This document provides an overview of technical marketing and how to effectively implement it. It begins with some "spooky stats" that show how customer research and buying behaviors have changed, with more occurring online through self-service before engaging with sales. It then outlines some "creepy forces" like mobile users and customer preferences for self-service. The rest of the document provides a framework for technical marketing, including initiating content, launching a customer success center, extending reach through various channels, and continuously optimizing based on analytics. It emphasizes creating a unified customer experience across all stages. Real-world examples are also provided of companies that keep customers engaged through their customer success centers.
2. Agenda
Spooky stats that show your world has changed
Creepy forces at play in the market that you should be scared of
Tricks and treats for being effective with you content – Technical Marketing
Real world examples of companies keeping the kids coming back for more
QA – no smelly feet please
MindTouch
4. A Little Background MindTouch
MindTouch is trusted by dinosaurs and unicorns
Serves trillions of queries a month on our cloud infrastructure
(for our customers)
Conducted analysis of referring traffic (search engines)
Surveyed B2B and B2C buyers
5. Spooky Data from MindTouch MindTouch
10% aimed at finding the URL
80% of traffic was product education
E.g.- this model vs. that model, features,
function, support
Which features are what determine my vendor
short list?
What does post-sale experience looks?
10% of traffic are transactional buy signals
E.g.- price, how do I buy, where do I buy
6. MORE Spooky Data MindTouch
21% of the buying cycle talking to sales reps
55% of cycle using available info
72% of buying decision is based on “online information”
65% of overall web traffic come through the help center
62% of that traffic is coming from Google Search
7. A CEB study of more than 1,400 B2B customers across many
industries revealed that:
57% of a typical purchase decision is made before a customer
even talks to a supplier.
2005: of buyers report educating online before buying
2013: of buyers report educating online before buying
Customer Due Diligence Begins Customer’s First Contact
With Supplier
Customer Purchase
Decision
Self-Service Customer Success
Impacts Buyers
12. AARON FULKERSON
CEO at MindTouch
Mobile Users
The “Always Connected” Generation
Expect huge spikes in mobile
traffic
65% of information searches start on
smartphone (Google)
60% of those searches continue
on a computer
MindTouch – 2 trillion requests a
month
Mobile traffic tripled
Mobile increased by 900% for
one 200 year old manufacturing
customer
13. Researchers
No longer reliant on your sales team
Able to make a ‘short list’ on their own
Not limited to one channel of
information
May not speak your language
Unwilling to be forced into your ‘sales
funnel’
Only 37% of buyers said the
corporate site was most helpful
14. Embrace Mobile, IoT and M2M
A network of devices
Communicating machines
Text Driven Performance
Microcontent delivered as a
microservice
15. Subscribers
The Subscription Economy
Even GE is finding ways to move to this
model
Requires emphasis on customer success,
upselling
Average size company uses between 300-
400 cloud apps, many on a subscription
model
17. Assisted Support Creates Disloyalty
Customers Requiring
Agent Interaction
4 times more likely to
leave disloyal than
loyal
Harvard Business Review July 2010
CEB 2013
More Loyal
Less Loyal
1.00x
3.97x
18.
19. AARON FULKERSON
CEO at MindTouch
Revolution and
Evolution
Pre-Industrial Revolution
No separation between
customer and
craftsman
Industrial Revolution
Advent of the
distribution network
Return to the Craftsman
Faster production
cycles and direct
connection to
SME’s/craftsmen
Nicolas Fleury/Flickr
Nicolas Fleury/Flickr http://www.flickr.com/photos/nicolasfleury/6368161055/
20.
21. AARON FULKERSON
CEO at MindTouch
The Assumption Problem
Marketers assume what matters to
consumers – emotion, not form and
function
Consumers have to assume what
the post-sale experience is like
Marketing materials explain the
value, but third-party sites are
needed to explain what using
the product is like
71% of B2B consumers prefer to
research and buy on their own with
minimal sales rep contact (Acquity
Group,2014 State of B2B
Procurement Study)
Image via Wikimedia
22.
