IN THIS ISSUE
Happy Ides of March as we barrel toward the end of fiscal Q1.
Here are your topics for today:
- How to produce more, better, and more cost-effective sales and marketing content
- What enterprise SaaS sales will be like as Covid-19 ebbs
- Resources for creating effective email newsletters
- Collaborative software for reviewing and proofing marketing projects
COMING ATTRACTIONS
Future issues of Driven will address theses topics:
- Why you're surprised when big deals slip, and how to avoid being blindsided
- Team selling for enterprise deals
- Bright outlook for enterprise SaaS through 2025
- Managing presales teams
- Running a top-notch discovery process
- How to know if your customer acquisition cost (CAC) is reasonable
- How to stand out from the crowd with webinars and online events in 2021
If you have ideas for topics you'd like to see in Driven, please email me with a quick suggestion.
Or go here to share your ideas fast and anonymously.
It'll take only a few seconds. It's your best way get more of what you want from Driven.
Dave Vranicar at Driven
MARKETING | COMMUNICATIONS | CONTENT
How will you publish enough high-quality content in 2021?
"The 80-20 Rule states that 80% of the results come from 20% of the causes. A small number of actions get big results.
"But in content marketing, it’s more like 90-10."
Content marketing is the top strategy for B2B tech marketers.
Content also fuels sales and account-based marketing (ABM).
So even if you're a sales leader, you can't neglect the need to create effective content.
Lots of B2B companies have upped their commitment to content marketing.
With more content out there, competition for the attention of your prospects is intense. So the quality of content is more important than ever.
Yet B2B content marketers say they struggle to produce enough high-quality content.
Budgets are tight. Staffing is challenging. Skills may not be the best. Management support may be lacking. The ROI of content marketing can be hard to measure.
Ideas to consider
- To focus on the 10% of content that will bring you 90% of your results, you must measure your results.
- To see how how your company is doing versus your peers, you need industry benchmarks.
- You must set realistic budgets for content production and distribution.
- You need a written content strategy.
- Plan to reuse the same work in multiple formats and channels.
- Outsource some of your content creation. But don't kid yourself. You'll still have to do plenty of the work in house.
Resource
"Web Content Best Practices: Our 22-Point Checklist for Publishing High-Performance Articles." Andy Crestodina. March 2021. Orbit Media Studios blog.
Orbit Media is a content agency in Chicago. Andy Crestodina leads their marketing, and he's written a worthwhile book about content marketing. For people who care about content, his writing is always worth reading.
Related
"The Animalz Content Marketing Benchmark Report: 2020." Ryan Laws. October 20, 2020. Animalz blog.
Animalz is a B2B content agency in New York City. Their material is superb, and they are worth following. Ryan Laws is especially good. This benchmark report overlaps somewhat with that of the Content Marketing Institute (below). But it's worth reading both reports for different insights.
"B2B Content Marketing in 2020 and 2021: How Does Your Program Measure Up?" 11th Annual B2B Content Marketing: Benchmarks, Budgets, and Trends. Content Marketing Institute | 2021 [Downloadable PDF. 49 pages. No charge.]
The $958M Marketing Problem: Quantifying the Cost Inefficiency in Your Content Production Process. Kapost. 2020. [Downloadable PDF. 23 pages. No charge.]
Dissecting the B2B Content Marketing Strategy. Inbox insight. 2021. [Downloadable PDF. 17 pages. No charge. This document helps you create a B2B content strategy.]
"This Amount Is All the Marketing Budget You Need." Michael Brenner. November 9, 2020. Marketing Insider blog.
orbitmedia.com
SALES & SELLING | OPERATIONS
As Covid-19 recedes, how will your sales and marketing teams adjust?
"As a sales leader, are you prepared to cater to a vast majority of your customers virtually?"
Challenge
With about 66 million American now at least partially vaccinated against Covid-19, talk has shifted toward a gradual relaxing of precautions.
Vaccination rates and levels vary widely by country and geography, as do timelines for reopening.
Wherever you do business, it's not too early to plan how you'll operate as the Covid-19 health threat ebbs.
