Content Marketer’s Blueprint Prepared for Cloud Backup€¦ · Premium Content (Top of Funnel)...

Content Marketer’s Blueprint™

Prepared forCloud Backup

Strategy Prepared By: IMR + Cloud Backup

Contact Your Strategist: Max Traylor, [email protected]

M A R K E T I N G R E S O U R C E S

Cloud Backup

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Welcome to your Content Marketer’s Blueprint™. You have been kind enough to provide us with some information about who you are trying to attract and the “sales process” you use to nurture and convert those you attract into sales qualified opportunities. We took that information and created this blueprint for an automated sales engine based on the principle of a Brand Segmented Sales Funnel™, that will increase your return on marketing investment and the number of qualified sales opportunities for your company.

This blueprint is a complete guide to attracting new business opportunities online and nurturing them to a point of sales engagement, using online content and HubSpot’s marketing automation software. Each of the 6 sections of this blueprint represents a key step in your traditional sales process that can be implemented using purpose-built content and automated with technology, rather than a live salesperson. Each section contains educational information, case study examples and specific recommendations for your automated sales engine based on the information you provided, proprietary lead-generation best practices and some additional research.

Welcome

Cloud Backup



InformationQuali�ed

MarketingQuali�ed

Consultation Sales Call

SalesQuali�ed

Blogging

Premium Content(Top of Funnel)

Automated Emails withSupporting Content

Brand Filter O�er(Middle of Funnel)

Automated Emailswith Selling Content

Sales O�er(Bottom of Funnel)

Lead Quali�cation Automated SalesProcess

Content Assets

Answer Questions

Establish Trust & ThoughtLeadership

Introduce yourpositioning

Provide product &service information

AddressPushbacks

Lead is readyfor sales

Address Common SalesQuestions

New Lead Generated

Content Marketer’s Blueprint Directory

Got It Needs Work Need It

Cloud Backup



Sales Process DiscoveryInformation gathered during discovery call

Triggers: What causes people to search for information online about your industry?A “Marketing Trigger” is an event or set of events that cause a buyer persona to identify a goal that they need to achieve. In the Cloud Backup industry, buyer personas are experiencing triggers like:

• explosive data growth causes long backups

• staff spending too much time on backups

• realize they need a cloud solution

If a CIO of a medium-sized business experienced one of these triggers, they would set out to achieve a goal that relates to the trigger. In this case, the goals would be:

• reduce data backup window

• outsource data backup work

• find and evaluate a cloud backup solution, respectively

Effective content marketing begins with an understanding of these triggers and the various questions a buyer persona will need to answer to accomplish their goals and see the marketer’s solution as the preferred way to achieve their goal.

On the following pages is a set of questions that your buyer persona would ask when confronted with each goal, helpful answers from a subject matter expert, and the products, services and best practices used by your company to help your customers achieve their goals.

Cloud Backup



What are prospects searching for? Need for information

Solutions and industry best practices.

1. How do I reduce the time of my data backup window?

2. How do I reduce the volume of data I need to backup?

3. What happens if I don’t meet my backup window?

4. What is the financial impact of not meeting my data backup window?

5. What is data deduplication?

6. What is the benefit of data deduplication?

1. Must reduce the volume of the data you are backing up.

2. Data de-duplication

3. You won’t get the backup for that day!

4. If data is not backed up there is the financial liability of last data.

5. Enterprise data is highly redundant, identical files or data stored within the cost systems. Traditional backup methods store all redundant data over and over again. Global, source data de-duplication technology eliminates data redundancy by copying only the changed data and generates only a small amount of new data backup

6. By moving only unique data elements, data de-duplication technologies significantly reduce the required daily network bandwidth and storage. By storing just a single instance of each data segment, deduplication reduces total back-end storage by up to 50x for cost-effective, disk-based recovery.

Reduce Data Backup Window

Sales Process Discovery: Topic #1

Cloud Backup




Outsource Data BackupWhat are prospects searching for?

Need for informationSolutions and industry best practices.

