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Is My Content Working? — Part 2
411 Plays2 years ago
How do you know if your content is actually moving the needle?
In this day and age of measuring ALL OF THE THINGS, attribution is still an educated guess at best. Which makes the answer to this question quite the enigma.
In this 3-part series, Susan and Jess break down how they arrive at an answer around content performance they feel confident in.
Part 1: Short-term metrics to keep your eye on
Part 2: Long-term feedback loops to build with sales
Part 3: When to make the call on doubling down or moving on
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Transcript
Introduction to Hosts and Podcast Theme
00:00:03
Speaker
Welcome to That's Marketing, Baby, the weekly show where two marketing besties talk all things marketing in the world of B2B and B2C. I'm your co-host, Susan Wenegrad, and I've spent over 20 years in marketing focusing on paid media and email marketing. And I'm Jess Cook, copywriter and creative director turned content marketer. Every week, we'll tackle a topic that's on our minds and hopefully yours too. Ready? Let's go.
Sponsorship by AirCule
00:00:31
Speaker
That marketing baby is brought to you by AirCule, the agency that helps you get control of your SEO, analytics, and content strategy. They get in the weeds so you don't have to. Susan and I have both worked with the AirCule team. They're crazy smart. And their free app, Automo, translates the information overload that is Google Analytics to show you what content is performing, what isn't, and what to do next.
00:00:54
Speaker
Plus, Atomo is now the fastest, easiest way to blend your GA4 and UA data so you can see both in monthly snapshot and performance over time, which is pretty sweet. Check it out at Atomo.cool. That's O-T-T-I-M-O dot C-O-O-L. And now,
00:01:13
Speaker
On to the show.
Series Introduction: Evaluating Content Effectiveness
00:01:14
Speaker
Hello and welcome to another episode of That's Marketing Baby. I'm Jess Cook, head of content at Lasso, and I'm here with my most amazing co-host, Susan Wenegrad. Hi, everybody. I'm the paid media nerd of the group. Of this dynamic duo. I spend all the money.
00:01:35
Speaker
That's amazing. So hello and welcome. And we're very glad you're here. This is part two of a three-part series. So if you haven't listened to part one, go back, listen, do not pass go. You're off the highway momentarily. There's a rest stop.
00:01:52
Speaker
That's right. This series is all about how do you know if your content is working or not? And so kind of the first part of this is we were talking about like, what do you need to measure kind of short term to understand if it's actually working or not? And then this episode we're going to talk about what are some of the feedback loops
00:02:12
Speaker
longer term, one, help you know if you're on the right track, and two, help you adjust to get to the right track and continue to stay on the right track. So that's what we're talking about today. Yes. And we're going to tackle it from both the content perspective and then just from the outward acquisition perspective.
Key Questions to Evaluate Content Success
00:02:28
Speaker
So is the content right? And then also how are we using that as the fearless marketing people march forth and go try and find people that are ideal prospects in the marketplace? How do we use that information that we gather there as well?
00:02:41
Speaker
That's right. All right, sweet. So Susan and I kind of came up with four questions that will really help you understand, one, is my content working? And if you don't get the answer that you're kind of looking for, like it's going to help you understand how to adjust.
00:02:57
Speaker
So, and these questions we're proposing would be questions that you're asking to your sales team, and probably not just to one salesperson, but trying to get kind of an overall gauge on what a handful of them are seeing. If you're fortunate enough even to like jump into if sales has like a weekly meeting, and you can jump into that, even more ideally if sales and marketing have a weekly meeting, and if you don't, might be something you want to think about.
00:03:27
Speaker
But these are questions that would be great for those kinds of meetings, right? Jump in there, ask kind of what's going on so that you can continue to do your job and support them well. So Susan, do you want to start? Do you want
Identifying the Real Audience
00:03:37
Speaker
me to start? Yeah. Yeah. So the first question, and this really, I think, is the best way to start because it lets the content person know if they're even making
00:03:49
Speaker
the right things for the right people. And then on the acquisition side, it lets us know, are we taking this content forward to the right eyeballs, right? So the first question is, to the salespeople, who are you actually talking to? So this can be
00:04:05
Speaker
one of those things where you might assume that a decision maker is c-suite or you might assume certain things. But when sales actually gets on the phone, are they talking to the decision maker or are they talking to someone that technically might not sign the contract but they are essentially the person that would be using this thing or recommending it for their department and they just have to get buy-in from someone else later. So understanding if this is actually the person that you are dealing with,
00:04:34
Speaker
can answer a few things for us. On the acquisition side, it's, are we even targeting the right people? Because if we're making content for one set of people, and we're sending that out, and then sales is going, yeah, but they're not the people that get on the call, we might be missing a big targeting opportunity. And Jess, do you want to talk about that from the content side too?
