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3 companies who are doing content marketing in the right way

branches&creaturesAccording to Content Marketing Institute, 90% of the companies are using content marketing, however only one third of third of them are satisfied with the response that they get. According to DemandMetric, it is 62% cheaper than the traditional marketing.

Is content marketing an integral part of your startup? Are you pouring in hours of hard work and efforts to build a strong brand on the plinth of content marketing yet failing in some way to get the desired traction? Often it is beneficial to adopt strategies that made the existing brands the best in business rather than searching for never-before tried techniques.

In this article, lets learn from these 3 companies who do content marketing in the right way to build customer centric brands, increase the product users, signups and get established as thought leaders in their niche.

HubSpot – HubSpot is an inbound marketing and sales software started in 2006 with 3 employees, 3 customers that gained more than 10,000 customers, 668 employees and $77.6 million revenues in 2013. A feat almost impossible to achieve for a Business-to-Business enterprise.

How did they grow – HubSpot generates a huge amount of free content in form of e-books, webinars, blog articles and infographics that gets them millions of page views. The CMO at HubSpot Mike Volpe says that the inbound (organic) leads are converted twice more than the outbound (paid) leads. The strategy that worked wonders for them is that below each blog post is a free e-book or webinar based on that topic. The reader doesn’t have to look around for free resources, the relevant freebies are presented to him. So suppose I am reading an article on “How to create my Facebook business page”, at the bottom of the article is a call-to-action link to a free e-book on setting up the Facebook page and how to master all its features.

Key takeaway – HubSpot uses a range of educational, informative and actionable free content and free tools to help the potential customers. The content is separated into 3 categories – sales, marketing and agency to ensure that the content doesn’t mingle with the other niche and they allow their employees to create expert content for the blog.

Dollar Shave Club – Getting a sound footing in the shaving razor industry niche dominated by traditional honchos like Gillette and Procter and Gamble is a thought that would scare most of us. A four year old brand, Dollar Shave Club broke into this market with their own razor blades shipped to men on a subscription model using video content marketing to gain 12,000 customers within the first 2 days of their product launch. They now deliver razors and other men’s personal grooming products to more than 1.5 million happy customers who have a great relationship with the company.

How did they grow – Dollar Shave Club Wiki uses funny and entertaining videos to connect with their target audience and gain their attention. Their CEO Michael Dublin stares in each of these videos, they have no celebrity endorsements, they use such videos to launch a new product and their first video garnered 5 million views within the first 3 months. After understanding their audience’s pain points, they launch products to help the audience and speak in a humorous language that can be easily understood by even layman.

Key takeaway – Your content marketing doesn’t necessarily need a blog. First zero on the social networks where most of your audience is present, (in this case YouTube) and then adopt a content strategy that’ll attract the audience on each of these networks. Conveying your message in a humorous tone and with visual content has a better impact.

Buffer App – For the social media scheduling app Buffer, content marketing accounts for 70% of their daily signups. Each of their blog posts gets on an average 1900 shares! Buffer uses content marketing as their primary channel for growth, they’re known to have built their company on the platform of content marketing and guest blogging.

How did they grow – A blend of data-driven insights, curated content, storytelling and transparency has helped them catch attention of the target audience. Their content focusses mainly on making the job of their target audience (content crafters and marketers, digital marketers and social media marketers) easier. Their founder, Leo Widrich used guest posting to gain from 0-100,000 customers in the first year. Their blogs are an excellent example of content curation, which points to another fact – you don’t always have to reinvent the content creation wheel.

Key takeaway – Actionable, unique, thorough and detailed listicles that help your target audience simplify their task are always well-received by the users and audience. Guest posting unique and valuable content is far from being dead, it helps brands gain immense traction.

Content marketing doesn’t give instant rewards, it takes time to craft the best quality content, distribute it among the media sources, get attention of the target audience and gain the market leadership. When done consistently over a period of time, positive results start showing and it’ll help your brand scale up immensely.

