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Podcasts and the Trouble with Conversion Optimization

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Podcast marketing advice tends to be overly simplistic and unhelpful. For example: “Once they’ve followed you on Twitter, send them to Apple Podcasts and get them to subscribe to your show.” Such flippant recommendations get tossed around a lot. However, the complexities of the podcast conversion funnel are far greater than they initially appear.

What follows serves as a guide to understanding the podcast conversion funnel, how it differs from a standard content marketing funnel, and how it ultimately converts listeners into qualified leads. Understanding it is one of the most fundamental pieces to understand if you want your podcast to succeed.

The Podcast Conversion Funnel

For most B2B marketers, optimizing a conversion funnel requires:

  • Data analysis, which enables marketers to make decisions based on quantitative data.
  • Customer research, which enables marketers to make decisions based on qualitative feedback.

Unfortunately for most companies, the world of podcasting doesn’t fully offer either of these. Data is available, but it’s almost entirely anonymized. Qualitative feedback is available, but it relies on listeners reaching out to you. That makes the podcast conversion funnel difficult to optimize, since you can’t entirely rely on great data or knowing who is listening at any particular stage.

How Does The Funnel Work?

It starts when people become aware of your podcast. That can be the result of seeing a post of yours on LinkedIn, by one customer sharing it with another potential customer, or in any one of a hundred other ways. The podcast conversion funnel is further obscured by not knowing who is listening to your podcast, since most podcast players don’t provide data on subscribers or on listening behaviors.

Then there is the big leap from initial discovery to deciding to open a podcast app. It involves going from Desktop to Mobile, browsing to engaging, and passive to active participation. If that big leap happens, they’ll ideally subscribe to your show.

Finally, as a business, you want to translate those engagements into known contacts.To do that, listeners will have to leave the podcast application and get in touch with you. Optimizing for their preferred method of contact is also a challenge. Do they prefer email? A phone call? A form fill?

It’s the complexity of this funnel that makes most podcasting advice seem out of touch. Saying something like, “once they discover your show, get them to subscribe to your show” is as useful as saying, “when you get to Europe, say ‘hi’ to my friend Jacques” with no additional guidance on who Jacques is.

Good luck with that.

Understanding the Funnel Is Half the Battle

With podcasting, luck isn’t enough. Instead, our advice is to prioritize the parts that you can measure and have the greatest value.

Here’s a handy breakdown of each stage of the funnel:

StageMeasurable?ValueNotes
AwarenessNoLowYou can’t measure who becomes aware of your podcast in the same way you know how many people viewed a blog post. Podcast awareness happens in thousands of locations, most of which aren’t instrumented for tracking on a per-listener level. In addition, the value of this stage isn’t particularly high, since awareness doesn’t necessarily lead to becoming a client.
First ListenNoMediumThe first time someone listens to your podcast might be on social media, YouTube, your website, or a podcast player. Each provides different levels of analytics. For example, you could see the number of viewers who saw your tweet, while a podcast app will tell you how many downloads you receive but not how many people viewed your podcast.While you may not know who is listening, there is some value in improving conversion at this stage of the funnel. After all, the adage of “first impressions matter” is especially true in podcasting.
In the AppYesHighYou can measure if people are visiting a podcast app for your podcast in two ways. First, you can track clicks from links you have on your website. Second, you can look at the weekly download numbers per user agent, which is provided by most podcast hosts. Similarly, the expected value here is quite high, since they’re clearly interested enough to open a third-party app to listen to your show.
SubscriptionPartiallyHighThere are ways to measure the number of subscribers you have in Apple Podcasts, Overcast, and a handful of other podcasting apps. However, you’ll never get a complete number of subscribers or any information on who those subscribers are. While the subscriber data is mostly incomplete, the value of a subscriber is incredibly high. That’s because they’re not only interested in your show, but they’re also automatically downloading future episodes onto their personal devices.
First ContactYesHighBeing contacted by someone listening to your show is both very measurable (you have a new lead) and has a very high expected value (they’re talking to you). However, to fully take advantage of this value, you need to make sure your marketing and sales teams are aligned on tracking these touch points.

The big takeaway is that the two highest priority stages of the podcast conversion funnel are App Open and First Contact. From the perspective of getting the best bang for your buck, these two stages typically have the most to offer. (That’s not to say that the other stages aren’t important.)

A caveat: this will change as more podcast apps share information about who is subscribing to your show. But we’re not quite there yet. In the past month, we had more than 60 apps play our podcast, with only a handful of apps reporting subscriber data.

As with all conversion optimization and lead generation, some of the most valuable work you can undertake is to reduce friction from one stage of the funnel to another.

In the App Stage

By the time someone has listened to your podcast, much of your work is done. But, you still need to get them to open a podcast app and subscribe to your show. Logistically speaking, that means that wherever they’re listening to your show (social media, your website, etc.), you need to have a link pointing them to the relevant podcast apps.

For something as mundane as linking to a podcast, there are two opposing schools of thought: glass half-full and glass half-empty.

The Half-Full school optimistically believes that most people will have a preferred podcast app on their phones and that they’ll want to view your show on that app. So, they provide a grid of links pointing to all of the major podcasting apps. Which is no small number, as there are dozens of active podcast apps.

