SalesVPI

Customer Interviews for Marketing and Selling Content

At our recent SMEI breakfast we had an excellent conversation on customer -- and video -- interviews. As a result, I suspected that most B2B marketing professionals don't have a successful framework for thinking about, much less acquiring, effective customer interviews for marketing and selling content. Follow on conversations with organizations large and small confirmed my suspicions. 

What do you call them? Success stories? Testimonials? Case studies?  What is the "come from" behind your approach? What is your primary intent? To have your customer tell your prospects things about you that you can't (or shouldn't) tell yourself? 

Or are you "coming from" a perspective of "helping buyers make effective buying decisions" by getting your customers to share insights that address specific buying questions -- by role, issue, buying stage, solution alternative? 

What is the "job" recorded customer interviews are expected to do? How do these expectations differ when you ask marketing vs. sales?  

There is a place for customers telling their (your) story. But it's limited in the grand plan of content requirements. Captured properly, customer insights can perform many "jobs" throughout the buying process. 

Do you have a formal process for conducting customer interviews? Does it look like this one? 

There is nothing wrong with this approach. It appears to be a universal approach. But it's also un-differentiated and not consistent with today's content marketing principles for creating relevant, educational content to help buyers make better buying decisions. 

 

Customer Acquisition Framework 

Here is a start at such a framework and interview process:

1. First, make a distinction between different communication objectives and approaches for customer interviews. Customer insights can help: 
   • Capture attention / generate  interest -- with short provocative sound bites 
   • Explain --  important insights that educate a buyer 
   • Tell -- a story 
   • Advocate -- make a case 
   • Answer -- questions, objections 
   • Persuade or Prove -- deliver proof points 
2. Use the frameworks you've established for the Customer Buying Process and the Questions Customers Must Answer to make their buying decisions. If you have these well documented it will lower your preparation time and improve your interview. Make sure you've aligned those questions to each stage of the buying process. 
3. Make role-based distinctions in the questions, issues, value criteria that are important to your buyers. 
4. Plan for later stage points that: influence  buying and value criteria that are favorable to your company, address customer questions and objections (you will have to talk with sales to get these), and address "step backs" in the buyers process that stall or derail too many deals.

 

Recommended Interviewing Techniques 

Here are specific recommendations:  

• Decide the important areas you want the customer to address, what specifically you want them to say. You really don't have much time with them. You must prioritize. 
• Align each customer and individual speaker to a specific set of questions -- not general -- ask yourself what customer questions they can best speak to? 
• Prepare multiple questions to elicit those points. You may have to ask the question in a variety of ways. 
• Provide preliminary input to your customer before the interview in the form of a checklist. Tell them you're hearing customers ask these questions. Ask if they are comfortable addressing them, allow them time to think and prepare. 
• Tell the customer you know people have a very short attention span, so you are looking for short, direct answers to specific questions, not long stories. Explain you will let them complete every point, but you may ask them to repeat their answer in a more succinct fashion. You need this, prepare them. 
• Don't be afraid to ask customers if they would be comfortable making a specific point (which you provide them) -- in their own words of course. 
• Keep it light, people will fatigue quickly, often as early as 20-30 minutes. You'll see fatigue showing up in bobbles and mistakes that require re-takes at the customer's request. At this point it's time to wrap up so as not to embarrass the customer. 

This is just a start. Please help me refine an effective framework for capturing customer interviews for the various marketing and selling purposes our organization's require. 

Here are links to helpful articles. Can you see the "come from" expressed in these articles? What distinctions are made between content suited to marketing's early/top of funnel and education purposes, versus proof point messages required by both buyers and sales in the latter stages of the buying process? 

Customer Success Stories Speed the Sale

Best Practices for Customer Success Stories

25 Ways to Build Trust and Sales with Customer Success Stories

The Power of Testimonial Videos

Reflection Films Website

Visible Gains Website

Lead Nurturing and the Inside Sales / Telesales Role

We are working with several clients to help them improve their lead nurturing program to deliver a higher volume and quality of sales ready leads to the outside sales team.