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Who plays a more incremental role in building brands? Loyalty or marketing

Congrats for climbing the corporate hierarchy to become the Chief Marketing Officer. You deserved it, after all the hard work that was poured. Now I offer my condolence. Until you step into the shoes of Chief Loyalty Officer, you’ll sooner or later be by replaced by someone else.

Am I sounding preposterous? Here is the best proof. Apple that dominates the smartphone market. Their all-time record breaking earnings released officially last year show that more than 87% of their revenues are generated by the sale of their iPhones. Although they come up with dazzling products such as Apple HealthKit, Apple Pay and Apple watch, disruptive technology and ideas, but our loyalty will always tilt towards the iPhone. Come in any polished iOS version or starts the preordering of a new iPhone and either we or some of our friends pre-order them before even its entry into the market. What sort of loyalty does Apple garner? The sale of 74.5 million brand new phones with least efforts in marketing and advertising! Apple’s marketing and advertising simply constitutes a few TV ads and bill-boards.

Yes I know very well that not every company wields power and dexterity equivalent to Apple and allowing the product to be the sole story-teller is a luxury very few brands can afford. But the lesson every brand can learn is: Try concentrating on building a solid customer loyalty rather than pouring in all efforts over traditional and modern marketing.

Almost every other person I ask derives the figurative meaning of marketing as selling a product. However it’s a one-sided endeavor where marketers are given the sole responsibility of selling the product. This may have worked previously, but social media has transformed the consumers into the sole advocates of a brand, their voice and opinion more influential than the traditional marketing.

While buying something, wouldn’t you prefer a brand which you’re more loyal to then going in for the one that has excellent marketing? Yes initially influential marketing plays a small role but it doesn’t always lead to inculcating loyalty. People are more inclined to choosing a brand whose brand values they want to be affiliated with. With a plethora of options available in the market why will a person choose your brand over the others? Does the brand resonate with the priorities and beliefs of the audience? So here comes the nagging question, how to build a brand powered by loyalty? A simple answer, curate or deliver content that is so specific that is defines the users/ consumers and the brand itself.

Another example, Chipotle, the good junk food brand with healthier meat that is antibiotic and hormones free, cheese obtained from pasture-raised cattle and produces that are local resonate a very high level of loyalty among fans. They are socially conscious, conveying their ideology that a person’s meal is not merely just food, it’s more than that. They come up with campaigns, one among them was “Cultivating Thoughts”, with writers such as Malcolm Gladwell coming up with small texts to appear on their cups and they have a dedicated microsite for them. Such ideas do not come from the marketing team’s cubicle or a PR’s agency, one fine day Jonathan Safran Foer was out of stuff to read at Chipotle. All these efforts are directed towards building loyalty. These efforts or resources won’t make direct money for the company, but sheds light on the efforts to build good faith, perfectly tailored for their customers.

What makes fans come repeatedly to brands such as Apple and Chipotle? It is their assurance at being a kind of person their target audience wants them to be. Apart from the convenience of transaction, people desire to understand the meaning behind a brand. A marketer’s words are merely a jumble of disorganized sentences aiming to make the customer buy a product that often bounces off the brain walls of the audience. While building loyalty involves loving the users, knowing them and interacting with them every single day. Each of these interaction should emancipate passion and a hunger to know the users deeply and their way of interacting with your brand or product. So what is the role of a Chief Loyalty Officer? To concentrate more on “What should our brand be?” rather than focusing their efforts on thinking about “What should our brand say?”

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Location is a context, not THE context

Being context aware is about knowing location, identity, activity and time.

Many context-aware technologies give a huge importance to location, but location is just one aspect of context, not the context. Location awareness can improve user experience, but knowing a user’s preferences and specific environment makes it all the more personal and all the more powerful. Mobile apps and devices can tap into this information, as can ad platforms, to create relevant experiences for consumers. Location is certainly important, but it’s just one piece of the puzzle.

