Dan Galante

www.interaction-design.org

The Customer Experience and Customer Journey is being disrupted by technology. The technology comes in the form of social channels such as the internet, mobile, social media, publishing platforms, audio books and video on demand. All of these channels have the effect of giving consumers instant access to information about products and services. Mobile is becoming the biggest channel with 6.2 Billion Devices projected globally by 2020 According to Ericsson’s Annual Mobility report.

The way customers request information is changing. They may approach Sales, Marketing and Customer Service or an independent source for information and help choosing a product.

Competition in every product and service category has never been higher. This marks a significant shift from the days of Mad Men where brands controlled information and the conversation. This marketing shift is known as information marketing through content or simply content marketing. As a result, Marketers and brands have to become the educators or teachers of consumers. To become the educators of consumers, brands have to become the industry resource to consumers; showing how their products can solve problems and improve the lives of consumers.

Content Marketing needs to be used in Sales, Marketing and Customer Service because customers expect a consistent experience through out their journey.

2017 State of Marketing Report Key Findings

The 2017 Salesforce State of Marketing report focuses on four emerging trends:

• Marketing is undergoing an AI revolution. The marketers surveyed anticipate their AI use will grow more than 50 percent over the next two years, helping them deliver more targeted campaigns, smarter personalization and higher ROI.
• Marketers realize the importance of delivering customer journeys, but are having a hard time breaking down silos between sales, service and marketing, and bringing customer data together to deliver on this vision.
• Marketers are making significant organizational changes, within their own departments and in how they collaborate with others, such as sales and customer service.
• Over the next two years, marketers expect to see unprecedented growth in their marketing technology usage. 

“According to a recent research study by Forrester, 71 percent of consumers begin their journeys by using a search engine to discover new products and services (initiation), and 74 percent reported using a search engine for consideration and purchasing (research, comparison, transaction).”

https://searchengineland.com/value-search-across-modern-consumer-decision-journey-270021

Once brands convert prospects into customers, they still need to focus on and support customers post sale. Here is where Content Marketing can help. Brands can use Content Marketing for customer retention, cross-selling and up-selling. To take advantage of this, brands need to involve their Marketing, Sales and Customer service teams in their Content Marketing strategy.

Sales Teams

Sales teams can provide a lot of information about customers, product concerns or issues and objections they face. They are front line soldiers that have a direct line to customer intelligence.

Including the Sales Team in your content marketing strategy

Meet with the sales team and encourage them to compile a list of customer complaints, objections and questions about products that they face. Ask the team to create materials that address these concern that customers can access. This could take form of blog posts, Power-points FAQ’s, product demonstrations and tutorials.

If the sales team feels uncomfortable creating content, they could be interviewed by the marketing department. The marketing department could take content /basic materials, emails from the sales team and polish it up into visually appealing content that customers can access.

Customer Service

Similar to the sales team, your customer service teams are front line soldiers to help customers with issues they face at call centers or through social media. Ask them to write down complaints they get from customers with the answers. These complaints of FAQ’s could be put up on a web site via a PowerPoint presentation, blog etc… If this is not possible for the team, interview them, collect basic materials, emails, notes and create the content yourself.

Customer Retention

Sales and Customer service team are an important part to using a Content Marketing Strategy for customer retention. The more products a customer uses from a brand, the less likely they will switch to a competitor. Remember it costs more to obtain new customers that it does to keep existing ones.

Cross-Selling & Up-Selling

Sales and Customer service teams can also help with cross and up-selling by sharing promotion and new offerings with customers. The Sales and customer service functions of brands are essential to creating a great experience for customers.

Marketing Automation and AI

Salesforce is rolling out a Customer Success cloud where Sales, Marketing and Customer Success can track the Customer Journey across the organization. Each function of the organization can create tasks for the other to make sure the customer does not fall through the cracks. I saw a demonstration at Salesforce World Tour.

https://youtu.be/WOyGF7Ua8hY

This is how brands can integrate sales and customer service teams into their Content Marketing and automation strategy. How are you using content from sales and customer service teams to help your brand retain customers? What are the goals of your brands content marketing efforts?

Feel free to comment and share.

Additional Resources

https://www.salesforce.com/blog/2017/06/fourth-annual-state-of-marketing-report.html

Salesforce 2017 State of Marketing overview

About the Author

Dan is passionate about using Marketing to help businesses drive sales. He has worked on various marketing assignments that include Start Ups, Political Campaign and a Digital Marketing Conference.

Prior to Teaching, Dan served customers as an Outside Sales & Marketing Representative in the Dental industry. In this role, he taught and trained Dentists on the company’s products and services using a consultative selling approach. He also supported the company’s marketing efforts at industry trade shows & in the field through lead generation of Digital Technology along with large Dental Equipment.

He writes and publishes a business blog on the topics of Sales, Marketing and Social Media entitled Sales, Marketing & Social Media Today.

Dan is seeking a full-time marketing role. He is interested in roles in Direct, Digital, Content and Social Media Marketing. If your company is hiring for roles in these areas, contact him directly via a free LinkedIn Message or email him at Dan@DanGalante.com to set up interviews.

Buyers have different wants and needs.

When marketing and selling a product or service, it is important to ask two questions to understand your buyers.

1. What motivates people to buy a product or service?

2. How do people find a product or service to buy?

I surveyed my LinkedIn audience for answers.

1. What motivates people to buy a product or service?

People buy a product or service to: solve a problem, meet a need, or fulfill a want or desire. 49% buy products and services to solve a problem, meet a need, or fulfill a desire. 27% wanted to solve a problem, 16 % want to meet a need, and 8% wanted to fulfill a want or desire.

