How to pivot your content plan in a rush

Change is inevitable” and resilience to change is human nature.

What customer sees in the content of our website is a reflection of our vision and commitment to realize that vision. We always plan the next business strategy, product line-up, and milestone achievement for years ahead, all are already thought out, planned, and strategized. Content for those plans and products already written and verified.

Life though is a box full of chocolates we sometimes surprised with savory treats. Sometimes all things are going well and good, something happens like our audience taste changes, customers deviate from previous search patterns, or some global event capture attention of our customer base.

This requires b2b content writing to pivot the content plan in rush but in the right direction. b2b has customer base as businesses thou not as fickle as b2c but their needs change with time too. B2b content writing should reflect the action plan adopted by b2b businesses to cater to altered customer tastes.

With digitization b2b marketing has shifted to websites and social media. Their customers too have become techno-savvy and compare businesses with their online marketing content.

In this sea of websites, importance and need of seo content writing cannot be denied. Businesses have marvelous products and amazing pricing but if their b2b website cannot make it to SERP (search engine result page) then this marketing lacuna will be fatal to business and can reduce SEO ROI ratio which in turn affects its sales. Knowledge and effective usance of seo content writing can save from internet marketing suicide and increases reach and customer base.

Burgeoning new millennial entrepreneurs are new customer base to b2b that can be milked with arresting seo content writing. Their fear of missing out has open the avenues for digital content writing and marketing strategies where small b2b have recognition if data mining services and data scrubbing tools are employed.

This capriciousness of digital and website marketing forces b2b content to change and change for good and as those not change get drowned in the digital sea of forgotten. This pivot in the content plan should be as such that new customer demands are catered but old customers don’t get alienated. A harmonic balance of something old and something new is to be achieved.

A decade ago document style websites heavily relied on content were chic. Now website content heavily depends on videos, infographics, and visual content. This shift has caused the integration of visual and social media integration in content writing.

Content changes are also required when due to market pressures and global event business and brand rebrand their image. Like in pandemic times like COVID 19 many big banks have launched loaning campaign to business with keeping in mind social impact pandemic have caused. This strategy presents the business in a positive light, not as a cold unfeeling entity but a living social organism that is emphatic and resilient. This is change should be reflected in b2b writing.

Also read: How data appending companies are set to gain from the Covid-19 pandemic?

 

When to pivot your content plan

Change can be for better or worse but sometimes risk boundaries need to be tested. As Newton law suggest everything tries to maintain status-quo until or unless a force doesn’t change their state. In b2b content writing and digital content, marketing forces are numerous. Aside from global and unexpected events, a consistent study and reviewing customers’ demands and search patterns should be taken into consideration.

These patterns are discovered by extensive data mining techniques. Data mining services used by companies to turn raw data into useful information. By looking for patterns in large batches of data, businesses can learn more about their customers to develop more effective marketing strategies and increase sales.

Also Read: How Account-Based Marketing Benefits Your B2B Business

The Internet has grown into a large living breathing organism with constant bombarding of new information, uploads, searching, and hosting, information patterns changes quickly. For example instead of searching for, “online tutorial for programming” they start searching, “web tutorial for programing” and websites that were once were in search engine result can move further down in listing.

With business depending on this share market of information and stakes are high sometimes, the content pivot can save them a fortune when this market metaphorically crashes. So observing global events and customer patterns one can call shots to change the content.

What to look out for while changing

While new customer exposure is good for any business old and loyal customer base cannot be ignored. IHOP and IHOB debacle has proved that business that overhauls in a sudden rush can backfire too.

Renovation is good but home should feel like home unless the business is opting for a complete makeover. Digital education of the old customer base is also important. Making drastic changes with social site links, infographics, and visual transformation can make old customer base flabbergasted and left out.

A single bad experience on a website makes user 88% less likely to visit the website again

When Myntra, an online shopping giant has cut off its losses and shift its sole purchasing on mobile medium so customers accustomed to website surfing were left out. If a new content overhaul is in line with b2b brand image and offering a good SEO ROI then the risk must be taken as no decision is sometimes a bad decision.

Also Read: 10 Things Google Loves to See on Every Website! Does your Website have them?

Integration of change

When the content overhaul is done customer database gathered and new data entries that now required should be seamlessly assimilated. Data migration, data verification, and email verification, email data validation play a vital role.

