You’re probably just winging your #EdTech Middle-of-Funnel. Everyone is.

This week I write about how B2B EdTechs can neglect how extensive Middle-of-Funnel is, and what to do to move more prospects further down.

>> Article was originally published on the AmplifyED newsletter

“The wrong is wrong even if everyone does it.” - Saint Augustine

We, personally, don’t buy from people or companies that haven’t been referred to us - or we even have heard of.

Educational institutions, composed of people, won’t buy too.

Why? Let’s see.

Human beings act, primarily, by emotions. But when stakes start to rise, we add a few other elements to the mix: biases, consequences, and trust.

And Trust is the main driver for any high-stakes decision people make.

Do you see visitors interacting with your website a few times, but not moving toward MQL? Then probably you didn’t build enough trust with them.

Trust, as put by Stephen M. R. Covey in his book (The Speed of Trust - The One Thing that Changes Everything?[Amazon us, uk]), has Four Cores:

1. INTENT

Intent is your motives and your plans.

Motives: Are you coming from a place of genuine caring and wanting to help your audience?

Agenda: Is it a win-win relationship you plan to nurture? What can you do before the exchange of money?

Behavior: Do you have your audience's best interest in your heart?

2. INTEGRITY

Integrity encapsulates Congruence: Is there a gap between your intent and your actions?

3. CAPABILITIES

Capabilities can be broken down into:

Talent: What are your unique strengths?

Attitudes: What is your approach towards work/business?

Skills: What are your current skills and what are skills you need to develop?

Knowledge: What knowledge specific to your area and adjacent areas do you have? Do you demonstrate it? What’s still to learn?

Style: How do you approach problems? Is it effective? How to improve?

4. RESULTS

Past / Present / Future: Do you demonstrate results?

Communication: How do you communicate results? Do you show activities or outcomes?

Your MoF needs to tap into the four cores of Trust: Intent, Integrity, Capabilities, and Results

You might spend an immense amount of time and effort creating awareness, but awareness is not enough to remember your brand as a contender. You need to create steps for people to continue interacting with your brand.

To tap into the 4 cores, you need digital assets.

And the main asset that can demonstrate how you help organizations is CASE STUDIES.

Want to see how poor case studies are moving prospects AWAY FROM THE CLOSE?

Most companies will relate to this:

• dreadful inertia to write - or even plan - a case study
• being unsure how to effectively write a case study
• not envisioning a future case study at the moment of close
• not adding exceptions to NDA clauses
• lacking client collaboration to write a case study

Countless times I had sales developers having to offer me a case study during a call because I wasn’t still sure the software would really help me.

I wanted to see if I had peers using their software. And “peers” is a very flexible concept. Region, company size, focus can make a case study completely inadequate for a segment of your audience - even the core industry being the same as in your case study.

Your prospects will likely relate to this:

• case studies are outdated
• case studies are unengaging
• case studies are unrelatable

GTMnow wrote a nice article about causes of pipeline stagnation, especially middle-of-funnel. They say:

The middle of the funnel is a prolonged stage by nature, with multiple substages within it. For example, some users might need more education to convince them to move forward, while others who are knowledgeable might require detailed technical content regarding your service or product.

GTMnow also mentions “Lack of Experimentation” as a contribution for MoF stagnation, which agrees with the results of a large survey emphasizing what High Revenue Growth leaders do that others don’t. I talked about this survey in my last post.

There’s also a third group that needs to be addressed.

Your team might relate to this:

• unsure when to market case studies
• unsure how to market case studies

Everyone of the 10 bullet points above, if not addressed, will get your prospects away from the close.

But how to address them?

Enters…

The Thought-Leadership Trust Framework

Simple, as a framework, it requires dedication, but is effective in building trust.

If everyone is just winging it with their case studies. Do better. You want your brand to be associated with thoroughness and excellence.

I developed this framework after studying how to gain and regain trust, and comparing to how big players in #EdTech and corporations write their case studies.

Here’s the 10-step framework to earn trust with case studies:

1. Define your ICP and stakeholder personas
2. List past clients matching the ICP profile
3. List their fears, problems, and hopes of outcome
4. What don’t your competitors do well?
5. Create a short questionnaire addressing the stakeholders
6. Create a short questionnaire addressing the business
7. Outline a hero’s journey story
8. Dig down to the real challenges
9. Create an on-brand - BIGGER THAN YOU - professional design
10. Market it via Thought-Leadership campaigns

For clarity, I’ll break it down:

1. Define your ICP and stakeholder personas

If you have clients referring new leads to you, then you probably have reached Product Market Fit.

>> CONTINUE READING ON THE ORIGINAL POST