1. What are the cost benefits of outsourcing data backups?

2. What are my options for outsourcing my backup process?

3. What id hybrid cloud backup

4. Financial benefits of cloud backup?

5. Minimize risk of downtime?

6. Fast Restores?

7. Backup Expertise

8. Manual and complex tape backup tasks?

1. Reducing costs in hardware, software, tech support, and footprint

2. Private, public or hybrid cloud.

3. An on-site appliance acts up data locally for wire-speed restores and replicates data offsite for disaster recovery.

4. Predictable cost for simpler budgeting. Charge for cloud service rather than capital cost of acquiring hardware, software licenses, maintenance which allows for simpler budgets and predictable monthly cost.

5. Cloud server backup solutions offer a single low-overhead solution that addresses the data protection workflow and reduces the risks and cost associated with each step.

6. Since cloud server backup services immediately move data off-site by backing it up to disk over the cloud, you can restore that data rapidly. Instead of waiting hours, cloud-based recovery enables you to restore your data in minutes, which is suitable for smaller file sets.

7. Cloud backup solutions offer better cost control with predictable pricing. The service provider bears the cost of scalable resources and updates technologies as disk-based backup evolves. The best cloud server backup services provide trusted, proven experience in protecting customer data in the cloud. These services give you peace of mind that your data is protected in secure data centers.

8. “Set-it-and-go” cloud backup solutions reliably and automatically offload these functions, freeing staff to work with a more direct impact on your business — competitive advantage, productivity, and profitability.

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Find Cloud Backup Solution

What are prospects searching for? Need for information

Solutions and industry best practices.

1. How will a cloud backup service integrate with my current environment?

2. What should I look for in a cloud backup provider?

3. Regulatory Compliance?

4. Security?

5. Availability?

6. Encryption?

7. Single integrated backup solution?

8. Confidence that data can be restored and recovered?

1. Needs to be non-intrusive and run in parallel with current environment.

2. Trusted service provider track record with technical expertise, best-of-bred backup systems and world class SSAE 16 Data centers

3. SOC 2 Type II certification. This is an audited attestation of controls and procedures related to security, availability, processing integrity, and confidentiality/privacy. HIPAA and the Payment Card Industry (PCI) compliance

4. Top-tier cloud backup providers offer “end-to-end” 256-bit encryption -- but encryption is only as strong as the encryption key.

5. Availability and uptime are a function of a provider’s investments in IT infrastructure data center(s). Customer data must be stored on redundant fault-tolerant grids and hosted at SSAE 16 Data centers engineered to guarantee 999.99% uptime

6. Data encryption modules are FIPS 140-2 certified by the US National Institute of Standards and Technology. Data is encrypted at the source before it leaves the company LAN, so you can be sure that all your data is secure as it travels over public networks and while it is stored in backup repositories.

7. A single integrated platform covers you against all data-loss scenarios in your environment. Whether you need to protect data on endpoint devices such as desktops, laptops, tablets and smartphones, or protect critical servers and enterprise applications in physical and virtual environments.

8. The goal of data protection is to have the data and applications available to you at the time of failure. Cloud backup includes powerful autonomic healing and validation restore capabilities ensure that your data is always recoverable when you need it

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Screen shot from sample analytics report

m Create a blog calendar

m Write 500-600 words of copy twice a week

(every week)

m Optimize & post your blog articles

About Blogging

• Organic, Referral & Social Media Traffic

• CTA Click Through Rate

• New Leads Generated

• Quality of Lead Generated

• Leads marked as “opportunities” by sales.

• Opportunities converted to sales

• REVENUE!

Blogging is the essential content marketing element that will drive information-seeking traffic to your site. Effective blogging means consistently posting at least two 500-600 word posts per week on keyword-optimized topics that relate to a problem that a buyer persona would be looking to solve – the information they need to know. Following these principles on a single topic for an entire month – something called the Blog Topic Blitz™, is an essential implementation detail of the success of your marketing campaign.

The Role of Blogging in the Automated Sales ProcessBlogging meets the prospect at their need for information; they find your article after asking a question of Google. After helping the prospect and answering their questions in your blog, you will promote a “premium content offer” that will go into much greater detail about the given subject. The goal is to catch the potential prospect in the state of mind immediately after you’ve answered their question and as painlessly as possible, get them to take that next step.

