Why You Need "Blue Ocean" Content

Content marketing is now a core marketing strategy for many B2B companies. Research shows that 9 out of 10 B2B companies are using content marketing in some form. The irony is that the popularity of content marketing makes it more challenging to create content that will enable your company to stand out from the crowd. The job has become more difficult for two reasons.

First, there's more "good" content available. As companies gain experience using educational, informative, and customer-focused content, many get better at creating it. Therefore, potential buyers are now exposed to more relevant and well-prepared content than ever before.

The second factor is that companies operating in the same market segments usually offer products or services that address the same or similar business issues and produce value in similar ways. When these companies create marketing content, it tends to deal with the same general group of business issues or topics. Therefore, the content offered by competitors will often look (or sound) a lot alike.

To capture prospects' attention and set your company apart from competitors, you need to create and use marketing content that provides fresh and valuable insights. This is not easy to do, but one solution is to always be looking for opportunities to create what I call blue ocean content.

The defining characteristic of blue ocean content is that it deals with important, but under appreciated, issues, problems, or ways that your product or service will create value. The matrix shown below illustrates what I mean.

The vertical axis of the matrix represents the importance of a business issue or problem or the significance of a way that your product or service creates value. The horizontal axis represents how knowledgeable potential buyers are about the issue, problem, or value opportunity.

Red ocean content (the upper right quadrant) is content that addresses important or significant issues, problems, or value that potential buyers already know about. (Note:  I've borrowed the red ocean-blue ocean metaphor from Blue Ocean Strategy by W. Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne.)

Red ocean content, when it's done well, has significant value, but it isn't particularly effective at helping to differentiate your company.  That's because (a) potential buyers are already aware of the problem, issue, or value the content addresses, so you aren't really providing new information, and (b) your competitors are probably offering similar content.

Blue ocean content (the upper left quadrant) describes and explains important or significant problems, issues, or value that potential buyers do not already know about or fully appreciate. Blue ocean content is also more likely to address topics that your competitors aren't dealing with. Therefore, blue ocean content offers prospects new and valuable insights.

Content can achieve blue ocean status in several ways:

• It can identify and describe the causes and effects of a previously unrecognized problem.
• It can make the full ramifications of a known issue or problem visible.
• It can describe a new solution for an issue or problem.
• It can provide new perspectives on industry issues or problems.

Red ocean content is and will remain valuable in your marketing efforts. Most of your content will be red ocean content because it will always be essential to provide information about basic, known problems, issues, and value. But you need some blue ocean content to effectively capture your prospects' attention and set your company apart from competitors.

Can You Win the Zero Moment of Truth?

Regular readers of this blog know that I write frequently about how new buyer behaviors are driving far-reaching changes in what is required to make B2B marketing and sales effective. In my view, this is the single most significant issue facing B2B marketing and sales professionals.

Google weighed in on this topic last year when it published an excellent e-book titled, Winning the Zero Moment of Truth. The e-book was written by Jim Lecinski, Google's Managing Director of U.S. Sales & Service, and it is based on an analysis of Google's voluminous data regarding internet searches and on primary research Google commissioned.

The primary message of Winning the Zero Moment of Truth is both simple and profound. Lecinski writes that the traditional mental model of marketing contains three components.

• Stimulus - Typically, this is an advertising/marketing message such as a TV/radio/print ad, a direct mail communication, or an e-mail marketing message.
• First Moment of Truth - This is the moment at which a consumer stands in front of your product in a store or views your product in an online store and decides to buy. . . or not. For many B2B companies, the First Moment of Truth is not when a prospect decides whether or not to buy. Instead, it is when a prospect registers for one of your white papers or webinars, or when a prospect accepts a meeting with your sales rep. In B2B, the First Moment of Truth is that moment when a prospect decides to identify himself/herself and engage with a company. . . or not.
• Second Moment of Truth - This is when a buyer actually uses a product or service and is happy/delighted/satisfied. . . or not.

A.G. Lafley, the former chairman, president, and CEO of Procter & Gamble, has written that the best brands consistently win both of these "moments of truth."

Lecinski argues that the development of internet technologies and the explosion of online information have added a new moment of truth to the traditional model, what he calls the Zero Moment of Truth, or ZMOT. The ZMOT occurs after the stimulus and before the First Moment of Truth, as shown below.

The ZMOT is where potential buyers take initial steps to learn about the products they may be interested in purchasing. Most of this research is performed online, via web searches, anonymous visits to company websites, reading online user reviews, and, increasingly, through social media. Whatever you sell, whether it's complex industrial equipment or sophisticated computer software or marketing services, your prospects will form their first impression of your company and what you offer at this moment, the ZMOT.

