Along with our analysis, we gathered data from both sales and marketing tools and conducted interviews with sales reps about won deals. Here’s what we learned.
1. Visibility and integration
There are many reasons why we can’t see how content influences purchase decisions. One key reason is the lack of integration with sales tools like Gong and Outreach. This highlights the ongoing gap between sales enablement and marketing.
2. The secret stash
We learned that sales reps have their own favorite content, most likely created by marketing and modified by sales. In particular, we found three to four “go-to” pieces of content successful reps lean on to advance discussions. If you don’t know what this is, you need to find out. One item we consistently found is a favorite case study.
3. Customers kinda lie
They don’t mean to, but it happens. When you use customer research to understand the buyer’s journey, know that what buyers say and what they actually do might often be different.
Our analysis of online behaviors shows that people engage with content based more on personal preferences than on information needs.
4. There are at least two buyer journeys, but likely many more
Based on stories from sales reps, every buyer’s journey is unique. To simplify, focus on the 95-5 rule: since only 5% of buyers are in the market, you need at least two different buyer journeys.
5. Buyers don’t trust your content, so they don’t consume it
Depending on your industry, buyers may not trust your information. For instance, in cybersecurity, buyers are skeptical. According to our research, their top information sources are personal connections. Vendor content ranks low, 7th out of 10 in use and 8th out of 10 in credibility.
This research concludes the buyer’s journey is mostly an organizing framework for content. We already knew there is no one-size-fits-all buyer journey. While it’s imperfect, it helps guide our tools and content efforts.
The big learning
The big “aha” moment came from mapping the actual purchase process. Although we did not discover the elusive “holy grail journey,” we did find a way to use both online and personality-based behavioral data to improve it.
The key insight was understanding who was involved in the buying process and when. For example, based on their personality type, influencers appeared at the front end of the process but then faded away. Champions were present from the middle to the end of the process. Skeptics appeared late, often brought into the conversation by others.
With this knowledge, we can construct a more realistic buying journey. While we can’t completely bridge the gap between sales and marketing, we can significantly reduce it.
How to use personality and behavioral data to construct the new buyer’s journey
First, we have to shift the focus from the content aligned to the stage to the type of buyer present at that stage. This is an important distinction and, as described earlier, a reason why customer research is not very accurate.
Asking customers what marketing asset is most valuable at what stage in the buying process will result in a logical and often rational answer. For example, they may reason that a case study may be important mid-stage to understand or demonstrate business impact.
It’s logical, but that’s not how buyers behave in a real situation or how they consume or use content. Champions prefer case studies because they like to see themselves in the situation. To understand the solution’s impact on them personally or their team. This asset is often the starting point for their journey.
To identify who is present and when, you’ll need to enlist the help of the sales organization. Map the actual buyer journey in a dozen or so closed deals. This information should be present in your CRM tool, and the rep should be able to explain the role of the individuals in the buying group at various points during the lengthy sales process.
Then, you will use AI tools to predict their personality type. Now, it’s time to determine their content preferences. To do that, you will need to pull information from your marketing systems, such as name, company and what piece of information, content or event they engage with (open, download, attendance, etc.)
Run their personalities. Now, you have a connection between buyer preferences and stages. You’ll also find the most valuable content for your audience, making your life as a marketer even easier. And as a bonus, you’re more aligned with the sales process than ever.
Hopefully, that’s motivating enough for you to start the process. There is no perfect solution, but there is an opportunity to get much closer to being right, even though it still might be wrong most of the time.