The Half-Empty school looks at the data saying most people have never listened to a podcast and believes that they should only rely on pre-installed podcast apps. So, they provide a link to Google Podcasts for Android users and Apple Podcasts for iOS users.

Personally speaking, they both have some merit. Deciding on one avenue vs. another relies on understanding the target audience for your podcast. Are they technologically savvy? They likely have a preferred app. Are they less tech savvy? The default apps will likely work fine.

Either way, one tool we use for our show, the B2B Revealed Podcast, is Branch. It has many applications, but the relevant one here is that you can create a link that will redirect based on the type of device the user is using. As an example, if you click this link to our interview with Dr. Bhaskar Chakravorti it will open Apple Podcasts on an iOS device, Google Podcasts on an Android device, and our website on any desktop device. Simple tweaks like that can create a great experience for your listeners.

The First Contact Stage

Seeing your monthly download numbers go up and to the right can be a wonderful feeling. Yet, if none of those people are converting to customers, what’s the point? That’s why it’s so crucial to pay attention to the First Contact stage.

There are three common ways that brands grease this stage of the funnel: gating, advertising, and participation.

Closing the Gate

Some brands use their podcast as a teaser for content that’s locked behind a content gate. For example, if you have a podcast where you’re interviewing experts in your industry, you could post the first 10 minutes of the interview in your public feed and then explain that the full hour-long interview is available on your website in exchange for an email address.

The upside here is that you’ll gather contact information from those who want to listen to the entire podcast. The downside is that you’re effectively producing two different podcast feeds. That may not be worth the effort, as many of the leads will be unqualified and unready for any serious discussion about using your products or services. They are leads, yes, but the value is a bit lower.

Self-Advertising

Another way that companies increase the conversion is by advertising their company as the sponsor and creator of the podcast. Since it’s rare for people to want to listen to a company talk about themselves all day long, most successful branded podcasts focus on larger themes than a self-centered pitch.

Still, many listeners will be unaware what your company is or what you provide. By inserting a 30-second advertisement for your own company in the middle or end of every episode, you’ll increase awareness and conversion. For example, on our podcast, we put in an audio clip that sounds like this:

Audience Participation

Finally, getting your audience to participate in the creation of an episode is a great way to transform podcasting from a one-way broadcast channel into a two-way conversation.

For example, we’ve recently begun soliciting questions for our guest experts on B2B Revealed. This gives clients and listeners the benefit of asking experts questions about marketing and marketing research. It also allows us to engage with clients in a more meaningful way and gives listeners new perspectives on topics we cover.

Funnel Tunnel Vision

Without understanding your conversion funnel, your podcast will meander along without clear direction.

But, if you spend some time understanding and optimizing your conversion funnel, you’ll end up with a clear idea of what needs to be done to get your podcast in the ears of the right people.

Need help launching or optimizing a business podcast? Check out our B2B podcast production services.

With custom market research and marketing services, Cascade Insights helps companies seize opportunities in the B2B technology sector. We work with everyone from enterprise tech stalwarts to up-and-comers in fields such as FinTech, MarTech, Health Tech, and more.

Horror Stories: B2B Tech Messaging

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B2B tech messaging tends to be big, broad, and vague. Which is the opposite of what savvy B2B buyers are looking for.

So often, B2B marketers leave customers in the dark in terms of:

  • The intended audience.
  • Relevancy to buyers’ “jobs to be done.”
  • How the product or service uniquely solves their business problems.
  • Whether the messaging is to be believed at all.

After conducting scores of B2B message testing studies, we’ve seen the good, the bad, and the truly horrifying.

Here are some common messaging mistakes to avoid before you launch your next landing page, product marketing initiative, or content calendar.

Horror Story 1: It’s Unclear Who It’s For… And Who It’s NOT For.

Tech companies, powerful visionaries that they are, have a tendency to go really broad with their messaging. For example: “Your vision. Your Cloud.” Or: “Cloud for all.” But is it really for everyone?

B2B products and services are rarely intended for the use of any and all. Unfortunately, it’s rare for tech companies to make it immediately clear who their intended audience is.

Buyers shouldn’t have to work to figure out whether a product or service is relevant to them. B2B messaging should make it really obvious. Whose life will be made easier by this B2B solution? Use visuals, smart layouts, and clever formatting to make sure the eye is easily drawn to copy that identifies and speaks directly to key buyers.

Horror Story 2: It’s Not Written In The Voice of The Buyer(s).

Is your target buyer technical? Do you have someone technical on your marketing team?  You should. At least make sure you get someone technical to vet your messaging.

Technical buyers will lose confidence in your solution if the messaging gets the jargon wrong or strings random concepts together in a way that doesn’t make sense. Or if it skirts specifics and stays vague. (Also, technical buyers will be turned off by anything they consider “fluff.” They don’t like marketing buzzwords.)

Context matters. Don’t message in a vacuum. Do what you need to do to author, edit, and verify that you’re writing messaging that resonates with your key buyer personas.

Here’s a place where understanding your target buyers’ “jobs to be done” really comes in handy. You’ll score lots of brownie points if you can speak to the specific issues your solution solves for the intended buyer.

And remember, B2B buying decisions usually happen by committee. In other words, you need to convince a group of stakeholders, not just an individual.

