Once a prospect buys a product or service, the content they interact with is no longer familiar. The instructions provided don't look, feel, or sound anything like the marketing and sales materials that introduced them to your brand. Neither does the service contract, the warranty, the customer support website, the product documentation, nor the training materials.
The extensive variability in customer experience — and each customer touchpoint — creates a different and inconsistent version of the brand, some that bear little or no resemblance to the brand that executives believe they are building. There are often as many brands as there are touchpoints.
For no good reason, the content experience changes drastically -- and not in a good way. That's why organizations that recognize the importance of a unified customer experience have started rethinking what it means to be customer-centric.
Some forward-thinking organizations are reorganizing customer-facing content creators into teams under one roof. They're breaking down the barriers — the silos — that prevent them from collaborating; from creating a unified customer content experience.
In this presentation, delivered at Acrolinx Day at LavaCon 2014 Portland, Scott Abel, The Content Wrangler, discussed the challenges of content inconsistency and incongruity, and why he thinks the future of technical communication is marketing.
HOW TO HANDLE SALES OBJECTIONS | SELLING AND NEGOTIATION
The Future of Technical Communication is Marketing
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The Future of
Technical Communication
is Marketing
by Scott Abel, The Content Wrangler
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marketing
has changed
tactics, tools, channels, methods, budget
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even the definition of marketing
has changed
marketing is now anything that “gets” customers
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tactics no one previously decribed as
‘marketing’
turned out to be ‘marketing’ on steroids
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Examples
Craigslist integration Refer-a-friend Shares to Facebook
These brands didn’t have the money to launch traditional marketing departments so
they had to broaden the definition and leverage the creativity of their team
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3 Step Marketing Plan
1 Product > 2 Demo Video > 3 Viral Hook
In less than 3 years, Dropbox became a multi-billion dollar brand by leveraging
straightforward content and providing referral bonuses of extra storage space
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today, whatever works is marketing
and what works is post-purchase content
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businesses fail to deliver content that addresses
the day-to-day realities that customers face
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The Customer
Journey
touchpoints where consumers are open to influence
10. traditional funnel metaphor
content?
@scottabel on twitter
Source: McKinsey.com
is NOT actually how many consumers decide what to buy
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Source: McKinsey.com
brands in the ‘inital consideration’ set are three times
more likely to be purchased than brands that aren’t in it
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content drives initial
consideration
Source: McKinsey.com
in the ‘initial consideration’ phase consumers make a short
list of the products/services they are likely to purchase
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2/3 of touchpoints are
consumer-driven product reviews, social media mentions, word-of-mouth from peers and friends
Source: McKinsey.com
in the ‘active evaluation’ phase consumers ‘pull’
in content believed helpful to their search
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but, most brands are fighting the
wrong battle
they’re still using outdated and under-performing ideas, approaches, and tactics to lure in prospects
Source: McKinsey.com
focus should be on ‘initial consideration’ & ‘post-purchase’
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Shopping for Products
and Services is a lot
Like Dating
first, there’s romance; you woo prospects with sexy content
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once they’ve purchased, you’re in a serious
relationship
your content is no longer sexy and romantic;
instead, it is unfamilar, confusing, and boring
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like a marriage, customer relationships
require attention ^ significant
your content needs to make customers feel
valued, safe, and secure along their journey
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the biggest challenge is content
inconsistency
consistency is the key to profitable customer journeys
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inconsistent content prevents
brand loyalty
customers don’t feel valued or respected;
thus they’re open to change
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variation in content experiences
damages relationships
content should differentiate your products/services from the competition, not from other departments in your organization
variations in content within company silos dwarfs the
differences between a brand and its competitors
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but our research shows our customers are
satisfied
customer satisfaction survey data often mask important, costly content problems
88% of our customers think “we’re doing great”
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but survey data can mask costly
content problems
surveys might seem like great indicators, but they’re not
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variation in content experiences
damages relationships
we need to be able to identify the sources of poor and
exceptional performing content and manage them
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example: customer service variation
• the best 10% produced 6:1 ratio
For every six customers who had a positive interaction; only one customer had a negative experience
!
• the worst 10% produced 3:4 ratio
For every three customers who had a positive interaction; four customers had a negative experience
Source: Gallup
A tiny fraction provided every customer with a positive experience.
A small percentage of CSRs managed to provide every customer with a negative experience.
we need to know how content performs in order to improve
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The presence of variability on
critical performance metrics is
a threat to the vitality of an
enterprise because it’s prima
facie evidence that the business
is not being managed effectively.
The greater the range of
performance, the more costly
the business is to operate.
Source: Management Consultants, Edwards Deming and Joseph Juran
increasing operating expenses and revenue loss
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Post-Purchase
Experience Shapes All
Subsequent Decisions
positive customer experiences are key to sucess
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what about post-purchase
content?
the stuff created by technical communicators
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it’s often the cause of considerble
frustration
we joke that we create content no one wants or reads
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nothing can be further from
the truth
post-purchase content is the most useful and sought after
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let’s look at
the numbers
‘Telling the Right Story: Proving the Business Value of Content’
Source: STC Intercom, May 2013. Article by Alyson Riley, Andrea Ames, and Eileen Jones.