Data migration is the process of extracting and transforming data and permanently transferring it from one computer storage system to another. Data verification is the validation of migrated data for completeness and removing any inconsistencies. Data scrubbing involves the rectification or deletion of outdated, incorrect, redundant data from a database.

When content is updated, the format of personalized email to clients, personalized view of products and services also need to be updated. The tools mentioned above help to achieve this. If not done properly leads to problems as specified

• 62% of organizations rely on marketing and prospect data that’s up to 40% inaccurate.
• 15% of leads contained duplicated data.
• 10% of leads contain invalid information.
• 8% of leads are missing information.
• 7% of leads contained invalid email/physical addresses.
• 30% of organizations currently have no strategy to update inaccurate or incomplete records.

Future expectation and changes

This sudden pivot in content can be smoothly done and timely predicted when we use tools such as data scraping, data appending and email appending are at disposal.

Customer data is the keystone that aids your business to carry out sales and marketing. Data Appending is the process to fill the missing gaps in your database. With the appending process, new data will positively impact all data-dependent processes in your organization.

For example when business customers have their business account in Whatsapp. B2b business can add new data entry points taking customer business account links and marketing their personalized content on the same.

Web scraping is also an effective tool in capturing data of business rivals. Web Scraping or Web Harvesting is a technique employed to extract large amounts of data from websites. It is legal within website term and conditions can help you understand their customer preferences and requirements and helps to determine this business avenue can be explored or not.

In the words of Charles Darwin, “It is not the strongest or the most intelligent who will survive but those who can best manage the change.” Both action and adaptability can create opportunities. Thus content plan can be pivoted in rush and hope you have figured out by now how.

How Digitalization is transforming the Business of B2B Industry Data

‘Digital transformation’ is a term that implies to structure the organizational, operational, and technological foundation of your business to create a seamless and robust experience. The future belongs to those who will be able to transform their businesses digitally as far as the B2B industry is concerned. It is high time that businesses move themselves to the digital age. This will completely change the way how businesses are running today. The customer experience will be enhanced and transform the way clients interact with the organizations. Organizations will have to upgrade themselves and use professional services like data mining services, data scrubbing, data verification, b2b lead generation, data appending,  web scraping, etc. if they want to stay in the game. 

Going digital benefits not only the clients or businesses but also its stakeholders. According to a study, the companies who have successfully mastered digital transformation have seen nine per cent more shareholders returns than their peers. Also, there was five times revenue growth than their counterparts. These stats show why digital transformation is needed for the inclusive growth of an organization.

Digital Transformation involves the usage of digital solutions to streamline processes and improve overall customer experience. In the early days, digital transformation was restricted to improving efficiency. But now the focus has shifted to making the client experience better. But there is no one type-fit recipe that suits all for digital transformation. B2B digital transformation will vary from business to business. Every organization will have to restructure their processes in a way that works best for them. 

However, every organization would be required to update its systems, find digital solutions, and create a cohesive internal and external channel experience. The digital transformation under B2B varies from that of B2C as the latter requires reorganizing its selling channels. B2B organizations prefer to restructure to sell directly to their clients through e-commerce channels. This eliminates any need for middlemen, thus saving a lot of cost and time. We have seen how digital transformation is done in organizations and how it varies from one business to business, but one thing that is required across all businesses is a strong culture and change in the mindset of the team. 

In this technological era, customers and clients would want simple and easy digital solutions. Therefore, they will move to companies that provide such seamless experiences and leave those who are have not transformed digitally. When it comes to B2C companies, they have already undertaken steps to digitally transform to some extent or plant to do so shortly. But B2B companies are always slower to adapt to new trends, including digital transformation. The reason behind this is that the environment for B2B is very complex, and they have to negotiate with the vendors and influencers. Also, they have many moving parts and longer deal cycles. On the other hand, it is not quite the same for B2C companies that make it easy for them to transform. 

Many of the B2B companies do not go for digital transformation as they do not see any potential gains out of this. Digital transformation is possible only when there is full commitment from the board. This may mean a complete cultural shift in some companies. B2B organizations should focus on the financial benefits of digital transformation so that they try to digitalize their business. Those organizations that do not participate in the transformational run would find themselves at great risk of getting left behind. 

