The idea of going from zero leads to closed-won with nothing but a phone – and actually scaling a startup that way – is central to the lore of the tenacious pipeline building and to “if I could do that then, imagine what we can do now” pep talks everywhere. The problem? It’s rapidly becoming obsolete. Unless you price your offering at upward of around $200K per year, hiring live salespeople to find and close deals is simply unaffordable. Scaling a startup simply doesn’t work that way anymore, especially cloud software products whose average deal prices don’t economically support more then short tele-sales calls, at best.

Let’s talk about why that is, and why, today, success for growth-minded startup CXOs now hinges around one key objective: building an automated lead generation outreach system with verticalized messaging – and executing it at scale.

COVID changes the calculus on scaling startups

A few years ago, if you asked a startup sales rep what their highest-return lead gen methods were, two likely answers would have been:

• Lone-wolf prospecting culminating in picking up the phone for a smile-and-dial
• Hitting the conference circuit and engaging face-to-face

Then, in 2020…well, you know what happened. “Post-COVID New Normal” discussions are nothing new, but the pandemic’s impact on startup lead gen was so massive we can’t ignore it here. In February of 2020, conferences were a blast, and a wellspring of leads; by April, they’d been slapped with the much-maligned label of “superspreader event.” And with everyone working from home, business-appropriate phone numbers aren’t always available, making cold-calling even more of an uphill battle than it already was. In the cloud software space, all of this converged with a downward trend in price points, which have now gotten so low that one-prospect-at-a-time cold calling no longer scales profitably.

In the aftermath of this shift, the B2B customer journey has migrated almost entirely to the internet – and it will probably stay there regardless of the virology outlook going forward. After all, following the customer journey is much faster and more efficient when it happens online. For one thing, it can be automated; for another, without the time, money, and effort required to host and travel to conferences, it’s much cheaper and less intensive. We’ve talked to several CROs who say their days on the road are over, as they’ve become so much more productive closing business by digital means.

This represents a fundamental change in the way startups will scale from here on out, and there will certainly be some growing pains (more on that in a moment). But it’s not necessarily as daunting as it sounds. Yes, the internet is a big place – but when it comes to B2B lead generation, the good news is that a plethora of on- and offline lead sources converge on only a few relevant online touchpoints – and it’s at these key touchpoints where most B2B customer journeys will either start or end:

• Landing pages fed by SEO and nurture tracks
• LinkedIn ads, connection requests, and / or InMails
• Cold and nurture emails
• Paid and/or organic search results

Figure 1 is a detailed breakdown of most common B2B lead sources to be leveraged in the company’s verticalized messaging, with all ending up in the same handful of digital channels (more below).

With just about all B2B traffic funneling into this handful of online channels, it’s not too hard for startups to make their digital lead generation efforts both effective and efficient. Which brings us to…

Verticalized messaging, 2022 style

Verticalized messaging is, of course, not a new concept – but the way companies typically approach it has two major flaws that won’t stand in the fully digital post-COVID era. First, its deployment often relies on live, initial contact, which isn’t viable anymore, especially for lower-priced offerings. Second, companies too often treat it as an afterthought – marketing teams might draw up some rough notes about how to message to different verticals, but they often don’t take the time to build out a meticulous verticalized messaging framework in advance.

With digital marketing and selling, starting a customer’s journey without tuning your messaging to their precise needs will lead to lower click-through and conversion rates and thus a lower volume of good quality leads coming off the Internet. If you move forward without a scalable plan in place to verticalize your messaging, you’ll end up underwater. But if you take the time to build a robust plan up front, you’ll start scaling in no time.

So why is verticalized messaging so pivotal today? It’s really quite simple: In a fully online lead-gen paradigm, a one-size-fits-all approach to messaging will not work. In the pre-COVID days, back when it was easy to phone a lead directly or chat one-on-one at a conference, there was no need for the messaging deployed in those conversations to be particularly flexible. The audience was n-of-1 – as long as you spoke to the needs of the person you were talking to, you’d be alright. And a good sales person could work that out on the fly.

