Abridged with permission from her blog, Marketing Interactions.
You’ve launched a lead generation program that’s done a terrific job of getting people to opt in for more of your great content. The flow of leads remains steady and your follow-on nurturing program is kicking into high gear. Things are looking really impressive until about the fifth “touch,” when movement comes to a screeching halt.
What happened? Your prospects’ risk perception just shot off the charts, causing them to dig in their heels. Given a chance, many people will “what if…?” themselves until their ability to make an active decision dies.
So what do you do?
Create content that helps to assuage fears, allay concerns, validate beliefs, and smooth your prospects’ way forward.
One way to do that is with implementation content. This kind of content is built to show how your expertise helps customers overcome problems discovered midway through projects, or even unknowns that surface. It’s the down and dirty stuff that never makes it into those slick customer stories that make even the most complex projects appear to have never had a blip.
In order to do this well, you need to find out what the “blips” were. You can do this by talking to your salespeople, account managers, customer service reps, deployment teams—whoever is involved in project implementation. Don’t forget to speak with your customers. Ask them what impressed them the most during implementation. Their answers are likely to include those saves that we’re looking for.
Some possible scenarios you can explore with this content could include:
- Process change that affected other departments not considered—what steps did you take to help smooth the ripple effect to keep from disrupting work flows?
- Rigidity of legacy systems that caused implementation plans to shift—how agile is your company in working around proprietary system issues?
- Unexpected user adoption issues—what steps did you take to help your customer turn this around?
- Unexpressed expectations from peripheral team members that weren’t factored into the original plan—even if you didn’t know about them from the start, how did you make it right once you did?
The point is that even if what you promise sounds fantastic, complex projects always have some degree of risk associated with them. It’s up to you to help your prospects gain the level of confidence they need to put their trust in your company.
Ardath Albee is CEO & B2B Marketing Strategist for Marketing Interactions, Inc. Her new book eMarketing Strategies for the Complex Sale was recently released by McGraw Hill.
Show How You’ll Fix It When It Goes Wrong
Abridged with permission from her blog, Marketing Interactions.
You’ve launched a lead generation program that’s done a terrific job of getting people to opt in for more of your great content. The flow of leads remains steady and your follow-on nurturing program is kicking into high gear. Things are looking really impressive until about the fifth “touch,” when movement comes to a screeching halt.
What happened? Your prospects’ risk perception just shot off the charts, causing them to dig in their heels. Given a chance, many people will “what if…?” themselves until their ability to make an active decision dies.
So what do you do?
Create content that helps to assuage fears, allay concerns, validate beliefs, and smooth your prospects’ way forward.
One way to do that is with implementation content. This kind of content is built to show how your expertise helps customers overcome problems discovered midway through projects, or even unknowns that surface. It’s the down and dirty stuff that never makes it into those slick customer stories that make even the most complex projects appear to have never had a blip.
In order to do this well, you need to find out what the “blips” were. You can do this by talking to your salespeople, account managers, customer service reps, deployment teams—whoever is involved in project implementation. Don’t forget to speak with your customers. Ask them what impressed them the most during implementation. Their answers are likely to include those saves that we’re looking for.
Some possible scenarios you can explore with this content could include:
The point is that even if what you promise sounds fantastic, complex projects always have some degree of risk associated with them. It’s up to you to help your prospects gain the level of confidence they need to put their trust in your company.
Ardath Albee is CEO & B2B Marketing Strategist for Marketing Interactions, Inc. Her new book eMarketing Strategies for the Complex Sale was recently released by McGraw Hill.