Your B2B tech messaging should speak to all the key buyer personas involved in making the purchase decision- not just the end-user.

Horror Story 3: The Messaging Is Stranded From The Brand Strategy.

The goal isn’t just for the customer to remember the product. You also want them to remember the brand.

If your product is part of a larger suite of solutions, your messaging shouldn’t make it sound like an isolated offering.

Graphics are often an effective method of demonstrating that a particular solution or tool is part of a holistic suite of offerings.

Your B2B messaging strategy needs to connect the product or service back to the company.

Horror Story 4: It’s Poorly Written.

Bad grammar creates an unnecessary obstacle for communicating the relevance of your solution. Especially if your target buyers are non-native English speakers.

In our B2B message testing studies, we’ve watched scores of buyers use the bulk of their energy trying to parse out the intention behind our client’s initial attempt at messaging. This prevents customers from moving down the purchase funnel.

Make things as easy as possible on the buyer. Communicate clearly. Don’t make them work to figure out why it’s smart to buy your product or service.

So. Use complete sentences. Simplify your wording. Amplify your main message so that it’s the most noticeable thing on the page, the paragraph, etc. Only attempt to convey one idea per sentence. Make sure you can get through a sentence without having to take a breath when reading out loud. Shorten the sentence if you can’t. Edit. Edit a lot. (More on this here.)

Horror Story 5: There’s No Hierarchy of Emphasis.

Tech companies love listing the attributes of their product or service. Unfortunately, they often neglect to explain how these features solve problems for their target buyers.

Also, lists are just plain hard to read. Reading a list gets monotonous and boring. Which of the many adjectives is the reader supposed to remember? What’s the main point of the product? What makes it special?

Say you’ve got five key selling points. Please do not pack all five key points into one sentence or even one paragraph. That will mute the impact.

Instead, give each key point its own space and separate emphasis. Add in supporting points as needed. Make sure the supporting points strengthen the main idea, rather than sounding like isolated factors.

Strategic messaging requires a hierarchy of emphasis. Your marketing team needs to be clear on the main selling points of the solution and the supporting, secondary factors.

Readers are more likely to remember what is given the greatest emphasis. If everything has the same level of emphasis, readers may struggle to remember anything at all.

What do you want the main takeaways to be? Emphasize accordingly.

Horror Story 6: Unsubstantiated Boasts, Vague Terms, & Marketing Buzzwords.

During our market research studies, we’ve watched many B2B buyers grow suspicious over broad messaging claims.

Unless you have substantial, authoritative backup for making such a claim, shy away from declaring yourself “the best” or “the leading solution.”  When such lofty claims are made, we’ve noticed that B2B buyers often take it as a challenge to think of a brand with a better solution.

Further, to be blunt, messaging that reads like marketing wrote it puts many B2B buyers off.

B2B customers often take vague terminology as a red flag, as it may indicate that the solution is being pushed by a company who doesn’t understand how it will actually be used.

Further, marketing buzzwords tend to scare off technical buyers. These customers will only be convinced by brands that get what their day-to-day entails.

So, be as specific as possible. What does your solution actually do? How does it do it? How will it fit into the work of the buyer? Specifically, what value does it bring to your key customers?

Also, marketers, make sure to run your messaging by someone who is well-versed in the business and technical context of your target buyers.

The Takeaways

To summarize: don’t make your buyers work to figure out your solution’s relevancy and value-add.

Make sure your B2B messaging:

  • Identifies the intended audience. It should be very obvious who the solution was built for.
  • Is written in the voice of the buyer. Messaging needs to get the B2B buyers’ business and technical context right.
  • Connects to back to the brand strategy. Give the reader an easy pathway to related solutions and information.
  • Is easy to read. Pay attention to good grammar and avoid run-on sentences.
  • Has a hierarchy of emphasis. Be clear internally on the top 2-5 selling points you want the reader to take away. The main value-add should have the most space, visual draw, ink, etc.
  • Is specific. Avoid vague terms, unsubstantiated boasts, and marketing buzzwords. Explain how your solution accomplishes the benefits you’re boosting. Back up your claims.

Need some help with messaging strategy? We offer B2B messaging upgrades and

Special thanks to Senior Consultant Colleen Clancy, Senior Research Analyst Hercules Randolph IV, and Research Analyst Courtney Bae for advising on this piece. 

With custom market research and marketing services, Cascade Insights helps companies seize opportunities in the B2B technology sector. We work with everyone from enterprise tech stalwarts to up-and-comers in fields such as FinTech, MarTech, Health Tech, and more.

Tech Needs More Age Diversity

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Despite frequent public commitments to diversity, the tech industry isn’t kind to those over age 35.

What’s more, many don’t see a problem with that. Remember when Mark Zuckerberg famously claimed that “young people are just smarter”?

But, companies deprive themselves of the benefit of experience when they undervalue hiring and retaining workers who have made it passed their 20s.

Cascade Insights was recently asked to present our research on ageism by industry. During our study, we analyzed 9.45 million LinkedIn profiles.  Our analysis revealed that employees over the age of 35 are in the minority in the tech industry.

Our talk focused on our methodology, data, and findings about the rampant ageism in tech. Here, we would like to provide some more context for why age discrimination is depriving the industry of a plethora of talented workers and unduly undervaluing some of the sharpest minds in tech.