There are plenty of applications that use location-awareness successfully from tracking deliveries to managing inventory or simply helping a user find their lost smartphone, or even a pet. But what if those same applications could know, not just where you are, but what you’re doing? Or better yet, what you’ll be doing or needing in the future. In that case, you’ll get a lot more targeted and helpful information rather than educated guesses.

The experts say…

According to Gartner Inc., “context-aware technologies will affect $96 billion of annual consumer spending worldwide by 2015.” In addition, the company’s research shows that by next year, 40 percent of smartphone users will opt-in to context service providers that track their activities. This would equal about 720 million people, by their count. The research company believes that transportation, utilities, energy and healthcare firms, in particular, stand to gain from these trends.

“Context-aware computing is the method by which new experiences are constructed that blend information from mobile, social, digital and physical world sources,” said William Clark, research vice president at Gartner. “The disruptions caused by context-aware computing will include major user, technology and business shifts, including the use of model-driven security in fraud detection and prevention, convergence in television, game, Web and mobile advertising, and new styles of application programming.”

He added that “organizations that do not prepare for thoughtful information sharing — balancing usage, privacy and business models of consumers, context providers, and the enterprises themselves, will be at a severe disadvantage.”

Currently, context-awareness is being leveraged by mobile applications and wearable technology such as fitness trackers from companies like Fitbit, Garmin and Nike as well as numerous smart watches like the upcoming Apple Watch, and finally, Google Glass. In the app realm, one example is Easilydo, a virtual assistant that manages your contacts, calendar and more, in much the same way that Google Now does, by learning from your actions and stored data.

These smart apps and devices are still limited in their intelligence; they only know what a user shares whether it be actively or passively. For example, location-awareness becomes a challenge when one is indoors and out of range of Wi-Fi. Beacons, standalone devices that beam Bluetooth signals, are one solution that can be seen in the retail sector, where stores can communicate with shoppers, for example. Apple has joined the game with iBeacon, which is built into its devices and OS and can communicate with compatible beacons at retailers. Additionally, apps like Placed can be used to launch apps based on which room of your house you’re in, which makes the beacon experience more personal. But there is so much more potential to be tapped in this arena.

How business benefits

On the business side, mobile ad platforms can use your location to serve ads, but they can become more targeted through user profiling. Here too, location is just one tool at their disposal. InMobi, a mobile ad network, uses context-aware technology to create “SmartAds” which exploit a user’s immediate environment to trigger relevant ads. For instance, a user checking the weather on a hot summer day might see an ad for a cold drink or an air conditioner; conversely, on a snowy day, that same user might see an for a hot drink or winter boots. Looking into the future, a platform that knows not only that a user is at a ski resort, but is actually skiing, could serve ads for nearby après ski locations, or other relevant businesses and services.

These apps and devices are only scratching the surface. Currently, all of them require at least some user intervention or prompting. Eventually, we’ll see smarter applications that can infer more about a user, digging deeper into their interests and preferences and learning from mistakes. For instance, apps could know without explicitly asking, where a user works and lives and what their regular schedule entails, and when they might need a break–almost reading one’s mind.

The possibilities are endless

Guest Post by Prima Dona, Keypoint Technologies

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How to Structure Sales and Marketing in a SaaS Business

PlaybookRTThe discussions continued post-lunch in the Playbook Roundtable led by Girish Mathrubootham, CEO and founder of Freshdesk, organized at the Freshdesk office in Chennai. During the extended session, Girish outlined the sales and marketing structure in a SaaS business. While this may be only taken as a pointer to setting up the sales and marketing teams, each business owner needs to focus on the appropriate strategy that brings him the maximum number of customers. As explained in the last report on this roundtable, firming up the business model after iterations and adaptations is very important before a SaaS business would scale. Remember the product is the key. And when the celebrated investor Andreessen Horowitz featured in his blog Mark Cranney’s “If SaaS Products Sell Themselves, Why Do We Need Sales?” it kicked a lot of debate on why Cranney is right. Some strategies outlined by Girish might be of great help in not only positioning your product but also making sure that customers continue to use it after they buy it. The Q&A format continues.