This has two major implications for B2B marketers. First, it means that a prospect's first impression of your company and your products or services will be based on the content that you publish. And second, it means that if your content doesn't pass the "ZMOT test," you may never be given the opportunity to create a relationship with a prospect, much less make a sale.

What about your online presence? Can your company be found when potential buyers search online for information about the products or services you provide? If a prospect visits your website or your Facebook page or your blog, what kind of content will he/she find? Will it be self-promotional content that's mostly about your company? Or, will it be content designed to demonstrate that you understand your prospects' problems and that you have the requisite expertise to help solve those problems? Will your content pass the ZMOT test?

The old saying is absolutely true:  You never get a second chance to make a good first impression.

For Great Marketing Content, Focus on the Jobs Prospects Need to Get Done

The first step to creating compelling marketing content is to understand what your prospects are trying to accomplish when they purchase products or services like those you provide. Most buyers, particularly business buyers, don't purchase a product or service because they want that product or service itself. Instead, when they become aware of a job that they need to get done, they look for a product or service that they can "hire" to perform the job. Theodore Levitt, the legendary marketing professor at the Harvard Business School, captured this concept in a memorable way when he said, "People don't want to buy a quarter-inch drill. They want a quarter-inch hole."

In The Innovator's Solution, Clatyon Christensen and Michael Raynor provide an interesting example of hiring a product to get a job done. A fast-food restaurant chain wanted to increase sales of milkshakes, and it commissioned market research to better understand how to accomplish this goal. The most surprising finding of the research was that almost half of all milkshakes were purchased in the early morning. The milkshakes were usually the only item purchased, and they were rarely consumed on the premises.

The researchers found that most of the morning milkshake customers were people on their way to work. They faced a long commute, and they needed something to make the drive more interesting. In addition, while they weren't necessarily hungry when they bought the shake, they knew if they didn't eat something, they would be hungry by mid-morning. Most of these customers also faced similar constraints. They were in a hurry, they were usually wearing their business clothes, and they only had one free hand.

These customers sometimes "hired" other foods to fill their morning needs, but most of the alternatives had significant disadvantages. Bagels got crumbs on their clothes, bananas were eaten too quickly to last for the whole commute, and breakfast sandwiches made their hands and the steering wheel greasy. It wasn't so much that these customers "liked" milkshakes better than bagels or bananas or breakfast sandwiches, but milkshakes were better than these alternatives at performing the job the customers needed to get done.

It's not hard to find examples of this idea in the business world:

• No business owner really wants accounting software, but many buy such software because they realize they need to generate invoices faster, know how much they owe to vendors, and understand how well their company is performing financially. Accounting software enables them to perform these jobs more efficiently than a manaul bookkeeping system.
• No business owner really wants property insurance, but most will purchase insurance because they know they need to protect themselves financially in case of a fire. Insurance is the best-available tool for performing this job.
• No business owner really wants a company brochure, or a direct mail campaign, or for that matter, a website, but many will invest in those things because they see them as effective tools for performing the job of increasing sales.

As businesspeople and marketers, it's easy for us to forget that most potential buyers aren't really interested in our products or services per se. What they are (or can become) interested in is what our products or services can help them accomplish. Our products or services are simply the means to an end, and this fact should determine the primary focus of our marketing content. To use Levitt's analogy, our marketing content needs to be more about quarter-inch holes than about quarter-inch drills.

To create such content, you have to know what jobs your prospects are trying to get done, why those jobs are important, what happens if those jobs don't get done, and what issues or problems can prevent prospects from performing those jobs. The answers to these questions will provide the basis for your marketing content.

Marketing in the Age of Consensus Buying

The conventional wisdom among marketers and sales professionals is that the fastest and surest path to a closed sale is to identify and create engagement with the economic buyer - the individual who can actually make the decision to purchase your product or service.

Both marketers and salespeople know that most B2B buying decisions now involve more than one person, especially when a significant purchase is on the table. They also understand that it's important to communicate with "influencers" as well as the ultimate decision maker. That being said, the economic buyer remains the primary focus of most marketing and sales activities. One example of this focus is that many companies still use the traditional BANT criteria (Budget-Authority-Need-Timeline) for defining a qualified sales lead, and the "authority" component of BANT is the authority to make the purchase decision.

As it turns out, though, taking a direct approach to the economic buyer may not be the most effective strategy. Research by the Sales Executive Council of the Corporate Executive Board shows that when decision makers (economic buyers) are evaluating purchases, the single most important criteria is widespread support for the proposed supplier/solution across the organization. In other words, what the decision maker really wants to know is that a proposed purchase has the strong backing of his/her team.

Consensus buying is not, of course, a new phenomenon. Wise economic buyers have always sought input from their colleagues, especially when they are one or two steps removed from the use of the product or service under consideration. Consensus buying has now become the norm because leaders recognize that stakeholder buy-in is needed for the successful implementation of any new solution.

