Friday, September 12, 2014

There's a hole in the bucket...

The Sales Funnel is Now a Sieve

Leaky_bucket
The buying process has gotten messy for B2B marketers and salespeople. Because of easy access to information on the Internet and mobile devices, an active engaged customer can turn into disinterested one in the blink of an eye. Every new marketing channel puts a hole in your sales funnel and the proverbial bucket.
Distributors who don't integrate new channels into their content marketing strategy will find they have a very leaky bucket.

If you want to plug the holes, it's time to consider:


Consistency of your Message
Given that only 32% of businesses consider their content marketing effective, they need to pay attention to what they're doing with the 17 tactics they use, on average. Forty-one percent are creating more content than they did last year but the question remains as to what it is and why they're creating it?
Many of them don't have a well documented plan or the time to manage it consistently, which leaves me to wonder how they manage it all. If you're relying on memory or hoping that everyone is publishing to the idea of the plan, good luck. Automating the message builds consistency
and simplifies the maintenance, by using our Remotenet B2B Integrated Ecommerce platform's social media links you can push a consistent message to all your platforms. 
What will the overall impression be if they run into your company on the Internet? Is it a consistent message?
Depth of Relevance
In reviewing content that gets posted how do your determine what is relevant?  To get to depth of relevance you need to know your buyers intimately. Instead of  overall guidelines, why not create a specific brand persona that can help your company become more relevant by publishing customer specific information. Let the RemoteNet predictive analytics engine become the trusted adviser to your customers. You want your content to advise them on what's trending, what they need and remind then about reordering cycles. That is the lasting impression you want to leave.
Formats Don't Matter More than Information
One of the pitfalls in content marketing is about the type of content the marketing team wants to create. We need a white paper or an eBook or an infographic, etc. This is the wrong place to start.
Start with the data.
Once you have the knowledge of your customers patterns you can then see the important items that are missing.
These are the questions to answer.
The MDS-Nx and RemoteNet systems will then define a suite of content to develop around the data. And automatically connect the dots across channels. 
The Point
The point is that buyers have a choice. It's often represented by the back button on a web browser.  Once they start avoiding you, will you be able to win them back?
The best approach is to think of everything you publish as a piece of your overall sales strategy. Every time your content comes into contact with your audience you have an opportunity.

Squander it and your funnel becomes a sieve.


For more information on TSH or MDS call The Systems House, Inc. at 1-800- MDS-5556. Or send a message to sales@tshinc.com
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