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The Revenue Generation Framework™ Step 7
We have now come to the last step. It’s by no means the easiest, so no rest for the wicked, as they say.
Because this is probably the most important step, because it is at the core of everything. Unless you are telling something interesting, something useful, something important to your customer, they will not read it, there is nothing to track, and they simply will not know who you are and how you can help them.
There are enormous amounts of content flying around on the internet, and we are all fighting to be the topic they click on. The one article that gets shared. The webinar they sign up for. But how can we ensure that you are?
Let’s back up. Let’s go all the way back to our VALUE discussion. Companies do not buy from you because you have a great product. They buy from you because your great product accomplishes something that helps THEM reach THEIR goals. No company buys a new ERP system because it has faster processes or is a hybrid system. How are licences being handled, and how frequent are the updates. They buy the ERP system because with it they can manage their own processes to sell to their customers.
This is especially important when you are talking about content that is catering to customers who are in Phase 1 or even perhaps phase 2 in the Buying process. In the first phase we are talking about awakening the awareness of the challenge ahead. Remember, I am not saying that the company shouldn’t be aware of the problems your product fixes, but you shouldn’t communicate the solution. If you are selling company payment cards. You shouldn’t market the payment card, because it has longer payment terms, or you can access lounges. What the payment card achieves is that it will clarify for the customer (the company/business owner) the amount of short-term debt. With no payment card, employees will pay with their own cards, and then claim it from the business via expense claims. How can the business owner then know, how much cash does he have? If a business owner goes to the bank, to ask for a development loan, the bank will ask the owner what short and long-term debts they have.
Once you move on from the first phase, and the customer has become aware of the issue and moves over to the second phase, they will start comparing a new future (remember, not YOUR future, A future) with current state. At this stage any type of qualitative or even still quantitative tools and calculators are great.
Having established that a change must happen, the customer would start searching for the options: who can help me with this. NOW you can talk about your product. How fast/big/small/steady/flexible it is – but emphasize on why this is important for the customer. This is also where you can start bragging. Why are you the right provider of this. Reference cases are extremely good here, I would say paramount. But also anything that will establish you as the expert in the field: how to’s, guides, 3rd party articles etc.
The last phase is the actual close. There is not a lot of content I would be placing in this phase, but maybe some last “anxiety relievers” such as guarantees, “how to get started” tutorials, “what happens next” guides. When brainstorming on this area, do talk to customer service, as they probably get a lot of questions that correlates to this phase.
What type of content is consumed?
That depends very much on your industry, and your target demographic. Younger decision makers tend to like sharp short messages, whereas more mature decision makers prefer longer material.
Interestingly enough, we do not produce what works. According to The Content Marketing Institute’s latest report, this is what we produce
The Content Marketing Institute
And this is the best performing content.
The Content Marketing Institute
How do we use the content?
When we have our content library, and it is organized in a way that we know which piece of content belongs in which buying phase, we are all set to plan our market automation sequences or nurturing as described in the previous post.
But it’s not only for our market automation sequences we do this – salespeople also need to know how to stay relevant in the eyes of their prospects. By helping them utilise the content available they can provide great content to their prospects.
And obviously by tracking how the customers interact with the content is crucial here. Did they click, if not, what do we do next. Did they click, how long did they stay, what did they do next, what should we do next.
The Revenue Generation Framework™
You have now read all the 7 steps in the framework. If we understand what is the value that our services give to the customer, who the customers are, we gather information about them on the way, and we know where they are the most active – and then if we do know where in the buying process they are (because we identify the content they are consuming), we track them through their journey and we are providing them with relevant content that will help them in their buying process – the customers WILL expect your salespeople to call.
The process of analyzing all of this is not an easy task. It needs to happen internally, but my experience is, that you will need outside help. Do contact us for support. We want you to succeed.
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