Content Marketing is Aligned With the Modern Buyer-Seller Paradigm

The seller-buyer relationship has shifted since the advent of the World Wide Web, and even more so since the advent of Google. Before 1993 (the invention of the WWW), sellers used to be able to promote their wares through “interrupt” marketing like advertising, cold calling, and even door-to-door selling because the buyer had no other way to engage in a buying process. Today’s buyers have Google and the entire World Wide Web at their fingertips, and the engagement process is driven by them, not by sellers any more.

The new seller-buyer paradigm looks more like this:

• The vast majority of purchase decisions begin with a Google search
• The seller-buyer power relationship has been upended completely. The traditional marketing assumption that the seller must find buyers has been replaced by a new model where the buyer has all the power, all the information at his fingertips, and will find the seller before the seller finds him
• The willingness to be sold to has decreased to almost zero, while the desire and ability to actively research sellers and choose who may “be invited to” sell has become the norm.

Content marketing is aligned with the new seller-buyer paradigm. It doesn’t interrupt with an advertisement or telemarketer’s call. It doesn’t rely on a prospective buyer getting on an airplane to travel to a trade show. And when done correctly, it delivers the “right information” to the “right target” at the “right time” (i.e. when they are beginning their evaluation on the Web rather than when they’re already selecting vendors)

Learn more in the white paper, Seven Ways That Content Marketing Improves Lead Generation Results, available in the WinGreen Marketing Systems Resource Center at www.wingreenmarketing.com/resourcecenter.aspx

What is Content Marketing? [Infographic]

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Top Ten Tips for Online Lead Generation

Top Ten Tips for Online Lead Generation from WinGreen Marketing Systems, LLC

Using White Papers as the Foundation of Your Content Marketing Program

White papers are extremely effective when used as marketing premiums in content marketing campaigns. The ideal white paper for content marketing purposes should be about 2500 to 5000 words in length.  Topics should be related to the products the paper is intended to support.  For example, if your company sells network security software, your

white papers should present interesting topics – but never sales pitches – about the benefits of securing networks, the financial returns to be expected from better security, and perhaps tips and techniques for assessing security.  The objective of the white paper offer, as with all content marketing offers, is to uncover new prospects for your products by finding people who are interested enough in topics related to your products to take the time to fill in a form and identify themselves to you in return for the interesting content you’ve offered.

Five Tips for Doing Lead Nurturing Consistently Well

The past few years have dramatically altered the way we think about and how we conduct business-to-business marketing and lead generation.  The ubiquity of Internet connectivity, broadband, and business email has led to a complete upending of the seller-buyer relationship.  Direct mail (“snail mail”) is out; email is in.  Reaching millions of people through mass advertising is out; reaching the same millions (but only when they want) through search engine optimization is in.  “Interrupt marketing” is out; “opt-in marketing” is very in.  Feast-or-famine results are out; consistent, smooth-line results are in.

With the advent of new technologies came the advent of new methods and strategies for finding and developing new sales leads.  The explosion of Google as the preferred search engine led to (or at least dramatically accelerated) the creation of an entire field of marketing around search engine marketing, and a second entire field of lead generation around pay-per-click advertising.  The affordability of email accounts and Internet connections for nearly every worker in America led to the explosive growth of email marketing, then (unfortunately) to the more explosive growth of spam, then to (fortunately) the creation of anti-spam filters and the CAN-SPAM Act, then to the concept of content marketing, and now to the refinement of email marketing into the twin cannons of lead development and nurturing: “outbound” and “drip” email marketing.

The objective of lead nurturing is to keep an interested lead engaged and “warm” until such time as that lead is ready to advance to the next sales phase.

The Five Principles of Lead Nurturing All B2B Marketers Need to Know

Let’s start by stating the obvious: There are far more than just five principles that are important for utilizing lead nurturing techniques to nurture leads and increase your B2B sales.  What we wanted to do with this post was present a brief, easy-to-read, easy-to-digest primer with just the five principles that everyone can take back to work and put to use.  In future papers, webcasts, podcasts, and books, we’ll go deeper into the strategies, methods, processes, and tools you can use to get even more effective with lead nurturing, but for now, let’s focus on our top five.

1.    Use conversational tone (not marketing or sales tone)

2.    Use lead nurturing only in the right phase of the sales cycle

3.    Use web analytics and tracking to adjust and mold your messages to your targets

4.    Use lead scoring to target highest potential leads

5.    Consistent repetition, consistent repetition, consistent repetition.

These sound simple and obvious, right?  Well, they are.  So are the instructions on how to hit a baseball (See ball, swing bat, try to hit ball with bat), but very few people can do it consistently well.  

In the next few posts, we'll explore each of these five tips and talk about doing them consistently well.

If you want to see an entire white paper on the topic and get everything in one PDF, then the white paper Top Five Rules for Using Lead Nurturing to Increase Sales is one in a series of white papers sponsored by WinGreen Marketing Systems.  Make sure to read the other papers in the series by visiting www.WinGreenMarketing.com/resources.aspx, where you’ll find links to many papers in the bottom right of the home page.