23. SCOTT ABEL
The Content Wrangler
A Missed Opportunity
A term few understand
It’s a subset of marketing
Which is a subset of
communication
Post-sale content; the stuff we
used to get only after a sale was
made
Specifications and other
details that matter to buyers
Usually ignored by the marketing
department
A huge mistake
Image by: http://www.technicalmarketing.org/
24. AARON FULKERSON
CEO at MindTouch
Selling the Post-Sale Experience
Mixing the “soft-sell” content with all of the
other content you produce to provide a clear
picture of your brand’s value and
experience
Setting consumers up for success as they
move into the onboarding phase (training
them to self-serve)
Creates product experts and brand
promoters before they buy
Improves late stage sales conversions and
increases renewals and upsells
25.
26. SCOTT ABEL
The Content Wrangler
Getting Your Ducks in a Row
Unify your content
(no more silos)
Get everyone to work together
Stop producing schizophrenic
content experiences
Create a unified customer
experience
Leverage your content to serve and
to sell
Find ways to tell stories as often as
possible
Technical people like technical
stories
27. AARON FULKERSON
CEO at MindTouch
Enabling Self-Validation with Self-Service
Take your product and help content out of PDFs
and put it into web-ready pages
Track user event data
Enrich your CRM customer record
Discrete and macro trends
Provide a branded, search engine optimized self-
service channel that compliments your marketing
efforts
Utilize Onboarding material to help sell your
product
28.
29. AARON FULKERSON
CEO at MindTouch
Accelerating the
Experience
SPEED in the sales process and your
customer’s time-to-value
MASTERY over your customer’s
experience and your products
CONTROL over your brand
A new tool in your sales arsenal
Nuanced understanding of the topics that
matter to customers
Marketing based on regional and
demographic insights
30. Effective Tricks & Tasty Treats
The process to successful technical marketing. Yum!
31. The Value of Tech
Marketing
Self-Validation
72% of B2B buyers prefer to do research
on their own through search engines
(2014 State of B2B Procurement)
Simple Self-Service
76% of customers prefer online
self-service
(Forrester)
Improving Sales
Conversions
Buyers of technology spend 55% of
their time using content, and 21% of
the time talking to sales people
(IDG Connect)
Increase Marketing
Funnel
MindTouch Customers report 2x
organic web traffic, 3x time-on-site,
and bounce rates cut in half
Improve CES & NPS
MindTouch customers see a 20-
40 point improvement in NPS and
CES
39. Permission Model
Start with a basic workflow
SSL Certification for secure passwords
Add more structure as you bring on
more stakeholders post-launch
INITIATE
CHECKLIST
41. Stage 2: Launch
Improve marketing with geographic
and demographic data
Improve organic traffic and domain
authority for corporate web site
Identify content requirements with
user events stream
Reduce customers’ effort and
increase consumer adoption
Double website traffic, triple
engagement, and halve bounce
rates
LAUNCH
GOALS
42. Increase Domain Authority
Control brand in online search
engines
Link from/to corporate website
HTTP redirects for old content
LAUNCH
CHECKLIST
43. Track Impact with Web analytics
Best to create a sub-domain to
corporate website
Allows more intelligence from data
and also helps marketing
understand the impact
Google Webmaster Tools
Accelerates time to index, affords
more control and intelligence
about organic search terms
LAUNCH
CHECKLIST
44. Marketing Push
Promote your investment in your
customers’ success and create
backlinks for SEO purposes
Announce via Press Release
Publish via Customer Newsletter
Announce via blog and social
media channels
LAUNCH