Today, lead generation is no longer a one-on-one conversation. It’s search engine ads, LinkedIn ads or invites, email blasts, and other digital channels – all seen by hundreds or thousands of people. That larger audience will consist of diverse segments of buyer personas, and you’ll need to have the tools, assets, and mechanisms in place to speak to all of them – with specific messaging and value propositions that relate to them. To successfully scale pipelines and grow startups today, then, you’ll need to automate the verticalization of your messaging.

Here’s what a high-level action plan for verticalized messaging should look like:

1. Build out value props and precision segmentation
   Your first steps are to establish your value propositions, break your ideal customer profiles (ICPs) into precise segments, and map them all together. If you’re a healthcare software company, for example, which ICPs will resonate with your product’s ability to ensure regulatory compliance? Which will instead resonate with other benefits like accelerated data entry?
   Pro tip: A 2D grid, with value props on the X axis and ICPs on the Y axis, is a great way to lay this out visually.
2. Develop and incorporate assets
   Now that you’ve mapped your value props to your ICPs, it’s time to identify the channels you’ll leverage to deploy the right messages to the right people. The biggest lift here is up-front content production. How many landing pages will you need to produce? How many LinkedIn ads? Your 2D grid is now 3D, with each cell identifying a verticalized asset that incorporates the three considerations of lead channel, value prop, and ICP: A LinkedIn ad focused on regulatory benefits for Compliance personas, a landing page focused on accelerated data entry for end users, and so on.
3. Execute at scale
   You now have everything you need to deploy your messaging in a robust, verticalized, and automated way – to a much larger audience than your sales reps would ever have been able to reach via lone-wolf prospecting. Once your message is out in the world, don’t forget about essential post-launch tasks like campaign management and performance metrics, both of which are essential to making optimizations based on early results.

There’s no denying it: This will take some planning and preparatory work. But it will also empower you to maximize both the effectiveness and the efficiency of your messaging, leaving little doubt that the investment will pay off. As Anna Courval, V.P. of Marketing at Afterburner, puts it, building a scalable and automated verticalized messaging plan “has been a game-changer for us. It’s allowed us to find a clear path to our revenue goals for the year.”

Modern verticalized messaging in action 

How this plays out in real-world scenarios will, of course, vary – and may get a bit more complicated depending on the needs and realities of the company in question. Below is an example of how scalable and automated verticalized messaging played out for a startup in the crypto space. As with any company operating in a still-burgeoning space, views of their business ranged from enthusiasm to skepticism to confusion. This made for a wide array of buyer personas, requiring the company to develop a wide array of tailored messages to kick off the customer journey.

Step 1

The company started by mapping out the various buyer personas they’d target (Figure 1). They took a hierarchical approach, first breaking down their market into Existing Customers and Net-New Bookings, then further segmenting the buyers within each category. Within the Existing Customers category, the segmentation was pretty simple – but for Net-New Bookings, the company leveraged demographic, firmographic, and psychographic attributes to create much more detailed and precise personas.

Once that was done, the company mapped each persona to the value props they’d developed, creating a 2D matrix indicating which personas would receive which message or messages.

Figure 2: Ideal customer profiles (ICPs) broken out into precise segments with matching value props (Example shown)

Step 2

It was then time to add the third dimension to the matrix by identifying their digital messaging channels (Figure 1 above). Here, too, they took a hierarchical approach, first dividing their lead gen into Inbound and Outbound channels, and then assigning specific channels to each of those categories – SEM, LinkedIn, and email for Outbound; SEO, chat boxes, and “Contact Us” forms for Inbound. And because traditional, pre-COVID methods haven’t lost all of their value, they also made space for Sales-driven lead gen.

