Download Customers create content for a to Inspiring you

Inspiring Customers
to create content
marketer’s
for you : a guide
w w w. i n f l u i t i v e . c o m
featuring INSIGHTS
1
from
TABLE
of
CONTENTS
03
Introduction: What can save B2B content
07
Ideation: Ask advocates to help drive
13
Creation: Put advocates at the heart
19
Distribution: Extend your brand’s
25
Validation: Make your brand more
31
marketing from itself?
your content strategy
of your stories
organic reach with advocates
trustworthy with UGC
Recommended resources and next steps
Intro
What can save
b2b
content
marketing
from
itself?
3
g
in
t
e
k
r
a
m
t
n
e
t
n
o
c
B2B
is broken
T
he pressure to create increasingly more content at a faster clip has
resulted in a state of ‘content shock’—meaning there’s more content
being published than buyers can ever possibly consume.
Plus, when brands do manage to get content in front of prospects, all they
have to offer is self-referential drivel, and its only goal is to push products.
This would explain why a CMO Council survey found that only 9% of B2B
buyers trusted vendor-created content like white papers.
But there’s one thing people do trust: the raw, unedited opinions of their
peers. According to a Demand Gen Report survey, 97% of B2B buyers say that
user-generated content (UGC), like peer reviews, is more credible than other
types of content. And B2B buyers are scouring social networks, online reviews
and third-party sources ( just like they do in their lives as consumers) for
content that will help them make sound purchasing decisions.
Disguising your marketing messages as helpful “how to” articles isn’t going
to cut it anymore. You need a new approach to your content; one where other
people deliver your messages to buyers so it’s trustworthy and authentic.
4
The best people for this job? Your customer advocates. This passionate group
is predisposed to talking about your brand. They’re also eager to share their
knowledge of your product with their peers—your prospects. When you ask
advocates for help and recognize them in meaningful ways, you can produce
more engaging, effective, and trustworthy content—while building stronger
relationships between those advocates and your business at the same time.
The key to doing this is establishing a formal advocate
marketing strategy that empowers customers to generate
content for and with you. Advocate marketing programs
offer advocates exclusive access to resources, networking
The best people
for this job? Your
customer advocates.
opportunities, contests and recognition in exchange
for acts of brand advocacy. By systematizing the way you develop, track and
reward customer advocacy, you’ll inspire your advocates to lend their voices
to your own content and produce valuable UGC on third-party properties you
don’t own.
But rather than telling you how to do this ourselves, we are going to step aside
and let Influitive’s advocates do the talking. They’re the real experts.
5
In this eBook, you’ll learn how successful B2B marketers engage their
advocates at every stage of the content creation process—from ideation all the
way to distribution—to:
Uncover engaging content ideas and improve their overall strategy
Save time and resources by getting advocates to create more (and better)
content
Increase the reach and effectiveness of their content through their
advocate’s social networks
Produce valuable user-generated content (UGC) on third-party websites
Expert
INSIGHT
“Customers provide a level of authenticity that simply can’t be found in traditional
feature/benefit collateral. When customers provide or contribute to marketing
content, prospects see themselves reflected in the customer experience, creating
a level of engagement and authenticity that can’t otherwise be matched. With
user- and customer-generated content, your product or service is humanized. The
voice of your customer cuts through the marketing chaff, unlike any other source,
without overtly selling your company’s solution.”
-Lisbeth Hansen, Director, Customer Advocacy at Demand Spring
6
1
Ideation
Ask advocates
to drive
your
content
strategy
7
Taylor
Moore
“
CONTENT
MANAGER
MARKETING
TOUCHBISTRO
at
M
any brands’ content strategies are heavily based on their value props
and product features. However, when companies don’t go outside their
own four walls when it comes to creating their content, they won’t produce truly
engaging or valuable stories for their prospects and customers.
At TouchBistro, we sell to restaurant owners and managers. Our content team’s
goal is to be the thought leaders in our space. There’s just one problem: no
one on our marketing team has ever owned a restaurant.
