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.
by William Walsh | Jul 15, 2024 | 2024
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.
by William Walsh | Jul 1, 2024 | 2024
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.
by William Walsh | Jun 10, 2024 | 2024
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?
by William Walsh | May 8, 2024 | 2024
By Scott Gillum
Estimated read time: 2 Minutes
The image above is a simple illustration of how people with different personalities would write a statement to answer a question.
We’ve trained ChatGPT to write in the voice of different personality types (using DISC segmentation). We then gave it a prompt to create a sentence on water conservation.
As you can see, it is very easy to note the differences between the personalities. Notice how the sentences start, the tone, the emphasis, or how to achieve the goal.
You can get a feel for the personalities. One is blunt, another inspirational, a third is focused on the community, and the last is analytical.
One topic, four very different responses.
Now think about how you’re writing emails and content. It’s one size fits all…but your audience is made up of different personalities.
It’s not a mystery as to why our email and content marketing campaigns don’t produce the results we hope for or expect.
Luckily, you don’t have to write content for four personalities. Our research shows that in every industry there are 2 dominant personality types that make up 65-75% of your audience.
You just need to know which ones….we can tell you, and how to write your content to connect with them.