We have found a tendency on the part of Inside Sales to conduct their work from what I would term a traditional mindset. In many cases they are actively prospecting for new leads from an unqualified list. They may be qualifying, using a BANT process, opportunities that have been created through marketing programs -- something one of my partners refers to as "waterboarding to BANT." Or, they are actively trying to set appointments for sales reps.

Telemarketing Study Results

This assessment was verified in a recent article about a study of the top objectives and budget areas for telemarketing organizations.

"The most popular objective for telemarketing, according to the research, is 'generating new leads', selected by 76 per cent of respondents, followed closely by 'booking sales appointments', selected by 72 per cent. 'Lead qualification' was third most popular, cited by 67 per cent. These findings confirm that the primary role of telemarketing is in the so-called demand generation arena."

Maybe it's assumed that nurturing is part of "lead qualification." But I've found that clear language distinctions are critical in setting the right mindset and expectations for any operations role. We call this the "come from."

The "come from" for lead qualification (and certainly appointment setting) is primarily a vendor perspective -- when will you be ready to talk with a sales rep? I think the "come from" for lead nurturing is very different. It takes the buyer's perspective, based upon what is interesting to them.

I posted this question in the Focus Sales website:

“What are the key elements for a lead nurturing function with an inside sales organization?”

I received an excellent, thoughtful response from Craig Rosenberg who makes several excellent observations, especially about the limitation of an automated only process for lead nurturing.

"There are a couple ways to think about Inside Sales in the lead nurturing process. The most important factor everyone must know is that you cannot downplay the critical function that inside sales plays in the lead management process. So when you ask for specific elements that inside sales provides in the lead nurturing process, the lead qualification function is the most important thing. It just is. The inside lead qualification function is the last mile of lead nurturing. They ensure that all your lead nurturing efforts are a fit for sales and queue them up so sales is more likely to follow up on them. Your lead management plan will not reach it's full potential if the plan is to use automation to nurture, score leads, and then flip them to quota-carrying reps. Inside sales, the age-old lead qualification function, is still the bridge between marketing efforts and sales."

He then goes on to suggest how important the phone is as a nurturing and cultivation channel, a way to score leads with greater accuracy and refinement, and a way to deliver more relevant content.

In our work with customers, we're seeing generally weak nurturing due mainly to a poor "come from" and lack of a good supporting program. We are NOT a telesales operations or consulting company. We're just trying to improve the handling of leads we help generate and nurture with automated methods. We also want inside sales to do a better job using the content we create, to nurture.

Telesales Nurturing Program

To correct this, we have recommended and implemented the following practices which we organize in the following categories:

• Stage definitions
• Objectives for each stage
• Come from
• Approach
• Specific techniques
• Next steps

We have documented our program far beyond what I have space and time for here. To receive the full program to support telesales nurturing click here (small registration required).

Stage Definitions

Three stages of the buyer and the relationship with the inside sales professional" -- and primary objectives by stage

• Engage to establish a trusted relationship
• Educate and Nurture to create and accelerate opportunities
• Learn, Qualify and Document the details of the opportunity pre-sales

Examples below are for Stage One -- Engage

Come-from
The "come from" is changed from a traditional, sales oriented "I'm calling to see where you are as a potential buyer and what I have to do to get you to speak with one of my sales reps" to a buyer relevant "I'm here to serve and help you personally and professionally by providing valuable information, saving time, sharing insights, to make you successful."

Approach
Approach is the tact the professional takes that creates a visceral feeling on the part of the buyer relative to the intent. Something like, be curious to be helpful, think from the buyer's perspective in your conversations with them and, ask "Buying Facilitation (R)" questions (nod to Sharon Drew Morgen).

Specific Techniques
Specific techniques for the Engage stage include:

• Using tools we provide from our Content Frameworks that guide purpose and messaging in customer conversations
• Ask open ended, thought-provoking questions
• Ask "buying facilitation" questions
• Listen for … (problem symptoms, triggger points, pain, confusion, possible opportunity,)
• Use and share content

Next Steps
Next steps include:

• Gain commitment
• Send content
• Setup next conversation

Effective lead nurturing won't happen naturally. It requires a program that creates the right expectations, structure, tools, mindset, reviews, measures, training and support.

