Thread by @stephanhov

A guy walks into a marketing conference. He's not in marketing. He's actually in sales but he doesn't sell anything. So who is he and why is he here? (Thread) 👉 #mpb2b

For one thing, he works with marketers. His sales team sells stuff to marketers and then he helps those marketers find tons of business value from the stuff they bought from us 👉

So a marketing conference is a perfect place to learn what's keeping marketers up at night. A perfect place to learn the latest buzzwords and KPIs 👉

Then he applies this knowledge to the specific things his company sells and becomes more relatable to his customers.

Moreover, he now has knowledge of things marketers are dealing with that extend beyond the specific solution they bought from us. This creates new opportunities for his company, but more importantly, makes the marketers more powerful at their own 👉

Okay now for some #mpb2b session notes. First up, @dgingiss shares how to get people talking positively about you on social media. 👉

B2B marketing is heavy on driving sales. Instead, take a book from B2C marketing which is heavy on actual marketing (building affinity and choice). How? Focusing on customers, #CX and retention 👉

Great(?) news: the CX bar is so low that if brands even show up on social in the first place they're winning at life. (#SproutTip - use Saved Replies if you're still building up your engagement chops. But seriously, a simple "thank you" goes a long way!) 👉

Dan's WISE framework is great: Witty, Immersive, Shareable, Extraordinary. I'mma break them down for ya...👉

Witty - fun, not to be confused with funny. Brands shouldn't try to be funny, too risky. Get people talking, thinking. Can you simplify language in a fun/relatable way? Look thru different touchpoints (email templates, slides etc) 👉

Immersive - feel the brand in your bones. For anyone in sales or success, your handoff process and ability to get onsite are two crucial places to continue the experience that your brand team works tirelessly to create 👉

Shareable - make it easy to talk about you online. Hashtags are great and an implied way to say "hey, if you share this, here's how to make sure we can show our appreciation" (#SproutTip - brand keywords in your Smart Inbox + auto-tagging = simple way to quantify a campaign) 👉

Extraordinary - what can you do to make the required remarkable (great line @dgingiss)! Or because I have teenagers, what part of your customer experience can you take from "meh" to "lit"? Again, touchpoints. Find one and level it up 👉

Of course, @dgingiss tells us his framework is WISE but wants us to get WISER...the R stands for Responsive. Killer stat from Gartner: 15% of customers will churn due to a brand's lack of response on social. Sales: want lower quotas? Get WISER and keep more customers!

@dgingiss Next #mpb2b session's from @keithjennings about Moonshine, no wait, sorry, he's like moonshine compared to other "pinot noir" (polished) speakers...and we love you for it Keith! Time to talk about narratives, you guys this is soooooo goooood 👉

First off, marketers talk a lot about storytelling. Stories are great even @annhandley has said so. But here's the thing: storytelling as a foundation for your content marketing is not sustainable, here's why 👉

Stories have a beginning/end, capture a moment in time, and are consumed. There are many variables in the story. Each variable either goes right or wrong. Your audience is so diverse that you'll never get 100% of the variables right. So, your stories won't always hit the mark 👉

Narratives, by contrast, are open-ended. They build momentum over time. We all participate in their creation. Way more room for those variables to work. So we still need stories, but "Open ended narratives supported by stories can change the world" @keithjennings #mpb2b 👉

How do we build narrative? See the world through your customers' eyes. What problems are they "hiring" you to solve at the social, emotional and functional levels (Sales folk: like Sandler's 3 levels of pain). Is survival, success or significance more important right now? 👉

That last part was interesting to me. We work with lots of companies whose industry or market position is at a different maturity stage than their social game. Shouldn't the two align though? I think the answer is "yes". Sales/Success can help empower that alignment.