There is nothing that should limit those over 35 from having a job in tech. In fact, tech is worse off without them.

(We also presented our findings on the gender gap in tech. Check out our defense of women in tech reading list here.)

Age discrimination is detrimental to valuable members of the workforce.

Companies should not discount the benefit of experience when hiring, acquiring, & funding.

Millennials will not drag down the average age of the U.S. worker. In fact, it’s going to get grayer out there.

Diversity benefits companies by making them more likely to innovate and raise profits. 

 Older workers are more loyal, reducing turnover costs.

 How can we improve age diversity in tech? Here are some ideas.

For all of the above reasons, ageism in tech cannot simply be written off as older workers being less capable than their younger colleagues.            

This blog post is brought to you by Cascade Insights. With B2B focused market research and marketing services, Cascade Insights helps companies seize opportunities in the B2B technology sector.

In Defense of Women In Tech

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There have been attempts to justify the stark gender disparity in tech. But none of them are valid.

Cascade Insights was recently asked to present our findings on the gender gap in tech. More than 1 million LinkedIn profiles of employees of 50 major tech companies revealed how far the industry is from achieving gender parity.

Our talk focused on our research into the gender breakdowns of tech giants, so we weren’t able to go into much detail about why there is a gender gap in tech. We would like to clear up some common misconceptions with this reading list.

There is nothing in women’s nature, collective ambitions, or capabilities that make them less qualified than men in STEM fields. While there are mountains of evidence to back up this unequivocal statement, we’ve included a small sampling here.

(We also presented our findings on ageism in tech. Check out our defense of age diversity in tech here.) 

No, women are not genetically predisposed to lag in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM).

Prevalent stereotypes affect the evaluation of women’s STEM abilities.

Even in early education, implicit bias creates obstacles for girls in STEM.

And it keeps going. Science faculty judge women more harshly than men in higher education.

Implicit bias impedes women’s career advancement. Few women reach the C-Suite in corporate America.

Women are far less likely than men to hold leadership positions in tech companies. Thus, men are far more likely to control hiring, firing, raises, and promotions in the technology industry.

Not to mention the tech industry’s endemic sexual harassment which has prompted many women to leave.

So, bottom line…

The gender gap in tech cannot be written off as women being less capable or lacking the desire to have successful careers in STEM fields. There is no valid justification for the immense gender gap in tech.

Further, research shows that diversity actually benefits business. More diversity, more profits.

How can we do better on gender diversity in tech? Here are some ideas.

This blog post is brought to you by Cascade Insights. With B2B focused market research and marketing services, Cascade Insights helps companies seize opportunities in the B2B technology sector.

 

 

 

Creative Teams Need a Reliable Protector

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It’s not just newly-promoted, doe-eyed marketing managers who make serious management mistakes. Seasoned enterprise executives aren’t immune to expensive screw ups either. On the latest episode of the B2B Revealed Podcast, Herding Tigers author Todd Henry explained that mismanagement of creative teams leads to talent loss and companies that underperform compared to their peers. Henry shared some tips for conscientious creative leadership.

Creative Goals Need Business Results

Managers need to make sure their teams understand how their work affects the larger business goals of the company. This helps avoid an ego-driven company culture. Creative success should be measured in terms of business results.

“The reality is, for most of us, we engage in work that we don’t always love, we don’t always agree with necessarily, but it’s our job to get it done,” Henry said.

In a business setting, creatives need to be able to produce great work even when they don’t control the larger vision for the project.

Your Job Description Now Includes “Threading Needles”

Leaders need to understand how to build an environment where creativity thrives. According to Henry, that requires providing stability without getting near the border of Boredom Land. Without stability, the team will find itself working on the same problem over-and-over again, without every finishing the project. With too much stability, the team won’t feel creatively challenged. It’s the leader’s job to walk that fine line between stability and boredom.

To key elements of a great creative environment are:

  • Clear expectations.
  • An even playing field.
  • Protected time for creative cycles.
  • Stakeholders throughout the company who are invested in the creative team’s work.
  • A steady flow of exciting projects.

Is This Meeting Over?

 

Todd Henry teaches leaders and organizations how to establish practices that lead to everyday brilliance. He is the author of Herding Tigers.

Like it or not, meetings are a fact of life — especially on creative teams that depend on collaboration. Yet, even though we all wish we’d only have to sit in on useful meetings, the opposite is often true. That’s why at some point in all of our careers, we’ve all walked away from meetings scratching our heads and wondering, “Wait, what did we decide again?” Great creative leadership is about making this as uncommon as an enterprise company with no marketing vendors.

 

According to Henry, good leadership means being able to say, “Okay, this is the decision and now this meeting is over.” That’s true even if there are still 20 minutes left on the scheduled event. That kind of clear action is uncomfortable for people who don’t want to put their neck on the line for controversial or risky decisions, but is critical if your creatives are going to do effective work. Decisiveness eliminates confusion. Don’t less unnecessary meeting time detract from needed periods of creative focus.   

Chekhov vs. Chesterton

Focus on building a culture that fosters creativity, but in a way that doesn’t just seek to flip over tables and start from scratch every time. To illustrate this, Henry referenced two quotes.