I completely agree with Craig, the effectiveness of the personal touch of a phone conversation goes far beyond automated lead nurturing. Without an effective lead nurturing function, along with lead generation and qualification, an organization risks missing key opportunities, handing over premature opportunities, or even being late in turning over important leads to sales.

What do you think, is lead nurturing an important distinction from lead qualifying that makes a difference, or does it happen automatically? What have been your experiences?

Request to Webinar Sponsors

I have two simple requests and recommendations that will improve the viewing experience, and through that, the outcomes sponsors seek: please make your webinars easier to consume, and improve the overall webinar quality.

A universal principle that is regularly preached is to make content easy and convenient for the customer to consume and share.

There are well over a dozen webinars backlogged on my "to view" list. Most are from really good thought leaders, people I respect and learn from every time I read or hear them. But who has 45 minutes to devote to viewing streaming webinars, especially during "prime" time. For me, prime time is anytime from 6AM when I begin work to 7PM when I end, but also includes 7-9PM (family time) and most of the weekends (personal, family and work time.)

So, when do I want to consume these programs? How about in my nice new Bose headphones while I'm exercising (OK maybe not the Bose for that), walking the dog, driving, hanging out at gymnastics and swim meets. I just can't devote prime time to the volume of programs I'd like to hear.

So my request is to ask you to post an MP3 version along with the recorded webinar (preferably chapter indexed), and the slides. If you really want to fulfill the principle of making content convenient to consume and share, how about a transcript.

If you could also modularize your content into smaller chunks, edit out intros, outros, Q&A (for some of you it's great content, for most, not so much), that would be a big plus.

I've lost count of the number of times I wanted to forward some interesting points to customers, prospects, and colleagues, but couldn't because the delivery method inhibited that action. Sometimes I wanted to point someone to a 5 minute segment embedded in a 45 minute webinar, archived without chapter indexing as a Go-to-Webinar, Webex or ON24 archive. I have no easy and fast way to direct my colleague to the specific section I want them to view. (Or, maybe I want to blog about it.)

Sometimes the people I want to send to, would prefer to get the segment as text -- especially if they're viewing on a mobile device.

My second, but related request, is for a higher standard of overall program quality. This isn't directed at the relatively few professional presenters and speakers, but the vast majority of amateur (to be kind) presenters who have something valuable to say, but could really use a delivery coach and a good editor before I have to hear it. Our customers tell us they really appreciate the results of a pre-produced process.

My company has been a webinar service provider for 12 years (starting in 1999 when it took about 4-5 people and good luck to run a successful event.) We stopped counting years ago at over 5,000 webinars and webcasts. My colleague has been writing about our view of the evolving state of webinars, and new ideas to improve the user experience.

Take note of my colleague's recommendation for much shorter (try 20 minutes to start) webinars, supported by a microsite of modular content that is available to meet the broad interests of your audience who are in different roles, buying stages, and learning interests.

Let's apply the principles we all read about to this long standing, important delivery method. Please join me in making this request of webinar sponsors you value.

Repurpose Content, Important, Not a Panacea

The topic of repurposing content is a hot topic right now among marketers as they look to reduce content development time, effort and costs.

Our company has repurposed content for customers for over fifteen years, and developed several techniques. But first, a warning. Repurposing content is not a panacea to creating the right content the right way the first time.

This is why a content strategy that develops a content engine to continuously create content like publishers is so important.

If content is not relevant, remarkable or compelling, repurposing won't necessarily make it so. If content is all about the vendor and their products, it can be difficult to repurpose into effective customer educational content that is high demand today.

Think of house renovations. This works well when it's a room or two. Most contractors will tell you there is a point -- major re-work -- when it's cheaper to tear down and start over.

But some of the practices we've developed to repurpose content are worth noting. They even apply to creating content like publishers:

Acquire subject expert insights and ideas in audio.

Subject experts show up continuously. They are our market and product experts, customers and third party contacts -- even key sales and sales support people. They can be found creating content for product launches, events and webinars.

