By Laurie Krisman

Image by Suzanne Calkins

Athletes, influencers, and celebrity endorsements increase brand engagement, extend reach, and drive sales. But if Beyoncé still hasn’t returned your call, don’t throw in the towel just yet. There are lots of demand-generation strategies that will engage your audience. It’s all about creating the right mix of content that breaks through the clutter, meets ROI, and gives back the KPIs you need. 

First, consider what drives your customer experience and work backward. (Wait, didn’t Steve Jobs say that? Apple was clearly on to something.) To create truly relevant content for your B2B marketing funnel, consider the real pain points, needs, and interests your target audience faces and then build your funnel strategy around it. As a refresher, the marketing funnel is made up of three distinct stages: TOFU (top of funnel), MOFU (middle of funnel), and BOFU (bottom of funnel). What your audience looks for evolves as they move down the funnel, so determining the type of demand-generation content that’s most effective for each stage is critical. 

Before we dig into each stage, there’s one more content best practice we should mention: a messaging and positioning framework (MPF).  An MPF will illustrate the key points you want your audience to take away when reading any asset. And by starting with an MPF, each piece of content you create will present the same points through different lenses. This way, your audience will hear you loud and clear—hopefully a few times. 

TOFU: Awareness and discovery 

From the top of the funnel, the audience is wide and so are the options. With customers not yet ready to convert, the goal is to engage them with your brand/solution and introduce them into the funnel. According to a report from Marketing Charts, B2B tech marketers and demand gen decision-makers say that blogs, infographics, and videos work best at this stage of the funnel. For cloud companies aiming to drive awareness, 2A would add social GIFs and email kits as great assets, too. And, additional research shows close to half (48%) of sales and marketing professionals believe that ROI from B2B videos is growing.  

• Blogs: Pique interest in a short post from a reputable author 
• Infographics: Turn your complex data into a well-crafted visual story 
• Videos and animations: Entice and educate with core benefits and branding 
• Social GIFs: Capture attention online with a quick moving showcase 

MOFU: Consideration and evaluation 

Once your audience moves through the initial engagement phase and into the middle of the funnel, they’ll want to see meatier assets to guide them through their buying journey. Case studies are a particularly effective way to bring tech use cases to life. Gated ebooks, whitepapers, and presentations are other assets favored by B2B marketers.  

• Case studies: Bring technical use cases to life with stories that drive positive change 
• Gated ebooks and whitepapers: Educate prospects with deeper content and collect leads 
• Pitch decks: Start persuasive solution-based conversations with prospects 

BOFU: Decision and conversion 

Finally, once your audience moves into the decision phase they’ll want to see more—and more specific—information. In this area, meatier customer references for niche use cases, product demos, email follow-ups, personalized reports, and solution-specific videos are highly rated and help the audience take that final step.  

• Product demos: Animate UI product screens to educate prospects about core benefits 
• Email kit: Nurture leads with enticing copy, intentional, layout and a clear call to action
• Solution-specific videos: Highlight specific product/solution use cases with video and animation  

Once you map out the three phases of the B2B marketing funnel and how your customer’s buying journey fits into it, content creation can begin in earnest. That’s where 2A comes in! As a cloud marketing agency focused on storytelling for business, we’re here to help when you’re ready to get started.  

Check out our new sizzle video for a taste of our demand-generation content! Then, give us a shout— [email protected]. I’d love to learn more about your marketing goals and how 2A might help.  

By Laurie Krisman

Image by Guangyi Li

During a recent cycling class, in the middle of a particularly tough climb, Peloton instructor Denis Morton shouted out something like “I’m getting better and stronger every day.” Then he shook his head and said, “sometimes it’s the truth, sometimes it’s a mantra.” I wiped away my sweaty tears and smiled because what he said captured my general philosophy of exercise, business, and even parenting. In my experience, when you keep showing up and do  the work—especially when you’re tired or too busy or don’t think you can do it—the work fuels you and pushes you forward into something better, something stronger. I sometimes dread exercising, but I never regret how I feel after getting those extra steps in. And it felt extra rewarding to step it up for 2A Giving this September.  

Research from Iowa State University confirmed a hunch that too much sitting can do a real number on morale, so the 2A Giving team came up with a challenge to boost wellness and productivity, and contribute to our community. This fall, we stepped away from our laptops and got some much-needed exercise in an agency-wide competition to support four incredible community organizations: Page Ahead, Washington Building Leaders of Change, Shoes that Fit, and No Kid Hungry.

Who doesn’t love a win-win?  

As one of the Step It Up for 2A Giving participants I can tell you, with all the WFH-induced extra screen time and homemade banana bread I’d indulged in, I was happy to have a little extra motivation to exercise. 

