Now that the dust has settled, the branding agency fired and the old brand restored, it’s a good time to look at what really happened with the rebranding of Cracker Barrel – something the mainstream media largely overlooked.

Let’s start with the firing of the agency behind the rebrand. Prophet – founded by Scott Galloway and Ian Chaplen with David Aaker as vice chairman – is a powerhouse branding firm known for rigorous research and disciplined strategy. This isn’t a group of amateurs crowdsourcing a logo.

Prophet does its homework, has A-list clients and has successfully delivered hundreds of rebranding and branding projects. What went wrong?

How bot activity fueled the rebrand backlash

The most interesting part of this story never made headlines – likely overshadowed by the president’s comments that turned the rebrand into a politicized moment.

What was largely missing from the uproar was the real source of the rapid outrage: bots. According to the Wall Street Journal, bots posing as real users drove a disproportionate share of the social chatter that media outlets picked up. PeakMetrics – which works with the U.S. Air Force to identify foreign misinformation – found that the backlash originated from high-follower human accounts but was quickly amplified by bots.

By August 20, the day after the launch, X saw about 400 Cracker Barrel posts every minute. Molly Dwyer, director of insights at PeakMetrics, said 70% of accounts posting used duplicate messages, with some repeating the same text dozens of times – a clear sign of bot activity. Nearly 45% of Cracker Barrel posts on X during that 24-hour surge were estimated to be bot-generated. PeakMetrics also reported that almost half of all posts calling for a boycott came from bots.

Why the spike? Foreign entities often try to stoke political tension by tapping into what Dwyer describes as a ready-made audience primed for negative engagement. In Cracker Barrel’s case, its rebrand landed squarely in the politicized crosshairs of social media – and bots did the rest.

What this means for B2B marketers

Consumer brands have greater visibility and appeal to a broader set of buyers than most B2B brands, so it’s easy to assume the business environment carries less risk.

But that isn’t necessarily true. Years ago, Google and CEB (now part of Gartner) researched the role of emotion in B2B purchasing decisions. One of the key findings was that buyers feel a stronger emotional connection to B2B brands than to consumer brands.

For many people, that’s surprising – but the reason is simple. It comes down to personal risk. If you buy the wrong L’Oréal lip gloss, it may be annoying, but you won’t lose your job over it. Choose the wrong enterprise software and you could damage your reputation, waste company money or even jeopardize your role. The stakes are higher, which drives a stronger emotional connection.

In our survey of over 400 B2B buyers across a dozen brands, we asked which brand attributes mattered most in their final purchasing decisions. Trustworthiness ranked number one, with reliability close behind.

What the Cracker Barrel backlash reveals about brand vulnerability

The Cracker Barrel episode is a stark reminder that even the most thoughtful, research-driven branding efforts can be derailed when they collide with today’s volatile digital ecosystem. The real story wasn’t a misstep by a seasoned agency or a logo that missed the mark – it was how bot-driven outrage can hijack a narrative and turn a routine brand refresh into a cultural flashpoint overnight.

For B2B marketers, the lesson isn’t to fear rebranding but to respect the emotional stakes involved. Buyers are more invested, more risk-averse and more attuned to signals of trust and reliability than we often assume. And while B2B brands may not receive the same amount of public attention as consumer giants, they operate in a space where reputational missteps carry significant professional consequences.

As lines blur between genuine sentiment, manufactured outrage and political polarization, marketers must approach rebrands with both courage and caution. Rebranding will always involve risk – but in a world where algorithms and bad actors can amplify negativity at scale, clarity, authenticity and stakeholder alignment have never mattered more.

The post The real story behind Cracker Barrel’s rebrand – and why it matters for B2B brands appeared first on Carbon Design.

For the past month we have tested the performance of short form videos versus traditional blogs posted on LinkedIn.

Why do it?

Two decades ago, I started blogging. Back then, keeping a post under 2,000 words felt like a constraint. (I was a management consultant — so yes, I used a lot of words.)

A couple of years later I began writing for Forbes which trimmed my posts to 1,200 words. Then, while writing for The Drum,down even further to 800. As attention spans shrank, so did my word count.