Step 3

Finally, it was time to think about content. The company identified the assets that would need to be produced for each persona (Figure 3 below) and got to work developing those assets, making sure each one messaged the right value props to the right personas. Figure 3 is about mapping customer touchpoints to ICPs, while Figure 4 is about the verticalized messaging component of an automated lead gen outreach system is mapping value props to ICPs, and Figure 5 highlights a planning matrix of content assets to be developed for the targeted ICPs:

Figure 3: Mapping digital touchpoints to ICPs is a critical aspect of verticalized messaging (Example shown)

Figure 4: The verticalized messaging component of an automated lead gen outreach system maps value props to ICPs (Example shown)

Figure 5: Part of the inventory of content assets to be developed for various ICPs (Example shown)

When they were done, the company had everything they needed to deploy precise verticalized messaging at scale. For each ICP, they knew which value props to message, and the content assets and digital channels they’d leverage to do so.

You can no longer accelerate your growth without planning

People like to think of the early days of a startup as scrappy: a small team, with few resources but a lot of fire under their feet, getting on the phone and making things happen. Taking the time to think things through in detail and making sure all the pieces are in place to achieve your goal doesn’t exactly jibe with the ethos of moving fast and breaking things. But today, it’s truly the only way to scale.

To be clear: This is good news. Once those pieces are in place, things will move faster than ever. Startups who try to scale the old way might think they’re moving fast, but they’ll hit a wall before too long. Startups who build the necessary infrastructure to launch a scalable verticalized messaging plan – and automate it – are the ones who will see accelerated growth in 2022 and beyond.

The post Verticalized Messaging at Scale – Key to Effective Digital Lead Generation appeared first on Premonio.

Lon Baker, Chief Operating Officer, VirtualPBX

VirtualPBX Wins with Premonio

• 30% projected YoY revenue growth 
• 4 consecutive months of surpassed revenue goals – and counting
• Smarter planning with Premonio’s Sankey, Budget Optimization, and KPI tools

VirtualPBX is a private branch exchange provider serving both remote and in-person professional teams across a wide variety of business areas. After partnering with Premonio, they were able to turbo-charge their growth through smarter revenue planning and more targeted optimization.

Challenge: Make a Clear Plan for an Ambitious Goal

The leadership team at VirtualPBX had set an ambitious goal for year-over-year revenue growth from 2021 to 2022. But although they had a steady stream of incoming business on the strength of a powerful product suite and strong service, monthly metrics showed they weren’t growing as fast as their goal demanded. If they were to hit their target for the new year, something would need to change.

The issue had nothing to do with their team’s sales acumen or their product, but instead stemmed from a lack of early visibility into the kind of resources, time, and personnel they would need to hit their goal. During the planning stage, they had relied upon homegrown spreadsheets, but these were insufficient for handling the myriad factors and variables they would need to account for to stay on track. They had also partnered with a software vendor, but had a negative experience both with the product and with that company’s leadership.

Solution: Partner with Premonio

The team decided to leverage Premonio’s Growth Architecting system, combining the “GOALS” tool and consulting services to kick their revenue growth into a higher gear and create a comprehensive implementation blueprint toward their 2022 goal. One of the resources they leveraged was Premonio’s budget optimization tool, which projects what a team’s budget will produce under current conditions and practices, shows the maximum the budget could produce if optimized, and prescribes the specific optimizations necessary to achieve that maximum.

In the budget optimization stage, VirtualPBX discovered they could additionally increase their revenue by revamping their lead generation model – in particular, by reducing their investment in SEM and reallocating those funds to LinkedIn-based lead generation and organic inbound efforts. They used Premonio’s Sankey graphical output to map out, in detail, how much they would need to take out, or put into, each channel, and how that would impact their revenue.

Once the changes were in place, the team used Premonio’s KPI tool to ensure that if any further optimization were necessary, they would know quickly. The tool enabled the team to pull early-funnel leading indicator metrics that would illuminate specific problems, such as an underperforming lead channel or lower-than-expected conversion rates, while it was still early enough in the quarter to fix them and get back on track to hit their number.