In The Challenger Sale, Matthew Dixon and Brent Adamson argue that the emergence of consensus buying has far-reaching implications for sales effectiveness. They contend that sales reps have traditionally viewed stakeholders in the prospect organization as sources of information. In the traditional selling model, sales reps gather information from stakeholders and use that "inside" information to fine tune their presentation to the economic buyer. Dixon and Adamson argue that a new sales model is emerging in which information and insights flow from sales reps to prospect stakeholders. These insights are designed to build broad stakeholder support for the proposed solution and provide stakeholders the information they need to evangelize the proposed solution with the economic buyer.

The emergence of consensus buying has implications for marketing as well as sales. Most importantly, it means that marketing must create content that speaks to the concerns and needs of all the stakeholders who will influence the purchase decision. Marketing is just as responsible as sales for creating engagement with all significant buying influences.

The second implication of consensus buying is that marketers can't afford to target lead generation campaigns too narrowly. We now know that targeted, more relevant lead generation programs are more effective that the "spray and pray" campaigns of the past. Targeting is important, but you shouldn't exclude influencers from lead generation programs, even if you have a good idea of who the economic buyer is. Other stakeholders can provide a valuable initial contact with the prospect organization, and their support is essential for a successful sale.

Do You Have Marketing Content for Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt?

Most B2B marketers are naturally positive people. Professionally, they have an innate predisposition to focus on what's good about their company and its products and services. Most marketers are less comfortable dealing with any perceived "weaknesses" of their products or services or with the challenges that companies face when using them. So, most marketers have a built-in tendency to minimize, gloss over, or simply ignore those issues.

That's a mistake because fear, uncertainty, and doubt (FUD) are part of every significant buying decision. In The Buyersphere Project, Gord Hotchkiss wrote, "B2B buying decisions are usually driven by one emotion - fear. Specifically, B2B buying is all about minimizing fear by eliminating risk."

Ardath Albee, author of eMarketing Strategies for the Complex Sale and the Marketing Interactions blog, includes a stage called "Step Backs" in her description of the buying process. This is where the concerns and fears of the buying group rise to the surface and stop (at least temporarily) the forward momentum of the buying decision. I agree with Ardath that a step back stage is probably present in most B2B buying situations, but I also contend that FUD permeates the entire buying process and can appear at any stage.

Your prospects' fears, uncertainties, and doubts usually involve concerns about your product or service or your company, and about their ability to do what is required to reap the full benefits of your proposed solution. Throughout the buying process, members of the buying group will be asking themselves or each other questions like:

• Does the proposed solution provide all of the capabilities we need?
• Will the proposed solution work as promised?
• Is the supplier financially stable?
• Will the supplier be able to meet our needs as they change and evolve?
• What if our employees won't buy into and use the proposed solution?
• What if we can't successfully implement the proposed solution?
• What if we can't reengineer our business processes to maximize the benefits of the proposed solution?

There's no way to eliminate FUD from the buying process, so your only choice is to deal with it. Marketing content can play a major role in alleviating FUD. You probably already have content assets that address FUD indirectly.

• White papers, webinars, and product/service specifications can reduce the FUD that's related to your product or service.
• Analyst reports can show the financial stability of your company.
• Customer case studies can show how companies have successfully implemented and used your solution.

You also need marketing content that directly and intentionally addresses FUD. This is especially important when the FUD involves your prospects' internal capabilities. For example, consider creating a few "expanded" case studies that describe customers' experiences in greater detail than your "regular" case studies. Describe the problems your customers faced in implementing and using your solution and how they solved those problems.

You should also consider creating a group of content assets (call them white papers, tip sheets, or whatever) that describe how customers can avoid the most common (and/or most serious) implementation problems and accelerate their ability to reap the full benefits of your solution.

How do you determine which FUD issues to address?

• Ask your salespeople.
• Talk with customers who achieved quick success with your solution - and with some whose path to success was more challenging.
• If possible, interview some prospects who chose not to buy from you and find out why.

Remember, you can't stop your prospects from feeling fear, uncertainty, and doubt. But you can provide your prospects with content that will make the FUD easier to handle.

What is the Right Mix of Inbound and Outbound Marketing?

Marketing pundits have been debating the merits of inbound vs. outbound marketing for the past few years. Advocates of inbound marketing contend that traditional outbound marketing tactics have become ineffective because of changes in buyer behavior. Some argue that companies should completely abandon outbound marketing and rely exclusively on inbound techniques. More traditional marketers acknowledge that inbound marketing is important, but they contend that most companies still need outbound marketing, and that it can still be effective, if it's done right.

There are persuasive arguments and convincing evidence on both sides of this debate. My focus is B2B marketing, and in my opinion, most B2B companies need both inbound and outbound marketing. The important question is not which type of marketing to use, but rather what mix of inbound and outbound marketing will produce the best results.