00:04:51
Speaker
Yeah.
Understanding Prospect Learning Pathways
00:04:52
Speaker
I think something we talked about in part one was looking at who's actually the one who's smashing that demo button, right? Like book a demo. It's like the kids say these days, smash that subscribe button. Yeah. So does that align? Are the folks that are actually coming to, if you've looked at that information before and you've seen like, okay, this is historically like the largest kind of concentration of people that hit the demo button,
00:05:18
Speaker
Is that true? Like, is that who actually shows up to the meeting? Are there more than one person on the meeting, right? Is there more than one person on the meeting? And does that align with who you have historically been creating content for? So that is a really, really important one. And especially like you say, Susan, like the content we create is usually the content we're promoting, right? And so like if the content we create and the content we're promoting does not align with who sales is talking
00:05:46
Speaker
talking to like, Oh, that's a problem. We need to really figure that out and get those two things kind of matched up. So I think that we run into with that also a lot is that like, you'll make content and we'll promote it towards let's say, for example, like C-suite, right? So it's like, we're like, Oh, the CMO is the decision maker. So we need to put it towards them. What we'll frequently run into is places that target the decision maker. So the decision maker, who's technically the decision maker, I should say,
00:06:11
Speaker
they'll be like, oh, there's this platform. And they'll tell their team, can you guys check this out, do a demo, whatever. And so it's like, you've roped in the decision maker, but then they have to, the people that would actually be using it day to day who are kind of the hand raisers to say, yes, we need this. A lot of times they go into it, and they don't even know what it is. And I've been in that position where it's like, there's someone in the C-suite that's like, hey, there's this thing that some other guy told me about that they're using. That's amazing. This is it. Can you get a demo of it? And there's really not a lot of context for that person.
00:06:41
Speaker
about what they're doing. So that's kind of the other piece that understanding we think that we're talking to in this example, the CMO, because they signed the contract. In reality, there's other people that they loop in that are kind of the intellectual decision makers, you know, they'll kind of say, Hey, I heard this thing is great, but do you think this would actually be useful? So understanding if there are those players that might not seem obvious and what their job titles are and what their function tends to be, sales usually has really good insights into who they actually speak to.
00:07:10
Speaker
and kind of who they have to win over internally that might not seem as obvious. Yeah, absolutely. So who are you talking to making sure that that is actually aligning with like who you're creating content for. And that might change over time, too. Like you might go six months and all of a sudden you start to see a shift, right? Maybe you're getting to the point where like all of kind of the like innovative early adopters have already bought into your value prop and have bought your product. And now you're kind of moving over into like more of a majority.
00:07:40
Speaker
and you might start to see like oh now that we've made this move like there's a shift in the person who's actually coming to the site there's a shift in the person that's talking to sales and you're also gonna have to make that shift so that's why you need to ask that question and all of these questions frankly multiple times continue asking make sure that there's not a change that you're unaware of.
00:08:00
Speaker
Yep. Question two. Do you want to take that one?
Challenges in B2B Marketing Attribution
00:08:02
Speaker
Yeah. Second question. How did they hear about us? How did they say they heard about us to be precise? So I think actually the last episode we spoke about like the how did you hear about us kind of piece on the intake form, right? Like the demo or the free trial kind of form is very important, right? Like that is the kind of self-reported how did you hear about us?
00:08:24
Speaker
But if you can get your sales folks and this is a request that you absolutely can make is like hey if you think about it can you please ask them in your discovery call how did you hear about us because what they say and what they put on that farm are often different.
00:08:41
Speaker
they might only name one thing in the form because they're trying to move quick in the discovery call, they might rattle off four or five ways they've heard about you. Or I saw you on LinkedIn and I listened to the podcast, or I subscribed to the newsletter, but then I think I saw an ad too on Instagram, right? And so you get a little bit more depth and richness that you don't get from the form typically. And then you really want to know, does that align with who you're creating content for and who you're targeting?