“There exists in such a case a certain institution or law; let us say, for the sake of simplicity, a fence or gate erected across a road” Henry quoted G. K. Chesterton, the notable English writer. “The more modern type of reformer goes gaily up to it and says, ‘I don’t see the use of this; let us clear it away.’ To which the more intelligent type of reformer will do well to answer: ‘If you don’t see the use of it, I certainly won’t let you clear it away. Go away and think. Then, when you can come back and tell me that you do see the use of it, I may allow you to destroy it.’”

Then, in contrast, Henry pointed to a quote from Anton Chekhov, the famed Russian poet, who advises, “Remove everything that has no relevance to the story. If you say in the first chapter that there is a rifle hanging on the wall, in the second or third chapter it absolutely must go off. If it’s not going to be fired, it shouldn’t be hanging there.”  

A great creative leader knows how to balance these two extremes. They know that they shouldn’t just throw everything out because it doesn’t make sense, but they also know that they need to remove unnecessary distractions for their team. Finding that balance creates an environment that allows creatives to reach new heights.

Push Play to Expand Your View of Great Management

This interview with Henry was packed so full of valuable insights we couldn’t fit them all in one article. Listen to the episode for more on constructing a creative environment, best practices for managing a creative team, how to (smartly) give up control over decisions, the secret benefits of having a pet project, and some great book recommendations.

The B2B Revealed Podcast is brought to you by Cascade Insights, a market research firm specializing in B2B technology. Need more B2B expertise in your life? There are many ways to follow us.

Don’t Fear The Churn: Inside Sales Management

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Growth problems? Try treating your sales development reps (SDRs) like vital resources rather than cogs in a machine.

That’s the message from Trish Bertuzzi, the President of the Bridge Group, which she shared with Cascade Insights CEO Sean Campbell on the latest episode of the B2B Revealed Podcast.

Upend Your Expectations for How SDRs Should Work

Sharing insights from her book, The Sales Development Playbook, Bertuzzi demonstrates the connection between SDR job satisfaction and sales growth.

First off, it’s important to acknowledge that SDRs are put in a very difficult position.

As Bertuzzi says, “It’s a hard job, we make it harder by not giving them what they need to stay longer.” SDRs are provided with little training, the wrong tools, and are managed by people who expect the average tenure to last only about a year. It’s little surprise then that when SDRs outgrow their roles they also tend to outgrow the company.

Bertuzzi believes there’s a way to fix some of these key issues, to the benefit of both the SDRs and the organization as a whole.

Give SDRs the Freedom to Grow Into the Perfect Role

In order to improve the SDR work environment, Bertuzzi urges companies to give SDRs the freedom to grow, without expecting too much, too soon.

To do this, Bertuzzi is a big proponent of micro-promotions.

“Trish Bertuzzi is the Best Selling Author of The Sales Development Playbook and founder of The Bridge Group, Inc.”

“What we talk about in the book, and what we talk about with our clients is creating a learning culture and creating micro-promotions,” says Bertuzzi. That means getting rid of the system of of promoting SDRs to account executives after they’ve outgrown the introductory SDR role.

“If you’re an SDR1 you just do the SDR role, you’re an SDR2 maybe you get to start participating in discovery calls and even maybe running some of those discovery calls. You’re an SDR3 maybe you get to run with a couple small deals.”

By following this system, SDR’s responsibilities increase with their experience. Incremental changes in job title and compensation provide more of an incentive for SDRs to stick around.

Sharing from personal experience, Bertuzzi says that ultimately it’s “all about advancing them through a learning process that gives them the full set of skills they need to be successful.”

Equip Your Team with the Right Tools and Tactics

SDR success also depends on mastery of a few key communication skills.

Bertuzzi emphasizes that SDRs should have a solid grasp of how to use a phone and send effective emails.

While these skills can improve with training, it’s best to hire people with a natural inclination for the role from the start.
Bertuzzi describes how one company had SDR applicants spend a day shadowing the current team. After seeing what the job would really be like, only 50 percent of them continued to express interest in the role.

In all honesty, it did make recruiting more difficult. At the same time, it also meant that the people who were hired came in with a clear expectation of what the job would be like, making them more effective.

More SDR Wisdom

Listen to the full episode for more SDR answers, such as:

  • Where does the idea of “all bound” fit in a world of outbound vs. inbound?
  • Which is more effective: PACT (Pain, Authority, Consequence, Target-Profile) or BANT (Budget, Authority, Need, Time-Frame)?
  • What qualities should you be looking for when hiring for your SDR team?
  • What are some effective outreach tactics for phone, voicemail, and email?

The B2B Revealed Podcast is brought to you by Cascade Insights, a market research firm specializing in B2B technology. Need more B2B brilliance? There are many ways to follow us.

Narcissism: Marketing’s Nemesis

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B2B marketing has a vanity problem.

Too often, marketers go after the C-suite when it’s really a developer or marketing manager making the buying decisions. Marketers enumerate cumulative leads but forget to track how many actually brought in revenue. They become enamored with data without checking its validity and don’t push to understand the “why” behind the numbers.

On this episode of the B2B Revealed Podcast, Cascade Insights CEO Sean Campbell discussed measuring marketing ROI with Samantha Stone, author of Unleash Possible: A Marketing Playbook That Drives B2B Sales. Stone founded The Marketing Advisory Network and serves as the chief marketing officer.