HubSpot Blogging Tool

SocialEars Trend Analysis

SocialEars Trigger and Tag

Analysis

Education Recommendation Execution

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Blogging: What’s Trending

The Role and Trend in Blogging CreationBlog topics need to be informative, relevant and timely. A blog aims to answer questions posed by information seekers in a way that assists them in solving problems, buying products, enrolling in a school or hiring the right professionals. Blogs are your way to make that critical first impression with your audience. Social trend analysis provides real-time information to the blog writer about what is trending in their need-for-information trigger list. The SocialEars trend analysis system provides quick visual snapshots or trending blog topic triggers that can help make your blogs more attractive and valuable to information seekers who may choose to become our customers, enrolled students or donors.


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Social activity in your topic space

What your competitors, analysts, and press are talking aboutThe major content distribution channels are an excellent source of information about what’s important right now in your topic space. SocialEars uses two metrics to measure and analyze conversations to provide recommendations that help you create content that is relevant and engaging. The first is the mentions of your topics in major social channels. Topics with high mention counts are those most commonly being discussed. You should consider using these topics in your blog posts to increase the likelihood that your content will be found by people having these conversations. The second is hashtags. Hashtags are unique words used in Twitter and Facebook to tag a topic. The table below shows the most common hashtags used in your topic space. You should consider using similar hashtags when you distribute your content so that searches by your prospects will reveal your content to your target audiences.


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Your Blog Topics and Titles Recommendations

Monthly Blog Calendar Topics – Best practices that provide a solution to the problem.

Month 1 blog titles to answer questions around:

Reduce Data Backup Window

1. How to Reduce the Time Needed for a Data Backup2. The #1 Way to Reduce the Size of Your Data Backup3. How to Insure You Meet Your Backup Windows4. 3 Problems With Missing Data Backup Windows5. Balooning Backup Sizes Are a Key Problem with Enterprise Data Backups6. What is Data Deduplication?7. 3 Advantages of Data Deduplication8. Backup Data Sizes are Out of Control. Here’s How to Manage Yours


Outsource Data Backups

1. 5 Benefits of Outsourcing Data Backups2. 3 Data Backup Solutions: Private, Public and Hybrid Clouds3. What Exactly is a Hybrid Cloud Data Backup?4. Five Ways to Minimize the Risk of Downtime5. Four Benefits of Backing Up Data in the Cloud6. How to Ensure Fast Restores of Lost Data7. 3 Things to Look for in a Cloud Backup Solution8. How to Use Data Backups as a Strategic Advantage


Find And Evaluate A Cloud Backup Solution

1. How to Integrate a Cloud Backup Solution with Your Current System2. 5 Things to Look for in a Cloud Data Backup Provider3. What are the Compliance Requirements for Data Backup Providers?4. What Level of Security Do You Need from a Cloud Backup Provider?5. 100% Uptime is Not Wishful Thinking6. How A Cloud Backup Provider Ensures Your Data is Secure7. 3 Benefits of an Integrated Backup Solution8. How to Be Confident that Lost Data Can Be Restored by your Backup Provider


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#1 Develop Blog Content

o Identify the Buyer Persona – before publishing or writing a blog post, identify exactly which target prospect is going to be appealed to by that particular piece of content. This buyer persona is the desired audience for your post and should be the primary audience in mind as the content is being developed. Selecting a target buyer persona for each post is crucial to delivering valuable content and associated offers within the blog itself that ultimately influence a lead conversion.

o Deliver Best Practices/How to Solve that Problem – upon identifying a buyer persona and their associated problem/need ensure that the content of the blog post addresses that need directly with valuable, helpful information related to the problem being investigated by a reader.

o Simplicity/Format – use clear section titles and implement bullet points whenever possible. Simplicity in terms of format is crucial to maintaining reader interest and ultimately influencing a conversion.

#2 Outfit for SEO

o Blog Titles Include Keyword (Meta Title) – the keyword(s) that each blog is attempting to rank for must be included in the title in some form, preferable within the first few words.

o Scheduling – 2 posts per week, 8 posts a month. This is a proven formula that presents no risk in terms of overwhelming search engines with frequent, redundant posting that negatively effects ranking.

o Keyword Tags (3-5 max) – tag the blog with up to 4 keywords that are associated with the content using the tagging tool.

o In-Text Keyword Usage – use each keyword up to five times within the post itself, and highlight each keyword at least once by bolding or italicizing.

o Meta Keywords – use the same keywords used in the tagging tool to populate the meta keywords field.

o Meta Description – provide a succinct, value-added summary of the content that includes the primary keyword somewhere in the description.

o Links to Trending Resources (Keyword Mapping) – include between 2 to 4 links back to helpful pages related to the content. The ‘anchor text’ of the link (the text that is actually read and clicked-on) must be keyword targeted so that it can be meaningfully picked up by search engine. Avoid linking generic terms and focus on phrases or specific terms related to the issue being addressed by the content.