Neeexxxxxxtttttttt #mpb2b session..... #martech buying with @BerrakBiz

Not a buyer but I wanted to come away with lots of ideas for our team to be good partners to sales and success teams. And boy, did I 👉

A core theme is navigating change as a new/prospective vendor. Your buyer has many stakeholders, established routines, KPIs and perceived (or explicit) ROI. 👉

Demonstrate how these stories are told within your product. Help establish new process where ones don't exist. Tap into the bigger company narrative to make your product stickier and indispensable. 👉

Crazy (but believable) stat from @aberdeengroup Only 57% of marketers say implementation is the most challenging barrier to martech success. Huge opportunity build trust here 👉

If I ever needed a blueprint for how a Professional Services team can succeed in a SaaS org, @BerrakBiz 's talk provided it. Thank you for the unexpected ah-ha moment! #mpb2b

DAY 2 sesh notes for #mpb2b, you ready? First up, new talk by @tamadear to help our content hit the mark. DYK that 95% of decision making is unconscious? Marketers need content that builds THEIR case not OURS 👉

We talked a lot about Challenger sales method and how it can backfire. Too much pain can lead to no decision or worse, only short term change (win the deal, lose the renewal) 👉

Instead, especially if you're in Success, align your content with what they already want, what they believe and what makes them right. Introduce small changes until they are adopted by customer, then go to next change 👉

For my team specifically, I know we can introduce discovery questions and onboarding process to help effect long term change for our customers, be it with content, emails, training you name it. Thank you @tamadear !! 👉

Next up, @ZonteeHou talked social media for B2B. Loved the 4-E "content calibration mix" for social content that makes your audience say, "this brand just GETS me"

Explain
Educate
Entertain
Empower

Breakdown ahead buckle up 👉

Explainer content on social is like a weather report. You want your audience to need it every day to make their important decisions 👉

Educational content on social is where you share frameworks for thinking. Juicy stuff right? Maybe pull in some smarty pants partners or employees to help with this 👉

Entertaining social content is not what you think. It's content that highlights shared values, the human touch, and yes, your brand's attitude/swagger/voice. @bryankramer calls this #H2H 👉

Empowering social content is where you tap your community. It's the stuff that speaks to their needs and the needs of others like them.

So, do a social content audit and check if your stuff is any or all of these, or is it all over the place? 👉

Phase 2 of your social content audit is the actual content. DYK nobody will burn you at the stake for resharing something that's resonated well in the past? 👉

Use your analytics to find the good stuff. Give it a fresh asset or format. Republish.

Repeat every 30 days until the content no longer has the same value then replace it with something better. Remember:

Marketers get tired of their marketing before the customers do. 👉

Third component is turbocharging your community. aka advocacy, customers, partners, "co-petitors" and causes. Invest in their social usage and they'll do the same.

(And don't be afraid to throw a few ad dollars behind any of this stuff or you're selling yourself short) 👉

Next session was @WilliamsTim of @Onalytica talking about the very different landscape of B2B influencer marketing vs B2C. I appreciated that distinction. So here's the thing: B2B inf. mktg is nothing more than pairing people and content 👉

Practically speaking, know that most programs start as a one-off pilot or proof of concept. Use social listening data to find people with expertise, network, content (need 2 of 3) 👉

Tim shared a new tool and collaboration book that they just released with people who know this space very well. @WilliamsTim mind dropping the link here for anyone who's interested? #mpb2b 👉

Enjoyed hearing the legendary @ardath421 talk about nurturing programs next. They're so much more than drip campaigns and other tactics. They need to be integrated 👉

Each buyer needs their needs met. You need to understand what they are and have content at the ready. This builds momentum during the buying process vs give the deal a reason to fizzle out to no decision. 👉

For my team I know we can include more discovery questions during the sales-success handoff to keep momentum going and make sure they know we have heard them 👉

Speaking of which, remember that marketing content can't just be limited to pre-sales. And we can't send that same content to customers. Awesome slide on what customer content marketing needs to be 👉

Next session (don't worry they fed us somewhere in between these) was with @markwschaefer and his new research (book) about the next customer rebellion and what it means for marketers. I'll confess to finding Mark over the top at times but now I understand why 👉

And I respect his passion for helping people understand how to navigate through these complex issues. Like the fact 2/3 of marketing is happening without the brand (McKinsey) and they've basically lost control. Unless...👉

Marketers focus less on tech and more on people. Make the customer the hero of your story. Help them feel like they belong. Show your culture through their stories and build peak moments into your #CX 👉

The humanness of marketing was a prevailing theme at this year's #mpb2b. Nearly every session I attended touched on it in some way. Then @karaswisher closed us out by sharing that the next era in computing will be about taking back control over how we use tech 👉

I see this motif as a call to action for marketers to command a greater role at their org. You're literally at the front lines of change and how people can interact with your brand. Embrace it and go do amazing things 💪

Thank you to the whole @MProfsEvents team, see you in SF!