How do you structure the sales function?

The sales function has two components: inbound sales and outbound sales. For inbound sales, the ability to identify good people to fill the position is absolutely essential. If they have capabilities of researching on the customer and can write personalized mails, that works better than lifeless common mailers. Further, the response rates increase in case of personalized mails although it might not convert into sales immediately. The inbound sales guys should be able to identify themselves with the customers and a “We” pitch infuses confidence into the customer’s mind. In all, inbound sales people should be able to make the customer feel special about interacting with the product and the organization behind it.

Outbound sales is a pure arithmetic in one sense. Read Predictable Revenue by Arnold Ross. If you invest x amount of money, you harvest an amount y (usually as multiples of x) as revenue. To be able to achieve this, you need to have a structure sales organization inside the team. It could be divided into market research team (which identifies potential target sectors and customers), sales development team (which continuously interacts with the customers to understand their requirements and explains to them how your product can address their needs), and an account executive team (which specifically oversees one or more specific customer accounts). This should be supported by the pre-sales team.

People are key to all the roles mentioned. It’s important for the CEO or the senior management to identify who is good at what and then placing them at the position they can perform best. If someone is capable of creating a good rapport with the customer, move that person to pre-sales. Some people show an inclination to solve problems. Put them in the support team.

A small hint about shifts. Keep the people in the same routine, which means keep them in the same shift they come in. Some people like night shift and if they want the night shift, keep them there. Rotating shifts might need to unnecessary resetting of biological clocks of the shift people that might show up as poor performance. Be wary of this.

Should you hire a salesperson in the US?

This question continues to create varied views in the minds of SaaS entrepreneurs who find the US market attractive for their product. The right answer is it depends.

If you are able to close the deal through online and telephone interactions, it’s good and some big deals might also happen. But it’s not a scalable model. A salesperson in the proximity of the customer at times becomes necessary to go after big-ticket size deals and close them. Customers feel confident about having a support person near them. It also involves cultural and mind-set issues and the customers become comfortable with the organization present in the same country as them. It would be better if you would hire a person after you are sure that big ticket size deals would happen. The salesperson should be capable of going after big deals and closing them. One note of caution: Make sure your sales person is working full-time for you and not moonlighting. What is the final word? Again, it depends. The best option is to hire a full-time sales person in the US for closing big-ticket deals. Beware of the cost of the sales guy and the difficulty of getting sales out of them. There have been bad experiences for some. Maybe learning about that helps and also get tips on how to hire the sales guy in the US. There is no one strategy that works and it’s largely your own learning curve. But some pointers from people who already have a sales team or a sales organization in the US helps.

Identifying the right sales people

Sales people are either hunters or farmers. Hunter sales people hunt for new customers and go after new domains aggressively. Farmers have the ability to nurture the existing customers. It’s important to identify a person’s skill and decide where they fit in the sales organization. Read Jason Lemkin’s interview on SaaStr.com.

Retargeting customers can be done through Google mail. Don’t overdo mass mailers. You run the risk of Google labelling you a spammer. Write personalized mails.

Remember, a closure of sales that results in a recurring revenue (for example, through subscriptions) converts into a higher revenue over a period of time, without the need to add new customers for an increase in the revenue.

What is the role of marketing in a SaaS business?

The marketing team should generate qualified leads, which the sales function also should do. Both of this converts to good sales.

Once you identify your target, make sure you gather a valid e-mail address and a valid phone number. There are ways to do it. Learn them.