Fast forward to today: content is everywhere, AI tools are flooding our feeds, and the pressure to stand out is greater than ever. So I find myself asking: Should I still write, or do I shift to short-form video?

The Experiment

To measure the effectiveness of each, we created three tiers of key metrics. Tier one being the most important, tier three being the least.

● Tier 1 – form fills on our website or DMs on Linkedin
● Tier 2 – profile views or website visits, views/read time of the content, new followers
● Tier 3 – reach, engagement (impressions, engagement, shares)

To track performance, we used Linkedin Analytics (post performance), Hubspot (form fills), GA4 (web performance), Warmly (web visits), and Looker Studio (blog performance). The time period included all posts and performance for the last 90 days (March 1 to May 30th) allowing us to have enough data to measure the performance before and after.

The top 8 viewed posts of the last 90 days were evenly distributed between video and blog content posted in the last 30 days as part of our test. The first video was released was the top viewed post, with the remaining three videos making up the 3rd, 7th and 8th most popular.

Correspondingly, blogs ranked 2nd, 4th, 5th and 6th, were almost of perfect distribution to compare, with both having a median between 4 to 5.

Overall performance for the last 90 days on LinkedIn, compared to the previous period, experienced a 20% lift in content performance (impressions) and a 42% increase in engagement. Even more striking is the 28 days compared to the previous period, which produced a 408% increase in impressions, and a 290% increase in engagement.

Given the Tier 3 performance, it might be logical to believe that increases will be seen in the other tiers.

The Results

Before I jump in, it’s important to recognize how LinkedIn counts impressions and views of videos.

An “impression” is registered every time your post appears in someone’s feed. It reflects overall visibility, not necessarily engagement, or that it has been seen/read. Think of it as a billboard along a road. The cars pass by but may or may not glance at it.

LinkedIn’s algorithm, based on the content and responses to it, then decides to distribute more broadly…or not.

A video view is counted when someone watches for at least 2 continuous seconds (down from 6 seconds in 2023), either via autoplay or a manual click. In this case, we are using autoplay.

To dig deeper into evaluating the performance we downloaded Richard Van der Blom’s Algorithm Insights Report 2025 for LinkedIn metrics and benchmarks. We tried to download LinkedIn’ Benchmarks for Brand Awareness, but the link is broken on the LinkedIn for Marketers page…I’ll let you draw your own conclusions.

Okay, now for the results. I’ll start with “members reached” defined as the number of distinct members and pages that saw the post. Caveat, this number is an estimate and does not include repeat displays. I’ll begin with Tier 3 metrics and work my way to Tier 1.

• Reach – no real difference between videos (60%) and blogs (57%).
• Consumption (read or watched) – video (70%) outperformed blogs (12%) but that number is misleading. The videos were set to autoplay and a view “counts”, even if it’s for only 2 seconds.
• View/read times – this becomes a more important metric given the prior statement and is closer to the truth. Videos still outperformed (35% to 20%), but this is an average. For video, it’s total viewed time divided by views, for blogs it’s average read time divided by total read time (eg. 1 min read time on a blog that is a 5 mins read).
• Reactions (likes, etc.) – video outperformed content significantly (almost 2 to 1), but that is skewered by video #1 which has nearly half of all the video reactions.
• Comments – viewers were more likely to comment on blogs, by 52% .
• Reposts – viewers were 5 times more likely to share a video.
• Profile views – blogs were twice as likely to generate a profile view. But, when compared to the previous period, my profile views over the last 28 days decreased.
• Audience growth – you might assume given the previous statement about the 90 day overall improvement in performance would net an increase in my audience, but unfortunately, that was not the case. There was no change. Additionally, most of the views, (almost 90%+) came from my first connections.
• Web visits and/or visits to the Linkedin Company page – recognized no change, and visits to our corporate page actually declined by 18% during the period.
• Tier 1 metrics – neither format produced a form fill or a DM.

Interestingly enough during this test period, a post on ABM written by Ruth Stevens, mentioned an article I had written years ago drove more traffic to our site in one day than anything else we did on LinkedIn the past 90 days..