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• buyers of technology report
that interacting with technical
content is the second-most-important
Source: Hershey
pre-sales activity
that they do
more important than interacting with marketing/advertising
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• buyers of industrial products
report that ‘the only
information more highly
influential than pricing was
detailed product information
and specifications’
Source: ThomasNet
detailed content influences purchasing decisions
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• buyers in general make buying
decisions in which up to 70% of
the decision is made based on
‘information he or she finds
online well before a salesperson
has a chance to get involved’
Source: Hershey
decisions are often made long before first contact
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• 2/3 of consumers are willing to
spend more money with a
company they believe provides
excellent customer experiences;
they’re willing to spend 13%
more, on average
Source: American Express
55% of consumers have intended to purchase, but decided
not to do so based on a poor customer experience
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it’s not just
the numbers
technical communicators are increasingly responsible for
creating blogs, webinars, infographics, white papers, videos
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it’s not just
the numbers
new roles and responsibilities: information developers,
content designers, content experience managers
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in some companies, tech comm is part of
marketing
in others, management of all customer-facing content
creation are reporting to a chief content/experience officer
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keynote speakers will talk about how their companies are
working to create unified customer experiences with content
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the right content is critical to success
in every step of the customer journey
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it’s content that
matters
prospects and customers don’t care
how your company is organized or managed
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what is content marketing?
Content marketing is the marketing and
business process for creating and
distributing relevant and valuable
content to attract, acquire, and engage a
clearly defined and understood
audience — with the objective of driving
profitable customer interactions.
Source: Content Marketing Institute
it costs a lot less to make a repeat sale to a
happy customer than it does to make the first sale
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what is content marketing?
Traditional marketing and advertising
is telling the world that you’re a rock star.
Content marketing shows the world that
you are one.
Source: Content Marketing Institute
getting content right is the differentiator that matters most; it demonstrates that you ‘get it’
it’s about acquiring new customers and
increasing business from existing customers
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Why Do We Need
To Change?
technical content must become part of the sales process
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Once a prospect buys a product or service,
the content they interact with is no
longer familiar. The instructions
provided to them as a customer don’t
look, feel, or sound anything like the
sales and marketing materials that
introduced them to your brand. Neither
does the contract, the warranty, the
support website, the product
documentation, nor the training
materials.
the customer is left to wonder, ‘What happened?’
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the magnitude of inconsistency is a critical
measure
content inconsistency signals to customers that you’re ill-prepared to help, listen, serve, and solve problems
it tells consumers a lot about organizational health
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causes of inconsistency go largely
undiagnosed
to find the problems we have to take an honest, critical look at the way we produce, manage, deliver customer-facing content
bleeding off revenues and profits; resulting in anemic growth
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The extensive variability in
customer experience — and each
customer touchpoint — creates a
different and inconsistent version
of the brand, some that bear little
or no resemblance to the brand that
executives believe they are
building. There are often as many
brands as there are touchpoints.
‘managing performance’ of content is our new job
Source: Gallup
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why does this
matter?
after all, we’ve been working this way for years and
this hasn’t stopped us from being successful
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because, satisfied customers
lead to sales
persuasive, problem-solving content can lay the groundwork
for future sales to happy, long-term customers
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and, if we’re connected to sales,
we’re valuable
roles that increase sales are seldom cut;
the opposite it usually true
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and, because it’s time to
change
technical communicator is no longer
an adequate description of the scope of our work
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we’re ideally positioned for this
change
many technical communicators can add significant value to the
customer experience if they’re invovled in the process
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What Needs
To Change,
Exactly?
technical communication must be tied to the sales process
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first, we must search for the
root cause
product, price, promotion, place, processes, policies
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primary culprit: lack of a unified
content strategy
the lack of a unified process introduces variability
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90% of organizations don’t have a formal
content strategy
one that will ensure consistent customer content
touchpoints throughout the customer journey
Source: Gartner
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second, we must remove silos that create
inconsistency
your speciality isn’t a business reason
to create incongruent content
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silos create
losses
lack of awareness of — and lack of familiarity with — one
another creates alignment issues and prevents collaboration
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95% of marketers say they need to
work with others
Source: Incite
53% say it’s critical to work with other communications
departments; 75% intend to increase content output
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third, we must share our lessons and
best practices
content-creating departments can benefit from our knowledge
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multi-channel publishing and
personalization
61% of consumers say they feel better about a company that
delivers personalized content; more likely to buy from them
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multi-channel publishing and
personalization
90% of consumers find personalized content useful;
78% of them believe brands that do value their relationship
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fourth, we must learn from the experiences
of others
using data to make business decisions about content
is critical to long-term revenue growth and profit
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we need to do
the math
marketing = dating everything else = relationship
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we need to do
the math
inbound: average cost of lead $143
outbound: average cost of lead $373
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which begs the
question
what is the cost of inbound techcomm vs outbound techcomm?
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which begs a second
question
is our content part of dating or part of a great relationship?
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fifth, we must find
our voice
using a clearly-defined tone of voice is not about decorating your ideas
story x voice = impact
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we need a unified
voice
get it right and you’ll be 10-100 times more convincing