CHECKLIST
45. LAUNCH
CHECKLIST
Review web and MindTouch
analytics
Track requests for content
Interview support and training
managers to identify high value
topics or products
Determine the high-value, low lift
content to start
Build a Content Roadmap
46. Stage 3: Extend
Increase customer retention
and upsell
Inform Product with reporting to impact user experience
and adoption
Improve sales conversions with reporting on content by
buyer vertical, persona and sales stage
EXTEND
GOALS
Lower customer effort across the entire journey
47. Enhanced Branding
It’s ok to start with the generic
“Help Center” look because
you achieve immediate value
and clear next steps on
content, but now it’s time to
create a seamless brand
experience
EXTEND
CHECKLIST
48. Intercept Calls, Chat, and Tickets
76% of customers prefer self-
service (Forrester)
Agent assisted interactions are 4
times more likely to create
frustration (CEB)
Intelligently serve the right content
and prevent call, chats and tickets
Free up agents for higher touch
support
EXTEND
CHECKLIST
49. Agent Enablement
Create a continuous cycle of
improvement with KCS best
practices
Track user event data for
reporting on content to create
and deliver
Implement agent participation,
attach rate, etc reporting
EXTEND
CHECKLIST
50. Chat and Call Center Integration
Improve support stats by
enabling agents with the right
content in chat and call center
software with auto-search and
search faceting
EXTEND
CHECKLIST
51. In-Product Help
Prevent users from ever needing
leaving your products and
dramatically lower customer effort
Deliver contextually relevant
content and drive user adoption
while creating product experts
Provide user experience hot spot
reports to Product development
based on the topics being accessed
EXTEND
CHECKLIST
52. Sales Force Automation (CRM)
Improve sales conversions by
enabling the sales team with
the content that build
credibility and closes deals
faster
Track and report on the
“micro-content” that closes
deals by vertical, channel,
persona…
EXTEND
CHECKLIST
53. International Reach
Create multiple localizations
for your content
Localize your self-service site,
you can use webmaster tools
to drill down into language
specific analytics to
understand, at a more
granular level, how your
customer’s experience your
product in different regions,
and what your buyers are
looking for in different regions
EXTEND
CHECKLIST
55. Build out internal backlinks
through your blogs
Provide abstracts to new guides,
best practices and references on
your corporate or product blogs
This creates internal backlinks and
develops domain authority across all
your web sites
Promote the new and valuable
content through multiple (social)
channels
EXTEND
CHECKLIST
56. POST-LAUNCH STAGE
Identify specific content to
create and update
Continued optimization of: Sales,
Account Management, Marketing, Service, Product
LEARN / OPTIMIZE
GOALS
61. Measuring Success
Net Promoter Score (NPS)
“How likely is it that you would
recommend [your company] to a
friend or colleague?”
Customer Effort Score (CES)
“The company made it easy for
me to handle my issue.”
LEARN / OPTIMIZE
CHECKLIST
62. It’s Alive
Real World Examples of Customer Success
That Keep them Coming Back for More
64. UNIFIED EXPERIENCE, EVERY STAGE OF THE CUSTOMER JOURNEY
CUSTOMER SUCCESS CENTER
On repository, microcontent exposed as
web native, mobile ready and
microservice
SUCCESS
CENTER
66. UNIFIED EXPERIENCE, EVERY STAGE OF THE CUSTOMER JOURNEY
CUSTOMER SUCCESS CENTER
GOOGLE SEARCH (SEO)
SUCCESS
CENTER
67. Driving site traffic through SEO
Increase Domain Authority
68. UNIFIED EXPERIENCE, EVERY STAGE OF THE CUSTOMER JOURNEY
CUSTOMER SUCCESS CENTER
GOOGLE SEARCH (SEO)
SALES CUSTOMER
RELATIONSHIP
MANAGEMENT
SUCCESS
CENTER
69.