That’s why we consult our customer advocates before we start creating content.
We rely on them to know that we’re providing truly valuable insights to our audience.
Normally, we’d ask our customer-facing teams for customer insights, or research
what others in the industry are writing about. We’ve also conducted external
market research in the past to gain this knowledge. However, we usually get
a lower response rate than we do from our advocate community. They’re a
passionate group that’s ready and willing to answer our questions quickly.
8
Within one or two business days, we can identify and write about relevant topics
that none of our competitors are covering. Without our advocates’ help, we’d
be missing half of the content that we currently create.
For example, by polling our advocates, we learned that they
were hungry for content about recruiting, training and
The best way to keep
retaining staff. Even though it’s not a topic directly related to
advocates engaged
our product, our staffing content has become some of our best-
is to close the
performing assets. Sometimes, we’ll ask for their opinions on
specific topics, or for their biggest pain points, to inspire our
feedback loop and
content calendar. We’ll also quickly ask advocates to rank our
let advocates know
value propositions for new website
when their content
content or tell us their stories—which
often become case studies later.
contributions go live.
Advocates want to be perceived by their peers as thought
leaders. They also naturally like sharing ideas and
feedback—if they feel you’re listening to them. The best
B2B marketers say their content
way to keep them engaged is to close the feedback
strategy is only moderately effective
loop and let advocates know when their content
at achieving marketing goals.
(CMI 2017 B2B Marketing Benchmarks,
Budgets and Trends)
contributions go live. Seeing their names and insights
featured in your content makes them feel valued—laying
the foundation for ongoing advocacy later in the content
“
creation process. (For the few advocates that don’t want to see their name in lights,
ease them into the process by presenting their ideas without directly quoting them.)
9
TIPS for
TAYLOR’ S TOP
OCATES
INVOLVING ADV
EGIES
CONTENT STR AT
in your
1.Poll advocates to uncover new ideas
and insights before setting your
content calendar
2.Request tips and opinions before
making a bigger content ask
3.Close the feedback loop so advocates
know their insights were used (and
appreciated!)
10
H ow
OTHER
MARKETERS
DO IT
“I’ve asked our advocates what sort of resources would’ve been helpful to them
during the buying process to come up with relevant content for prospects. I’ve
also used an advocate marketing program to collect survey responses, which
was then repurposed into a ‘State of the Industry’ report that was very successful.
Providing your clients with opportunities to demonstrate expertise can
serve the dual purpose of reinforcing your product/service as a skill
and creating unique content that’s better than just general reactions or
ruminations on your space.”
-Pierce Smith, Director of Business Development at Big Orange Lab
“I use the WileyPLUS Studio program to uncover customer stories and generate
new content ideas. For instance, I’ll follow up on Studio members’ insights or
discussion responses with more questions to see if they’d be great contributors to
our blog, podcast, etc.
Good case studies have the same structure as a typical hero story: there’s change,
conflict and a resolution. The interesting part for readers isn’t how a product
saved the day; it’s the human trials between point A and B that resonate. With
our advocate marketing program, I can easily uncover our ‘heroes’ and
collaborate with them to create more emotional stories.”
-Christopher Ruel, Social and Community Marketer for Knowledge and
Learning at Wiley
11
IDEATION
STAGE
TIVITY
ADVOCATE AC
checklist:
Ask for opinions, pain points and insights on their industry/
role to generate content ideas
Get them to vote on or vet story ideas and value propositions
Uncover potential success stories through community
discussions and feedback
Survey them to generate original research
Give them content previews and ask for feedback before
publishing
Expert
INSIGHT
“We stand to save a boatload of time, effort, and even cash, if we’d only involve
customers in our process. It’s far better to draft something, show someone, get
feedback, and sprint in a better direction than build for 6 months and release
something nobody wants. And rather than jump right to the expensive tools and
research, why not talk to customers for 20 minutes in a month and simply respond
to what you hear? It sounds so trite and simple, or even ‘not statistically significant,’
but I promise you, better creativity is unlocked when you have actual conversation
with actual people.”