Results: Record-Setting Growth

VirtualPBX implemented Premonio’s growth architecting system in June of 2021. In the many months since then, they have not only hit, but surpassed each of their monthly targets. In fact, in every month since June, they have set a company record for monthly revenue, through a combination of net-new business and renewals from happy customers. 

“Premonio’s experience, process, and tools helped us develop a deeper understanding of our business and develop a plan to accelerate our growth,” said Lon Baker, Chief Operating Officer at VirtualPBX. “Premonio’s team was incredibly talented and focused on helping us achieve our accelerated goals. Overall, Premonio is unlike any company I have worked with in the past and we will leverage their offering moving forward.”

So far, the company is tracking to grow more than 30% this year, and are well on their way to 50%. This shows the power of using growth architecting to back up revenue forecasts with clearer visibility, better accounting for variables, and more granular planning. 

About VirtualPBX

VirtualPBX develops powerful communication solutions for SMBs through Voice, Video, and SMS. Enjoy professional features like Auto Attendant, Ring Groups, Zapier Integration, and full-featured Web Phone with every plan. Upgrade to Video Calling, Business SMS, Call Recording, AWS External Storage, and more as needed. VirtualPBX supports office phones and personal devices in all its phone plan features. Award-winning SIP Trunking and networking services are also available from this San Jose-based business. Learn more about VirtualPBX here: https://www.virtualpbx.com

The post VirtualPBX Carves a Clear Path to Strong Growth with Premonio appeared first on Premonio.

At MarqetU, we can help you develop engaging and authentic video content to attract, engage, and delight your prospects and customers. To get started with your video marketing strategy, start by developing a video content plan:

There are many types of video content that can be leveraged to attract and retain customers in different stages of the customer lifecycle. Some of the types of video formats that you can leverage for your B2B technology startup include:

1. Brand Videos: Showcase your products, services, your mission, and your vision in a brand video. You can use this video in the about section of your company’s LinkedIn page, as a pinned/introduction video on your YouTube channel, and on your website landing pages. We made this video recently for our website along similar lines.
2. How-to Videos: You can create how-to videos or how-to series to help your audience with education about topics that they need help with. For example, we recently developed a video about automating lead generation for our LinkedIn.
3. Product Explainers: These videos can be used to help your audience build a foundational knowledge of your business and solutions. Your sales and service teams may also use these videos as tools as they work with customers. You can develop a series for your YouTube channel where each video explains a different functionality or use case for your product.
4. Interviews: If you know an expert whose ideas could be informative for your audience then it may be time to set up a chat and interview them. This type of video content will also help you establish credibility in areas that your customers are looking for advice on. 44% of businesses say that informative videos receive the most engagement online. For example, Lukas Haensch from Pathmonk recently invited us for an interview about thought leadership and demand generation on his LinkedIn podcast.
5. Customer Testimonial Videos: If you have customers that are willing to speak about how they benefited from your product or service, developing a series of testimonial videos could help new customers make the purchase decision. Testimonial videos are great for not just establishing credibility but also demonstrating actual use cases for which your product or service has been used.
6. Live Videos: This type of video content works really when you want to capture live events, start a live dialogue with your customers, interview an expert, or even host a Q&A session. Platforms like LinkedIn and YouTube will also send out a notification to your followers/subscribers when you go live to help attract eyeballs.

Now that we’ve learned about a few types of video content, let’s talk about the steps you can take to create your first video.

Scripting videos:

Irrespective of whether you’re shooting a quick video or an elaborate interview, writing a script will bring structure to your video content and save a lot of time at the editing table. Develop your script in the form of a word doc consisting of a table with two columns – one column for the shot by shot description of the audio portion of your video and one for the description of the visual portion. Below is an example of how we used this format to write a script for one of our videos:

Writing a script as opposed to recording extempore, will enable you to get feedback from your team members and also stick to the time limit. The ideal duration for your video content varies depending on the platform that you’re posting on and the topic of your video.  

