Step 2: Match Content to Contact Roles
This deep dive into the second step of the Marketing Optimized Framework posted previously.
Why
Ultimately we want the prospect to become a fan (believe in us and our vision) and buy from us vs all the others
It's intuitive that people are more receptive when you are giving them what they are looking for. We want to build more assets that are the ones that resonate (and help progress them towards a purchase)
It's a push/pull relationship... we want to give them what they are looking for at that moment but also are trying to move them toward a purchase (even if some else shiny catches their attention)
Use data to optimize where and how we use marketing resources (budget and people) to make communications more effective
What
This step will prioritize Segments of companies and group contacts by role, then match content recommendations to them
How
From Step 1, we have insights on how our audiences are grouped and what they consume on the way to a purchase. Now we operationalize those insights into automated rules.
Segmenting
The previous exercise gave us a prioritized list of Companies
Score based on categorization model of customers or some sort of rules-based score (comment below if you would like to see how to do this with a categorization model or simple rules)
This can be used in planning to determine which segments are eligible for which campaigns
For true ABM activities, only a small group of the highest segment of companies should be eligible as those tactics are resource-intensive
For general marketing, you will need to compare and decide on a viable number of Companies to focus marketing on in this cycle (i.e. quarter) decide if there is a theme or is it just based on fit
An Industrial theme is worth consideration as you can build industry-specific content (if you don't have it vs trying to find content across many industries) and build knowledge in that vertical across the teams (Product, Marketing, Sales)
Based on historical conversion rates to see if you are targeting enough companies to meet goals
Compare lists with Sales team and negotiate difference (Marketing should have a superset companies)
Targeting
Using the Company Segment and the Buying Teams from the previous exercise we build focus lists (definitions), the companies and the associated contacts marketing will be focusing effort on
Buying Teams will vary based on your industry and the size of companies you are targeting but here are some general roles you might consider including in your Buying team definition
Sometimes the same person can own more than one of these roles (especially at smaller companies)
Often the roles are defined by the contact's title but can also be determined by their content consumption
Champion - manages the review/purchase process with your company as a whole
Influencer - these could be both technical and business advisors that can veto the process
Decision Maker - the actual person whose neck is on the line
Budget Holder - the person whose budget this is coming out of
User - end users of your product or service
Certifier - this is a procurement person whose role is to ensure all the financial and legal checks are in place
Next Best Asset (Content):
Let's review what we have:
Segments of companies that are eligible for different types of campaigns
Target contacts that are part of the Buying team at those companies
Now we marry the contacts with the content that works best for the roles of each contact for each stage of the buying process
We have the ideal sequence of effective content (by buying role and stage) from our analysis in Step 1
Often the value presented in the asset very by buying role vs the type of asset
The stages may vary based on your industry and maturity of the category
The granularity of the output from this analysis varies based on how much data you have and may only be at the content theme level... in that case there will still be some manual selection and testing needed
Selecting the right content can be approached in a number of ways based on what you know about the person at that point in time:
Nothing - Welcome style content that explains the value prop at high level
Company - specialize by industry or suggest content consumed by coworkers
Role - tailor content to their specific pains and needs (i.e. Budget holder cares about the ROI, the end user care about workflow)
Interests - next logical content of that person’s most recent sustained interest to
This is stored in a central systems from which all campaign execution systems will reference
The system should be updated with time content has been presented and if it was consumed for rules to decide if we move on to the next Asset
Tip: as a further touch of 1:1 marketing, use the data you know about the company and contact (used in step 1) in your message to help them see why your product is perfect for them (use with discretion... depending on the culture of your industry this may be seen as jarring)
Tools
Key features include:
Customizable tables to house and synch data at Company, Buying Team, Contact, and Deal, and Next Best Asset levels (allowing for aggregation and update on one record with links to related tables)
For example, you could place a company field on the Contact but if there is a change to a field (let's say you track aggregated activity over 6 months as something simple like a count) then you only need to up the one company record vs search all contacts for that company and trying to update each and also knowing to grab those values as new contact record for that company enter the process
Integration with fast and appropriate access to these tables to be updated by downstream systems (i.e. Campaign Execution systems like email to query what asset should be sent and update counts of how often it was presented and if the asset was consumed)
Should have an interface for retrieving lists of predefined Target contacts and the ability to refine further based on criteria on Company, Buying Team, Contact, and Deal (i.e. only C-level contacts and the decision maker on the buying team at Biotech firms with deals in pipeline of over $10M) for more specialized marketing (Executive event, Training, high-cost direct mail, etc.)
Segment and Tealium have compelling sales demos but I've not had the opportunity to use them and can't speak to configuration, scalability and change management
Here are some tools I have had exposure to, comment below if there are others... share what kind of user it is good for and what it can do for operationalizing Company Segments and Target Contacts.
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