70. UNIFIED EXPERIENCE, EVERY STAGE OF THE CUSTOMER JOURNEY
CUSTOMER SUCCESS CENTER
GOOGLE SEARCH (SEO)
SALES CUSTOMER
RELATIONSHIP
MANAGEMENT
ONBOARDING / TRAINING
/IMPLEMENTATION
SUCCESS
CENTER
72. UNIFIED EXPERIENCE, EVERY STAGE OF THE CUSTOMER JOURNEY
CUSTOMER SUCCESS CENTER
GOOGLE SEARCH (SEO)
SALES CUSTOMER
RELATIONSHIP
MANAGEMENT
ONBOARDING / TRAINING
/IMPLEMENTATION
IN-PRODUCT
CONTEXTUAL
HELP
SUCCESS
CENTER
74. UNIFIED EXPERIENCE, EVERY STAGE OF THE CUSTOMER JOURNEY
CUSTOMER SUCCESS CENTER
GOOGLE SEARCH (SEO)
SALES CUSTOMER
RELATIONSHIP
MANAGEMENT
ONBOARDING / TRAINING
/IMPLEMENTATION
IN-PRODUCT
CONTEXTUAL
HELP
SUPPORT CHANNELS
SUCCESS
CENTER
75. Understand &
Connect with your
Most Valuable resource,
Your Customers
Accelerate Sale Cycle
And Increase your
Renewals and Upsells
76. UNIFIED EXPERIENCE, EVERY STAGE OF THE CUSTOMER JOURNEY
CUSTOMER SUCCESS CENTER
GOOGLE SEARCH (SEO)
SALES CUSTOMER
RELATIONSHIP
MANAGEMENT
ONBOARDING / TRAINING
/IMPLEMENTATION
IN-PRODUCT
CONTEXTUAL
HELP
SUPPORT CHANNELS
ACCOUNT
MANAGEMENT/RENEWAL
SUCCESS
CENTER
Technical Marketing, it is the new hit term, the fad, the thing everyone wants to promote. We have heard it over and over again, but why? What pushes this term into the spotlight?
It’s because the writing's on the wall, a tidal wave is coming and you either hop on your board and ride it in, or you get pummeled and have to pick yourself out, piece by piece, from the razor sharp coral below. This wave is the modern customer and you either ride them in or become fish food forever.
Data that proves the world has changed 10 mins
Spooky stats from third party research and original MindTouch research
Market Forces that scare you– 10 mins
Creepy forces that have changed your world
Strategies and tactics for – 15 mins
Effective tricks and tasty treats
Live Examples – 15 mins
Companies that keep the kids coming back for more
QA 10 mins
No smelly feet please
Dinosaurs to unicorns (Remington and Whirlpool to Zeniphyts, Docker, and Sprinkler ) We cover the entire user spectrum in that model
Third party data and original research
Dinosaurs to Unicorns
First we have to look at the way the modern customer, we can all agree that at this point almost everyone uses online search Google to Search:
80% are searches in attempt to discover information from any source - actively seeking to make a purchase are trying to find out what or validate who will make their short list of vendors that they will then pull out a winner from
Transactional Queries : Final 10% constitute all of the shopping/downloading (transactional purchase) - how do I buy, how much does this cost
Two Things Stick out : First, there is an overwhelming amount of people who are just looking to learn something, to find an answer, to help eliminate doubt and to go into their purchase educated
Second, only a small percentage of searches are geared towards purchasing. SOOOO why aren’t you catering to this larger more overwhelming audience?
We seem to Cater almost exclusively to the Bottom 10% . It’s counter intuitive, we spend all our time and money optimizing our marketing sites, and yet we know that customers really want information. We force them down these sales channels SIGN UP / BUY NOW / DOWNLOAD HERE / ADD TO CART / and on an on which obviously leads to frustration
Once a customer discovers your brand, whether through word-of-mouth or your keyword SEO strategy,
they’re going to want to understand how it works to meet their needs.
Buyers of tech only spend 21% of their buying cycle talking to sales reps
55% of that cycle is using the available information that they have
72% of the buying decision is done based on “information he or she finds online
Self Service is the way of the future, you can fight it or you can read that writing on the wall
2015 over 95% of B2B buyers report education online at some point during the buying process
57% of the buying process is done before a buyer picks up the phone and calls a sales rep
Customers find their way to your marketing site, but it generally only matters once they have had the ability to self educate
Central Point: 2009-2012
FASTEST GROWING PREFERRED CHANNEL
Central Point:
ONLINE SELF SERVICE HIGHLY IMPACTS: CUSTOMER EFFORT AND CUSTOMER SERVICE QUALITY
Let’s get a little deeper in from the flat line statistics to the larger trends that we are seeing
As we have seen, they really have become the savvy searcher who relies on Google and their mobile phone, ready to find whatever they need, equipped with the world’s information in the palm of their hand They no longer quests for the customer support agent, they no longer want to have to read your “Sale” material, they quest to self serve, to research, to find the valuable content that verifies their needs and their concerns, compile all of that data they have collected, reach out, and then they will make a buying decision.
This really is the new Zombie apocalypse, people walking around with their heads down, oblivious to the world around them and completely consumed
By the information they have in their hands.
