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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 Contact Us w w w. i n f l33 uitive .com