Remember to close your script with a strong call to action. A call to action ensures that your audience is directed to the next step you would like them to take – Do you want them to like, subscribe, and/or comment? Do you want them to check out the link to a new product? 

Choosing the platform:

The right platform can elevate your video marketing strategy, but the wrong platform can destroy it. Think about your buyer personas and goals before deciding where to post your videos. Some of the options are LinkedIn, YouTube, Facebook, Instagram etc. Once you’ve selected the platform you will be sharing on, you can always cross-promote the link from that platform on the accounts of your other platforms. For example, you can easily share the link to your YouTube video on LinkedIn.

Shooting the video:

On the day of the shoot, get ready for the camera. You can wear whatever dress code is acceptable in your industry and your customer’s industry but remember to look professional. Clean up and wear something that won’t blend into the background (no white shirts against a white wall :). Choose a spot that is well-lit. Look into the camera and maintain a personable tone.

There are a lot of different cameras and peripheral equipment that you can use to shoot videos. However, we recommend getting started with a basic setup like the front camera of your mobile phone or mounting your phone on top of a make-shift tripod i.e. anything that will hold your phone and keep it stable while you record. You can also use the webcam of your laptop for the shoot.

Another great way to shoot a video is using the record feature on a video conferencing app like Zoom or Google Meet. This setup is especially useful for product demos or instructional videos where you may need to share your screen.

Remember to look into the camera and keep it conversational. Make sure that all your footage is shot in the same orientation i.e. horizontal v/s vertical. Most platforms including LinkedIn and YouTube favor the horizontal or landscape orientation.

Editing the video:

Most marketers will agree that shorter content, while tougher to create, is more effective and engaging as compared to longer videos. To edit your footage, use free video editing platforms like iMovie (iOS users) or others mentioned in this Shopify blog post. Next, remember to caption your videos. 85% of social media videos are now watched with no sound. If possible, include images and infographics that will aid visual interpretation for your audience even when their audio is switched off. We have used YouTube studio to trim, blur, and subtitle our videos before and it worked great! Learn how to use YouTube studio here.

Now that we have your process in place, what should you be adding (if at all) to your Shopping list to succeed at video marketing?

To create great video content, you don’t need a great set up you just need a set up. However, here are some of the easy to use resources that we recommend:

Recording yourself: Your phone can record good quality audio and video and even help you edit it. We often use iMovie on the iPhone to edit and subtitle our videos. Android users can download one of these free video editing software apps for the same.

Recording your screen for a demo video: Windows users can use the instructions in this video or use the Xbox Game Bar in Windows 10 to start capturing your screen and your voice for a product demo or an instructional video. Mac users can use the QuickTime player which is already installed on your mac to record your screen and voice.

Editing: You can edit your videos using iMovie on a mac or any of these free video editing software products. Like we mentioned earlier, YouTube studio is a pretty good platform for editing your video even if you intend to share the video via another platform. Just download the edited version of your video from YouTube studio and publish the file via your platform of choice.

A study by Heinz Marketing found that 68 percent of organizations plan to increase their investment in video marketing in 2020. If you’re looking to engage new and existing customers with exciting video content, feel free to please reach out to us on LinkedIn, Twitter, at info@marqetu.com, or call (001) (650) 727-0983.

Additional resources from MarqetU about video publishing are:

1. https://marqetu.com/b2b-tech-marketing-community-weekly-newsletter-sept-12-2020/
2. https://marqetu.com/telling-your-story-via-video/

The post The end-to-end DIY video cookbook appeared first on Premonio.

So we wanted to share our own experience in creating fun, low-budget videos that tell your story, especially on LinkedIn, which is fast becoming the most trusted social media platform for B2B marketers. Since we are in the process of developing some quick and engaging video content for the LinkedIn audience, we realized our research may help you utilize LinkedIn’s native videos too.