2. How do people find a product or service to buy?

Buyers find and buy products or services through word of mouth, social media, online search, and,/or product reviews. Of those surveyed, none said they found or bought products from seller calls or emails. No one found or bought products at trade shows or events; this is probably because of the pandemic.

63 % found or bought products from social channels or word of mouth, and 37% found or bought products or services from online searches or product reviews.

These findings suggest businesses need to create products and services that are customer-centric. Businesses need a great reputation to survive in a competitive marketplace.

Answering these questions will help businesses develop, create, and, position products and services customers want to buy.

There are four major types of buying cycles. Business to Business, Business to Consumer Business to Government, and Direct to Consumer.  It is important to know the difference because it is tempting to think one size fits all especially when certain products like computers and tech are sold to all of these verticals.

How are they different?

B2B vs B2C

To start, the buyer is different. In B2B, buyers work at companies. They usually have a big budget to make purchases but there are multiple decision-makers and stakeholders. Sales cycles are longer and buy-in is needed by a variety of stakeholders, not just the end-user. Products cost more in many cases than B2C.  An example of this is the purchasing of SAAS.

In B2C the buyer is purchasing products for their home and recreation. There are fewer stakeholders and shorter sales cycles but their budgets are smaller than B2B in many cases. An example of this is buying consumer electronics.

Some products overlap between the two verticals in e-commerce models; the difference is the sales cycle length and how products are acquired. Buyer needs and pain points differ between B2B and B2C.

I surveyed my audience on LinkedIn; asking them how B2B and B2C products differ from one another. 82 % said that they differed in who the buyer is, the sales cycle, pricing, buyer needs, and pain points.

B2C VS D2C

I surveyed my audience on LinkedIn about the differences between B2C and D2C products. 64% of those surveyed said that B2C and D2C products differ by buyer pain points needs who the buyer is sales cycle, pricing, and who the buyer is. 27% said these products differed on sales cycle and pricing. Only 9% said that these products differed in terms of the buyer. However, there are similarities between B2C and D2C products. These products are purchased in the home in many cases and the sales cycle is shorter than B2B or B2G. They fall into the category of consumer goods. B2C and B2C are overlapping through e-commerce and subscription business models.

B2B VS B2G

When I asked my audience about the difference between B2B and B2G products. 67% of those surveyed said that the products differed by buyer needs, pain points, sale cycles, pricing, rules, regulation, and who the buyer is. 33% said these products differed by sales cycle, price, regulations. When selling products to governments, it is important to understand the regulations and processes that must be followed. There is some of this in B2B but B2G has a lot more.

What are the differences between B2B, B2C, B2G, and D2C?

How are they similar?

Share your thoughts in the comments.

I covered Voice Summit last week at NJIT in Newark, New Jersey. Voice Summit is the largest voice tech conference that brings the conversational design ecosystem together in one place.

Last year was the first Voice Summit. It was amazing to see how the industry has advanced in the past year. This year, the conference grew to over 5,000 attendees!

Voice Summit was a great place to network. Many Voice Startups demoed their offerings as well.

Founder Pete Erikson shares the story of Voice in the opening press conference. Pete shared the podium with Voice industry leaders and Newark Civic Leadership.

The conversation in Voice has shifted from should brands have a Voice Strategy to how to effectively incorporate voice technology across the organization. Attendees had opportunities to attend hands-on voice workshops on topics ranging from creating brand guidelines to building a voice strategy from the ground up. I took the Voice strategy workshop conducted by Brett Kinsella of VoiceBot.Ai. We received a workbook that had questions that served as building blocks to build our voice strategy.

I had was able to get a look at the Expo Floor where I was able to meet exhibitors and explore the Amazon Smart Home. It was amazing to see how voice technology has transformed the home experience. In this video, I was able to ask Alexa to play Who Wants to Be a Millionaire and to play music, etc.

Marketers have many opportunities with Voice and Audio Content according to Voices.com research. Content takes the form of short and long-form ranging from Flash Briefings up to Audiobooks.

However, when it comes to smart speakers only, 18% of users discover skills from brand advertising according to Vixen Labs.

Brands need to prepare to change their Marketing and Advertising for Voice. A panel shared their thoughts on how to improve how to achieve this aim.

Edison Research and NPR conducted market research on the topic of smart speaker customer behavior. The number of smart speakers in U.S. homes grew 78% from December of 2017 to December. The research packed with data you can see here.

Brett Kinsella led a panel where Marketers shared how they have developed and implemented their strategy for Voice.

Steve Keller of Pandora shared his thoughts on the topic of Sonic Branding and Sound Business.

On a side note, NJIT was nice enough to provide me with a tour of the start-up incubator and co-working space opening this September. I was able to see areas being built from the ground up just as startups are.

I also was able to see the Alexa Cup which is Amazon’s initiative to pair Marketers and developers to work on projects such as Female Empowerment and Mental Health.

What touched me on a human level was the closing keynote entitled “A journey through a deaf developer’s eyes.” In this keynote, Thomas Chappell of Prudential shared his story. Thomas is unable to speak.

After his talk, I was able to meet him. People communicate with him using Voice to speech technology and American Sign language. I was able to use the technology on a smartphone to have a full conversation with him.

Voice Summit was an amazing conference. I want to thank Pete Erikson, the Modev Team, NJIT, the City of Newark, and the State of New Jersey for having me as their guest.