Learnings

How you view these results really depends on how you view LinkedIn as a channel and your desired goals…a la the key metrics listed. I also came away with as many questions as I did answers.

For me, blogs have a slight advantage over short form videos (for now), purely from the ease of creating them. Additionally, based on the performance of the comments and profile views, I feel like viewers were more invested in the content.

Now for some caveats… I’m making this comment as a Gen X twenty-year blogger with a mature senior executive audience. This brings up an interesting challenge we faced, and soon I’ll be creating another post going into more detail.

Trying to reach a new audience, we tested upgrading my account to Premium and using paid ads on our corporate site, hoping to boost video views for the last two weeks. Neither produced the results we hoped for, and/or was promised by LinkedIn.

LinkedIn Premium claims it will “expand your network and increase visibility.” We saw no evidence of that being true, as I mentioned 90%+ of the reactions came from 1st connections. Paid ads dramatically increased impressions (a relatively meaningless Tier 3 metric) but performed poorly, producing a 0.13% CTR with no conversions.

This raises a question on the value of the 800 lb gorilla of B2B channels, LinkedIn. LinkedIn has changed its algorithms to bring you more content from the creators you interact with, which somewhat explains the concentration of my audience.

The key insight from this experiment, at least for me, is that LinkedIn’s algorithms are geared towards the content consumer and not the creator.

The change in their algorithm means you are more likely to see more content from one creator than a vast group of creators. For example, you are 60% more likely to see a post from someone that you have interacted with on your feed. LinkedIn, like other social media platforms, is changing what you see in real time as you interact with what’s on your feed.

As a result, as pointed out by the Algorithm Report, reach, engagement and follower growth have declined dramatically since last year.

Source: Just Connecting™ and Richard van der Blom

The bottom line – the performance of short form videos may have been handicapped because I wasn’t able to reach an audience that prefers that content format.

LinkedIn lives on creator content and that content, according to the report, is quickly moving to video (an increase of 23% in 2024 over 2023). What the report doesn’t show, nor could we, is that it is any more effective than anything else.

If you’re searching for an ROI for the business impact of any type of content posted on LinkedIn, it may not be the format but rather the channel that is the problem.

Now let’s see if anyone reads this content…don’t make me do another video!

Special thanks to Ben Armstrong at 9Mile media for the creation of the videos and Naheed Somji, our social media guru for his support and advice.

The post Which Performed Better: Short Form Video vs Blog Content? appeared first on Carbon Design.

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. 

The post The Key to Deep Personalization at Scale – the 65/75 Rule appeared first on Carbon Design.

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/

The post Carbon Wins Two Industry Awards for Web and Logo Design appeared first on Carbon Design.

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.”

The post Make Time for Time Management appeared first on Carbon Design.

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.

The post The 4 Types of Content Buyers Want appeared first on Carbon Design.

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.

The post How to Build a Better Buyer Journey Using Customer Behavioral Data appeared first on Carbon Design.

As previously published on 7/11/24 in MarTech

Did you know that you have your own intent data, you don’t need to buy it. If you are executing campaigns, especially in existing accounts you have data that goes much deeper than what you could buy. 

You just know where, and how, to look for it. Once you find it you will realize that what has been sold, or said, to you about “signals” isn’t exactly true. 

As marketers, we’ve been told that there is a connection between a “signal” of a prospect seeking information with their interest in your company or product.  That a response to an offer made could imply they’re “in the market to buy”

This is how Zoominfo describes intent data based on signal strength.  

• “Derived intent signals are a mix of first-party and third-party signals. These offer insights into behaviors that indicate interest in a company, such as ad engagement, web activity, topic engagement, and technology use.”

As a result, we have a tendency to think of this as a MQL. But this is where things break from reality. Again from ZoomInfo:

• “Identify interest: Purchase-intent signals help identify which companies are actively researching your solution before they fill out a form on your site or engage with your sales and marketing teams.”

