IN LOCKDOWN MODE, DOES YOUR CONTENT SELL?
Content is king. Any marketer worth their salt knows this is true. They also know that if a competitor’s content is a tad bit better, especially while we're all in lockdown mode, they could win the deal before any salespersons get to battle in the trenches. IDG completed a study and discovered that in most cases, customers are over halfway through their Buyer’s Journey before engaging with a vendor’s sales team, so if your content is lackluster, customers might not ever engage with your sales team. If your competitors' content is better than yours, you risk losing a deal before it even starts.
Most marketers talk a good game. The Content Marketing Institute found that 90 percent of Business to Business (B2B) content marketers place customer needs ahead of their firm’s sales/promotional messages. That said, almost 60 percent never conduct Voice of the Customer (VoC) calls to understand what their customers want…either in a solution or for content. As an executive consultant for dozens of top firms over the past decade, I can’t count the number of marketing meetings I’ve been in where we’ve discussed customer needs and personas but not a single salesperson attended. There was not a shred of customer focus group data, VoC call input, or win/loss analysis info.
Another IDG study noted that almost 80 percent of customers view vendors negatively and lose trust if they can’t find valuable content. But what defines valuable? Top salespersons know this secret: over 90 percent of customers buy on trust. It’s the most important factor in any sale, but only 19% of customers trust salespersons…or the firms they work for. Why? Because they are 60 percent of the way to a purchase before engaging with a salesperson, so any “trust relationship” was already established…or not…far in advance. And it was established based on the content the customer consumed. If the content invoked a yawn…well, you get the idea. So why are stories so important?
IDG says that peer recommendations and association with familiar sources are the two most important content factors that will build trust, but it goes far deeper than this. The London School of Business revealed that a person’s retention goes up by 1400% when content uses a proper storytelling format rather than the usual corporate fact-telling approach. I interviewed neuroscientist Dr. Paul Zak for my leadership book, and he says that a brain chemical called oxytocin is the secret. This is our “trust chemical.” With it, we trust. Without it, we don’t. He measured oxytocin levels in subjects before and after consuming a good character-driven story and found a dramatic increase in oxytocin, which increases trust. My colleague, neuroscientist Dr. German Fresco, spent a decade studying the neuroscience of selling and found that using a proper storytelling format helps customers love your brand almost as much as their dog.
I’ve had numerous clients review content written by me or my team and reject it for several reasons. They wanted a different flow that was more corporate (translated, more snooty and boring). They wanted to start with all their company accolades and abilities and dozens of value propositions. They wanted to remain positive throughout and never discuss problems or issues. They didn’t want any metaphors or similes or contrasts. In short, they didn’t want any stories. We complied, delivered what they wanted, and then got blamed for dismal results.
Over a decade ago, I thought I knew how to write a good story. I was wrong. After writing a New York Times bestselling non-fiction book, my editor at HarperCollins said I was terrible at fiction and would never write a good novel. He was right, back then. I spent the next decade befriending and working with several #1 New York Times bestselling authors, worked hard, learned how to tell stories, and have had recent success with novels. More importantly, I learned how to weave a good story into corporate content. It starts with lots of VoC calls to understand what your prospects want. Then it requires using a lot of writing tricks including the proven 3-Act play approach aligned with modern neuroscience.
In Act I, we increase dopamine and oxytocin to build familiarity and trust. In Act II, we discuss risks and consequences, which increases cortisol and norepinephrine. In Act III, we do what? How? What colors should we use? What images work best? In which act should we be more instinctual and use shorter sentences and active verbs? Which act is more logical and factual? Which act is 50 percent of the story? What small changes can we make in a LinkedIn ad that has been proven to drive 3X more leads? What cold email copy will deliver almost 10X higher click-through rates?
If you’d like to know the answers and how VoC and stories can impact your content, CLICK HERE.
William Craig Reed is the New York Times bestselling author of the award-winning book THE 7 SECRETS OF NEURON LEADERSHIP and SPIES OF THE DEEP: The Untold Truth About the Most Terrifying Incident in Submarine Naval History and How Putin Used The Tragedy To Ignite a New Cold War. Reed is with NeuronLeaders, a renowned B2B Neuromarketing Agency and serves on the Board of Directors for REMOTELYME, a firm dedicated to helping remote sales teams better engage with customers. Reed is a former U.S. Navy submariner and diver and co-founder of Us4Warriors.org, an award-winning veteran’s non-profit.