So what is the difference between videos shared from platforms like YouTube, Vimeo etc. and LinkedIn’s native videos? Unlike shared video content, which requires an initial upload to YouTube prior to sharing from a link, native videos can be uploaded directly into the LinkedIn video feed.

Why LinkedIn video and not another platform like YouTube?

LinkedIn has a very engaged user base with 40% of LinkedIn’s engaged users accessing the platform on a daily basis. It is better to upload your videos directly on LinkedIn as opposed to sharing a YouTube link because the LinkedIn algorithm gives native videos more weight. This means that native videos show up more often in the feed than a video that was uploaded on another platform and then shared on LinkedIn.

Appearing more often in front of your LinkedIn audience can help you increase brand awareness and loyalty with B2B decision makers and influencers on the platform. In fact, 38% marketers use LinkedIn video and 75% of them believe that LinkedIn videos are effective.

To make a video LinkedIn native, you can upload your video from the same area in the newsfeed page that you generally use to write posts.

In this post, you will find a quick end-to-end guide to developing and sharing LinkedIn native videos that covers steps like messaging, scripting, shooting, editing, and promoting your videos.

Defining your message, scripting, and call to action:

Like it is in case of all types of content, LinkedIn videos should be well-thought out, catchy, crisp, and easy to find and consume. Each piece of video content can be structured using a defined message, a script, and a call to action.

To define the message, ask yourself “What do we want the audience to take away from this video?” Keep this message at the center of your script. Some types of video content that you could create for your B2B audience include an introductory video about what your company does, quick chats with employees that are strong advocates for your company, instructional videos about your product etc.

Once you’ve decided your messaging, write a script to ensure that your message can be communicated clearly. Irrespective of whether you’re shooting a quick video or an elaborate interview, writing the script will bring structure to your video content and save a lot of time at the editing table. Develop your script in the form of a word doc consisting of a table with two columns- one column for the shot by shot description of the audio portion of your video and one for the description of the visual portion. Below is an example of how we used this format to write a script for one of my videos:

Writing a script as opposed to recording extempore, will also enable you to get feedback from your team members before you shoot.

Next, close your script with a strong call to action. A clear and strong call to action ensures continued engagement in the form of LinkedIn comments from your audience. These comments may also be a good source of ideas for future videos.

Shooting your video:

Marketers are increasingly realizing the value of the quality of message over the production value of videos. Get started with a basic setup like the front camera of your mobile phone or mounting your phone on top of a make-shift tripod i.e. anything that will hold your phone and keep it stable while you record.

Another great way to shoot a video is using the record feature on a video conferencing app like Zoom or Google Meet. This setup is especially useful for product demos or instructional videos where you may need to share your screen.

As for your look, dress casual or formal based on your brand image. Remember to look into the camera and keep it conversational. We also recommend shooting horizontally because LinkedIn automatically transforms a vertical video to the horizontal format after upload. However, if you’ve already got some good footage vertically, don’t fret. Shoot the rest of the video vertically and maintain uniformity.

Editing your video:

Most marketers will agree that shorter content, while tougher to create, is more effective and engaging than long videos. I had previously shared similar opinions from a Silicon Valley marketing community meet up here.

So, how long should the video be? While LinkedIn allows the upload of videos anywhere between 30 seconds and 10 minutes, videos that are one to three minutes long are known to perform the best.

For editing your footage, use free video editing platforms like iMovie (iOS users) or others mentioned in this Shopify blog post. Next, remember to caption your videos. 85% of social media videos are now watched with no sound. Not just that, make sure to include images and infographics that will aid visual interpretation for your audience even when their audio is switched off.

Sharing and Promoting:

Once you’re satisfied with your edit, upload the video on LinkedIn with a supporting copy, relevant tags and hashtags, and a link to your website/product in the description.

For the supporting copy, describe your video using 150 characters or lower. The supporting copy sets the context for the video and piques the interest of your audience. Including a relevant link in the copy makes it easier for your audience to find out more about your brand if they decide to do so after watching your video. Based on the topic of your video, remember to use appropriate hashtags and tag any relevant companies or people you’ve mentioned in your video. This will help you get your content in front of people beyond your immediate network.