00:09:06
Speaker
or the channels that you are pushing out in, right? If you keep hearing on the form one thing and you keep hearing in calls, an elaborated version of that, like now you kind of have some power to say like, ooh, instead of just this one channel, right, these three channels, or these two combined, we always hear LinkedIn and the podcast, LinkedIn and the podcast, right? Like those are the two power players.
00:09:28
Speaker
So like just kind of trying to find trends there over time and like how people are hearing about you. And this is really nice for if you start a new channel, right? Like if you start a podcast or you're like, Ooh, we're really going to double down on the blog. You can start to see like, okay, in three months from now, we should start to hear that in these discovery calls, people are saying, hopefully that more often they are now seeing that as kind of where they're hearing about us from. So those are the kinds of things that you want to talk to sales about.
00:09:58
Speaker
And this is also so important from a demand generation and acquisition standpoint because there's such a problem, honestly, I think it's a lot more pronounced in B2B, but there's such a problem with places wanting to find attribution and a lot of what happens in B2B isn't attributable. And it's difficult to quantify that as a performance marketer and demand gen person because
00:10:25
Speaker
I might see correlations between, hey, we started doing this thing and all of a sudden 60 to 90 days in, we're seeing more demos in general, but none of them tie back to that thing that we started doing. And when you do marketing long enough, you're like, okay, correlation is not causation, blah, blah, blah. I get it. But on the other hand, it's like you see those patterns where it's like we're doing this thing and then there was this lift over time. But because everyone keeps wanting to tie everything back to these sources of truth,
00:10:55
Speaker
then they're like oh well that things not working because it's not getting attribution for our demos and then they stop doing it and so it's very hard as a demand gen person operate in those environments because to your point.
00:11:07
Speaker
There are these things that they use or stitch together to kind of create this brand trust before they reach out to get a demo. And that's not measurable. It's just not easily measurable. And especially, one of the things that I know is a big topic for a lot of us is, especially B2B, no one wants to go to your site.
00:11:25
Speaker
They don't want to hang out on your site for a lot. They don't want to cruise around forever. One of the things that you and I found and one of the things that I've been working with a lot of B2B folks on with things like LinkedIn is stop feeling like everything has to be an ad. If you have a compelling post, it will work really well to promote it. If they want more information, great. Drop it as a link in the comments.
00:11:48
Speaker
But it's so much more effective. It's more organic. It feels way more natural to users. It doesn't feel pushy. And it's not immediately just overlooked because they know that it's an ad. So there's just things like that where, you know, if you look at attribution, it's going to look like it's LinkedIn organic, because it's just coming from a link in the comments that they're clicking. But anybody that's doing demand gen kind of knows has their finger on the pulse of what they're running at any given time.
00:12:14
Speaker
So without that additional feedback of like, oh, we also listened to the podcast or we heard your head of content on this podcast or like whatever it is, there's nothing that measures that in a way that has data unless you're asking these questions and you're logging it somewhere. So it fills in a lot of that gray area that so many B2B companies are just like, there's just this middle that we don't know what happens. And it's like, but there can be, you can start to piece together some stuff if you ask that question.
00:12:39
Speaker
Yes. I think I know too personally, I can't count the number of times I've seen either an ad or just somebody posting about a cool tool they've been using. And I'm not going to take the time to click on the tool and then go to their page and then go to their website. I immediately open a new browser window and type in the name. And so
00:13:00
Speaker
There's never that company is never gonna know that it's because I saw somebody talk about it or because I clicked on the ad. I didn't, you know, I didn't click on the ad, right? I didn't want to waste my time, but I was still interested. And so like, I think that's where those kind of little like anecdotes come in is like, it's funny, I saw this ad and then I googled you guys.
00:13:19
Speaker
right? Like that's as easy as it is. And that's like gold to a marketer. So make sure you're asking your sales folks, like if they say Google, do you know what search term you looked up or did you like look for us by name? Just dig one more layer deeper and it's really going to be helpful. Agreed. So the third one
00:13:39
Speaker
is, and I love this one because I feel like this is where you can learn so much and wind up saving a lot of time, is what do you wish the prospects knew before you started talking to them?
Pre-Sales Knowledge for Prospects
00:13:49
Speaker
So if they book a demo, is there something that you're running into that they did not know that you wish they had because it wouldn't have wasted people's time or it would have helped them self-select as a good or not good prospect? Is there something that seemed to be a shock to them?