#3 Optimize Blog for Conversion

o Place CTA Aligned with Topic – include a CTA for a piece of premium content that most properly aligns with the topic of the post. Include this CTA at the end of the post.

o Outfit with Images – use at least one image that is tightly aligned with the content.

o Enable Social Sharing – ensure that every post provides an opportunity to share the content via social networks and email. At the end of each post request readers to share the content.

Blogging Execution ChecklistEducation Recommendation Execution

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• CTA Click through Rate

• Landing Page “New Contact” Rate

• Quality of Leads Generated

m Create a Call to Action Button

m Create a Landing Page

m Create an Automatic follow-up Email (Using Landing Page Tool)

mCreate a Thank You Page

About TOFU Premium Content

Premium Content is a document or media piece that provides enough informational value to justify asking a user to fill out a contact form to gain access. Most common examples are: whitepapers, ebooks, webinars and video assets.

The Role of Premium Content in the Automated Sales ProcessEach blog article in a topical category will promote one piece of aligned premium content. When a prospective lead fills out the form to get access to your premium content, they become a registered lead in your contact database. We call these Top of the Funnel leads “information qualified” because they have identified themselves to you because of the value of the information provided in your premium content. As the lead consumes your content, you begin to establish trust and thought leadership. Each premium content piece will end with a next step offer (Middle of the Funnel) that contains your product or service information. This special Middle of the Funnel offer is called the Brand Filter Offer™ because it separates leads who are simply interested in general information that you blog about from leads who are specifically interested in your branded answer to the lead’s question.

HubSpot Landing Page Tool

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TOFU Premium Content Recommendations

Based on the blog article categories, here are titles for your premium content pieces that will convert traffic to leads in your contact database.

1. Premium content #1: The 2013 Guide to More Efficient Enterprise Data Backups2. Premium content #2: The Comprehensive Guide to Outsourcing Data Backups3. Premium content #3: The Guide to Choosing a Cloud Data Backup Provider

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MONTH 1 BLOG CALENDAR MONTH 2 BLOG CALENDAR MONTH 3 BLOG CALENDAR

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MANAGING LEAD TRAFFIC: A CLEAR SYSTEMWithout a way to delineate territories and accounts across the channel, a company’s partners and its internal sales force will be competing in many instances to sell the same products to the same customers. This drives profits down and increases

frustration within the channel. A channel will operate more smoothly and profitably when all of its members understand which accounts and territories belong to them. Partner relationship management software can provide the “gates and fences” to assign and manage customers and territories.LEAD REGISTRATION AND FLOWOne of the most important aspects of minimizing or avoiding channel conflict rests in a channel manager’s ability to manage the entire sales process

with partners. It includes deal registration, a system allows channel partners to register and protect new customers and sales opportunities; and lead management, which provides the tools to manage

the process from lead generation to sales success at the partner level and at the channel manager’s level. Lead management also includes the ability to authorize, approve, or redirect leads that are registered by competing partners so that the right

partner pursues each lead.ALIGNING MARKET DEVELOPMENT FUND (MDF) AND INCENTIVE STRATEGIESMarket Development Funds (MDFs) are distributed

by manufacturers to support their partners’ local marketing activities. Typically, the goal of an MDF program is to generate demand and, therefore, leads. Incentives, on the other hand, typically focus on results – turning leads into sales. Both incentives and MDFs should be balanced and in alignment with the overall sales objectives of the channel manager. A PRM system can provide channel managers with the metrics they need to intelligently distribute market development funds and plan incentive programs.