By recording these insights and messages in audio you can edit and repurpose content created as internal or external briefings, training or marketing content, into content for other purposes. By transcribing audio into text you have great source content for writing blogs, articles, or small lead nurturing content pieces.

This technique applies especially well to live training programs, webinars, user and partner conferences, customer reference programs, and any time (expensive) third party analysts or experts are employed.

Extract content from existing training and video productions

For years we have heard sales people observe: "some of our best content is in our learning programs, but it's not in a form that is suitable for delivery to customers." This content is in a training "voice" and physically built in learning technologies, packaged for delivery as training programs, not as customer ready content.

Existing videos are another example. I may want to send a ninety second segment to a customer, but it's contained within a five minute video, most of which isn't relevant to the customer.

The publishing approach would be to create this content for multiple purposes in the first place. It would keep source content in a highly modular form that is suitable for assembly and delivery to meet marketing, sales and customer purpose. But extracting and editing this content can make it useful for other purposes.

Convert white papers to multimedia vignettes

Over the last several years many companies have invested heavily in white papers. Excellent, extensive work resulted in a "point production" -- a white paper. Repurposing involves leveraging this work to take the content and edit into scripts for other purposes, such as a:

• Ninety second promotion vignette
• Eight minute executive summary vignette
• Stakeholder, issue, industry specific version
• Segment for a marketing webinar
• Sales prospecting tool

Repurposing content is the first cousin to thinking like a publisher. It's a great way to optimize the use of subject expert insights contained in existing content. But learning how to create like publishers is the best long term way to achieve an organization's content objectives.

Twitter -- What do you read at breakfast?

I've had several colleages ask me lately, "how do you use Twitter for your selling activities?"

Twitter is becomming a primary resource for me for listening, learning and research.

Listening

“It’s not information overload. It’s filter failure.”-- Clay Shirky

Using Twitter to listen to topic specific conversations is a skill we really need to develop. I don't have time to listen to everything. By selecting and cultivating people who share my interests, I leverage their research, insights, ideas and conversations.

I pick up themes, topics and keywords that help me further my listening, but in an efficient way.

Learning

The people I follow regularly tweet and post links to articles, reference sources and tools that provide an efficient way to learn new ideas. I've developed the habit of replacing my morning newspaper with Twitter. Using Hootsuite, or even on my Blackberry with Ubertwitter,I'm able to categorize the primary topics I'm interested in learning about. Using #hastags and Twittersearch I'm able to quickly retrieve conversations and their related links.

Research

Before working on a specific account, I search Twitter to find conversations about the company,their news and events, topics of issues and competitive landscape. Often this as uncovered new people I need to contact but who were not readily available to me. Contacting these people through Twiter has prove a much more effective technique than phone or email.

If I find people at the company who work in functions that are relevan to me, and they are on Twitter, I follow them. It's a great first step, and the next best thing, to being in direct relationship. How else can you "listen in" to what they are thinking and saying.

My Process

At breakfast, I open Ubertwitter on my Blackberry and start to review my tweets. I typically keep the application open so the app has been accumulating tweets long before I long on. As I find tweets that interest me or people in my organization, especially those with links to great resources, I simply email the tweet to myself or my colleagues.

When I have time I can review, print, or post those tweets to our wiki. I can access the resources referenced. It's a fast, easy and interesting way to expand my listening, learning and research. I'm addicted.

Inside Sales Need Visual Support

In the B2B complex sale, more selling is occurring over the telephone than ever before. Whether part of a formal inside selling function, or as direct sales people working in the early stages of the customer engagement process, phone meetings and conference calls are the norm, not the exception.

Phone-based sellers can dramatically impact their customers and their sales effectiveness by delivering visual support to voice conversations with live web meeting technology.

For a decade we've heard from companies like Webex and Citrix that web meetings can give sales people a better way to conduct sales meetings without travelling to meet with customers.

Well, maybe, but I find myself frequently quoting from Lance Armstrong's autobiography, "It's Not About the Bike." It's not about the technology.

What's required to make effective use of web conferencing technology by inside sales?

