Tim Robertson

Have Your Prospects Commit to a Meeting – And Qualify Themselves

B2B Content Marketing USA is based on the premise that a booked demo appointment, made by the prospect, is better than an email address any day—especially when the prospect fills out a questionnaire after specifying a date and time, qualifying themselves and focusing the conversation. 

When prospects book their own appointment and answer qualifying questions, their commitment to meet with you is very high. They have put the date on their calendar and have made a very specific time to meet with you— the “buyer’s journey” at its best. They also appreciate that their time will not be wasted because they are very clear what their needs are—and that’s before you even meet.

Email Takes Longer

If we were to follow the standard content marketing practices discussed earlier, and if we proceeded through the 10 steps listed there, eventually we would get to the point where someone would step up and schedule a demo to see our product. 

You would need a lot of time and effort to get enough people onto your mailing list, to figure out which content to send them, to follow up on what looks like a warm lead, and so on.

You Don’t Have Time

You don’t have the luxury of time, so it’s important to know what three elements you need to generate appointments ASAP. After all, you have technology solutions to sell and quarterly performance reports to fill out. This simple combination works because it avoids collecting a low-commitment email address and focuses on getting a high-commitment demo appointment.

1. The Blog Post. This is the article (or one of several articles) that attracts prospects in the first place. We’re not talking about a new client announcement or interesting “industry” news. The article is targeted specifically to a keyword phrase or a combination of words that matches what prospects are using when they are searching for solutions. The article provides valuable information as well as the idea of what a good solution can do. At the end of the post is a link to the solution page.

1. The Solution Page. The solution page has all the features and benefits of the product. It has a short intro and a longer “key benefits” list. The solution page is written in clear language and has attractive graphics and branding.

1. The Schedule a Demo Button. The appointment button takes a prospect to a calendar where they can schedule the time and date of their demo. The prospect fills out a form that contains qualifying questions—a key sign of commitment to the call.

As you can see with this strategy, there is no gated content, email capture, social media “engagement,” or other unnecessary activity. It’s not necessary to understand where prospects are in the buyer’s journey, or whether they are being entertained.

Good Content—Good Leads

With good writing and research, and with the weight of authority your website will have once you follow the advice in this book, your article or blog post will show up in very good company in Google search results, where prospects are doing their research

A colleague of mine works with a company that manufactures store fixtures for chains like Starbucks. One day, the owner received a call from a real estate property developer who wanted a complete shopping mall outfitted. 

Once the contract was signed, the owner asked the developer how he found his company. “I was watching the hockey game on TV,” the developer said, “and I saw your ad on one of the boards. I figured that if you are advertising on the NHL you must know what you are doing.”

Status comes in the context of where you show up, and being on the first few pages of Google next to larger competitors makes your company look very good indeed.

Once on the solution page, the prospect can click the demo button and book their own appointment.

“We can’t get people to put in their professional company email address, let alone provide any other information!” is the hue and cry of many marketing teams. That’s because every prospect knows if they give their real email address and other information in exchange for a white paper or other report, there is a good chance they will be called by a sales person or sent newsletters and other notifications they don’t want.

The difference here is one of intent: you are not asking for their name and email so that they can download a report or get added to a list. You’re having them book an appointment to talk about a solution to their burning problem or need, and you’re asking a few questions in order to make the appointment more productive. B2B prospects appreciate that.

This combination—blog article, solution page, and demo button—delivers qualified leads in buyer mode. It’s achieved by focusing on someone in the buyer’s mindset and letting them take the initiative to reach out.

Tired: Capturing emails and building a mailing list. Guessing where prospects are in the buyer’s journey. Sending them stuff to read. Trying to follow up.

Wired: Attracting prospects with well-placed articles. Educating them specifically about the problem the solution solves. Letting them book their own appointment, choose the time and place, and then answer qualifying questions that keep the conversation productive and focused.

Pay-per-click advertising has become more expensive, and prospects only provide a Gmail address if they opt in—and that’s if they opt in at all.