Marketing has four major functions in most B2B companies.

• Customer acquisition
• Customer retention
• Expanding customer relationships (cross-selling, etc.)
• Reactivating relationships with dormant or "lost" customers

The real issue for B2B marketers is how to combine the use of inbound and outbound marketing tactics to achieve the maximum results in all of these functions. The diagram below illustrates the relative importance of inbound and outbound marketing in performing each marketing function. (Note:  In B2B companies with long, complex sales cycles, customer acquisition marketing consists of two distinct components - lead acquisition and lead nurturing. Therefore, the diagram shows five functions rather than four.)

In today's B2B buying environment, the importance of inbound marketing can't be denied. Business buyers (whether prospects or customers) now expect companies to provide valuable information on a consistent basis in a variety of venues, including blogs and other inbound marketing channels. Therefore, inbound marketing is now playing an important role in all marketing functions.

What may raise a few eyebrows is my take on the relative importance of inbound and outbound marketing for lead acquisition. Outbound marketing and sales prospecting have traditionally been the dominant tactics for acquiring new leads in many B2B companies. The landscape, however, has changed. Today's business buyers have easy access to a wealth of information, and they've become convinced they can find whatever information they need, whenever they need it. So, they are far less likely to respond to outbound marketing and sales efforts from companies they don't know. The result is that outbound lead acquisition programs aren't nearly as effective as they once were.

These circumstances are driving a shift to inbound marketing for lead acquisition, and the shift will continue to grow. Research firm SiriusDecisions has said that 80% of new leads will come from inbound marketing by 2015.

The bottom line? Both inbound and outbound marketing are necessary components of an effective B2B marketing effort. Inbound marketing should be the primary tactic used for lead acquisition, if not immediately, then in the very near future. Outbound marketing (primarily in the form of behavior-driven e-mail content offers) should play the leading role in lead nurturing. For customer retention, customer expansion, and customer reactivation, inbound and outbound should be given nearly equal emphasis.

Do you agree? How are you balancing the use of inbound and outbound marketing?

Should All Marketing Become "Distributed" Marketing?

Distributed marketing refers to a marketing model in which both a corporate marketing department and local business units or channel partners make marketing decisions and perform marketing activities. A distributed marketing model will often exist when a company sells its products or services through a network of regional or local outlets. Distributed marketing models can exist in virtually all kinds of companies, they almost always exist in franchised businesses, and they are frequently found in industries like insurance, financial services and manufacturing.

The defining characteristic of a distributed marketing model is that the local business units or channel partners have some degree of autonomy from the corporate marketing department when performing marketing functions.

Companies with a distributed marketing model have traditionally faced challenges that organizations with centralized marketing don't typically encounter.

• Corporate and local marketers have different priorities. Corporate marketers focus on maintaining consistent brand messaging and presentation, while local marketers want marketing programs that will drive sales for their location or business.
• Local marketing partners often lack the resources to run effective marketing programs on a consistent, frequent basis.
• Companies often lack the ability to measure the performance of local marketing programs.

The good news is that technologies now exist that will enable companies to address these challenges and improve the effectiveness and efficiency of distributed marketing operations. Most significantly, these technologies enable corporate marketers to maintain control of brand messaging and brand presentation, while making it easy for local marketers to create and use marketing messages and materials that are customized for their specific needs and markets. (Note:  If you'd like to learn more about distributed marketing automation, contact me via e-mail at ddodd(at)pointbalance(dot)com to request a copy of our new white paper, How the Right Technology Will Supercharge Distributed Marketing.)

Not only will these technologies optimize distributed marketing operations, they can also create new possibilities for companies that don't currently use a distributed marketing model.

Marketers now recognize that "localizing" marketing content has become critical for marketing success. In a recent survey by the CMO Council, 86% of marketers said they intend to look for ways to better localize marketing content. When asked to identify the major obstacles to effective localization, 30% of survey respondents said understanding local market dynamics and variables, 23% cited measuring campaign effectiveness on a local level, and 22% said finding knowledgeable local market resources and experts.

The reality is, it's difficult for marketers in a central marketing department to truly understand what's needed to make marketing effective in diverse local markets. One solution is to decentralize marketing, to implement something closer to a distributed marketing model. Many companies have not taken this approach because corporate marketers fear losing control of brand messaging and brand presentation and because of the other challenges traditionally associated with distributed marketing. Now, the right technology tools can effectively address these concerns.

A more collaborative relationship between corporate and local marketers will enable companies to leverage both corporate marketing expertise and local market knowledge and insights. Distributed marketing technologies can make this kind of decentralized and collaborative marketing model a realistic and practical alternative for many companies.