EMARKETING STRATEGIES FOR THE COMPLEX SALE

Turn prospects into buyers with apowerful emarketing strategy!

“Albee shows how smart business-to-business marketers learnabout buyers, tell a story, and greatly influence the B2B lead-to-saleprocess. This is your guide for Web marketing success.”
David Meerman Scott, bestselling author ofThe New Rules of Marketing and PR and World Wide Rave

“A compelling read for both B2B marketing and salesprofessionals alike, eMarketing Strategies for the Complex Sale is a practicaland insightful how-to guide that will enable marketers to drive salesconversions and faster sales results.”
David Thompson, CEO, Genius.com, and founder of the Sales 2.0 Conference

“Albee lays out a path to understanding buyer personas,building their trust, and delivering contagious content that they want to read.A must-read for B2B marketers looking to engage with today’s buyers.”
Steven Woods, CTO, Eloqua, and author of Digital Body Language

“If you’re looking for a comprehensive, well-researched, single resource to plan,build, execute, and succeed in your eMarketing efforts, then buy this book!”
Barry Trailer, managing partner, CSO Insights

“New media, content marketing, social networking . . . Ardath cleverly wraps theseconcepts in a bow and makes this book required reading. . . . Become the expertresource for your customer and watch your business grow.”
Joe Pulizzi, coauthor of Get Content Get Customers and founder of Junta42

About the Book

Web 2.0 has reshaped the role of marketingin the Complex Sales process. Because prospectsnow have instant access to informationabout your company and its products—andyour competitors—they can make buying decisionswithout ever communicating with you.Doing what you’ve always done simply won’twork anymore; you must entirely rethink howyou attract and compel buying behavior.

With eMarketing Strategies for the ComplexSale, expert B2B marketing strategist ArdathAlbee breaks new ground in the field of digitalmarketing and new customer acquisition.Albee offers techniques and tools for developingand executing strategies that are guaranteedto generate results.

The Internet offers an unprecedented opportunityfor creating trusted relationshipswith your prospects and customers—beforeyou ever “meet” them. Never before havemarketers enjoyed such a wide-reaching andvaried communication platform. Yet with allthe noise, you have to stand above the crowd.The key is to converse about meaningful andrelevant topics with your diverse audiences,to share your perspectives on what matters tothem. That’s just what Albee teaches us to do.

eMarketing Strategies for the Complex Sale sharesmethods to help you:

• Create eMarketing strategies basedon customer perspectives
• Use a contagious content structurefor competitive differentiation
• Establish trusted relationships
• Continuously measure, tune, andimprove your effectiveness

eMarketing Strategies for the Complex Salealso shares proven approaches to collaboratingwith sales. You can leverage eMarketingto move leads further into the pipeline whilefocusing sales time and energy on highlyqualified opportunities. The results? Reducedtime to sales, increased sales productivity, andgrowing revenues.

eMarketing Strategies for the Complex Salereveals processes critical to ensuring that youmake a powerful, measurable contribution tothe lengthy sales process—and to the longtermsuccess of your organization as a whole.

Ardath Albee is CEO and B2B marketing strategist for her consulting firm Marketing Interactions, Inc. She uses over 20 years of business management and marketing experience to help her clients create customer-focused e-marketing strategies that generate more sales-ready prospects. Her articles have appeared in CRM Today, Selling Power, B2B Magazine, Rain Today's Special Reports, and Enterprise CRM News.

“Albee shows how smart business-to-business marketers learn about buyers, tell a story, and greatly influence the B2B lead-to-sale process. This is your guide for Web marketing success.”
David Meerman Scott, bestselling author of The New Rules of Marketing and PR and World Wide Rave

“A compelling read for both B2B marketing and sales professionals alike, eMarketing Strategies for the Complex Sale is a practical and insightful how-to guide that will enable marketers to drive sales conversions and faster sales results.”
David Thompson, CEO, Genius.com, and founder of the Sales 2.0 Conference

