In this Research NXT interview, the CMO of Piano Software, Allison Munro, talks about content consumption trends in the B2B SaaS sector and how marketers should approach the strategy around it. She emphasises the importance of aligning tech, data and creativity to optimise customer experience. Additionally, from an investment perspective in technology initiatives, Allison believes in tracking and measuring the impact of the efforts, as that allows marketers to do more of what works.
Dedicated to creating measurable performance and optimising the buyer's journey, Allison Munro leads global marketing at Piano. She began her career as an entrepreneur, going on to build her own experiential marketing agency providing technology based experience solutions for CPG and entertainment brands. She continued to apply her skills as she transitioned to work directly with tech providers, with companies that included Oracle, Eloqua and NexJ Systems. She brings over 15 years of leadership experience to her role at Piano, nine of them spent leading go-to-market teams for cloud based technology and service providers.
Key highlights
What this conversation covers
- Marketing skills to ace a one-to-many content strategy.
- The importance of retaining the human element in marketing messages.
- The edge marketers get with research-based content development.
Prospects and customers want to feel like an actual human being is approaching them. Retaining that human element is more important than ever.
What, according to you, are the most significant trends around content consumption in your industry?
In B2B SaaS, we are still working to create the right content to drive the right action, while always doing more with less. And that is no longer just at the discovery phase or top of the funnel. It also means creating content that engages all identified target audiences throughout the customer journey, and increasingly across owned and operated channels. That begins by understanding exactly what your big idea means to different audiences and when the best time is to deliver it, then leveraging the right people, process, channels and technology to drive an impactful strategy forward.
What are the new skills marketers in your industry will need going ahead into 2020?
In shifting to a customer, audience or user first strategy, marketing needs to partner with sales, product and customer success to better identify and understand their various audiences, anticipate their needs, and understand how to connect in the right way, at the right time, in the right context and at scale.
Creating content experiences that convert requires a deep understanding of your audience, the customer journey, and the value exchange needed at every step. It also means planning for diversions in that journey. Whether that is as simple as creating unique continued experiences for your customers against your potential buyers, or building experiences for various personas or industries, knowing how to pair technology and data to drive a one-to-many content strategy will maximise engagement and results. In a digital world, creative, digital, operations and revenue teams need to work together to optimise the customer experience at every touchpoint, with your audience and content at the core of engagement.
From a technology perspective, what are some of the top challenges that content marketers in your industry face these days?
To maximise resources and meet their revenue goals, content marketers need to understand the impact of what they are producing, and develop the right content to achieve the best results. For that to happen they need technology solutions that will not only offer them the insights to see what is connecting and what is not, but that will also let them test their messaging for different audiences and segments, and customise their approach.
But it is equally important that technology does not get in the way of meeting those objectives. More than anything, prospects and customers want to feel like an actual human being is approaching them. Whether you are sending an email or giving a demo or presentation, retaining that human element is more important than ever, both for the people you are approaching and in terms of achieving your ultimate goals.
How, according to you, should a CMO approach investment in content marketing with so many options around?
I am a true believer in measuring what matters, tracking direct impact such as conversion throughout the buyer's journey and beyond. But that is often easier said than done. To build on what they can measure, in order to do more of what works, CMOs need to make investments that focus on results.
It cannot be about volume or frequency, or measuring the number of press releases, events, digital content assets or direct mail campaigns. Understanding the needs of your audience and the impact of your efforts should be the guiding light driving your investments and scaling what works.
Now that content marketing stacks have become the norm, how do marketing teams manage so many tools seamlessly and concentrate on the actual creative work of content marketing?
In theory, automation and insights enable marketers to do just that, focusing on creativity as technology scales and automates impact. The reality requires a mature content and marketing engine built on people, process and technology. Understanding the impact of content can ensure some resources support the development of creative assets and experiences, while close alignment to the demand and customer success teams provides the feedback loop and measurement to guide creativity against performance.
Do you truly believe and see value in research-based content marketing as a winning strategy?
Theory backed by data and consumer insights is certainly more valuable than non-data backed content, if your goal is to inform your audience better and help them be smarter about what they do. It also enables a level of credibility that can very well be unique to your value proposition.
You hear the terms data-driven and data-backed often. Those require strategies that are informed by research, both into the industry and into audience needs and behaviours. When you know what your audience's needs are, you can develop content in all forms to educate, inspire and inform.