-Jay Acunzo, NextView VP, Marketing & Creativity Keynote Speaker,
Podcast Host, Writer
12
Creation
Put
advocates
at the
heart of
your
stories
13
Chris
Peltz
OPERATIONS MANAGER
CUSTOMER SUCCESS
RISE
at
HEWLET T PACKARD ENTERP
“C
ontent teams need to stop making all of their content in a vacuum. Creating
all of your content yourself is a huge time and resource investment—and it’s
not the most effective way to reach buyers.
Prospects put more weight on social proof from their peers than they do
anything else. When our customers say, ‘I’ve used this product and I saved X
amount of money or time,’ it lends a lot more credibility to our brand. This is why
advocate-authored content is critical to reach buyers today.
It’s also the reason we actively motivate our customers to become content creators
for and with us. This can be as simple as requesting a quote or testimonial for our
website, to something more involved, like asking them to write entire blogs or eBooks
with us. The key is starting small and nurturing them toward bigger asks.
Before we make a content request, we’ll ask our advocates something easy, like
“Do you want your name in lights? If so, which topics and which formats (e.g.,
blogs, videos, etc.) are you most comfortable with?” Once they’ve expressed an
interest in a topic or medium, we’ll screen further by asking: “If you were to write
about this topic, what best practices would you recommend?”
14
Based on how substantial their response is, we’ll either get
them to contribute to a related project we’re working on,
or have them write an entire blog post to expand on their
ideas (or feature them in a video or webinar, for example).
This nurturing strategy has allowed us to publish two
new eBooks with advocate contributors: one on IT
of B2B buyers consider case studies
to be the second most valuable
content type they viewed during the
decision-making process. (Third-party/
analyst reports were the most valued at 77%.)
(2016 Content Preferences Survey Report)
service management best practices that was written
100% by advocates, and another on DevOps that was
written in large part by our ITOM
Insiders advocate community. Our
advocates also write 50% of our
blogs, and we encourage them to
read and comment on other posts to spark a dialogue.
Advocates make your content better because their words and
Nine times out of ten,
advocates will jump
at the chance to build
their personal brand
examples add more color and authenticity to your stories.
through content
Just make sure your content requests ask advocates to
creation.
share best practices and valuable insights—not just talk
about how much they love your products.
Nine times out of ten, advocates will jump at the chance to build their personal
brand through content creation. But we like to go beyond just featuring them in
our content. We also incentivize them by giving them kudos in front of our entire
advocate community (a little recognition from their peers goes a long way!). The
“
best part is this strategy can inspire other advocates to participate—which can
help generate more content, even faster, over time.
15
for
DVICE
CHRIS’ BEST A
CONTENT
ER
CREATING BETT
with your
ADVOCATES
1.Figure out what media and topics your
advocates are most passionate about
2.Mix easy content co-creation
opportunities with more involved ones
to appeal to all of your advocate types
3.Formally recognize them in front of
their peers for their contributions so
they feel like stars
Learn how HP personally engaged 1,000+ of their advocates to drive content
creation, social amplification, and community engagement.
16
H ow
OTHER
MARKETERS
DO IT
“We involve our advocates in our content as much as possible. For example, we
aim to have at least one advocate a month participate in a webinar. They key
is creating space for advocate content in your calendar. Their stories may
already fit into your calendar, but if they don’t, invest in making a space so you
can strengthen your partnerships with them and take a little risk—it could yield
surprising results!”
-Laura O’Neill, Customer Marketing Associate at Gainsight
“We sent video kits to our top advocates so they could easily film their
own video. Each kit included an explainer about the project, a camera, a
window mount, and starter questions on what they should start to think
about when making the testimonial video. As a result, we generated 30 new
video testimonials to use for different sales and marketing purposes. Make
advocates feel special and make your requests as easy to execute as
possible if you want to boost participation.”
