by Fronetics | Aug 27, 2018 | Blog, Content Marketing, Logistics, Marketing, Social Media, Strategy, Supply Chain
Repurposed and repackaged, your existing content is a valuable asset for your sales force throughout the buyer’s journey.
If you’re a supply chain marketing professional, it’s likely that you spend a tremendous portion of your day researching, creating, packaging, and disseminating content. Your hard work is all about growing brand awareness and building your reputation as a trusted industry thought-leader — all with the goal of having that work eventually convert leads.
But, consider this: When it comes to engaging prospects and clients, only 20% of salespeople actually use content. When we know that potential buyers are far more willing to engage with someone offering them information and insight, why are B2B businesses abandoning content as soon as prospects are handed over to sales?
B2B buyers prefer content throughout the buying journey
According to DemandGen’s 2018 Content Preferences Survey Report, “Buyers are becoming increasingly more selective in the content they are consuming,” relying more on “trustworthy sources, industry influencers, and their peers to educate themselves.” And furthermore, 88% of those survey respondents want less focus on product specifics and more on the value that product can bring to their business.
[bctt tweet=”Buyers are becoming increasingly more selective in the content they are consuming, relying more on trustworthy sources, industry influencers, and their peers to educate themselves.” username=”Fronetics”]
And on the other side of that coin, according to HubSpot writer and marketing expert Bethany Cartwright, sales reps spend about 15% of their day leaving voicemails, and only about 20% of all sales emails are ever opened. “This means 80-85% of sales outreach efforts are going unnoticed by those prospects you’ve worked so hard to capture with content,” writes Cartwright.
It’s time to start leveraging your content throughout the buyer’s journey by arming your sales force with content. Before you panic at the idea of creating reams of new content, take a breath. It’s more than likely that you can repurpose your existing content, optimized to give your sales force the tools they need to close deals.
So how do you go about repurposing your content and giving your sales force the best possible tools with which to convert prospects to buyers? Web Profits co-founder and author Sujan Patel suggests “mapping content generated by your marketing team to each stage of your customer’s buying journey.” We’ve created the infographic below to help you optimize content for each of the three stages of the buyer’s journey.
Infographic: Delivering content throughout the buyer’s journey
(Made with Canva)
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by Fronetics | Jul 2, 2018 | Blog, Content Marketing, Logistics, Marketing, Social Media, Supply Chain
The growth of social messaging platforms is a big opportunity for your business to reach your audience with targeted content.
Gone are the days when social messaging platforms are just about chatting or making plans with family and friends. You might be surprised to learn that “the combined total monthly active user count of the top 4 messaging apps has grown to 4.1 billion in 2018.”
[bctt tweet=”You might be surprised, according to Business Insider, “the combined total monthly active user count of the top 4 messaging apps has grown to 4.1 billion in 2018.”” username=”Fronetics”]
Just to put that in perspective, that’s well over half of the world’s population and — perhaps even more strikingly — dwarfs the 2.19 billion monthly active users that Facebook reported in the first quarter of 2018.
It’s official: Social messaging platforms have surpassed “traditional” social media when it comes to active users. Not only that, marketers are taking notice, and beginning to think about how to leverage messaging platforms to deliver content to target audiences.
Conversational content
As you might expect, a key element of successfully using social messaging platforms is to tell your story conversationally. This means tailoring your content to the specific wants or needs of your target audience, creating a compelling narrative with your content, rather than an overt sales pitch.
This kind of storytelling is fundamental to content marketing.
“Messaging and chatbots represent the next logical extension of the content marketing mission,” writes Chris Frascella of the Content Marketing Institute.
According to Thomas Husson of Forbes, “Messaging apps will introduce a paradigm shift for marketers where interactive and contextual conversations will replace ad broadcasting. New conversational interfaces will drive deeper relationships between consumers and brands.”