00:14:06
Speaker
when the salesperson brought it up, whether it was like price or capabilities. Yeah. So once you wish they knew, right? Like multiple, 30% of the people I talked to on discovery calls this week are like, what is this? Right? Like that's something to pay attention to. Yep. Yep. And that's also a goldmine for
00:14:26
Speaker
the ad side of things because one of the things that is really hard, especially in B2B is you have like three seconds. So what do you need to be communicating? Like what seems to be something that people pick up on without you really having to harp on it? And then what are the things that
00:14:42
Speaker
It would either drive the more correct prospects to sales or it would reduce some of the sales friction later. A good example is I've always been a fan of so many places. I want to just run these general branding things and they hide their pricing. And I'm like, you need to say who you're for.
00:15:02
Speaker
because you're going to get a million clicks and a bunch of demos and then none of them are going to sign up and you're going to pay all this money in media. I would rather you have a very low click through rate and a really high conversion rate because then you know you're getting the right people. I mean, ideally you'd love to have both, but I'd rather be upfront in the ad about who this is for.
00:15:21
Speaker
and let people self-select so that they're not surprised when they find out whatever that thing is that you wish they knew. Yeah, exactly. And to go back to how do you know if the content and your marketing is working, if you ask this of your sales team and they say, oh, I really wish they knew how this fit into their workflow before they came to us. Okay, awesome. I'm going to go back. I'm going to create a piece of content around that.
00:15:47
Speaker
If in three months, your sales team is still telling you, man, I really still wish they knew how this fit into their workflow. You know that that piece of content is just not cutting it, right? Like something needs to change. Either it's not being distributed in the right channel. It's not the right piece of content. No one's finding it because it's not set up well for like SEO. There could be a multitude of things, but you have to kind of figure that out. And that's how you'll know like, okay, this piece isn't quite working yet.
00:16:14
Speaker
If this is the other area where I'm sorry, I was just going to say enthusiastically. This is the other reason why I really wish like paid media and contents talked more to each other. Just because I feel like there's so many times where it's like the content folks will figure that out, right? And so they'll make a different piece that speaks to it better. But like no, like the paid media people just don't, they're just seeing these two separate entities. And I'm like, that's so useful to know because I don't want to keep running ads that are not making a certain part of this clear.
00:16:39
Speaker
Yeah. And it gets figured out on the content side, but no one says anything, so you're still running these headlines that are not helping the situation. Yeah, exactly. The initial creative approach is not hitting it, right? On the flip side, if you ask, hey, what do you wish they knew before they started talking to you? And the first time you ask that, they say, oh, I wish they knew how this fit into the workflow. Three months later, they're like, I really wish they saw this as an investment and not such a huge cost.
00:17:09
Speaker
Oh, all right. I changed some minds that no one is asking about workflow or fewer people are asking about workflow. Okay. I can move on from that. Now I'm going to focus on why this is such a great return on investment, why you need to consider this and set aside budget for this, things like that. So hopefully that answer to that question is changing over time because your content is allowing it to change over time. If it stays the same, you got to figure that out. Something's not working. Yeah.
00:17:35
Speaker
Yeah. And then actually, the fourth question, some kind of tied to that, actually.
Addressing Common Prospect Objections
00:17:40
Speaker
Yes. Which is, what is the most common objection that you're getting?
00:17:45
Speaker
And I feel like that's so prime for content. I mean, it does help on the acquisition side, but like I definitely want to hear the content take on this first. Yeah, that is just kind of like table stakes for content creation, right? Like if you're getting a very common objection over and over and over, create a piece that combats that, you know, misperception, misconception. Either one, I think.
00:18:09
Speaker
concept, percept, whatever. Yes. Right. And get them over that objection. And similar to kind of the question before this, again, you're going to want to see that change over time. If you create a piece that really hits this objection head on, and you continue to hear that it's a problem,
00:18:27
Speaker
you either need a new piece of content you need to think about how you're distributing it maybe it's a different format right like maybe all kinds of things like you just have to go back in and reassess and refine like okay this piece of content isn't doing it or like the sales people don't realize maybe this piece of content like it can get out there they can use this to address this problem.
00:18:50
Speaker
So yeah, and I think this is also something, I'm sorry, go ahead. I was gonna say that's another part of it. Salespeople don't always know that like, how should I use this piece? And so I think a really important job of a content marketer is to say, I created this piece. Here's who it's for. Here's a great scenario sales team that you could use it for.