1. Content. Specifically content that supports the conversations sales people have with customers. Without the right content, the technology is useless, or worse, it can become a negative experience for customers and frustrating for sales people.
2. Easy Access. Most visual content is created and stored as PowerPoint shows -- presentations. But a sales conversation is not a presentation. We need easy access to individual slides or groups of slides to address specific customer questions, to support a complex idea, or to deliver a proof point. We need to be able to do it quickly, almost without thinking. We don't have time to remember which deck has the slides we need, which directory they're stored in and to extract them so they can be presented.




3. Training and Support. We train people to have effective sales conversations over the telephone. Sales people need training and practice to comfortably use web conferencing during their sales calls. They need technical and technique call support in the early stages. A debriefing process should regularly identify missing but required content and quickly develop and update the repository.
4. Infrastructure Support. Unlike webinars and e-learning, many sales conversations are established in an ad hoc manner. Sales people and their customers need easy, instant access to web meetings, including minimal software downloads or plug-ins.

Visuals are engaging. They help not only message delivery, but message understanding. They help people "see" what we're talking about. Appropriate visual content, used correctly, make phone conversations efficient and effective.

But this shouldn't be left to sales people to figure out. A support program will pay rich dividends.

e-Marketing Strategies for the Complex Sale

When we look back at the past decade, I believe we will see a significant inflection point in the transformation of B2B marketing and selling. The rhetoric of the internet has become the reality of the internet. The web, along with digital media, web 20 technologies, and the proliferation of wireless and mobile computing have resulted in the long-awaited convergence. Even user adoption rates, traditionally the regulator on the velocity of technology impact, are accelerating noticeably.

Of course, not all is perfect. We tend to implement new technologies using old processes and methodologies. True breakthrough occurs when we re-engineer these processes based upon the new technologies.

To paraphrase an old line, to ask, "given my business, how should I use these new technologies?" is fundamentally the wrong question. A more helpful question is, "given the capabilities provided by new technologies, how should I design and run my business?"

Ardath Albee helps answer this question for marketers and business executives in her new book, eMarketing Strategies for the Complex Sale. For marketing practitioners and executives who are looking to innovate their revenue engine, this is indeed a must read.

The motivation is considerable. When "marketing has taken charge of propelling prospects farther through their buying process, salespeople are selling to more qualified buyers. This means shorter time to revenue and optimized results from your sales force. "

Starting with the well accepted premise that business-to-business (B2B) buyers begin their buying process online with searches for a rich array of available information, Albee lays out the business implications along with a cogent framework for content strategy and execution.

Most organizations lack a content strategy, and many lack a marketing strategy. "Event thinking" pervades our approach to marketing, lead generation, content creation and sales support. Albee makes the case for a "mind shift" required to capitalize on the potential of emarketing and marketing automation.

"It's time to shift your thinking. Think of today's marketing department as a publisher with a variety of content channels at its fingertips that can provide you with a larger communications reach than you've ever had before. Even though 80% of companies say that they "found" their vendors rather than their vendors finding them, chance are high that their initial discovery was somewhere other than your corporate Web site. "

With her guidance, readers will begin to develop not only effective strategies, but new processes and procedures to create the volume and kinds of "contagious content" buyers demand.

"The buying process for a B2B complex sale has shifted in recent years. This shift means that much of the time that was previously spent with salespeople is now spent reviewing online resources. For this reason, it's imperative to be found in the places where your prospects are looking. Now more than ever, your company must be recognized as a source of relevant knowledge that pulls prospects into the sales pipeline. Well-executed content will play a bigger role in building trusted relationships that get salespeople invited into the process more efficiently."

Content -- buyer relevant, edu-focused, convenient, compelling, story-based content -- is indeed the fuel for today's revenue engine. It is the "bait" that attracts prospective buyers to find you on the web, and to be found by you, long before they are ready to speak with your sales people.

For most organizations, "Content development is seen as an overwhelming task that takes too much time, effort and money from an already stretched-thin budget and overworked marketing staff. The reality is that a well-structured content-development plan can supercharge marketing and sales results. A well-designed, integrated content strategy will give you more content with less effort."