A PRM SOLUTION HELPS AVOID CONFLICTThe latest web-based Partner Relationship Management (PRM) systems from software-as-a-service (SaaS) providers offer an excellent method to manage partners and territories, provide pricing

consistency, and maintain brand integrity, thus greatly reducing the channel conflict inherent in sales partner relationships. A well-designed PRM maps the genome of the distribution channel.Distribution channels can get complex over time: A group of independent partners becomes a territory eventually. Territories become regions. Management teams form at each level of the growing organizational structure. A PRM system maps functionality to this structure. PRM systems are role-based. They track exactly who has just logged

in; what role he or she plays in the organization; his or her experience level; and so on, and then maps an environment of support in each of the four core areas of support described above based on that profile.

PRM VS. CRM: THE RIGHT TOOL FOR THE JOBMost modern companies use some type of customer relationship management (CRM) system to automate and manage their direct sales force. But, while CRM systems work well for direct sales, they lack some key functions for managing indirect sales, especially for reducing conflict in the channel. PRM systems can:

• Identify customers and territories.• Integrate lead management.• Offer training, certification, and collaboration tools for dealers.

A CRM system will not provide these functions. In addition, linking the two separate tools can enhance the effectiveness of each. Combining information from both a CRM system and PRM system can provide a company a more global view of its entire sales channel, from dealer to customer, while preserving the individual value that each system provides.

A company looking to grow itself quickly through the development of a channel sales and distribution system needs to be able to integrate new business partners into its sales and pricing strategies quickly. It needs a means to efficiently manage a two- or three-tiered pricing approach. Today that can’t be done cost-effectively without a partner relationship management system.














The Comprehensive Guide to Outsourcing

Data Backups

Branded TOFU Offer 1


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The Guide to Choosing a Cloud Data Backup

Provider




Branded TOFU Offer 2 Branded TOFU Offer 3



























The 2013 Guide to More Efficient Enterprise Data

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The following is a basic template for creating a top-of-the-funnel (TOFU) offer white paper (or e-book or guide). This template should be viewed as a starting point for thinking about the structure of your 2,000-3,000 word whitepaper. The four step approach below will ensure that the need for helpful information is met, establishing trust and thought leadership, before your positioning is introduced to the lead. Finally, the reader is given a clear next step to learn more about your positioning and brand, a “middle of the funnel offer”.

Suggested TOFU white paper outline1. Establish trust by demonstrating you understand the reader and his/her problems

• Who might be reading this paper? What characteristics do all the readers have in common (industry, position, geographic location, etc.)?

• What problems are the readers experiencing that would lead them to seek out

TOFU Execution Education Recommendation Execution

the information in this paper?

• What (if anything) are they currently doing to solve that problem? Why has that approach been unsatisfactory?

• What are the risks of not solving this problem/continuing to use an unsatisfactory solution?

2. Drawing from your experience and expertise, discuss the alternatives available in your industry for solving the reader’s problem

• Is there anything the reader can do on his/her own to solve his/her problem? (Without investing in a professional solution.)

• Are there any drawbacks to this do-it-yourself approach? What are they?

• What professional solutions (other than your own) are available for solving the readers’ problem?

• What are the benefits of each one? What are the drawbacks? What do industry experts have to say about each one?

3. Introduce the specific approach you recommend for solving that problem, and why

• How would you summarize your recommended solution? How does it work?

• Why is the solution you recommend better than a do-it-yourself solution or other alternatives?

• What are some reasons readers might be skeptical about your solution and how would you respond to that?

• How should a reader differentiate between the different businesses that provide this solution (if there is more than one)?

4. Introduce the next step (down-funnel offer)

• Briefly (very briefly), how does your business provide the recommended solution you discussed in the previous section?

• What can the readers do to learn more about how your business will solve their problems? (This is where you put a call to action to download a middle-of-the-funnel Brand Filter Offer.)

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• Overall Nurture Rate (TOFU – MOFU)

• Email Open Rate

• Email Click Through Rate

mCreate an automated email for each supporting content offer in your strategy

mCreate a TOFU workflow

mMake sure to “suppress” any down-funnel lead “lists” you may have created

HubSpot Email Tool

HubSpot Workflow Tool

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About TOFU Lead Nurturing

When a lead gets “stuck” in the top of the automated sales funnel, at the “information qualified” stage, they most likely have some questions that have not yet been answered. Without answers to those questions, the lead is not ready to accept your Brand Filter Offer and progress to the bottom half of your funnel. The method for reaching out to your information qualified leads to answer those remaining questions is an automated set of emails. We call it a “workflow”, you may know it as a “drip campaign”.