Remember, marketing goals should also further the broader goals of the company. “A lot of the ways that marketers measure ourselves today really are not measurements of the business overall,” Stone said. “We do things like measure the number of leads that we create. But what really matters is whether those leads are converting to opportunities, revenue, and business and in the strategic markets that we want to go after.” 

Find Out How Long Buyers Linger In The Sales Funnel 

 

Since B2B buying is a group decision, Stone argues that B2B buyers are unlikely to skip stages in their buying process no matter how good your content or messaging is.

“One of the things that we need to start measuring is the impact of our programs on the amount of time that people spend in each of those stages- because we can influence that,” Stone said. “If we can break down and measure on average where different market segments are spending their time, we can start to create programs to help them move faster through that.”

These measurements can identify areas where potential buyers turn into “no’s.”

“A lot of companies that I work with find that they have a lot of people who see and trial their software and then they get stuck. They never move beyond that stage,” Stone said. “But there are things that marketing can do to help make that process different, so that we can make that trial efficiency better. We can make sure the right people are going into a trial. We can help them design a test during the trial period that’s actually going to surface our value in the right way.”

Samantha Stone, author of “Unleash Possible: A Marketing Playbook That Drives B2B Sales”

Check On How Adoption Went Post-Purchase

According to Stone, marketers should adopt accountability metrics around the adoption of technology.

“We want our customers to be customers for a long time,” Stone said. “And the only way they’re going to renew their contracts with us or buy additional products and services is if they use what they purchased the first time. Yet marketing tends to say, “The sale is closed, we’re not responsible for that anymore.””

Stone suggests measuring how long it takes the customer to go from purchase to adoption. Marketers should also devote some resources to making sure that customers are able to adopt the product or service quickly and easily. 

Turn Your Customers Into Advocates

Marketing, Stone explains, has a role to play in getting happy customers to spread the word.

Stone urges marketers to consider, “Once somebody has adopted our product or service, how do we make sure they’re going out to market and are writing reviews about us? Or sharing positive content with their networks? Or giving us referrals?”

Beware Of Overemphasizing Cumulative Lead Scoring

Conversion, adoption, and advocacy metrics give a much fuller picture of marketing success than looking at lead gen alone.

Content consumption does not necessarily lead to a sale, Stone warns.

“Oftentimes, a person who will come to your every educational web seminar and they will read all your blog posts and download all your white papers. But they may just be interested in the topic. They may have a competitive product that they’re already satisfied with, but your content is good. Or they may, in fact, have a need for your product but no budget to support it,” she said.

Look beyond the number of hits and examine the buyers’ behavior for clues of their intentions.

Stone offers this example:

“In a B2B environment, we’re selling to an organization, not just an individual person. We need to think about what activity across multiple people might signal.

So, I may have a single person who is doing a lot of work at a company and attends every web seminar and downloads every whitepaper. But maybe no one else at the company has ever participated in anything we’ve done.

If all of a sudden, I see four additional people’s activity spike at that same organization, this might tell me something. I might surmise that the person who had been doing that research all along slowly and quietly has finally got the attention of other people in the company and maybe there’s a real project happening.”

Know Who Is Really Making The Buying Decision

Many marketers get sidetracked by the executive who signs the check. They misguidedly throw the bulk of their resources to trying to woo the C-Suite when it’s actually quite rare for C-level executives to be the most influential in the decision to buy. Key buyer personas often have lower titles.

“The reality is it takes an incredible amount of effort to get the attention of a C-level executive. It’s a very expensive marketing and sales proposition. We have to be really measured about when we try and go after those folks… and make sure that there’s a real opportunity and a real influence that they need to have on the buying process,” Stone said. “Our resources are much better used towards other folks when the C-level executive is really not involved.”

Drama With Data

While marketing metrics mishaps often involve a fair amount of hubris, sometimes the data simply leads marketers astray. Stone cautioned against relying on incomplete or bad data.

As more and more data becomes available to marketers, Stone advises balancing quantitative research with qualitative ones. “Quantitative research is very valuable. I do a lot of that work for clients and for my own practice and my own learning. But it doesn’t explain why something is happening. We have to take the time to learn that. Sometimes that means we have to apply qualitative processes to the hypothesis we’ve gained from the data,” Stone said.

Behavioral habits don’t always fit neatly into a spreadsheet. Don’t allow your data to reduce people to algorithms that erase their flawed humanity.

“When I look at a spreadsheet or I see a chart, I don’t see the person anymore. I don’t see the individual anymore. I only see the summary of the data about that individual,” Stone said. “There’s a risk in losing sight of the fact that people are emotional and don’t always make rational decisions. We need to make sure that we… really understand what’s underlying.”

Metrics That Matter

While in times past, the primary function of marketing may have been to raise awareness and literally get customers in the door, marketing is responsible for much more of the sales funnel in the Internet age.

“We have the opportunity to change what we measure to actually influence the entire purchase process by which [customers] adopt our solutions or services. And then, hopefully, we help them become advocates,” Stone said. “Marketing has a responsibility to be able to do that. But the only way that marketing can take that responsibility is if we stop holding them accountable to vanity metrics that are not actually driving the business.” 