00:19:14
Speaker
SDRs, this would be great for outreach for these types of people, right? You kind of not only just have to hand it over, you have to hand it over on a silver platter with instructions sometimes. Not because they're dense, but because they're talking to so many people and they need that context of who that piece is for. So again, that could be another reason why they're still objecting to the same things because your full sales team didn't realize they had this piece to help head that off.
00:19:44
Speaker
I think also on the demand gen side too, I always think about objections as if those are just the people that you're getting on the phone that have that objection. People are seeing your messaging, your brand, your offer, your whatever it is, and they're objecting in their head.
00:19:59
Speaker
So they're not even scheduling the demo. So that's the other area where I feel like on the demand gen and acquisition side, it gives you a lot of insight into why they might never even contact you in the first place. And it could just be that they're not a good fit. I mean, that's not to say that you can overcome every objection. And I know salespeople hate to hear that because they love the challenge. But it may be an objection because they aren't your ideal customer, right? Yeah.
00:20:22
Speaker
There are plenty that may be the ideal customer and either they... It's an objection that because they don't understand something about the product and they might understand it better with a demo, it's like... And those are some of the nuances you kind of have to figure out. Is it like an objection that's rooted in something that would make sense that would take a person explaining to get them over? Is it an objection that's like a misconception or misperception? Thank you.
00:20:50
Speaker
that we could address to kind of just dispel whatever that myth is. And so I feel like that's super important on the demand gen side is just understanding if there are objections that consistently come up later in the process, can we address them sooner? Because those same objections are probably keeping people from scheduling a demo or talking to somebody in the first place. Because if they object, they're like, first of all, they're not going to waste their time. But secondly, even if they're mildly curious, they're like, I don't want to get on the phone with a person and have to talk about this.
00:21:17
Speaker
So it's like if we can dispel some of that and just take away some of that hesitancy, all the better. You can pay for it. That was a beautiful point. And I just want to give you a kudos for that. That was very good. Aw, thanks, man. You're welcome. I needed the win, you know?
00:21:32
Speaker
It's been a few weeks. I'm like, I'll take the W from chess. Yeah.
Review of Content Evaluation Questions
00:21:38
Speaker
So those are our four questions in this continuing series of how do you know if your stuff's working? So to recap, who are the salespeople talking to? So are they the people you're actually targeting with your demand gen stuff? Is it the people you're creating the content for?
00:21:52
Speaker
How did they say that they heard about us? So does that align with the demo form? Are they giving extra color as far as like, yeah, you know, I googled you, but I'd also heard about you on LinkedIn. And I heard this person on this podcast, it kind of fills in some of those lines. What do you wish those prospects knew before they came to you?
00:22:10
Speaker
And does that change over time so you know if you're addressing it better before they even start talking to the salespeople? And then finally, what is the most common objective? And hopefully that one's changing over time, too, because you're helping address it better. And whether that's content you provide to the salespeople or objections that you try and cut off at the past, just in your acquisition efforts, knowing what those things are, hopefully those change over time as well.
00:22:33
Speaker
Hey, real quick, you said, what is the most common objective? Do you just want to get just that line one more time? And last thing is, it was at like 23-ish minutes, somewhere around there. Okay. I'll just redo the four questions. Okay. Should I just reread them? I wouldn't. They were so good. It was literally that one line. They were good. Yeah, just the last one.
00:22:56
Speaker
Okay. And then lastly, what is the most common objection that you're hearing? And hopefully that's changing over time, which indicates obviously we're just addressing it better. But if you can either provide that as something to the salespeople that they can help overcome it or just even further back in the process on the demand gen side, can you dispel those myths or tackle those objections that may come from people that would be a great fit for the product so that they don't just immediately assume that it's not for them?
00:23:25
Speaker
That was a gorgeous synopsis. Thank you
00:23:30
Speaker
This is my hype woman today. Beautiful point. Gorgeous synopsis. Everything's gorgeous today. So those are the four questions. And then our next episode, we are going to wrap it up with part three. So I'm excited for that.
Episode Conclusion and Series Teaser
00:23:48
Speaker
But this should give you plenty of chew on, both from content and demand gen. And I think that's it for this week, unless there's anything else, Jess.
00:23:57
Speaker
No. That's Marketing Baby. Yep. That's Marketing Baby. We'll talk to you next week. Bye. Bye. Thanks for listening to this week's episode of That's Marketing Baby. Like what you heard? Please give us some love with the review. And don't forget to hop into our community list at thatsmarketingbaby.com to get more helpful tips, resources, and thoughts from us. See you next week.