The Role of Automated Emails at the Top of the FunnelYour top of the funnel workflow emails must be designed to answer the common questions that come up in your sales process. Once you adequately answer the questions, the information qualified prospect will be more likely to consume information about your product or service through your Brand Filter Offer, and move into the bottom half of your automated sales process.

Prerequisites: You must have already created a middle of the funnel offer landing page.


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TOFU Lead Nurturing Recommendation

Create a supporting content offer that addresses the common questions a prospect may have at this stage in the sales processCommon questions that come up early and often in Cloud Backup’s sales process include: “

• What is your track record?

• What platform are you using?

• How much does it cost?

These common questions aim to validate the credibility and viability of Cloud Backup’s products and services. These questions can be answered by Cloud Backup over time by delivering helpful emails that promote relative content. After these questions are answered using targeted blog articles or other content assets, the prospect will be much more likely to consume information about Cloud Backup products and services. This process of “lead nurturing” ensures that Marketing Qualified Leads will identify themselves to Cloud Backup without feeling pressured. (The Middle of the Funnel Offer)


TOFU Email 1Email addressing the question:

What is your track record?


What platform are you using?


How much does it cost?

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TOFU Lead Nurturing Execution

User downloads a TOFU premium content document.

START

ADVANCEUser takes action on MOFU offer and moves down the funnel.

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5 Days

2 Days

5 Days


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User takes NO action on a BOFU or MOFU offer and becomes stuck.

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The 2013 Guide to More Efficient Enterprise Data

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• CTA Click through Rate

• Landing Page “Submission” rate.

• Quality of Leads Generated

m Create a Call to Action Button

m Create a Landing Page

m Create an Automatic follow-up Email (Using Landing Page Tool)

m Create a Thank You Page

m Create a list called “Marketing Qualified Leads”


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Middle of The Funnel Offers

A MOFU offer is a critical point in the automated sales process. This offer should be centered around your product or service, rather than only providing valuable industry information. When a lead takes action on an offer that is “all about you”, you know that they are ready to consume product specific information that would be considered “salesy” if presented earlier in the sales process.

The Role of the Middle of the Funnel OfferAll of your leads should be directed towards your MOFU offer. This creates a “filter” in your sales process that we call the Brand Filter Offer. Leads that move through the filter can be considered Marketing Qualified and are ready to consume information about specific objections they may have about your branded offering. Leads at this stage should be communicated to and nurtured differently, as they are clearly interested in your offering, rather than the information you provide.


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Your Middle of the Funnel Offer Recommendation

Information Qualified Leads

Marketing Qualified Leads

Middle of the Funnel Offer

Here is your middle of the funnel offer that will function as a “filter” for marketing qualified leads.

Cloud Backup Solutions TourCloud Backup’s middle of the funnel offer will serve as a “brand filter”. All prospects that download a top of the funnel content asset will be exposed to this filter so that they have a chance to identify themselves as interested in working with Cloud Backup, a significant qualification in the automated sales process. Once a lead chooses to consume this information, we can identify them as a “Marketing Qualified Lead”, a lead that is ready for product and service specific nurturing.


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Middle of the Funnel ExecutionEducation Recommendation Execution

How to create a basic MOFU brochureAt the middle of the funnel, the prospect has made an important decision; he has settled on which solution among the many alternatives available to him will be the best solution for his particular problem. At this level in the funnel, the prospect’s need for information shifts. Convinced of a solution, he is now in search of a solution provider.

Branded, but still educationalThe role of the middle-of-the-funnel offer is to educate its readers about how, specifically, your company/brand will solve their problems. It should give them a taste of what the experience of working with you will be like, preparing them for a more direct interaction with sales at the bottom of the funnel. The MOFU offer is an important differentiator in the automated sales funnel; it separates those who are strictly in search of information from those who are seriously considering making a purchase. For this reason, it’s called the Brand Filter Offer. That does not mean, however, that it should be written like an advertisement. This content is branded but still educational. Think of the Brand Filter Offer as a factual document, providing the readers with evidence about how your client’s business is best suited to solve their problems.