You may be thinking that this is all well and good for B2C marketing, but how does it apply to B2B marketing? But the truth is, if you have a content marketing strategy in place, chances are, you have a story to tell, and these are tools to help you do it.
Chatbots
Enter chatbots, the technology to turn your content into conversations. Chances are, you’ve already come face-to-screen with a chatbot and may not have even known it.
These computer programs simulate human conversation using auditory or textual methods. Basically, it’s software that communicates with your target audience inside a messaging app. Chatbots are already changing the way businesses interact with their customers — and with each other.
If you’re thinking that you’re about to be replaced by a robot, relax. We’re extremely far from AI technology replacing human interaction. Chatbots are a tool, and they need to be fed content and trained by human marketing professionals.
Tips for using chatbots
The first step is adapting your content for use in a chatbot conversation. “You can’t just duplicate existing content in your conversational scripts,” says Frascella. While the goals for your content are the same, the way it is delivered is different. That requires a shift in how it’s structured.
It’s also important to be mindful of timing. Because chatbots require users to opt into conversations, retaining permission to access your audience in this way depends largely on content and timing. This means delivering engaging, meaningful, and valuable content at regular intervals, but not intrusively.
For more ideas on creating a chatbot, check out this post.
Social messaging platforms are opening new doors for you to deliver personalized content straight to your target buyers. Make the most of this opportunity!
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by Fronetics | Jun 26, 2018 | Blog, Content Marketing, Logistics, Marketing, Strategy, Supply Chain
More and more supply chain marketers are realizing the benefits of inbound marketing (over outbound marketing) including cost savings and increased lead generation.
Marketers are constantly coming up with new and trendy ways to attract leads. With endless platforms available to us, it can be overwhelming for even the most seasoned marketers to know where they need to focus their efforts.
In order to find the right solutions for your supply chain marketing needs, you first have to understand the difference between inbound and outbound marketing. And more importantly, how they can help — or hinder — your marketing efforts.
Outbound marketing
Outbound marketing describes any marketing approach that pushes a message onto a buyer. Traditional marketing — tv and radio ads, telemarketing, banner and display ads — are all examples of outbound marketing.
Another name for this marketing tactic is interruption marketing, as it typically tries to take “attention away from what your buyer is doing and bring it, forcibly, on to your product or service.”
Inbound marketing
Inbound marketing focuses on audiences finding you. Instead of pushing a message onto buyers, inbound marketing allows you to establish your brand as an industry leader and let interested audiences come to you. This type of marketing attempts to draw in potential customers through interesting and engaging content.
Content marketing is a type of inbound marketing. Examples include blog posts, social media, infographics, white papers, and videos.
Why is inbound marketing better for the supply chain?
Outbound marketing used to be the ‘go to’ for generating leads, but this is simply no longer the case. Marketers across industries have found that inbound marketing has many advantages over traditional marketing practices. In fact, almost three-quarters (68%) of inbound organizations believe their marketing strategy is effective, while more than half (52%) of outbound marketers don’t believe their strategy is effective.
[bctt tweet=”Marketers across industries have found that inbound marketing has many advantages over traditional marketing practices. In fact, almost three-quarters (68%) of inbound organizations believe their marketing strategy is effective.” username=”Fronetics”]
Here’s why we think inbound marketing is better for supply chain marketers than outbound marketing.
Video: Why supply chain marketers need inbound marketing
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by Fronetics | May 24, 2018 | Blog, Content Marketing, Current Events, Logistics, Marketing, Social Media, Supply Chain
Influencer marketing capitalizes on the relationship between popular influencers and their followers to help your organization reach your target audience.
By now you’re aware of the latest marketing trend: influencer marketing. For decades, Hollywood elite have been used to promote everything from make-up to movies and now this trend is taking over the most popular social media sites.