According to Internet Trends 2015 Survey by Kleiner Perkins, Millenials make up 35% of the workforce, compared to 31% for Gen x and Baby Boomers
And According to Netskope, the average size company uses 300-400 cloud apps, many of them a Subscription-model
When someone wants information, what do you do, you say, “I’ll google it!” Often times you find just enough information
To tease you, then you head to your desk and you continue the search on your computer
Mobile: Customers like Remington have seen a 900% increase in their mobile traffic to their MindTouch site.
According to Google 65% of information searches start on a smartphone, and 60% of those searches continue on a PC
Remington 3x traffic year 1 the got their content broken out into bite size pieces, and then it the traffic trippled again in year 2,
62% of traffic are BUYERS, 48% customers
Millennial:
Researchers
94% of B2B buyers do some form of online research (2014 State of B2B procurement Study)
Top two sources:
Google (77%)
Corporate Site (83%)
Only 37% of buyers said the corporate site was the most helpful
According to Tecmark, we check our phones 1500 times per week on average
Millennials
PreferenceSubscribers
THE SUBSCRIPTION ECONOMY == emphasis on customer success means and upsell.
Researchers
94% of B2B buyers do some form of online research
Mobile Users
56% increase globally in search
Always Connected
….
Modern customer defines their sales cycle, not the one your marketing and sales time try and define, they find the way they want to approach you,
they don’t care what your favorite channel to deliver information is,
They like what they like and there is not forcing them down your path any longer
In fact, only 37% of buyers today say that the corporate site is what helped them make their buying decision
With the internet of things and mobile to mobile data communication, we are seeing how valuable micro pieces of content are becoming. Think about it, your smart fridge isn’t going to download a 200 page pdf that you are going to sit there and read, you smart watch isn’t intended to scroll through multiple pages of information, and your text sharp shopper isn’t primed to read more than several paragraphs of information, and yet we keep pushing content into PDF’s and Word Docs that are not formatted for this type of consumption and are completely out of date. The change is here, the pocket performer is king.
Google rewards you for it, your customers expect it, and the time we spend creating our content deserves it. You need to be able to deliver smaller more absorbable pieces of content that your receiving device is optimized for.
Text based – meaning small snippets of text with URLs for more info.
GE is turning large capital expenditures, e.g.- buying a 7 figure piece of equipment, into an equipment lease with a “customer success” program.
So what do we know about the subscription model? That keeping your customers happy, delivering consistent value, and keeping up with their evolving needs is a must to get them
to renew for the next year, Value becomes even more important when trying to upsell on top of that renewal so you must invest in your customers if you want them to stay loyal. YOU must invest in them being proficient and experts on your products or they will leave you.
Havard Biz Review and CEB
One-third say they’d ‘rather clean a toilet’ than speak with customer service. (2015 Aspect Consumer Experience Survey)
90% of consumers now expect a brand or organization to offer a self-service customer support portal; 60% of consumers have a more favorable view of the brand if their self-service offering is mobile-responsive. (2015 Global State of Multichannel Customer Service Report)
60% of consumers have higher expectations for customer service now than they did just one year ago. (2015 Global State of Multichannel Customer Service Report)
When it comes to sales, the probability of selling to an existing happy customer is up to 14 times higher than the probability of selling to a new customer. (Marketing Metrics: The Definitive Guide to Measuring Marketing Performance)
BEFORE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION – CUSTOMER AND CRAFTSMAN – made to order
THEN DICONNECT with the advent of the distribution model, standardizing information happened, and we were forced to work with slow production cycles
TODAY, BUYERS WANT TO CONNECT WITH THE CRAFTSMAN AGAIN – feedback, connect with the SME and craftsman, faster production cycle
Shift in favor of the customer, they are More knowledgeable, they have More opinions, and they want More options
They are Looking for a clear path to ROI—not just WOW
Consumers are looking to understand the post-sale experience in the pre-sale phases of the customer journey. That’s why customers turn to third-party websites, to try to understand this experience.