Finally, continue to engage with your audience by replying to their comments under the video. Commenting with updates or other related links under your post even after people have already engaged with the post helps you cover multiple facets of the topic and sometimes may also help you put together a summary of the things you learnt from audience feedback after you posted the video.

The post Telling your story via video: How to easily create, edit, and promote native video content on LinkedIn appeared first on Premonio.

We’ve all had those conversations. But since pointing out what doesn’t work isn’t enough, this blog outlines one prescriptive approach to crisply and analytically correctly drill into what a convincing value proposition might be.

Let’s start with first principles? What is value? The short answer is that its incremental profits that are incurred by the buyer of your offerings. If you could have two parallel planets, and the only difference between them is that on one planet they bought your product and on the other planet they didn’t, at the end of the first year of use, the bank accounts of your buyers on the first planet should have more money in them than the non-buying users on the second planet have. The difference in the amount of money between the two groups of bank accounts is your “value add.”

So, if the value is the same as incremental profits, then the value can be defined as additional revenues plus incremental cost savings since profits are revenues minus costs. Each of those variables, in turn, can be broken down into further, logical sub-components. For example, incremental revenues might be comprised of possible price increases times potential increases in sales volumes. Or, increases in cost savings might emanate from a reduction in overhead costs or a lowering of variable expenses. With real offerings, the total value add is often a combination of all these factors.

How does one go about capturing the total value add? In our experience, it’s a three-step process:

1. Diagram all the incremental sources of revenue increases and cost savings in a fishbone-type, cause and effect diagram
2. Either as a thought exercise or to create the beginnings of an ROI tool, quantify the revenue increases and cost savings
3. Extract qualitative statements of where and how “value is accrued,” i.e., revenues increased, or costs saved, and synthesize the results into an overall, verbal framing of value adds

Diagram all the Incremental Sources of Revenue Increases and Cost Savings

This is an accounting-based breakdown of the buyer’s costs and revenue sources, kind of like creating a faux P&L for the buyer. Then combine that with an assessment of which of the origins of revenue growth and cost savings could be impacted by the implementation and use of your offering. An example of such a diagram, taken from the world of cybersecurity, is shown here:

Quantify the Revenue Increases and Cost Savings

Once a layout like the above has been built, and we suggest using a spreadsheet because it makes this next step more manageable. Each node in the diagram can be associated with the higher-level nodes through a series of arithmetic relationships, aka formulas. For example, if revenue is volume times price, then the spreadsheet can be modified by capturing the associated method, as well as the needed coefficients such as unit prices or costs.

Key to ensuring the resulting value calculations don’t double-count savings or miss entire categories of benefits, the nodes at any one level in the diagram need to be “mutually exclusive” (i.e., don’t overlap) and “cumulative exhaustive” relative to the next higher node (i.e., capture elements contained in a higher node completely). The acronym for this analytical scrutiny is called “MECE.” It ensures the cost and revenue calculations that sum up to a higher level node are complete and don’t duplicate effects.

Extract Qualitative Statements of Where and How “Value is Accrued”

Once the above analytical framework has been built, but you don’t want to take it to an ROI tool, say, then it’s still useful to translate the framework into its qualitative components. For example, for one of our security clients, it became clear that their technology did not reduce the risks of an attack (their prior messaging). Still, it reduced the size of the ultimate damages from an attack, as well as the total costs of preventing attacks because their product allowed for more efficient deployment of the security infrastructure. The resulting messaging then was all about controlling financial exposure, and not about risk reduction, as it had been before with limited success.

This analytical and replicable approach helps you create a marketing message that crisply expresses your sources of value add, and thus lays down the analytical foundation for more effectively differentiating your company’s product and services. Once you have formulated your value propositions, they can then be exported to positioning statements and messaging pillars, and become the defensible and compelling underpinning of your company’s messaging framework.