Social media helps a great deal in lead generation. Customer acquisition happens. If you are looking at competitor social media feeds, you at times spot an unhappy customer, who wants a specific feature or has a need, which your product fulfills. Instant connectivity on Twitter facilitates this connect. Trap them and convert them into your customer.

A step-wise filter for tracking leads works wonders. Right from a prospective customer approaching your product through your website, keep track of the customer to see what is he interested in the product. If he shows more than a mere curiosity interest, track him to see the various levels at which he interacts with the product. Sometimes, customer might return after sometime. Help the customer in whatever ways possible to convert him into a buyer of your product.

How free should be the free trial?

Various strategies work. The free-trial period varies between 6 and 11 days. Look for an optimum number. Any amount of free trials is not going to hurt your business. Think of a longer horizon of the free trial. Say 30 days. This is a feel-good or hygienic factor that keeps the goodwill of your business with the customer. Provide support during free trial and try to educate the customer in what he doesn’t know. You will earn respect and convert a doubter into a customer.

Be disciplined to knock off “parasitic” customers. Keep track of customers on free trial nearing their free trial period. If your plan is to close their account, send a polite mail announcing that their account will be inactive after x amount of days. Make it as if it’s your company’s policy to delete accounts that are dormant for a period of time. Sometimes surprises spring up. The customer might sign up. Periodically getting rid of customers who don’t bring any value to your business is a good idea.

The sales strategy and expanding into new geographies

If you want to expand into a new geography, do your homework thoroughly. Study the terrain in depth before setting your foot in. You must know where you are getting in and what segments you are targeting. Understanding the culture and business practices in that geography works immensely. For example, Australians want you to call them, whereas the English wouldn’t encourage that.

Acquiring a big customer at the beginning is thrilling. But weigh your options clearly before signing on the dotted line. If your sales and support would not be able to cater to the needs of the large enterprise customer, you are better off saying “no” rather than change your business model and focus your energies on one customer. You may not be able to scale instantly on demand. Never significantly or drastically alter your business model for one customer or for one big breakthrough. It would eventually hurt.

Seal the lower end. But the lower end is always going to be cannabalized. Beware of competition and remember you can’t be cheaper than free.

Onboarding the customer

Normally, there is a problem of customers falling off after, say, a couple of months. So it is better to have a customer onboarding team to track sign-up. Live tutorials can handhold the customer for the initial period of using the product. Videos are helpful for non-tech customers.

Don’t disturb the core tech team for small technical glitches. Customer Action Response Team (CART), which fixes small bugs, is a great strategy. Focus on fulfilling customer expectations. Remember, when you solve a customer problem, you earn a happy customer.

To take a cue from Jeff Bezos, hire people who are not able to say “no” in customer development and hire people who say “no” in business development. Empathy is a great trait. Empathize with the customer and their problems and see how best you can solve them.

It’s always best to “farm” the first top 100 customers or key customers who bring 80% of your business. Remember, 20% of the customers bring 80% of your revenue. Focus on them.

With everyone in the room taking away valuable lessons with them, the roundtable wound up on a happy note.

 

 

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3 Reasons Why Start-ups Should Invest in Content Marketing

Today, a stream of regular and engaging content can get people talking about any organization.

Content MarketingWhile this is definitely good news for start-ups, the reality is that they often don’t have the time, resources or know-how to turn their organization into a lean, mean content marketing machine. Just like that, developing content often gets relegated to the bottom of the team’s to-do list, or simply isn’t a priority at all. However, the cost of missing out on the content marketing game is high: start-ups are essentially forgoing an opportunity to attract customers.  In fact, The Content Marketing Institute says “the idea of content marketing is to attract and retain customers by creating and curating relevant and valuable content.”

Here are three reasons how content marketing can help your emerging organization succeed:

Announce your existence and develop brand recognition

A successful, responsive and targeted content marketing strategy can help an emerging organization capture a prospect’s attention even when the market is crowded with bigger and more established names. Valuable and unique content – and this could be anything from a white paper to a video – is always appreciated in the form of shares, likes, retweets and/or comments. You can even repurpose long-form content into social media content for Twitter, Facebook and other social media platforms. This goes a long way in establishing your organization’s presence online.