Listen to the full episode for more insight on flawed data sets, company leaders’ responsibility to content creation, and good measurements of marketing success.

The B2B Revealed Podcast is brought to you by Cascade Insights, a market research firm specializing in B2B technology. Need more B2B brilliance? There are many ways to follow us.

Spend Wisely: LinkedIn Marketing Tips

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The lure of LinkedIn’s vast amount of business data makes it an attractive advertising asset… if you know what you’re doing. Ill-informed LinkedIn marketing campaigns can cost you big-time.

AJ Wilcox is the founder of B2Linked, a LinkedIn ad agency.

On this episode of the B2B Revealed Podcast, Cascade Insights CEO Sean Campbell interviewed B2Linked Founder AJ Wilcox on how best to leverage LinkedIn to reach B2B audiences. B2Linked is an advertising agency that specializes in LinkedIn ads.

The key benefit of advertising on LinkedIn is its business targeting capabilities. “Here’s the dirty secret of LinkedIn: they absolutely have a monopoly on business data,” Wilcox said. “You can target people by their job title, by what department they sit in, their level of seniority in the organization, individual skills they have listed in their profile, groups they are members of, their education level, what degree they got, what school they went to, their company size, their company name, company industry. It just goes on and on.”

When Should You Spend On LinkedIn?

LinkedIn advertising is rather pricey though. For this reason, it’s not always a great fit for companies’ advertising goals. LinkedIn advertising is worth it, Wilcox said, if the target audience is shaped by some professional criteria and the transaction or relationship the ad is designed to prompt is worth thousands.

“You’ve got to make a lot of money off of the deal to make LinkedIn worth it. The reason why is because clicks on LinkedIn usually cost somewhere between about $6-9 on average whereas similar clicks on Facebook might cost $.80-1.50,” said Wilcox. “The line in the sand that I draw is if you’re going to make $15,000 or more from either the lifetime of the deal or that initial deal size, then LinkedIn’s an absolute no-brainer.”

Which Type of Ad Is Right For My Campaign?

Sponsored Content

LinkedIn offers a variety of advertising options. Wilcox favors sponsored content, the ads that run in the LinkedIn newsfeed. “These work really well because they are the highest interaction ad that LinkedIn has,” he said. “By “highest interaction” I mean on average, about a third of a percent of every time it’s shown it’s going to get clicked on.”

Text Ads

Text ads, Wilcox explained, show up far less frequently and are only visible from desktop. The latter may be an asset if the landing page your ad directs to doesn’t look great on mobile. But, think carefully before investing in text ads when sponsored content boasts much higher engagement.

“[Text ads] have a much lower, like 12 times lower, engagement rate,” Wilcox warned. “In order to drive enough traffic and leads from that ad unit to even make it worth running, you have to have a really big audience you’re going after.

InMail

Whereas sponsored content and text ads charge a cost-per-click, sponsored InMail has a fee-per-send. “There’s no guarantee that someone’s going to open it, let alone click on it, let alone convert. You’re going to pay just for having it in their box,” Wilcox cautioned.

But sponsored InMail does have its benefits. “A really cool factor here to keep in mind is that once you send someone an InMail, that LinkedIn member is ineligible to receive another one for 60 days, a 2-month period,” Wilcox said. “You know that none of your competitors can steal that inventory from you for a whole two months.”

The key to a successful InMail campaign, Wilcox explained, is an enticing offer. Beware, whitepapers and e-books won’t cut it.

Tailor the offer specifically, and keep it interesting. You don’t want to be mistaken for spam.

“The offers that we’ve found work really well are things like employment. “We want to reach out to you and ask you to apply for this position because you look like a good fit,” Wilcox said. “Or, “There’s an in-person event that we want to personally invite you to,” or, “Because of your standing in the industry, we’re really curious about your thoughts around this new platform. We want to give you free access to it.” Those types of offers are really, really attractive, and are probably going to get someone to engage.”

Become A LinkedIn Legend

  • Listen to the full-episode for how to get the audience, message, & offer right, gauging the success of the ad, and best practices for images and links.
  • Download the free 8-point checklist that B2Linked uses for LinkedIn advertising campaigns.

The B2B Revealed Podcast is brought to you by Cascade Insights, a market research firm specializing in B2B technology. Need more B2B brilliance? There are many ways to follow us.

B2B PR: The Blurring of Business & Politics

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In the age of social media, big data, and CEO activism, public relations best practices are evolving.

Nicole Rodrigues, the founder and CEO of NRPR Group, dropped by the B2B Revealed podcast to discuss B2B PR with Cascade Insights CEO Sean Campbell. Rodrigues has more than 17 years of experience in public relations and social media marketing. She is a member of the Forbes Agency Council and sits on the board of The Organization of American Women In Public Relations.

Nicole Rodrigues is the founder and CEO of NRPR Group.

Rodrigues prefers to emphasize organic audiences, but she acknowledges the growing need to pay for visibility. “I’m not huge on the pay to play stuff because I do truly believe that organic is where it’s at,” she said. “Organic is where you’re getting the honest third-party validation.”