Companies looking for digital transformation should be aware of the fact that merely using the new technology would not fetch anything rather would be a waste of time, money, and other resources. To be successful, digital transformation should specifically focus on customer needs.

The best business practices in digital transformation consider the needs of the customer and how they can be met with the technology for a seamless experience. A true digital transformation facilitates customers to seamlessly find information digitally and employees to have access to the right information in one place. That is why it is said that digital transformation requires external as well as internal restructuring.

Here are some domains where B2B companies can do better to benefit from digital transformation.

Improvising on customer satisfaction 

The key features of digital transformation are profitability, customer satisfaction, and speedy access to the market. B2B companies can put in efforts to qualify, bid, and win in renewing a deal. Industry based B2B companies are keeping customer centricity and satisfaction at priority. A perfect balance between digital and non-digital or analog is required to plan the strategy. In general, companies increase the customer-satisfaction score by improvising operational performance through speedy and simple interactions. This cuts down almost half of the costs but enhances the experience of the customer with the company. Employees’ of the company or business also get satisfied as there exists a one-to-one connection between customer and employee, which adds to employees’ work performance.

Ensuring Digitalisation at a strategic level

Companies that outperform have digital strategies at the core that are designed to gain competitive advantage. But most B2B companies do not have a digital strategy. Lack of digital strategy means that the focus is never anchored in customer satisfaction and often suffer from insufficient investments. According to a study, only 9 per cent of B2B companies accepted that digital strategy is their top priority. The majority of B2B organizations just make use of technology in their processes which is not sufficient. To be successful, companies need to embrace an inclusive digital strategy.

Also Read: B2B Customer Retention Strategies – How To Retain Your Best B2B Clients

Utilize data efficiently

B2B companies should use advanced analytics to improve their processes that help in giving insights about the customers. They should make use of tools that aid in marketing and sales understand what offers, products, and services are hitting the right note. This is where tools and services like address search, data appending, data scrubbing, data verification, and mining come in handy. A company should be able to know when the customer opened their email and how long he/she took to read that email and what action they took after that. This will help the organization to empower their sales and marketing team and would help to increase their sales and revenue.

Also Read: Ask Me Anything: 10 Answers to Your Questions about Telesales and Telemarketing

Connecting end-to-end processes for effective decision making

The major cause of failure of B2B companies is that they fall short when it comes to connecting automated processes to the front end. They have been very good at automating the back office. This non-coordination between front and back office is the reason they fail in presales activities. Successful B2B companies use automated decision- support processes and other tools and services like b2b lead generation, etc. to link all their processes with customer, sales, and order data. This helps them generate a comprehensive view of the customer across the business. This integrated network gives the sales and marketing team access to all the client service, support, and other information they need to service their clients.  

 

Creating a culture of innovation

The majority of B2B companies take a long time to move from concept to implementation of their digital initiatives. This results in losing a competitive advantage. To avoid this, they can use rapid prototyping processes that foster innovation and enhance customer satisfaction. Companies that outperform deploy dynamic development practices and rapid experimentation. They work actively with third parties and use events like digital hackathons, etc. to shorten their learning curve. Some of them use Minimally Viable Products (MVPs) to speed up their process. These fast test-and-learn development tools facilitate innovation and show the company’s ability to cater to all types of customers and clients. 

Overhauling and restructuring of the organization

There are a lot of organizational challenges that can be a hurdle to a company’s digital initiatives. Factors like lack of transparency, inward-facing processes, confusing roles of the teams, no prioritization from the top-level leaders are the reason why implementation of digital initiatives fails. To achieve a successful transformation, a complete overhauling of existing systems should be done. This is what Successful B2B companies do. They restructure their organization in a way that aids in digital transformation. These companies are willing and able to dust off their metrics and strategically decide on the measures and incentives that will help them get the results they want. This is not achieved by creating a more complex and several key performance indicators. Instead, just reviewing how the company measures progress and creating a few metrics can get the job done.

Provide a consistent experience

There are numerous channels used by B2B buyers to purchase. These channels are field sales, online stores, etc. Most of them are generated through b2b lead generation. According to research, a B2B buyer on, an average, uses six different channels to decide on the purchase. Using so many different channels takes time which the B2B companies can take this to their advantage. However, taking advantage means having strong cross-channel integration. And that is where the majority of B2B companies struggle. They have disintegrated selling models that make it tough for the clients or the buyers to move seamlessly from face-to-face interactions to the online environment whereas successful companies have a single point of access to all the transactions for their clients. They do it by restructuring their customer-data processes.