-Kevin Lau, Sr. Marketing Manager, Customer Retention & Advocacy at NetBase
17
CONTENT
CREATION
TIVITY
ADVOCATE AC
checklist:
Get them to submit short quotes or testimonials for content
Ask them to co-write eBooks and success stories in their own
words
Train them to write guest blog posts
Offer to let them star in how-to videos or podcasts
Ask them for questions or content for webinars
Crowdsource tips and insights from them for content round-ups
Allow them to re-write your product page copy or value
propositions in their own words
Expert
INSIGHT
“These are the two biggest challenges in content marketing: creating enough
content (quantity) and creating great content (quality). Content created in
collaboration with your audience addresses both. When you leverage your
audience in the sourcing of topics and creation of content, it helps you hit your
publishing deadlines more easily. And because they lent a hand, you know it’s
relevant. That’s quality.”
-Andy Crestodina, Co-Founder / Strategic Director of Orbit Media Studios,
Speaker, Author
18
3
Distribution
Extend
your
brand’s
organic
reach
with
advocates
19
Francesca
SENIOR MANAGER ,
CONTENT MARKETING
Krihely
at
MONGODB
“Y
ou invest a lot of time into creating your content. But when you hit ‘Publish’,
only 20% of your job is done; the other 80% is getting the right people to see it.
To lighten your load, enlist the help of your brand advocates. They can help get your
content in front of relevant audiences—after all, most of your future customers are
probably connected with your current customers. Plus, prospects are more likely to
convert on content shared from a peer than a brand.
Before we had an advocate community, we were working out of spreadsheets and
spending hours sending one-off emails to mailing lists in hopes of getting people
to share our content. It was time-consuming to hit up the
same contacts all the time just to get a tweet or a post
on LinkedIn, and difficult to track who had shared our
content. We also ran the risk of burning out our advocates
with repetitive requests.
Today it is easier for us to engage with our advocates, and
instead of making requests we are focused on creating
of B2B buyers are influenced
a great experience first. We make social sharing simple
by information they found on
by gathering all of our content in our community hub, and
social media.
(Carnegie Mellon University’s Heinz College)
providing our advocates with sample messaging so they
don’t have to think about what to write if they don’t want to.
20
We are dedicated to making the experience fun. Just a couple of months ago,
we ran an Olympic-themed contest where each social share request was tied to
a sport. Around synchronized swimming, we asked our
True advocates love
advocates to ‘Share how you keep in sync with your
database on social.’
being a part of your
story.
To encourage organic conversation, we motivate our
advocates to talk about us in their own words through
a ‘Tweet of the Week’ contest. There, advocates have
the opportunity to share self-authored tweets about MongoDB with our content
team. We pick a favorite at the end of each week and highlight the winner in our
advocate community.
No matter the medium, our advocates organically help spread our reach and
validate our messaging. In fact, their help on social media drove over 50,000 new
visits to our website site in just four months.
True advocates love being a part of your story. If being associated with your
brand increases your advocates’ online profiles, sense of belonging or
industry knowledge, they will be happy to help out on social media. (If you’ve
involved advocates in the content creation from the start, it should be even easier!)
I once read a quote that said, ‘Twitter is a place for people to be brands and brands
to be people.’ I think it’s true on all social media platforms! Your advocates get to
use your brand to boost their social capital when they share your content—and your
“
company is humanized when advocates support your messaging.
21
TOP
FR ANCESCA’ S
TIONS for
RECOMMENDA
DVOCATE
INCREASING A
social sharing
1.Find out what drives your advocates
to engage on social media (Is it
knowledge, clout, or networking?)