As mentioned earlier, the notion of getting someone to opt in to your content and calling that email contact a lead is common practice. In our view, it’s not an optimal measure of success. There are several issues with counting an email address as a lead in 2019:

1. Prospects are a bit savvier today. They know that if they opt in to download your report or to other “gated” content, there is a good chance someone will try to follow up with a sales call.

1. Instead of putting in their official email address, most people put in their anonymous Gmail address—the one they use for filling out forms and downloading information.

1. The amount of content someone researches in one day is considerable, and it will require having to fill out multiple forms in order to access it. Prospects will only fill out a form or opt in if the content is a must-have.

Aside from the points above, following up on email opt-ins is not super-productive. There are several reasons for this. The buying intent of the prospect is very low—they are looking for information rather than seriously considering your products. In many cases, the opt-in will unsubscribe after they get the information they need.

LinkedIn has found that 37% of tech buyers are less likely to consider a vendor that gates the first piece of content. LinkedIn also found that 75% of tech buyers are less likely to consider a vendor that gates all their content.

Given that you are a new brand in the U.S., it is probably a good idea to go with ungated content. That means don’t collect an email address—instead, let them download your document without having to give you their email. 

You are going to include the Schedule a Demo button inside the content they download (see the Schedule a Demo Button chapter for more details). That means if they pass the document around to their colleagues, and they click on the Schedule a Demo button in the PDF, they are immediately linked right into your appointment book.

As well, when they leave your website, you will be following them around with our low-cost retargeting strategy (see the Retargeting chapter for more details). 

So, instead of you facing all the work and risks involved with gated content, your prospects will be: 

• downloading your PDF, keeping it on their computer, and passing it around to colleagues
• getting your branded reminder ads when they go to other websites for up to 3 months after they visit your site
• potentially clicking on the Schedule a Demo button and making an appointment!

Not that email lists and opt-ins have no value—it’s just a long-term play. The strategies discussed here are for companies who don’t have the luxury of time and the large sales force. They need to attract buyers now. 

Think of email lists and email marketing as the long-term strategy that will pay off over time. It may take hundreds (or thousands) of emails to create one decent opportunity. We’re focusing on prospects that want a demo today—in other words, buyers.

Hunt for Buyers Rather Than Fish for Email Addresses

Attract buyers and make them feel comfortable approaching you to book that initial appointment. 

So, what’s the best way to do that?

A Brief History of Google

As the dominant search engine for business users, Google accounts for 90% of all search engine traffic worldwide (April 2018). And for the purpose of brevity, whenever I mention Google, I am also including Bing, Yahoo, and other search engines.

In the beginning of the transformation from broadcast marketing to search engine marketing was the rise of search engine optimization (SEO). SEO consulting services set themselves up to help technology companies get content in front of prospects. 

The strategy was to use either white hat, grey hat, and/or black hat techniques to get a good position in the search engines for competitive keywords.

• White hat methods are playing the game according to Google’s publishing rules and guidelines.
• Grey hat techniques are borderline “gaming the system.”
• Black hat techniques are outright manipulation. Anyone detected using black hat techniques by Google is usually heavily penalized, if not outright banned for life.

As a result, your friendly SEO shop has become a content marketing agency in the last few years. Not to mention all the advertising agencies, website development studios, marketing communication companies, copyrighters, blogging experts, and lead-generation firms who offer the same. 

That’s a tsunami of practitioners creating content and preaching the benefits of content marketing services.

The Google search algorithm, which is as long as your arm and uses artificial intelligence, has become more sophisticated. SEO techniques alone do not have the potency they once did because ultimately what gets a good search result on Google is what any search engine wants to deliver to its customers in the first place: good, relevant organic content from authoritative sources.

Status Equals Authority

In social situations and society, there are three sources of status: wealth, power, and celebrity. This is a good thing to know when sizing up people in a meeting, at a convention, or in a boardroom. In the virtual world of content marketing, status plays a role as well—but in a different context.

Your online presence as a company and as a brand is determined by where you show up. As an example, if I look up ERP on Google, I will see Oracle, Microsoft, and SAP. These are obviously big players with lots of status on that front page.