‘Catch & Release: How it is not a Closing Strategy?

B2B sales is a lot like fishing. Often glorified as hunters, salespeople have their inside jokes and conversation to describe their situation of finding out a needle in the haystack. From “There is plenty of fish in the sea” to “Use the right bait” and “Catch and Release” – one can find countless analogies that draw a parallel with the world of fishermen that brings some fun to their dreary world as well as describe the challenges of leading a sales life. 

Landing a new customer isn’t easy. It is similar to tread onto the unchartered territory of the sea and landing a big catch. But more often than not, it is the ‘catch and release’-the bane of the existence of a salesperson’s life. 

What is the ‘catch and release’?

Recreational fishing or conservation of fish is often termed as a catch and release. Often when professional fishermen don’t find fish good enough to eat, too small or too big for use, they drop it back in the water body. However, it is as far as it could be from being a pastime. It leaves the fish severely stressed that it dies of shock. The hook is often ripped out of the fish’s throat, rendering severe damage to its guts and throat. The protective sheath of the fish’s body is also ruptured. You get the drift, right? The entire cycle is disrupted. 

Similarly, a salesperson, after making all the efforts on the B2B leads might realise it not to be worth pursuing. But until then, time and efforts are consumed. You have spent your resources on pursuing a lead that isn’t ‘capable’ to give you any business. You just need to drop them back the moment you realise the futility of this exercise- without, of course, hurting them. Because don’t burn bridges, remember?

When a salesperson pursues an impractical lead (no lead/contact is useless, but not worth for a particular time or work you have been doing), the time, which should be spent on pursuing a quality lead, is wasted. However, your fellow salespeople who have been following it from day one, get to grab this opportunity by the horns. The catch and release is a ‘lose-lose’ for you because it is a catch-22 as well!

Also Read: 5-Surefire Methods to Boost B2B Leads and sales

How?

As a salesperson, you can’t just escape from a situation. Amidst the meetings and relentless pursuing, you realise that the person is not authorised to make a decision.  You can’t disappear. You need to have a proper exit strategy planned to bid your farewell in a manner that you could reach out next time if the need arises. 

If this is a recurring pattern with your salesperson, your data ecosystem needs to be blamed. Your salespeople are pursuing leads from the database that is chaotic and disorganised. The disparate database never leads to useful insights or business decision-making. Businesses are launching products that nobody needs or opening a store where they can’t find customers. Without the ability to read the room correctly, they are trying to address the elephant in the room. 

In the absence of organised, structured and quality data, businesses can’t find winning solutions. Data is pivotal. It might not be the big picture you are focusing on right now, but it is the palette, which decides how the big picture you are envisioning will look like. 

How do businesses get data?

Data is precious. It is both the problem and answer for business. It is the necessary evil you can’t do without. A business, online or offline runs on data. Data is the flow of information. Everything that you interact with becomes data. Data is created when you take a cab, when you give your information at the cash counter for an exclusive discount, when you pay via debit or credit card at a mall, or post a picture of your outing on social media. Your information is stored in data storage centres securely. 

When you sign up for email marketing with a company, give your information on a landing page or subscribe to their newsletter, the data is routed to them. Besides, companies also hire data aggregator companies to buy data to reach out to more customers. 

 

How does data go bad?

By the time the data makes it to your business, it becomes hard to tell the pristine data from the corrupt. It has gone through several hands and processes, getting tampered and unoriginal by the minute. Then, there are click farms that route fraudulent and falsified data into the data ecosystem. Businesses fail to understand that having bad data the only thing worse than having no data at all! If a company is making its decisions based on bad data, it is all downhill from there. The lousy data paints an even uglier picture.

Also Read: How Data Can Help Sales Force

It is when data mining services make a grand entry into the picture. 

Gartner research shows that bad data costs businesses more than thirty per cent of the revenue apart from costing opportunities and reputation. For startups, bootstrapped businesses, supply networks and data analytics, losses from sparse data translate into terrible cash leaks, and bad decisions impacting all verticals. The data leaks increase with a company’s growth.  While negligible at first ($18,000 per month for pre-seed startups), the hidden cost go up to more than $900,000 for semi-startups.