Albee fulfills on this promise with practical, actionable prescriptions and recommendations.

I found the following concepts especially valuable:

• Begin the process by thinking from a "problem-to-solution-scenario" perspective


• How to create content for specific "personas" -- because "relevance is king"


• Create a "buyer synopsis" to direct the creation process


• Create content for multiple purposes, buying stages, issues related to the topic, and stakeholders -- in one creation process


• Create content also for sales "conversational resources" and "conversation starters"


• Create content for both "scan" and "read" value


• Numerous ideas for creating content as compelling stories so "people to step into your stories and envision their future with you"


• Create content to support "persistent progression" through the buyers journey


• How "listening" is the marketers "secret sauce"


• Create content to support buyer "step backs"


• Five content "catch factors" that impact viewer attention


• Five content "amplifiers" that guide content creation

Improve Your Connect Rates

I continue to hear from sales people who still try to use email as a prospecting tool. I contend email is no longer a communication tool -- especially when unsolicited -- it's primarily a delivery vehicle.

Those who use marketing automation to track email open rates know it's probably on the low end of 1% to 5%. Even if it's "opened," unsolicited emails might not be read, let alone have the message internalized. And this is what I mean by communication.

In the email solicitations I receive I continually see "selling" in email messages. The objective of a prospecting communication must be to gain attention and to get a referral, meeting or conversation. Period. To accomplish this, the message must be compelling and relevant with a focus on the customer's problems or opportunities.

I know most people read emails on Blackberry and other portable devices. Therefore I have to write differently with a compelling title and a very short -- three to four line -- message.

I am finding the inclusion of a tailored multimedia vignette to be an important addition to this tactic. The vignette is a short, relevant, introductory streaming multimedia program that makes it easy for the person to hear our story, quickly and conveniently. Done well, it adds an emotional quality that adds to a motivation for the viewer to take action. If a referral is appropriate, the vignette makes it easier for the person to forward the email by eliminating the need to add an explanation.

These are two of several situations we've identified when sales people need a "second voice". The first is when they can't speak directly to a person. The second is when a message must be delivered through a third party -- a referral or customer sponsor for example.

Now, this is a critical point. Given the volume of emails most people receive, especially those at higher levels of an organization, you MUST call and leave a voice mail with a compelling, customer relevant message, requesting the prospect find the email. Unsolicited emails, even those with compelling titles (who's to say), requires the attention prompted by the phone message.

The message should also explain the presence of the vignette. This piques curiosity, removes any anxiety regarding what is behind the link, and entices viewing because it's a different and more interesting way to receive information. This technique will make a big impact on your connect rates.

Finally, remember the importance of timing. It might require five to eight attempts with various combinations -- voice mail, email, regular mail and ideally a referral -- to make the connection. Persistence is key.

In our business, we seldom send unsolicited emails unless we have the opportunity to make the call and leave the message. Email is the delivery system for our vignette and compelling message, not the primary prospecting tool. All three factors -- message, vignette, voice mail -- are required for maximum likelihood for success. Otherwise we know ours will be just another unread and un-acted-upon email.

Email, Newsletters and Portable Devices

We sent our September newsletter out today. We've done major work on our content, database, website and lead management system. That effort has delayed the release. But it's interesting to see how all these things are integrated.

In appreciation for the fact that most of us have two different email viewing devices, Blackberry/iPhone and computers, we've adopted a practice of writing our emails for viewing on portable devices. This means NOT sending newsletters directly as an email.

Think about how people consume information on each device. On my Blackberry, it's very transactional. I'm checking, sending quick responses, noting incoming mail to deal with later. I'm literally on the go. My mind is mostly focused on other things. I seldom read an article, blog, newsletter on my Blackberry. And I really don't want people reading my important content, or viewing my multimedia vignettes, in that situation. For that, I want them able to focus, concentrate, listen and reflect.

I have certain times for computer viewing of blogs, articles, downloads, whitepapers, etc. My mind is in learning mode. I am focused on taking on new information. I find I retain it better, and link ideas with other ideas or problems I'm working on.