Suggested MOFU white paper outline1. Establish trust by showing readers you understand their problems and are prepared to solve them. (This

section might, in part, repeat some of the information that was included in the TOFU whitepaper, but from a more branded perspective.)

a. What businesses or type of individual does your business typically work with? What are their common characteristics?

b. What problems or challenges are these people or businesses facing that your business can help them with?

c. How successful has your business been at helping its clients or customers solve these problems? How can you demonstrate that success?

2. List services

a. What discrete services does your business provide, or what products does it sell?

b. Describe each one. How can they help customers/clients solve their problems?

c. Are these services or products unique offerings in your industry, and if so, unique in what way?

3. Describe the relationship

a. Does your business help clients or customers choose the services or products (from the list above) they need? If so, how does it go about doing that?

b. Does your business advocate a particular philosophy or holistic approach to solving its clients’ or customers’ problems? What is it and how is it reflected in your relationship with customers or clients?

c. After a customer or client has signed on with your business, how will the relationship proceed? What should they expect?

4. Introduce the next step

a. If readers are interested in working with your business, or at least learning more about it, what next step should they take?

b. What will the prospect’s first contact with your business be like? What value will they derive from it?

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• Overall Nurture Rate (MOFU - BOFU)

• Email Open Rate

• Email Click Through Rate

mCreate an automated email for each selling content offer in your strategy

mCreate a MOFU workflowm Make sure to “un-enroll” leads from up-funnel workflows

(TOFU) when your MOFU workflow is activatedmMake sure to “suppress” any down-funnel lead “lists” you may

have created

HubSpot Email Tool

HubSpot Workflow Tool

HubSpot Smart Lists

About MOFU Lead Nurturing

When a lead gets “stuck” at the “Marketing Qualified Lead” stage, they most likely have some pushbacks or objections about your specific, branded solution that have not yet been addressed. Again, the method for reaching out to your MQLs to address the common pushbacks in your sales process is with automated emails. We call it a “workflow”, you may know it as a “drip campaign”.

The Role of Automated Emails at the Middle of the FunnelYour emails must be designed to address the common pushbacks or objections to working with you or purchasing your products. These pushbacks usually come up later in your sales process. Once you address these objections, the lead will be more likely to take action on an offer to engage with sales and become a “Sales Qualified Lead”.

Prerequisites: You must have already created a bottom of the funnel offer landing page.


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Your MOFU Lead Nurturing Recommendation

How will you reach out to marketing qualified leads and address their common pushbacks?Once a “Marketing Qualified Lead” consumes brand specific information, the middle of the funnel offer, we can promote the bottom of the funnel offers that will result in a call with sales. MQLs that do not take one of these offers immediately could have some of the same pushbacks that are common late in Cloud Backup’s traditional sales process. Pushbacks like:

• Your service costs too much

• Your company is too small

• I don’t need your backup system

These pushbacks need to be addressed with targeted content, again delivered via automated email messaging. Cloud Backup’s testimonials and case studies should be promoted via email to Marketing Qualified Leads to overcome these pushbacks and nurture them to a point of sale at the bottom of the funnel.


MOFU Email 1Email addressing the pushback:

Your service costs too much


Your company is too small


I don’t need your backup system

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Your MOFU Lead Nurturing ExecutionEducation Recommendation Execution

User downloads a MOFU premium content document.

START

ADVANCEUser takes action on BOFU offer and moves down the funnel.

TOFU Email 1

TOFU Email 2

5 Days

2 Days

5 Days

MOFU Email 3

MOFU Email 2

MOFU Email 1

User takes NO action on a BOFU offer and becomes stuck.

STUCK












A CRM system will not provide these functions. In addition, linking the two separate tools can enhance the effectiveness of each. Combining information from both a CRM system and PRM system can provide a company a more global view of its entire

sales channel, from dealer to customer, while preserving the individual value that each system provides.













A CRM system will not provide these functions. In addition, linking the two separate tools can enhance the effectiveness of each. Combining information from both a CRM system and PRM system can provide a company a more global view of its entire

sales channel, from dealer to customer, while preserving the individual value that each system provides.