Customers like Code42 and Remington find that during the pre-sale phases of the buying process, consumers are turning to their documentation to learn about the post-sale experience. That’s a big reason why 65% of their traffic comes from their MindTouch powered site. They’re offering up a clear picture of the post-sale experience
Aaron’s Notes:
MAKING ASSUMPTIONS with no data -- can’t understand how the customers touch and feel.
Tie back to MindTouch as a Virtual Apple Store that allows the company to see how the users are touching and feeling the products and features then informing product, sales and marketing. Creates a personal connection by removing walls between customer and craftsman.
Consumers want to understand the post-sale experience – ELABORATE ON THIS MORE
Marketing materials can’t replace third party review sites like Engadget
We get anecdotal remarks that it was our documentation that set us apart from other vendors
Remington has seen a 60% decrease in tickets through their contact support form
unifiy your content
get everyone to work together
stop producing schizophrenic content expeirences
create a unified customer experience
leverage your content to serve and to sell
find ways to tell stories as often as posisble
technical people like technical stories
UNPACK content , track user stream, enrich customer record…etc etc track discrete and macro trends
Providing a branded, search engine optimized self service channel that fills in the gaps in your marketing efforts
Create a clear picture of the post-sale experience
Use your onboarding/ customer success documentation to help sell
Kill the silod and multi-source authoring experience
Effective tricks and tasty treats
Effective tricks and tasty treats
Fix line height
We’ve helped hundreds of companies over the last 8 years make their customers successful.
We’ve identified the best practices of our most successful customers
From there, we synthesized that into a four stage deployment to bring the fastest-time-to-value for you and your customers
Our process brings tangible results in weeks, not months
Overview of stages – Initiate – define MVP, Launch it, Extend across the customer journey, learn from the user behavior
Many of customers launch in just 5 days.
For example, SAIC purchased on a Thursday and launched by Monday.
Many of our customers extend Mindtouch across their customer journey in just a couple weeks
For example, Koch Business Solutions extended MindTouch in less than two weeks
While others are, like Avalara extended across their
Products
Service cloud
Sales cloud
And Communities
In weeks as well.
From here you Learn and Optimize which impacts your Marketing, Sales and Service
Our goal is to help you realize increasing value throughout
The curve will increase your value and reach across customers and buyers. It’s not linear…
We take the approach of mapping each of our customers to this curve and our job is to make sure you’re advancing at every interaction.
Initiate Goals:
Achieve fastest time to value and lowest cost
Seed with minimally viable content
Deploy securely with branding
MVP
Permission model
SSL cert for secure passwords
keep it basic, 1 private space add more as you onboard others
Include basic workflow from private to public tree
Improve customers’ effort and increase consumer adoption
Double website traffic, triple engagement and half bounce rates
Improve organic traffic and domain authority for corporate web site
Improve marketing with geographic and demographic data
Identify content requirements with user events stream
We don’t have an article for the site index
NOTE: needs another – 1. “Lower customer effort across the entire journey”
Common Sense Advisory Report,
72.4% of global consumers indicated that they prefer to use their native language when shopping online.
55% of the participants said they only buy products from websites that provide them with information in their own language
56% of the people surveyed spend more time on local-language sites than on English ones—or never visit English websites at all
Wave Analytics
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add personas and have image for each one
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Third party resources for NPS and CES
What do they all have in common, hint, it’s not MindTouch
They have a unified strategy for success that engages the customer throughout their entire journey.
Key characteristics: One repository, microcontent, microservices
One repository, microcontent, microservices
One repository, microcontent, microservices
One repository, microcontent, microservices
One repository, microcontent, microservices
One repository, microcontent, microservices
One repository, microcontent, microservices
Everyone of you know that the way it is set up now is that everyone one of these departments is viewed as a giant cost center
Documentation is a direct result of your legal obligations to define what and how your product is supposed to work
Support is reactionary and geared to stop your customers from getting aggravating and soiling your brand reputation
Is a direct result of Support and trying to create ticket deflection
When it comes to sales, the probability of selling to an existing happy customer is up to 14 times higher than the probability of selling to a new customer. (Marketing Metrics: The Definitive Guide to Measuring Marketing Performance)
I know we have focused on the dead over the last 80 slides so I wanted to breathe a little life into it