This is simply not true, it’s an assumption. Let me break it down, unless you understand a buyer’s personality, which would give you real insight into their behaviors and motivations, and you are able to observe this over time, you can not assume that they are “actively searching” for what you are offering because they have ‘purchase intent.” 

We have found only a small percent (5-10%) of cases where this is true, and we have evaluated engagement and intent data across 7 industries and thousands of interactions. When you look at your own data you will find the same thing. 

Given the fact that 5% of your targeted audience is in a buying cycle at any one time this would make sense. But what is more interesting is what is in the 95% of data that you aren’t analyzing or buying. 

Here’s what you need to know about to analyzing your own engagement data

First, pull data from your sales and marketing systems at the account level. We’re often so busy executing we rarely have time to look at what has happened in the past. You’ll want to pull 12 to 18 months of engagement data based on the length of the sales cycle.

Pull data on 10 accounts to start. They could be the 10 biggest or most important (based on pipeline value) accounts. Here’s what you’ll want to look for in the data. 

• Engagement over time – this is an important metric because it’s a measure of mindshare you have with a buyer/contact. Look for how they have engaged with your outreach over the past 12 to 18 months. Is it a “burst,” for example, a C-level engages multiple times in a month or is it “consistent” – a couple of engagements over a longer period of time. 
• Engagement time – how much time did they spend with whatever was offered. Was it millisecond or seconds?  This will help you understand their level of engagement. Are they glancing at what was sent or did they dig deeper?
• Engagement frequency –  did they hit one thing multiple times in one day, and over a period of time? This may be an indicator of them forwarding information to others. And it gives you insight into who might be the “router” of information inside of the account. 
• Engagement offer – what are they engaging with, e.g. what offer or outreach. Are they looking at webinar invites, new case studies, reading the newsletter, etc. Having 10 accounts will give you real insight into what content really matters. 

This insight will help you understand if the audience is interested in your brand, solution, or just what was offered. 

Most times, it will be just the offer. But that’s a great insight because it allows you to narrow down your activities to the things that really matter to your audience. What content offers really do is they open a window for a salesperson to be viewed as valuable. It doesn’t tell you if the target is in a buying window or in a certain part of the buyer’s journey, unfortunately. 

Giving the sales organization insight into how, and what, audiences are engaging with enables them to focus on starting a relationship. Through a better understanding of why people are doing what they are doing, it gets to their real motivations. The signal becomes insight. 

For example, did they look at your upcoming webinar invite or user conference?  How many times did they look at it? How many emails related to those events did they open? Did they attend the event? If they didn’t, you now know they were interested. 

This creates an opportunity for the salesperson to offer an on demand version of the webinar or maybe a free pass to next year’s event. They’re building a relationship based on interest, not jumping to selling a solution where they have shown no real interest in pursuing. 

And that is what is in your 95% of the engagement data that doesn’t get analyzed. It tells sales who to spend their time with, and how to start a relationship, that one day could become a new customer. 

The post Why B2B Marketers Get Their Signals Crossed appeared first on Carbon Design.

By Scott Gillum
Estimated read time: 3 Minutes

Want to take your ICP’s to the next level? Try using personality based marketing to understand corporate cultures.

Here’s why. Above are 2 SaaS companies in the martech industry. Our client is selling to the same buyer in each company. But the company situations are vastly different.

The first company is growing aggressively and has a corporate culture that is full of “Dominate” personalities.

The second company is under attack and has lost significant revenue and market share during the last two years. The corporate culture is skeptical, given the prevalence of “Consciences” personalities.

So what does all this mean?

First, it impacts the positioning of the value of your product.

Second, it helps you identify the right set of the sales and marketing assets.

In company 1, you position the value of the offering to help scale growth.

You communicate that through case studies with ROIs. Given their “dominant” culture, they are heads down operators so use relevant case studies that align, as closely as possible, to their situation.

In company 2, you position the value of the product on what it can do to drive efficiency.

This is a company fighting for its survival. It needs ideas on how to improve operations. As a result, use cases showing potential cost savings (business cases) are most important.

And given the culture, use data and research to support the use/business cases which is essential for building credibility in selling to an organization like this.