[bctt tweet=”Why is influencer marketing so effective? Because buyers trust influencers talking about your products and services more than they trust you talking about yourself.” username=”Fronetics”]
Influencer marketing is a form of marketing in which marketers identify individuals that have influence over potential buyers and create marketing campaigns and activities around these influencers. Why is this so effective? Because buyers trust influencers talking about your products and services more than they trust you talking about yourself.
Is influencer marketing here to stay?
Linqia’s latest report, The State of Influencer Marketing 2018, shows that companies are already taking full advantage of this marketing trend. The report shows that 86% of marketers used influencer marketing in 2017, and 92% of marketers that tried it found it to be effective.
But don’t just take our word for it. Here are some statistics that prove you should pay close attention to this trend.
Infographic: Influencer Marketing and the Supply Chain
(Made with Canva)
With 39% of marketers planning to increase influencer marketing budget this year, B2B companies are quickly seeing the leverage that influencers can have over their target audiences. By teaming up with the right influencer, marketers can easily reach thousands of potential consumers, increasing website traffic and leads.
The bottom line: influencer marketing can be an extremely effective aspect of a B2B business’ content marketing strategy.
Have you tried influencer marketing? How was your experience?
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by Fronetics | May 17, 2018 | Blog, Content Marketing, Data/Analytics, Logistics, Marketing, Social Media, Supply Chain
These metrics to benchmark marketing performance will give you insight into how your brand stacks up against your competition.
A few months ago, the winter Olympics were in full swing, and Mikayla Shiffrin became the youngest slalom champion in Olympic alpine skiing history. Shiffrin achieved this incredible record, not only working to beat her best personal performance, but also that of her biggest competitors. After all, you don’t become a two-time Olympic gold medalist without the knowledge — and drive — to beat out the world’s best athletes.
You have to know how your competitors are performing to be the very best at what you do. That goes for Olympic athletes and supply chain companies alike.
We call this benchmarking performance. For we marketers, it’s important, albeit difficult, to find metrics to benchmark marketing performance. We tend to turn inward to focus on key performance indicators (KPIs), like website traffic, social engagement and conversion rates. But it’s time to start looking outward, as well.
[bctt tweet=”Competitive benchmarking gives brands the ability to benchmark their marketing performance against that of their competitors, giving you the knowledge and drive you need to improve your performance and chance of success.” username=”Fronetics”]
Competitive benchmarking gives brands the ability to compare themselves against a number of competitors using a set collection of metrics. These metrics allow you to benchmark marketing performance against that of your competitors. This will give you the knowledge and drive you need to improve your performance and chance of success.
Here are four metrics to benchmark marketing performance against your competitors.
4 metrics to benchmark marketing performance against your competitors
1. Content
Benchmarking your content allows you to compare the differences and similarities between you and your competitors’ types and relevancy of content. Are they focusing on video content or blog posts? Are they creating infographics? How often are they posting content?
2. Social activity
Knowing what social media platforms your competitors are using is critical in today’s digital marketing world. Are they having success on a specific platform? Are you using the same platforms? And how often are they posting on social media? How do you compare? Knowing when and where to post on social media can help get you in front of your target audience.
3. Social engagement
You’re posting and tweeting, but are audiences interacting with your content? Benchmarking your social engagement against your competitors lets you see if and how audiences are interacting with your posts and videos. How many likes and shares are you receiving? And how many are you competitors?
4. Keywords and topics
We talk a lot about the importance of keywords and topics. After all, that’s how audiences are searching for — and finding! — your brand and your competitors. Using online tools like SERPS, you can easily determine how you and your competitors rank for specific keywords and topics.
Analyze and adjust
Use these metrics to benchmark marketing performance. Once you have collected data, you can start analyzing your results. How does your marketing strategy stack up against your competitors and industry leaders?
Benchmarking allows you to see strategic opportunities — what you’re doing well and what you need to improve. You’ll gain valuable insight into what your competitors are doing better than you. Use this knowledge to improve your strategy. After all, action is key!
Which metrics to benchmark marketing performance do you use?
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