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• Organic, Referral & Social Media Traffic

• CTA Click Through Rate

• New Leads Generated

• Quality of Lead Generated

mCreate a Call to Action ButtonmCreate a Landing PagemCreate an Automatic follow-up Email (Using Landing

Page Tool)mCreate a Thank You Page

mCreate a list called “Sales Qualified Leads”


HubSpot CTA Tool

HubSpot Smart Lists

About BOFU Offers

A bottom-of-the-funnel offer is designed to provide value to leads who are considering purchasing your product or service. Leads at this stage will be ready to interact directly with a member of sales, so it is important that the offer results in a phone call or email follow up between your sales department and the lead.

The role of the bottom of the funnel offerThis is the end of the automated sales process. When a lead takes action at the bottom of the funnel it means that they are “sales qualified” and they should be passed over to your sales department to be converted into a customer.


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Your BOFU Recommendations(resulting in a sales call)

Here is your bottom of the funnel offer that will identify leads that are ready to be contacted by our sales team

Free ConsultationCloud Backup should have a bottom of the funnel offer that allows prospects to request a free consultation. These free consultations typically perform well with a lead who is interested, but wants to speak directly to a team member to verify that it is right for them. In order to increase the number of sales qualified leads with this offer, Cloud Backup will need to demonstrate more value and set expectations for this offer. The landing page should communicate: “who will find value in the free consultation”, “what they will learn and the value of that knowledge”, and “what they can expect in terms of amount of personal communication”. By communicating more value and better setting expectations, Cloud Backup can increase the conversion rate of this bottom of the funnel offer.

Project Assessment & RoadmapSome sales qualified leads will need to see a much higher level of value in order to take action at the bottom of the funnel. This offer is designed to increase value for the sales qualified lead with a deliverable, a roadmap for success. When Cloud Backup invests the time to produce such a valuable educational document, which includes scope of work, timeline, roadmap, and more. With an offer like this, more leads will identify themselves as sales ready, and Cloud Backup will build trust and thought leadership during the 1st interaction with sales.

Marketing Qualified Leads

Sales Qualified Leads

Bottom of the Funnel Offer


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BOFU Execution

The handoff of a Sales Qualified Lead from your marketing automation system to your sales team is the most important piece of your content marketing strategy. Without revenue, your content marketing engine isn’t delivering the value it’s capable of.

The role of your sales team will change.As consumers turn to the internet for information that will influence buying decisions, and experience engagement through your content marketing engine, the role of your sales team will evolve. The Sales Qualified Lead has already explored your brand, already received answers to pushbacks and has established trust sufficient to reach out to request contact with sales. Sales should respond to a Sales Qualified Lead in the context that the lead is ready to discuss receiving the promised value of doing business with your company. Therefore, when first contacting your sales qualified leads, follow this recommended “sales process”.

1. Validate Sales Readiness Do they have questions? Do they not understand how your products/services can help them? Were you not

able to contact them at all? These are symptoms that the “sales qualified lead” is not actually ready for a sale. Luckily, your sales team is now armed with killer content to address any questions they might have about your positioning. If they are not ready for your bottom of the funnel offer, your sales team must mark them as “information qualified” or “marketing qualified”.

2. Upgrade the lead to an “opportunity” If the lead is educated, and actively considering your products and services, your sales team must mark them as

an opportunity. At this point, the lead is truly ready to consume your bottom of the funnel offer, which will result in a proposal for products or services. Your sales team should be judged by the conversion rate of opportunities to customers.

3. Track the revenue back to the source (closed loop analytics) Successful implementation of the Content Marketer’s Blueprint™ will result in an opportunity for your company

to benefit from “closed loop analytics”, meaning that all revenue generated through this measurable process can be attributed to a specific marketing activity. Revealing the true value of your various marketing investments will drive SMARTER future investments, and faster growth of your business.


M A R K E T I N G R E S O U R C E S

Brand Segmented Sales Funnel™, Staircase Opportunity Curve™, Brand Filter Offer ™, Blog Topic Blitz ™, Tripleshot CTA™, Content Marketer’s Blueprint ™ are all trademarks of Innovative Marketing Resources, LLC. All other marks are the property of their respective owners. This Content Marketer’s Blueprint is © 2013,

Innovative Marketing Resources, LLC, all rights reserved and the use of this unique Content Marketer’s Blueprint content is granted only to Cloud Backup and is subject to licensing restrictions.

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Content Marketer’s Blueprint Prepared for Cloud Backup€¦ · Premium Content (Top of Funnel)...

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