To deal with this reality, we send a very short email with a link to the newsletter.

With our marketing automation system, this has the additional benefit of telling us who actually looked at the newsletter and for how long. This is not the irrelevant "email open" indicator that comes from many email tracking systems. These often give false positives due to the "preview" window in Outlook.

People who are interested in our newsletter must click to view it. It opens as a separate web page. Those pages link to additional resources. The articles can be read on a portable device. But viewing videos, vignettes, downloads or longer articles is not practical today for most of us on most devices.

Here is our recent newsletter email and link:

Content Rubik's Cube Newsletter -- Your content marketing strategy

“A revolution doesn’t happen when society adopts new tools, it happens when society adopts new behaviors” -- Clay Shirky

Lead management, marketing automation, content marketing and a plethora of social media technologies are changing behaviors.

But the content engine to drive these initiatives with quality, consistent content is often lacking.

A content strategy, supported by a well defined and implemented "publishing" process, is the key to unlocking the full potential of lead management and sales enablement initiatives.

The Avitage "Content Rubik's Cube" September newsletter addresses these issues with a rich compendium of insights from customer engagements, videos, whitepapers, articles and links to additional resources.

Click here to view.

 

Think Like a Publisher

Marketing automation for lead nurturing raises the stakes and the complexity of the content creation process.

Buyers want to view relevant content based upon their: role, specific needs or issues, stage of the buying process, industry, alternatives, and information purpose (attention, general education, customer stories, vendor point-of-view, vendor capabilities, proof points, technical explanation and more.)

To create physical documents to respond to this requirement would require hundreds, perhaps a thousand documents (4 variables for 5 factors is 4 to the 5th power). Daunting, if even possible.

Business publishers need content to be available immediately when buyers, or their sales staff, require it. But budgets are tight and quality standards must be preserved. Volume and the ability to tailor content -- perhaps even personalize it -- really ups the ante.

Business publishers need to shift their thinking from re-active, event or project driven initiatives, to a planned and continuous process to create, manage, deploy and deliver content for the new digital era.

Sales messaging is dynamic so content must also anticipate and accommodate constant iteration and updating.

And content can be delivered in many more formats than before: text, audio, Flash and video. To personal devices, through web conference technology, streaming, downloaded and more. So content must be created in anticipation of, and to enable delivery using ALL practical media.

Publishers use databases, templates and a process that is considerably different than the traditional "production" process to produce quality output, quickly and affordably.

I recently did a podcast with Jeff Ogden, the Fearless Competitor in which we discussed specific principles and practices that can have you thinking like a publisher right away.

This link is to a page with the source podcast and transcripts, as well as a link to a BtoB magazine webcast featuring Joe Pulizzi of Junta42 talking about Content Management. In the webcast Joe recommends thinking like a publisher, but is limited by time in delivering specific prescriptions. This webcast and his book, Get Content, Get Customers are highly recommended.

We've used this page to create several examples of thinking like a publisher. You will see how just a 20 minute podcast can be turned into many different content elements for different purposes. In fact, we'll be adding to this page over time.

Here is a starting checklist of what it means to "Think Like a Publisher":

1. Shift thinking from a traditional production process that is event or project driven to a continuous "publishing" process
2. Develop and document a process to create, manage, update, deploy, assemble and deliver content for multiple purposes and delivery modes, and to collect and iterate feedback
3. Define standards, policies and procedures, templates
4. Have a methodology: map your customer's buying process, customer needs, issues and interests, by stage of buying process, industry, their alternatives (your competition) and primary communication scenarios
5. Develop "value maps" and "message maps," the business equivalent of an editorial plan
6. Think of content as assets -- continuously acquire, edit into modules, convert into multiple formats, store in a database base for sharing and re-use
7. Pre-produce content based upon your message map so it is ready for instant use and delivery
8. Produce content for multiple purposes: train, remediate, share knowledge, market/promote, educate, support the buying/sales process
9. Organize deliverables as modules that can be easily and instantly converted into final work products
10. Collect feedback, track, report, analyze, learn, iterate

What techniques have you found to think and work like a publisher?