If your salespeople are relying on old data, which is sourced illegitimately or via non-transparent methods, you can’t expect them to turn to bring quality B2B leads aboard. 

And the fact is while you can certainly don’t do anything about people and processes tampering your data, you can undoubtedly use data appending and scrubbing to ensure the timely sanitisation of data. 

In real-life, salespeople don’t work in a best-case scenario. The challenges are murkier like the deep sea they are fishing in. It is why they need to follow the right methodology and have rich knowledge of the domain they are entering into. Good salespeople aren’t about hard work. It is about smart work.  You don’t catch good leads; you fish for them with meticulous planning and right bait! 

For salespeople, the right bait begins with the identification of right lead, location and methodology. Based on this, they can cast their net or in simpler words, choose the best way to approach them. It could be email marketing, a phone call or an F-2-F meeting. 

Like a fisherman can’t cast in an empty water body, a salesperson can’t expect to do much with bad data. 

Data solutions such as data appending and data scrubbing cleanse the data inside-out. The data is filed, labelled, and maintained following your business’ need! 

 

What happens when the data is bad?

When your salespeople realise the impact of bad data, they waste their time correcting it. However, the silos within departments make it a continuous process, and it becomes imperative that the leaks are sealed. 

Marketing team bases its campaigns on an incorrect target segment, resulting in tarnished sender reputation, blacklisted email IP and spamming.

Sales People targets inferior quality leads. 

Product team thrives on poor technical insights, doesn’t understand the demand and expectations of the market and thereby, launching a product that the market could do without. 

The impact of not closing a sale or releasing the lead based on bad data isn’t pretty straightforward. It is a closed-loop.  Each department has to deal with the consequences of data leaks. If your salespeople are lingering in this dangerous sales zone of catch and release, it is time for your business to hire a data mining service provider now to eliminate the root cause of bad data making inroads into your business. 

The state of good data isn’t a destination. It is an ongoing journey that a business has to take proactively to stay ahead of the curve. As long as there are people and processes involved in either side of businesses, there is always a scope of the margin of error. So, if you are serious about quality B2B lead generation, you need to get serious about B2B data mining services as well. 

What are data mining services all about?

Data mining services ensure hygiene and cleansing of the data your business is thriving on. There are six phases of standard data mining process prevalent across the industries:

 ♦ Understanding of a business: It is significant to understand a business, its nature and objective to figure out the data it requires or retains. Sitting on a pile of data doesn’t help. It is the quality of the information that can transform your business. 

 ♦ Data Evaluation: More often than not, data is sourced through several channels. Customers deliberately provide incorrect information, or sometimes, there is a typo from a salesperson’s end. All in all, mistakes are bound to happen. A data mining company assesses the quality of data your business is relying on in accordance with your business’ need. 

♦ Data Scrubbing: The information is cleansed, sanitised and flagged with relevant labels such as incorrect, invalid, catch-all and so on. 

♦ Data Appending: The scrubbed data is updated with relevant information and insights so that your sales and marketing team can make the most of their efforts and not waste time pursuing lake trout! (The Wire, HBO).

♦ Checklist: Data cleansing is an ongoing process. However, data hygiene can’t be practised if the teams and process aren’t enthusiastic about it. This is why a data mining service company not only ensures that the loopholes are addressed but also creates several checkpoints to retain the data quality and optimise the inflow of the data as per the directives. 

♦ Training: Your team members get comprehensive training and are assigned to overlook the quality of data entering the system. Each checkpoint has a supervisor responsible for maintaining the filing of the data as per the established parameters. Since businesses are data-driven, communication between the teams is encouraged to flag any discrepancy before it is too late.

Why should you embrace data mining services NOW?

According to George Labovitz and Yu Sang Chang’s 1-10-100 rule, it costs only $1 if businesses to adopt data appending or scrubbing proactively. Once the data has entered the system and mixed with the processes, it might cost them $10, and if they choose to do nothing, it may result in losses worth $100. 

This is why you would like to be on the right side of data and base your insights on standardised and verified information. Take the guesswork and noise out of generating B2B leads and cut the clutter with proven data mining techniques! Go fishing in the sea of the right audience!