The post What is “Value” in a Value Proposition? appeared first on Premonio.

Content Marketing Institute performed a survey recently that showed 88% of B2B marketers use content marketing as part of their strategy but only 30% of those programs are effective in driving conversions.

Only 30%! You know why? Because to inspire your readers you have to care about them and what you say has to come from a place of truth. In fact, your top challenge shouldn’t be about generating mountains of content, but creating content that inspires your readers. And you can’t do that if you’re not thinking strategically.

Here are some things to consider when creating a content marketing strategy:

Understanding the “Why”

Before you create another checklist of assets, ask yourself why does the world need another piece of content? The answer shouldn’t be because I need more leads. It should be more along the lines of how that asset will make a difference in the lives of your prospects. Will it be relevant to them? Will it provide solutions to their needs? Will it uplift them and inspire them?

Thinking through these questions helps you move away from reacting to your company’s short-term requirements to focusing on a strategy that allows your prospects to connect with your brand. Rather than creating half-hearted standalone content pieces that are disconnected from your brand identity, you can create a list of assets that map to your messaging, reflects the voice of your brand and more importantly, solves your client’s problems.

Identifying Campaign Themes

Rather than creating a piece of ad-hoc, one-off content quickly in the hope of mediocre results, think about how your content fits into your campaign themes. Hopefully you have some campaign themes defined. If you don’t know how to create marketing campaigns with focused messages and themes, you can check out this checklist.

Once you know what themes your content will fit into, you can make sure that it is tailored for the message and persona associated with that campaign. This way, you will have a series of content pieces that you can use to nurture your customers. You can then take advantage of the psychology of repetition to gain traction in the market place.

Knowing Your Audience

Not every asset will appeal to every person. You have to assess whether your audience will enjoy the asset you have created. There are two main things to take into consideration. First, does the messaging appeal to the audience and if it doesn’t how can we improve it? Second, what type of content would the audience be interested in? For example, a CEO might be willing to take a quick look at a 30 second high level video whereas a developer would be more interested in an article covering tips and tricks. Know your audience so you can create the right asset for them.

Mapping to Demand Generation Funnel

Think about your buyer’s journey as you layout the content. How will they consume your assets? Nowadays, most people do their own research online before they even talk to a sales representative. When you create a checklist of content make sure that you highlight where an asset fits into the demand generation funnel and the nurture stream. For example, a Gartner report which is a thought leadership piece would fit into the awareness phase, whereas a how-to video about your product would be later in the funnel, most likely the consideration or even the purchase phase.

Once you map your content to your funnel, it will be much easier to use it for nurturing purposes, online, and as part of outbound and inbound campaigns.

Remembering Your Existing Clients

Sometimes startups seem to be so focused on getting the next big enterprise deal that they forget that their existing clients matter too. In fact, existing customers can be the lifeblood of your business as they continue to renew and refer your services.

Providing useful content to existing clients is invaluable to ensure that they are satisfied with your services and continue to subscribe to them. Content that you create during product launches, helps your customers stay in tune with your innovations and continuously upgrade.

Having educational and thought leadership blogs that customers could refer to can work well in keeping your customers engaged. You can then send a monthly newsletter to update them on the recent industry news and product updates.

If you provide your existing customers with valuable content you will see better retention rates and ultimately more upgrade and up-sell revenue.

Educating Your Free Trial Prospects

If you have ever downloaded a free trial of a product to get absolutely no help in setting it up you know how painful of an experience it can be. You probably ended up frustrated and abandoned the tool. If you have a product that can be downloaded as a free trial, then your content strategy should include a series of helpful emails that provide guidance on how to get started with the trial. Your emails can include tips and tricks, links to demos or webinars, and support contact information.

Once you have created a list of all these types of assets, how they fit into the demand generation funnel and the buyer’s journey, and how they can be utilized, you can create a checklist which can be used to increase brand awareness and ultimately conversions.

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