Last month we discussed how Colin Powell’s 40–70 rule applies to research. What we didn’t say is that results are only half the story and should not be taken as law-like truth.
Many research programs with obvious results fail when applied to marketing. Why didn’t they work? There was an ’80s rumor that went something like this:
Healthcare marketers, listen up: the people who make the buying decisions—i.e., the IT folks who buy solutions, or not—have a couple of reasons why they buy. You should probably check them out before you structure your account-based marketing.
In his professional life, Colin Powell has been a lot of things, but chief among them is disciplined. In fact, if anybody has ever been “in the zone,” it’s him. Literally. Powell believes that leaders have an “information zone” of 40%-70% to make decisions: If you make a decision with less than 40 percent of the information you need to know, your chances of being right aren’t very good. But if you wait for more than 70 percent of the information, your window of opportunity closes.
Like everyone else in the world, you want to spend more for everything you buy. Wait—you mean you don’t? Then why are you buying banners instead of eBlasts? Sure, banners are a cheaper way to buy leads. But they’re actually more expensive. The confusion is in the conversion.
We talked about the guardrails of good content last month, so today we’ll address the architecture of buyer engagement.
I like to follow a proven ideal framework:
Objective: Which area of the buying cycle are we influencing?
Strategy: From which angle are we most likely to interest readers/viewers?
Structure: How do we tell the most compelling story?
Style: What is the appropriate voice and tone?
To understand what makes good content today, all we have to do is look back to the ’50s and ’60s—when it was called copy. Back then, advertising’s primary focus was copy. Copy, it turns out, sold—and sells—products.
And while it has evolved into this thing we now call content, the principles that drive its creation haven’t changed:
People read what interests them, and sometimes it’s an ad.
—Howard Luck Gossage, advertising icon
If you can guess where content development ranks as a focus area among marketing strategists, you can probably guess why it means a lot more than simply communicating with your audience. Words mean more these days, and there’s a very simple but powerful reason why.
Turns out that your marketing “bedside manner” counts! We tend to think of physicians as efficient diagnostic machines, but when you’re marketing to them, you need to think of them as people who value relationships. How important is your contact with them? Let’s just say “personal” is a plus.
Assuming you read my previous post , you understand the basics of ABM. So, let’s start with what you’ve completed since then:
Vetted and segmented list(s) (both companies and contacts)
Planned—and programmed—an appropriate contact cadence
Developed a content calendar, mapped to your audiences’ functional roles
Next comes the most important part: Measuring and monitoring your program.
At Red House, we’ve been executing ABM programs in various forms for over a decade. We call it “narrowcasting,” and it works amazingly well. You’ll notice a lot of companies moving to ABM perhaps because it’s “the next big thing,” but before you join them, proceed with caution. ABM isn’t a quick fix.