However, formerly free options increasingly come with a price tag. Rodrigues explained that writers for popular sites used to appreciate being alerted to news items by PR folks. These days, they charge for a write-up. “Before it was like, “Great, you have news. Let’s talk.” And now it’s, “Well, but do you have money to sponsor this?”,” Rodrigues lamented. “There are great sites that people are reading …like Huffington Post nowadays. Some of these writers are like, “Yeah, I really love this product but I’m an independent writer so I’m going to charge $500 for it.” Then you have to go back to the client and say that.”

Companies that don’t already command huge audiences should expect to pay for media attention, good search rankings, brand awareness, etc. “It’s a necessary evil nowadays,” said Rodrigues. “It really stinks but it is what it is. If that’s what it takes to build up your reputation, then sometimes you just have to do it.”

Campbell and Rodrigues also discussed the increasing blurring of business and politics. As we are living in an era of CEO activism, it’s becoming more and more difficult to keep politics out of business. But how should company leaders gauge when to speak up and when to stay silent?

Rodrigues advises against simply hopping on the latest viral news item. Instead, company leadership should be guided by their core values and the social practices they’ve actually implemented in their own organizations. She gave this example: “Say you want to share your policies on discrimination and say, “We want everyone to know that we believe in equal pay and equal rights. By the way, 67 percent of the workforce at our company is female and they make the majority of the money.””

Authenticity is key. Are you sharing an opinion on a value you’ve actually put into practice? Or are you just jumping on a trending hashtag? “You can tell surface level and you can tell soul,” Rodrigues said.

Rodrigues urged caution in using the company platform to advocate for social issues that may offend your workforce or clients. “Your company is bigger than you are,” she said. “You have to look at the benefit of the company. If what you’re going to say could possibly have a negative effect on your company, then I say you need to keep your opinions to yourself and remain neutral.”

More PR Pro Tips

Listen to the full episode for more guidance on when and how to weigh in on politics, reputation building, coordinating PR & marketing efforts, and more.

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Shoot For The Moon (Within Reason)

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Asking for a raise, advocating an idea, seeking information, making a sales pitch, collaborating… Without realizing it, most of us engage in negotiations every day, multiple times a day.

It can be a struggle to articulate what you want in a way that will result in the desired outcome. So, we interviewed an expert on negotiation tactics for tips on improving both daily interactions and big asks.

In this episode, Cascade Insights CEO Sean Campbell chats with Kwame Christian, a business lawyer and the director of the American Negotiation Institute. Christian hosts Negotiate Anything the “the top-ranked negotiation and dispute-resolution podcast in the nation.” He is also known for his popular TEDx Talk, Finding Confidence in Conflict.

Kwame Christian, director of the American Negotiation Institute, host of the Negotiate Anything podcast, & business lawyer

“My definition of a negotiation is anytime… somebody in a conversation wants something,” Christian said. Obviously, this applies to much of our daily lives.

Unfortunately, many people don’t realize when they’re in the midst of a negotiation. “One of the biggest barriers people face in negotiation is that they have very poor negotiation awareness. They don’t know that they’re in negotiations,” Christian explained. “Imagine if you’re a boxer and your form is perfect, everything’s great, but you don’t know when a fight starts. That would be very problematic. So, one of the things that I want people to understand is that negotiation is all around you. As you raise your awareness, you’re going to see opportunities to either get more of what you want, avoid things that you don’t want, and strengthen relationships in every conversation you have.”

One of the most important negotiation tactics to master is knowing when to speak and when to listen. “Negotiation is an information game,” Christian said. “The more knowledge and information you have, the better able you are to create deals that are favorable for both sides and could work.”

Whoever has the most information should do the most talking. “Whenever they have more information than you, you sit back and let them make the first offer. Whenever you have more information than them, then you make the first offer,” Christian stated.

In salary negotiations especially, Christian advised letting the employer make the first offer. To illustrate, he gave this example:

“[They ask] “Hey, Sean. What would you like to make?” Then you say, “I’d like to make $100,000.” They’re like, “Oh, absolutely. Let’s do it.” Then you know you’ve made a mistake. That didn’t hurt. There was no question. Now you know that you were well within the range. In that situation, the employer has more information than the prospective employee. They know the budget, they know the industry better than you in most circumstances. So, you don’t want to make a mistake by speaking first.”

But, when you are coming to the negotiations with the most information, Christian emphasized that you should make the opening offer. This technique is called “anchoring.” “In a nutshell, anchoring is starting the negotiation with the most aggressive ask that you can reasonably justify,” Christian explained.

Opening with the best-case-scenario ask requires the immediate consideration of your most desirable outcome. “When it comes to negotiation, the first number that is stated is going to serve as a reference point for the rest of the negotiation,” Christian continued. “Everything else is going to be compared to that initial anchor. Study after study has shown that the higher you anchor, the more favorable your outcomes.”

Keep in mind, your request should still be in the realm of reasonable possibility. Wild, over-the-top requests are likely to derail the negotiation. So, shoot for the moon (within reason).

Become a Master Negotiator

  • Listen to the full episode for how to reject the idea but not the person, the importance of confidence, when to use positive vs. negative incentives, and other negotiation tactics.
  • Check out our episode on how to get good outcomes when Delivering Bad News.
  • Download Christian’s free negotiation guides.

Need more B2B brilliance? There are many ways to follow us.