Encourage and enable product usage

A key objective for many start-ups today is to of course attract more customers, but also get existing users to actually use the product. After all, if a user sees value in the product then there’s a higher chance they’ll talk about online and in turn influence more people to try the product out. Quality content that’s sent out on a regular basis can help users make optimum use of the product’s features and improve their overall experience. As an agile start-up, consider creating Vine videos on your mobile devices  — you can capture great testimonials and product reviews.  You can also record conversations and monologues, if you’d rather not write all the time.

Understand market requirements and act as a funnel for ideas

Response to your organization’s content can give you a clear idea of what your target audience feels about relevant issues, the industry they operate in and their wish-list for the future. While actually eliciting a response may take some time, the end goal is worth it: you’ve got an active “idea catcher” for future product enhancement and new product ideas! Consider creating LinkedIn forums about topics that are related to your start-up, and engage in conversations with your target audience

It’s essential that start-ups focus on getting the right content marketing strategy into place, and this involves understanding your target customer, the right content “tone of voice” and more. If you’d like to understand how emerging organizations like yours can leverage a successful content marketing strategy to drive brand awareness, click here to download this free eBook titled “How to propel start-up growth with content” by Yorke Communications.

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Where to use Animated Video Content

Animated MickeyWalt Disney drew the mouse in 1928. That’s 86 years ago ! And until recently, cartoons were for kids.

Pixar made adults fall in love with Animation. And pay for it.  Pixar

It started in 1995 with Toy Story and recently evangelists like James Cameron and Steven Spielberg have set new standards with content like Avatar and Tintin.

Of course – these productions are expensive and are designed for a different purpose. But when it comes to Animated content – we all love them because they are harmless.

Lovable, memorable, actionable – as we call them at the factory.

Here are 5 places where your animated video stories can impact your sales conversations.

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wheretousevideos_events

You’ll meet people. Prospects come to your booth. They don’t know you – you don’t know them. Always open with a joke.

Animated films like this will pique enough curiosity that they’ll want to ‘know more’. That’s your cue right there.

“We used these videos at our HiTec booth last year and they were great. They worked well for us to engage our customers at the booth.”

Neha Singh, Senior Marketing Manager, Knowcross.

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wheretousevideo_stores

Before you show them your software UI – tell them a funny story. Tell them what catastrophe will befall upon them if they don’t use your software !

Okay that was a bit extreme – but videos like this are perfect for any webstore.

“The video worked well to attract people to download Keymails and try it out. Without the video we’d have to show screens and the core concept of why we made the tool would have been lost.”

Pankaj Kulkarni, Founder Keymails.com

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wheretousevideo_sales

We’re all busy. So are your prospects. Instead of spending time writing long emails – which also take time to read and comprehend – make them smile. And wrap your promise inside that smile.

Investors, prospects, employees – we are all stressed at work. No one wants to meet you without a purpose. Give them one – inside 100 seconds.

“We want to point and shoot – not spray and pray. Its easier to start a meeting with a premise set – and this video will help us do exactly that.”

Aniket Thakur, Marketing Manager, KPIT Technologies Ltd.

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wheretousevideo_journos

They aren’t techies. Don’t expect them to understand your tech. Just give them a use-case. And they’ll write about it. All journos are looking for cool stories.

“There was no better way to explain Planned Departure to Journalists. The video worked perfectly there.”

Komal Joshi – Founder PlannedDeparture.com

Content is always supposed to start conversations. And nothing gets a conversation going faster than Audio Visual content.

Where have you used your animated content recently? How has that worked – tell me in the comments below. If your data is verifiable  – I’ll build an infographic around it and promote your product for free.

Disclaimer – all videos in this post have been produced at the GVT factory.