Ideas to consider
- Your customers may continue to work from home, and remote buying may have become their preference.
- If your customers return to their offices, they may not welcome you there.
- Their deal-evaluation and execution process may have changed. So for deals in your pipeline, keep checking to avoid surprises.
- Not all buyers prefer to consume information in digital formats over face-to-face interactions. But a growing number do. You must be prepared to serve both kinds of buyers.
- As you hire remote sellers, you must be prepared to onboard them remotely.
Resource
"Preparing Your Sales Organization For Success in a Hybrid Workplace." Preston Gray. February 11, 2021. Sales Benchmark Index. Blog post.
This is a solid, though-provoking article.
Related
"When Will the Covid-19 Pandemic End?" McKinsey. January 20, 2021. Online article.
"The Future of Work After Covid-19." February 18, 2021. McKinsey Global Institute. Special report online.
"The Future of Sales 2025: Why B2B Sales Needs a Digital-First Approach." Kelly Blum. September 23, 2020. Gartner blog.
salesbenchmarkindex.com
RESOURCES | TOOLS
Break the logjam: Speed your process for reviewing and approving sales and marketing materials
In many companies, it takes longer to review and approve new sales and marketing content than it does to create it.
The problem can be especially paralyzing in young companies that haven't established a process for review and approval.
A SaaS product called Review Studio enables you to speed that process. I haven't used it, but it's among several you might consider.
Reviews of many other products for collaborative proofing and review of marketing materials are available on G2.
Related
"What Is a Marketing Approval Process? 4 Tips for Building One." Katie Oberthaler. February 24, 2021. G2 Learning Hub. Blog post.
I got this link from the Daily Carnage newsletter.
reviewstudio.com
SHORT TAKES
Up your newsletter game
Email newsletters, you may have seen, are undergoing a renaissance.
Curated newsletters are especially valuable to many readers.
That's because they help sort the wheat from the chaff in fields that are overcrowded with content.
If your company publishes a newsletter—or if you're considering doing so—duck in for a few sessions of Newsletter Fest in April. It's an online event that runs afternoons (New York time) from April 12 to 16.
Ashley Guttuso, the marketer who runs Newsletter Fest, is a first-rate publisher and editor. She trained as a journalist and produces Opt In Weekly, a newsletter about newsletters.
Everything Ashley produces is first rate. Her company, Curated.co,, provides the platform on which I publish Driven.
I'm happy to discuss the platform with you on request.
If you use the link above, I earn a small commission on the sale of their license. It doesn't affect your cost.
notion.so
WRAP UP
This issue tried a small experiment.
Here's the thinking behind it: Each Driven article addresses a challenge you may face.
If you don't face the challenge, you won't read the article. But if you do read it, you may want more depth than a short article offers.
So I've included curated links to related resources. And to help you evaluate those resources, I've included notes to help you decide if the links are likely to be worthwhile.
Before you skip over any article, I hope you'll think to share it with someone you know who does face that challenge.
Driven continues to evolve through experimentation and your feedback.
If you don't share your feedback, I'm left to guess what you want.
If you've enjoyed this issue, please share it with a friend or colleague.
See you next on March 27.
Best,
Dave Vranicar
Dave Vranicar at Driven
ABOUT DRIVEN
Driven is a fortnightly digest for busy revenue leaders in business-to-business (B2B) SaaS.
It's likely to be most useful if your company sells higher-ticket products that require moderate to heavy involvement of professional sellers.
Driven is here to help you:
- Achieve your most important goals
- Overcome your biggest challenges
- Solve expensive problems
- Become a better version of yourself.
You'll find an online archive of back issues 12 through 43 at this link.
About links, commissions, and endorsements
When I provide links to articles from vendors, does it imply an endorsement?
Only of their content. Not of their products or services.
If I recommend a service or a book, it’s because I think it’s likely to help you. Period.
I get nothing from providing links to any commercial service, including the books for which I provide a link to Amazon.
That may change. I’ll tell you when it does.
Dave Vranicar at Driven