2.Make it easy and fun for advocates to
share your content
3.Track sharing so you can thank
advocates for their help later
Learn more about MongoDB’s advocate marketing strategy in this episode of the
Inspired Marketing Podcast
22
H ow
OTHER
MARKETERS
DO IT
“We rolled out a ‘Social Ambassadors’ program with employees to grow social
reach and engagement around social content we create using a well-established
hashtag in our industry called #GivingTuesday. We hand-picked 50 employees
across departments and invited them to an educational meeting on social media
best practices. By mobilizing both our customer and employee advocates,
we saw a 101% increase YOY in favorites on Twitter and a 57% increase in
retweets of @Blackbaud on Twitter.”
-Michael Beahm, Senior Marketing Manager at Blackbaud
“We share Genesys news and content along with industry news to keep
our advocates informed and help them position themselves as customer
experience thought-leaders within their social networks. Furthermore, we
promote an ‘Advocate of the Month,’ and share it across our social channels to show
our appreciation for their efforts. Other advocates are enticed to be featured, which
propagates the advocacy chain.”
-Nicole Granucci, Head of Global Customer Marketing at Genesys
23
CONTENT
DISTRIBUTION
TIVITY
ADVOCATE AC
checklist:
Ask them to follow and promote your social handles
Ask them to share your content on social media
Run campaigns or contests to generate discussion around your
brand
Point them to blogs of yours they may want to comment on
Curate shareable content lists for and with them
Expert
INSIGHT
“The social web has made it possible for any voice to be heard...to be truly
heard you have to be authentic. You have no choice but to be authentic to be
successful long-term. If not, you will be discovered, you will be exposed, and
you will be derided.”
-Hank Barnes, Research Vice President at Gartner
24
4
Validation
Make
your
BRAND more
trustworthy
with
user-generated
content
25
Davin
SENIOR
MARKETING
MANAGER
wilfrid
“
at
QUICKBASE , INC.
I
f you’re already finding success with advocate-created content, you may not
see the point in encouraging your advocates to write comments, reviews
or testimonials on third-party websites you don’t own.
But you can’t control a buyer’s journey any more than you can control the weather.
Buyers want to hear from people with the same needs and fears they have. And
they’re going to seek out this information on their terms and in the places they like to
visit, like industry forums or private social networks—all places your brand (likely)
isn’t welcome. That’s why we rely on user-generated content (UGC) to drive
positive word of mouth for our brand—especially where it isn’t appropriate for
us to step in and do it.
No matter where a customer is in the sales cycle, user-generated content can help to
move them forward. Getting your customers to do media interviews or leave
comments on relevant blogs helps build top of funnel brand awareness. Positive user
reviews help your target buyers find and validate your solution during the research
phase. Public community discussions answer questions and speed up the decisionmaking process.
You may think UGC is out of your control. But your team can influence it; you just
need to empower and inspire your advocates first.
26
At QuickBase, we do this by engaging with our advocates on a daily basis in
meaningful ways, like sharing a sneak peek at products we’re working on or delivering
content that makes their jobs easier. This constant communication makes it easy to
ask our advocates for a review, or take on a PR request, whenever the need arises.
Nurturing our advocates has helped us generate more than
300 reviews across technology review websites—which
made us the top-ranked solution in our product category
on G2 Crowd and IT Central Station. We’ve also quickly
sourced customers to participate in media interviews,
combat competitor’s claims in blog comments on thirdparty websites, and answer questions on Quora, Reddit,
StackOverflow and other properties. There’s no telling how
far an advocate who believes in your product will go to be
a champion for your brand.
of B2B buyers say peer reviews were
important for narrowing down
vendors later in the buying process.
(2015 B2B Buyer’s Survey Report)
It’s important to position your requests based on your
advocates’ motivations. Many advocates simply want to help
their peers succeed. Presenting opportunities to generate content for your brand
as a way to contribute to the larger community will appeal to them the most. Other
advocates want to expand their professional influence, so positioning your ask as
a chance to showcase their expertise and increase clout will work better.
