How Implementation Content is Going to Help You Generate More Leads (So Don't Bury It)
Click here to watch Buying Obstacle #1: How are we going to implement it?!#$%& (~6 mins) while you’re brushing your teeth, or making your coffee or read it leisurely below like a 16th century Elizabethan. Your call.
So today, I want to share with you a buying obstacle that I’ve seen a bunch of times in my clients’ businesses. And it’s something that may not even be on your radar in marketing or sales…but it can create real friction in the buying process and make it hard for your buyers to have enough confidence to buy from you.
How are we going to implement it?!@(*&#>?
“It”, of course, being a new B2B software, even a B2B service offering.
So imagine that you’re the buyer.
You’ve just spent a lot of money on this purchase, and once you’ve signed the contract, Sales has passed you over to Customer Success and you’re ready to kick things off. The last thing you want is ambiguity and confusion over implementation timelines, who does what, who is involved in which meeting, how integrations will be handled, you get the picture.
All you really want at this point is some solid implementation content. Training guides, checklists, step-by-step walkthroughs.
Maybe today you consider implementation content to be post-sales content, only to be shared with customers who have bought from you and are ready to implement. Not an illogical assumption.
But, according to Gartner’s recent 2021 Software Market Landscape Canada study, buyers find it really helpful to see implementation content BEFORE they buy.
If you look at the top 5 resources referenced when making a software purchase, it’s: implementation guides, online training, and detailed customer implementation stories/case studies, user guides and checklists. What do these resources all have in common? They are practical pieces of content, designed to walk you through/or train you on the process of implementation.
And this insight—that buyers find it really helpful to see implementation content BEFORE they buy—totally makes sense, based on what I’ve learned doing buyer research for my clients. Buyers have told me that they want to know as much as they can about the deployment or implementation as early as possible.
It’s not that they are going to take those steps immediately— because they are still engaged in the buying process—but it’s just useful for them to know the next steps that will come after they sign the contract. Things like: how the implementation will be broken into different phases, which different stakeholders need to be engaged, when IT needs to be brought in, which specific technical steps need to happen, stuff like that.
And if these buyers been involved in complex B2B purchase decisions before, you can bet they are anticipating the chaos that could ensue after they sign the contract. That anxiety alone can push them to ask for proof, guidance or any type of implementation resources BEFORE you can even close the sale. Put yourself in their shoes…they’re just trying to calm their concerns by visualizing their implementation. Plus, they need to prove to their buying group that you are a trustworthy vendor.
First important point: Creating fully baked, thorough, practical implementation and/or training content is really important pre-sales, and 100% should be part of your Resource Centre so it can be accessed when buyers are doing their research.
This made me think of my first job in-house as a content manager at a start-up. I was responsible for lead gen content, and another content manager was responsible for implementation and training content.
But this division of work never really made sense to me, because if we think of marketing like a growth loop (rather than a funnel) we realize very quickly that how we implement a project can have a huge impact on whether a customer comes back to buy from us again. If we flub it or are just plain disorganized, we may not see repeat business from this customer.
And so, the second key point is: Implementation content can help you generate repeat business, in addition to leads.
So how do you create good implementation content? Well, chances are if you head over to Customer Success, they’ll probably have a few Google spreadsheets or project management templates they’re currently using. Use these as a starting point and turn them into a slightly more polished, branded marketing resource you feel good about popping in your resource centre.
Ok, winding it up with 3 questions you should ask when creating implementation content:
Are our buyers experiencing post-contract signing ambiguity on what comes next?
I’d recommend asking a few buyers: How did your implementation go? What went well, what could have been better?
Are there any existing implementation/training resources that could be repurposed?
Go ask Customer Success what they’re currently using, and then jointly work together to make it a bit robust, design it and turn it into a lead generation resource.
Are there any customers with implementation success stories we could highlight?
Again, a question for Customer Success. Find these customers, interview them and focus on what they found to be the biggest challenges of implementation and how you were able to surmount them. This is where you want to ask similar questions--what went well, what didn’t, etc.
Or pull me in to interview your buyers and we’ll dig out these insights and SO much more.
So that’s buying obstacle #1! If you’re still with me (what stamina!), leave a comment and let me know if you’re currently using implementation content to generate leads. And how it’s working for you.