Now, imagine if you did a search for your product or service and you appeared beside the large competitors in your industry? As an example, at an enterprise software trade show you would have to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to get the same prominent position as the ERP vendors above. In other words, if you don’t have status, it can be expensive to get it.

What If You Could Get That Status Without All the Expense?

Thanks to the democratization of information, you can position your company next to larger competitors in Google search results. You just need one essential qualification that will grant you that status: authority.

Google wants to deliver a great product to its customers, in the same way that you do for your customers. In Google’s case, a good product is organic content that is relevant to your search. Over the years, Google has filtered out poor-quality content, and they provide very consistent results across the search spectrum.

The Meaning of Google Authority

If Google sees your website as an authority on a particular subject, you have the opportunity to rank beside competitors who have more money and status than you do—even on a very competitive market like the U.S.

How do you convince Google your company website is a reliable go-to source of good information and expertise in your industry? The good news is your website has more authority than you realize. We find that many clients underestimate how much authority they already have and are in the dark about how to take advantage of it.

Massive Leverage

Much like a nondescript sedan that has a high-performance engine, companies are usually unaware of their unfair advantage. So, it helps to understand what you’ve got under the hood.

For starters, with Google you are considered an authority in your particular field if:

• You have an established company with employees, products, and revenues.
• Your company website (in Europe or the U.S.) is 7 years or older.
• You have one or more physical locations
• You have content on your site related to your products, services, and industry.
• You have a few blog posts of indeterminate date.
• The topic of your website has not changed over the years (in other words, you are still in the same business).

This is not a very high bar. If you are thinking there are a lot of businesses like that, you’re right. The upside is you are reading this book and finding out how to leverage the authority your company already has.

Not that you can snap your fingers and get instantaneous results—but with just a bit of work, the content you create can gain the status necessary to “show up” in the company of larger established players. In other words, you’re taking your website with the credibility described above and leveraging the authority Google has already given it! 

And by making your content even more relevant, that authority will provide the status necessary to get you onto those first few pages of the search engine results.

Once that happens, you are leveraging your website’s status and presence. That means more traffic, more people looking at your solution, more buyers seeing you as a viable second or third option, more prospects asking for more information, and more prospects booking a demo and wanting to know more.

Do You Have a New U.S. Website?

If you are starting out in the U.S. with a brand-new website, you do not have any authority at all, unless you bought a URL that had some history. The issues around a new website can be rectified, but it will take some effort depending on the industry and the amount of competition you have. Don’t let anyone convince you it’s because of the “design” or other creative nonsense. Contact us for strategies on how to fix this.

In order to get optimal results, it’s important to understand who you are speaking to, where you have leverage, and what to talk about.

Create Content for Prospects in One of Two Mindsets

The first mindset is made up of Buyers who are looking for a solution. These prospects are looking to buy and have done some research, looked at your technology solution, and want a demo and a discussion.

The second mindset is made up of Researchers who are exploring solutions. These prospects are looking around. If they had decided on your well-known competition, they would have talked to them long ago. Instead, they are open-minded and willing to consider several vendors, picking the top 3 or 4 candidates. You want to be in that group.

Anything beyond these two mindsets only complicates things. Take those complex buying funnel diagrams out of your PowerPoint presentations and concentrate on these two states of mind specifically.

Create Content Around the “Idea” of a Product

Because your brand or product is not well-known, you have to think about promoting the idea of your product: what problem it solves. Prospects will not search for your product if they don’t know what it’s called. It’s the idea of the product that generates interest. 

Your potential customers are searching (thousands of times a day) through articles, blog posts, and solution pages using everyday terms (or industry-specific language) that defines their challenge.

Take Stock of (or Establish) Status and Authority

One of the most important objectives of any content marketing campaign is to establish your website as a trusted source of authority with Google. There is no certification for this—it has to be earned. 

Having a good status with Google opens the doors to higher search engine ratings, more traffic, more opportunities, more visibility, and a faster route to booked prospect appointments and new business.