Make sure you recognize advocates in ways that are meaningful to them. Some will
appreciate a plug in your content or a speaking slot at a conference, while others
will be satisfied with a gesture of gratitude, like a thank you card or VIP treatment
at your next event. In all cases, it’s your job to understand what motivates your
“
advocates, and to build programs around that. It could inspire your advocates to go
out and create UGC for your brand all on their own.
27
TOP INSIGHTS
DVOCATES
INSPIRING A
DAVIN’S
for
to
CREATE MORE
UGC
1.Give advocates something of value
before asking for favors—think
educational tips or helpful resources
2.Present opportunities as a chance to
help others or grow social capital
3.Surround advocates with your
messaging so they incorporate it into
any UGC they create
Learn Davin’s methods for motivating advocates to write hundreds of highquality reviews.
28
H ow
OTHER
MARKETERS
DO IT
“I frequently get requests from editors looking for a customer that does X, Y or
Z. Before we had an advocate marketing platform with Influitive, I would have
to reach out to my sales reps to find out if we have any customers for the editor to
speak with. Now, I have our customers together in one place where I can
put an ask out to all of them at once and get multiple responses quickly
(typically within hours), ultimately saving me lots of time and getting me
exactly what I need to meet my deadline.”
-Jenni Adair, Director of Corporate Communications and Customer Advocacy
at Aerohive Networks
“I encourage our advocates to share their knowledge on relevant discussions
about our space and product on public, third-party communities, like
StackOverflow. Giving them opportunities to grow their profile outside of our
advocate community has lead to a 284% increase in answers to questions about
MuleSoft on StackOverflow. Sometimes your best advocates aren’t your
most knowledgeable, social, or even known ones; they might just be one
your fans waiting to be empowered.”
-Mike Stowe, Developer Relations Manager at MuleSoft Inc.
29
THIRD -PART Y
UGC
TIVITY
ADVOCATE AC
checklist:
Ask advocates to write genuine reviews on third-party websites
Point them to relevant discussions on forums, such Quora,
Reddit, etc.
Ask them to combat competitor claims on third-party content
Create a pool of volunteers for media, PR and analyst requests
Challenge them to post original content about your brand on
UGC content sites like Medium, YouTube, etc.
Expert
INSIGHT
“Involving customers in content creation naturally shifts the focus from your
company and products to what your products solve and enable for your customers.
Think beyond use cases featuring your product. What’s an issue your customers are
passionate about that complements what your products do? Can you collaborate
with them to produce a content asset that shines the spotlight on them? Help them
build their brands, along with yours.”
-Ardath Albee, B2B marketing strategist, speaker and author
30
Next
steps
Now that your fellow marketers have explained how to put advocates at the
heart of your content strategy, it’s time to learn how to start an advocate
marketing program so you can scale the process.
1. Find your advocates. Scour your NPS surveys for promoters,
your reference program, and ask your customer success team for
outstanding customers who could be potential advocates.
2. Invite them to a special space where they can connect with each
other and have access to exclusive resources and perks. You have to
give value before asking for favors from your advocates.
3. Give advocates a variety of ways to help your brand. Starting with
smaller asks will also nurture them towards bigger ones. Offer them
meaningful forms of recognition—here’s a list of ideas.
4. Track and share the influence advocates have on your departmental
goals with your entire company. When every team sees the power of
advocacy, they’ll want to be involved—which will improve the value
your program can give to your advocates.
31
Recommended resources
The Messenger Is The Message: Content Marketing In
The Era Of The Social Web
How user-generated content can save content marketing - a short primer for
marketing executives
The Advocate Marketing Playbook
The ultimate, step-by-step guide to building a successful advocate marketing program
Influitive EDGE certification
Develop your advocate marketing skills with advice-rich, online courses
32
Amplify your customers’ voices
with Influitive’s advocate
marketing platform.
Create powerful, advocate-generated content that
resonates with buyers and increases your brand’s reach
4.6 / 5
4.9 / 5
4.69 / 5
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