Demand gen and data—a match made in marketing heaven

Your path to strategic alignment and higher conversions [MarketingProfs DemandGen Today] November 2022 [Your monthly issue of DemandGen Today!] How're things, Friend? We're still coming down from an incredible MarketingProfs B2B Forum (#mpb2b) in Boston. I can't believe how amazing it was to see so many friendly faces in one place! (That's the mpb2b team, above.) I especially loved chatting with other marketers and hearing what's working, what's an issue, and what's coming up for us all. Knowledge is power, and conferences like B2B Forum allow us to soak in all that shared experience. During B2B Forum I ran one session on creating content for data, and a roll-up-your-sleeves session on behavioral tracking. I was insanely excited about those sessions, for a few reasons... First is that we do so much upside down in demand gen. We still market from a product-centric perspective, despite knowing that our leads approach purchasing from a problem-solving angle. Boo-hiss! We focus on features first, and forget about the benefits and how those position us. That is bad... and so we should feel bad about it. But those are fairly well known issues that a lot of smart marketers are looking to solve. It's not my biggest bugbear... Not by far! Mine is content. Specifically, how we create it. We create content first—and then look at data to try to figure out what's going on. We attempt to use the data from content to retrospectively tell us about our leads—where they are in their buying cycle, where they should be going next, and how that content is performing. That is a bad approach, and we lose so much meaningful information because of it. Instead, we should first decide on what data we need. Then, once we know what data we need... we understand what content we need to create. Let's break that down a little. Demand generation relies on us understanding where leads are in their buying cycle. At its most basic: Are they MQL, or are they SQL? More advanced: now you're getting into awareness and nurture cascades. Fundamentally, the idea is that when we know where someone is (in the sense of awareness stage and buying intent), we can talk to them appropriately, give them the right next steps, and speed up the time it takes to qualify leads and get conversion. Unfortunately, the vast majority of content doesn't allow us to collect that information about where a lead is. The content ends up hollow, with low engagement, and the marketing department—lost without a strategic direction—misses its KPIs. Not a good place to be. Luckily, all that's fixable. We need to be really clear on what we're creating content for: How will that content inform us as to where people are in their buying process? Start with segmentation: What do you want to segment for? Then work back from there: How can we collect that information? What do we need to create around those data points we're aiming to collect? That process starts you on the path to creating content that prompts your leads to display the buying intent behavior you desire. And creating content for behavior makes our lives so much easier as demand-generation marketers! It's your path to strategic alignment, higher conversion rates, and smashing those sweet, sweet KPIs. If you want to catch up on the B2B Forum presentations, you can [check them out here](ZKJL~mj8HD/V0pWRmFpbkkzL1FZdFRWczVtSnF4RUd1WSszQVc0ZCt1cUhFWVkvRkRyNjVOcHlXYlpNdUwvNDk2aEJZTm16c2E0TndRem53dUtjSDhqOUpkQ1VFUUV2Q3lqdTNiNFUzMXBtbC9UZzhXSVRoRW9TTzhxU21nUT09S0/). But do hit reply and let me know how you're getting on. How strategic is your content creation? [Kenda Macdonald] [Kenda Macdonald] Demand Generation Consulting Practice Lead MarketingProfs [Drive More Sales and Improve Customer Experience Using Marketing Automation]( Drive More Sales and Improve Customer Experience Using Marketing Automation Learn how to create, measure, and optimize a holistic marketing automation strategy that leads to more conversions and sales. [Register for this free webinar ►]( Demand Gen Resources [Article] [How to Identify SQLs Based on Sales Intent Behavior: Awareness Stages and Demand Gen [Article]]( [Podcast] [The Power of a Collaborative Content Strategy: Andy Crestodina [Podcast]]( [Article] [Is Your Content Strategy Heading in the Right Direction? Four-Steps to Make Sure It Does. [Article]]( [Article] [The 15 Most Challenging Content Marketing Tasks [Infographic]]( [Virtual Event] [The Secret to My (Demand Gen) Success* [Master Class]]( [Webinar] [Customers Crave Self-Service Content ['B2B Content as CX' Working Webinar]* [PRO Webinar]]( *Available to MarketingProfs PRO members [MarketingProfs] Your DemandGen Team Your team for this issue (in alphabetical order): Megan Cordero, production director; Vahe Habeshian, publications director; Kenda Macdonald, demand generation consulting practice lead. [MarketingProfs]( Copyright © 2000–2022 MarketingProfs, LLC All Rights Reserved Read our Terms of Service [here](. This email was sent to {EMAIL} as part of your MarketingProfs subscription. 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