Before you even speak to a buyer you can understand the environment in which they operate. It allows you to create a connection — optimism for company 1, empathy in company 2.

ICP’s are not just an acronym, they’re people. Decisions are influenced by emotions. Motivations cause decisions, and personality dictates both.

The more you understand this the higher the likelihood of getting engagement, interest, and a decision. It’s a 1, 2 punch.

The post Corporate Cultures appeared first on Carbon Design.

As previously published on 6/4/24 in MarTech

6 Things you need to consider now to catch up with your audience

In the movie “Gone in 90 Seconds” Nicolas Cage and his crew have to steal 50 cars in a night. The goal is to steal the car in less than a minute and half to reduce the chances of getting caught. The car is there one minute and literally gone the next. 

It’s eerily similar to visitors on your website. They’re there, and then they’re gone. You have to look no further than your Google Analytics report to see it. 

We intuitively know that social media, in particular scrolling, is impacting attention spans. We also know that our consumer habits soon become our business habits. And that means the speed at which audiences are moving through content and digital is accelerating everyday. 

The question is by how much, and how does that impact our efforts as marketers?

According to Gloria Mark, professor emerita at University of California, Irvine, and author of the book “Attention Span” it’s not a pretty story.

From 2004 to 2020, the last year the data was collected, time on screen has shrunk to a third  of what it had been and it’s not a stretch to assume it is now under 30 seconds.

Additionally, according to research from Emplifi you now have 26 seconds to keep someone engaged with video.

With visitors’ need for speed, you should be taking a hard look at the following areas and asking the following questions. 

• Mobile – with mobile viewing growing, how fast can your audience move through your content? Consider ways to lighten the cognitive load through the use of images and video. Research has shown that social media can impair deep focus and make visitors more susceptible to cognitive overload. 
• Video – speaking of video, reexamine those videos you created a couple of years ago. The rule used to be under two minutes for an explainer video. They now probably need to be under a minute.  How long are your videos, how visually engaging?
• Website – our research has shown that you typically lose 50% of your visitors below the first two folds of your website. So consider where you position your CTA. How fast can visitors find what they are looking for, and how easy is it for them to digest and understand your services?
• Blogs – microblogs are the new blogs. Blogs used to be 800 to 1200 words, or longer, in length. Now they need to be between 400 to 600 words with at least 2 images. Why images? Because they allow the brain to “rest” enabling it to process the information it just read. Think of it as a palate cleanser. 
• Social Media – how are you grabbing the attention of your audience given their need for speed. How eye-catching/stopping is your creativity? Can you catch their attention when they are scrolling? 
• Brand – which leads us to the impact on branding. In the past, we sought consistency in our branding. The “brand police” ensured that our website looked like our sales presentation, product slicks, trade booth, etc. Brand consistency now works against in the digital world.

Oh, and don’t forget, by next year, time on screen will shrink again. In fact, time on screen is shrinking constantly, and in all channels. But it’s not just about attention spans, as the bullet points above point out. It’s also the effect digital social habits are having on our brain, as well as our behaviors. 

We’re more likely to be multitasking while viewing social feeds. Our attention jumps from small to large screen and then back again. Retention of information is being impacted, heavy cognitive lifts are being skipped all together. 

Now add this to the equation, we are getting more content to view, not less. With generative AI more content is, and will be, produced. The primary channel or  “pipe” is getting smaller because email is no longer effective. 

LinkedIn (e.g. the primary pipe) is highly crowded and will get more crowded, and the end audience’s capacity and desire to take all of this in is…well, you know the answer. It’s also a self fulfilling prophecy.   

Our audience’s only option to dealing with the proliferation of information is to move faster and to skim the surface.  So if you haven’t considered or evaluated the areas I mentioned, you need to and you need to do it planning for your audience a year out. 

Ask yourself and your team, how will you stand out? How will you win what little mindshare that is available. Keep these insights in mind as you are creating social posts, content, and campaigns.

That is, if you made it all the way through this post without bailing. How many seconds do I have left?! Is there anyone there, and where is my car? 

The post Gone In 30 Seconds appeared first on Carbon Design.