Prove ROI and Make the Business Case for Industrial Content Marketing
- 1. Prove ROI and Make the Business Case for Industrial Content Marketing Achinta Mitra Hannah Flynn With: Moderated by: TO USE YOUR COMPUTER'S AUDIO: When the webinar begins, you will be connected to audio using your computer's microphone and speakers (VoIP). A headset is recommended. Webinar will begin: 12:30 pm, PDT TO USE YOUR TELEPHONE: If you prefer to use your phone, you must select "Use Telephone" after joining the webinar and call in using the numbers below. United States: +1 (213) 929-4232 Access Code: 739-456-976 Audio PIN: Shown after joining the webinar --OR--
- 2. Seismic is the recognized leader in sales and marketing enablement, equipping global sales teams with the knowledge, messaging, and automatically personalized content proven to be the most effective for any buyer interaction. Powerful content intelligence and analytics enable marketers to prove and improve their impact on the bottom line, revealing what is really driving revenue and what needs to be adjusted.
- 3. Click on the Questions panel to interact with the presenters https://www.b2bmarketingzone.com/frs/10589069/prove-roi-and-make-the-business-case-for-industrial-content-marketing/email
- 4. About Achinta Mitra Achinta Mitra is the founder and President of Tiecas, Inc., a Houston-based industrial marketing and consulting company that has been in business since 1987. He is a Mechanical Engineer with an MBA degree in Marketing. He uses his 30+ years of hands-on experience working with manufacturers, distributors and engineering companies to help them generate better quality leads that turn into sales opportunities. That’s why he calls himself a Marketing Engineer. Achinta provides practical insights and actionable marketing advice for industrial companies on his blog Industrial Marketing Today. He has published over 300 articles, many of which focus on industrial content marketing. About Hannah Flynn Hannah attended The University of Chicago, where she majored in Environmental Studies with a concentration in Economics and Policy. She now works with Aggregage in product management, social media strategy, and webinar production for Product Management Today and B2B Marketing Zone.
- 5. 5 Summary of My Presentation • Unique challenges of industrial content marketing • Measuring ROI and making a business case • Build your industrial content marketing strategy first • Winning the engineer’s mindshare • Working with technical Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) • “Post and Pray” is not an effective content marketing strategy • Actionable Takeaways
- 6. 6 First Poll • How many of you work in marketing (in-house or outside consultants)? • How many are in management?
- 7. 7 Marketing to Engineers and Industrial Professionals is a Big Challenge
- 8. 8 Why is it so Challenging? • Engineers are seeking information that is relevant to them and accurate • It is not all about features and benefits • Engineers span generations • Engineers are busy • Marketing doesn’t understand engineering challenges (Most common accusation from Sales)
- 9. 9 Unique Challenges of Industrial Content Marketing There are three key differences that you should be aware of: • Long sales cycles (12 to 18 months is typical for custom-engineered systems) • Buying decisions are made by a committee (Many of the stakeholders remain invisible and rarely interact with your content) • The Specifier is different from the Functional Buyer (Manufacturers of parts need their components “designed in” by an engineer before Purchasing can issue a PO or an RFQ)
- 10. 10
- 11. 11 Content Preferences by Decision Makers
- 12. 12
- 13. 13 MEASURING ROI
- 14. 14
- 15. 15 Accurately Measuring Marketing’s Contribution in Complex Industrial Sales is Difficult It is a challenge to correctly attribute industrial content marketing’s contributions to sales
- 16. 16 Complexities of Measuring ROI Lead to Giving Up • 44% of manufacturing content marketers report their organization measures content marketing ROI • 54% of manufacturing respondents say their teams are somewhat proficient at using the metrics they’ve selected to monitor content marketing success • 55% of manufacturing marketers characterize their organization’s overall content marketing approach as moderately successful (Source: Content Marketing Institute and IEEE/GlobalSpec)
- 17. 17 Obsessing Over Analytics and Data
- 18. 18 Show Indicators of Success • Show conversion rate (How many visitors completed a desired action) • Traffic from non branded keywords • Top 30 search queries over the past 30 days • Discuss Bounce Rate & Time on Site (Engagement) • Organic Search Traffic vs Paid Traffic • Talk about long tail keyword searches and their importance
- 19. 19 Image courtesy of Alexander Grimstad, VP of Marketing at Fanbooster
- 21. 21 Business Case for Industrial Content Marketing
- 22. 22 Second Poll • How many of you are already doing industrial content marketing?
- 23. 23
- 24. 24 The Invisible Industrial Buyer • 67% of the buyer’s journey is now done digitally. (Source: Sirius Decisions) • We now have self-educating buyers because of the abundance of online resources • Buyers will engage with your sale team only when they are ready • Internal “Gurus” are strong influencers but may not interact with your content or sales people • Long sales cycles with committees, not an individual making the buy decision
- 25. 25 The Blended Approach “Buyer Beware” has been turned on its head to “Seller Beware.”
- 26. 26 It’s Time to Shift Gears • Mainly invisible customers • Save time and money • Build equity vs. pay rent • Create strong relationships based on trust • Control over the sales process has shifted
- 27. 27 Content Marketing Builds Equity
- 28. 28 Builds Stronger Relationships Based on Earned Trust
- 29. 29 Cost Per Lead Comes Down Over Time
- 31. 31 Other Content Assets as Sales Enablers • Parametric part number search applications • Assessment tools, sizing programs and calculators • Online tracking of legacy installations and managing spare parts inventory • Cross reference and selection guides • How-to videos and on-demand training modules • Evaluation and engineering kits • And the list goes on…
- 32. 32 Third Poll • Do you work in-house Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) when creating content?
- 33. 33 Use the Power of One Engineer to Another
- 34. 34 Leverage the Collaborative Ethos
- 35. 35 How Engineers Find Information in 2019
- 36. 36 Build Your Industrial Marketing Road Map First • Strategy • Audience • Content • Website • MQL vs. SQL • Analytics • Integration
- 37. 37 Importance of a Documented Strategy
- 38. 38 Post and Pray is NOT an Effective Content Marketing Strategy
- 39. 39 MQLs vs. SQLs
- 40. 40 Sales People are NOT Obsolete • Selling is helping (aka Solutions Selling) • This requires a shift in the mindset from “what we have to sell” to “how can we help our customers do what they want to do?” • Your brand is what they say you are and not who you say you are • Be prepared to engage with multiple stakeholders when you do get into a conversation • Be aware that different stakeholders have different needs and personal agendas to satisfy • Create your own internal evangelist to carry your message to stakeholders that you may never meet
- 41. 41 Actionable Takeaways • Take baby steps to validate your industrial content marketing roadmap • Spend the time to develop a fully vetted and documented content marketing strategy • Leverage the knowledge of in-house Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) • Make your content more about them and less about you • Get Sales involved from the get-go • Analytics are powerful tools to prove ROI • Use technology for proper attribution of Marketing’s contributions • SEO must complement conversion optimization (CRO)
- 42. Q&A Hannah Flynn With: Moderated by: President and Founder, Tiecas Inc. Linkedin page: /in/achintamitra/ Twitter ID: @achintamitra Website: industrialmarketingtoday.com Achinta Mitra Site editor, Product Management Today Linkedin page: linkedin.com/in/hannahmflynn Twitter ID: @prodmgmttoday Email: [email protected] Website: productmanagementtoday.com https://www.b2bmarketingzone.com/frs/10589069/prove-roi-and-make-the-business-case-for-industrial-content-marketing/email