“Albee lays out a path to understanding buyer personas, building their trust, and delivering contagious content that they want to read. A must-read for B2B marketers looking to engage with today’s buyers.”
Steven Woods, CTO, Eloqua, and author of Digital Body Language

“If you’re looking for a comprehensive, well-researched, single resource to plan, build, execute, and succeed in your eMarketing efforts, then buy this book!”
Barry Trailer, managing partner, CSO Insights

“New media, content marketing, social networking . . . Ardath cleverly wraps these concepts in a bow and makes this book required reading. . . . Become the expert resource for your customer and watch your business grow.”
Joe Pulizzi, coauthor of Get Content Get Customers and founder of Junta42

Introduction


Part 1: Contagious Content

Chapter 1: Defining contagious content and why it engages
• The difference between product and customer focus
• The role of relevance in audience engagement
• Simplicity trumpsinformation dump
• Why contagious content engages attention-depleted audiences
• Contagious Content requires planning

Chapter 2: How to ground content for competitive differentiation
• Education – what buyers need to know
• Evidence – the business impact that matters
• Expertise – why your company is the high-value choice

Chapter 3: What difference a Persona can make – the need for a niche
• Customer Profiles – what difference they make
• Why a persona is different than a profile
• Define and leverage buyer scenarios
• Social networking for persona development
• Personalization – one step at a time

Chapter 4: Use Catch Factors to get prospect attention
• Urgency – why your message is important– Now!
• Impact – what’s in it for them
• Effort – the perceived energy required to pay attention
• Reputation – what’s known about you
• Intent – what your audience thinks you want

Chapter 5: Tune story focus with Amplifiers
• Answer a question
• Relieve a doubt
• Confirm a suspicion
• Correct a misconception
• Simplify complexity
• Provide a path
• Mitigate risk

Chapter 6: Integrate Catch Factors with Amplifiers to build engagement
• Setting the hook
• The catch and the keep
• The journey to engagement
• Engagement bling

Part 2: Natural Nurturing

Chapter 7: Capitalize on triggering events to pull momentum
• Why triggering events are contagious
• Apply messaging that pulls buyers forward
• Become the company with a Catch Imprint

Chapter 8: Map content to the prospect journey
• Information design for buying cycle stages
• How to apply personas to segmentation strategy
• Content types and when to use them
• Sales activity content and messaging

Chapter 9: How to write a marketing story
• Determine the Back Story
• Designing content to capture mindshare
• Authorial styles – which to use, when
• Soft vs. Hard messaging

Chapter 10: Taking marketing stories “social”
• Contagious blogging
• Participating in Social Network communities
• Rich media opportunities
• User generated content

Chapter 11: Constructing a framework for content strategy execution
• The marketing story as nurturing series
• Constructing marketing tracks
• Frequency, reach and shift
• Effective nurturing execution

Part 3: Persistent Progression

Chapter 12: How contagious content facilitates prospect progression
• Consistency Increases Contagion
• Tell Me More…
• The Gift of Going Deep
• Buyer Evolution

Chapter 13: Scoring interactions to promote sales conversions
• Defining content-driven interactions
• Hot for who… and what?
• Lead scoring based on roles and dialog
• The shift to sales conversations

Chapter 14: Closing the loop to bridge the gap – what sales needs to know
• The Handoff and the Take Back
• Influencers and detractors
• Incorporating insights
• End-Game stamina

Chapter 15: Stories that facilitate sales conversations
• Conversational gambits
• Customers like them
• Attainable objectives
• Presentations with punch

Part 4: Meaningful Metrics

Chapter 16: Marketing metrics to quantify results
• Scoring outcomes
• Participation levels
• Deal progression
• Downstream revenue contribution

Chapter 17: The cyclical nature of marketing to your sales force
• Change is imminent
• Shifting origination sources
• Market transitions
• Quality vs. quantity

Chapter 18: Customer feedback and ongoing story generation
• In tune and in touch
• Applied listening
• New content opportunities
• Improved personalization

Chapter 19: Social contributions to marketing outcomes
• Viral individuality
• Participation speaks volumes
• Lead generation through opt In
• Peer-to-peer conversations