In a fierce national competition, 2A collectively logged enough steps to travel 3,234 miles! That’s like walking from Seattle to Oaxaca, Mexico, or about 6,648,388 steps.  

Wellness experts say the best kind of movement starts with, you guessed it, movement. It’s all about picking an exercise you like and sticking with it. If you hate treadmills or hiking don’t do it. Choose downhill skiing, Zumba, quiet neighborhood walks, or cycling instead. 2A team members engaged in a wide variety of exercises to meet their step goals and shared fun photos of their workout journeys in action.  

Along the way, we all discovered that making the decision to exercise was a lot easier than following through. Here’s how 2A team members found their motivation to get moving and stay consistent:   

 My “To Do” list stares up at me from my desk every day. Running is always on the list, and I’ve tricked myself into thinking that it’s just as important as anything else on the list. I also add exercise to my work calendar to make sure I fit it in before, during, or after work. Once I’m outside, I never regret it. I often think of solutions to challenges or have creative breakthroughs while I’m exercising. I bring my phone to take notes, so I don’t forget fresh ideas. Sometimes I walk; sometimes I run. Who cares?! I love the way I feel after! I get to cross something off my list and do something good for my body, mind, and soul. It’s never too late to Step it Up!  

Liz Mangini, 2A Consultant 

I recently parted with…almost all of my shoes. As much as I didn’t want to accept it, my feet grew for each baby I grew, and after welcoming three children into the world (two within 6 minutes of each other), my shoes were a literal pain. New shoes for me this year. New shoes for three kids every year. New shoes x new shoes x new shoes x new shoes. New shoes matter. No jungle gym should be unclimbed because their shoes are too tight. No puddle un-stomped because boots are a luxury. When a donation for Shoes that Fit was up for a competitive vote, my partner and I schlepped those strollers and STEPPED IT UP!  

Annie Wegrich, 2A Senior Consultant 

So, make sure to move your eyeballs away from the screens from time to time and keep on stepping it up, friends! The goal of adding movement to your day is to improve your mental and physical health. This feels especially important as the shorter days of winter will soon be upon us.

By Laurie Krisman

Sometime in early March of this year, just when kids exited playgrounds and rushed home to continue learning online, healthcare organizations pivoted. Almost overnight, COVID-19 dramatically accelerated the pace of digitization. Pilot projects like remote patient monitoring, telehealth, and scalable remote work environments suddenly took center stage. And as contact tracing and vaccine management changed our lives, the value of integrated data became more important than ever.

As storytellers at 2A, healthcare marketing is on our minds. Considering how healthcare technology has evolved and patient expectations are changing, now is the time for healthcare organizations to rethink how they engage customers. If you’re building marketing strategies that target specialized clinical personas, here are a few timeless guideposts to follow.

1. Balance self-promotion with education

It’s simple: organizations that create high-quality, strategic content generate more leads than those who do not. It makes sense that customers tend to engage with material that brings them entertainment, new knowledge, or skills. So, when building marketing assets like eBooks, infographics, and whitepapers, aim for a balance of educational and self-promotional content that’s relevant to your customers’ lives. For example, this eBook we created for Amazon Web Services and Infor gives healthcare organizations ready-to-deploy ideas for implementing cloud technologies to become more resilient in the face of healthcare transformations.

To generate new content, it always helps to stay up to date with the latest technologies, news, and challenges, so you can be the first to drive home a new insight. 

2. Aim for re-posts and shares on social

Content is key, but so is the vehicle. When it comes to social media, there are many platforms where you can share your message, but finding the right placement helps ensure you’re reaching your target audience. In B2B healthcare marketing, Twitter and LinkedIn are typically good choices. Why? Because influencers and subject matter experts can re-publish your content, giving it the added component of advocacy. Take this approach a step further by being creative and finding new ways to be seen.  

3. Remember, B2B loves animation

In the world of digital content, animation is becoming the crown jewel. As a response to digital fatigue, when people see a moving illustration our brains make a heroic effort to understand what it’s looking at. Plus, animations usually include expressive visuals, an interesting narrative, and music—a great recipe for memorable content that communicates your business value to customers. Take, for example this animation we created for the enterprise patient mapping solution, Verato.

As innovations in healthcare evolve, we’re excited to drive new content marketing programs that continue to amplify the message with proven tactics. Need more eyes and ears on your latest breakthrough? Give us a ping.   

By Laurie Krisman

Last week, Satya Nadella kicked off Build 2019, Microsoft’s annual conference for the developer community, by announcing a brand-worthy array of new technologies and a renewed commitment to end-user privacy. The event aspired to empower all developers—from experienced computer scientists to novices just beginning to dip their feet into the waters of tech.

The message? Artificial intelligence isn’t coming. It’s here.

Just ahead of Build, Microsoft released a slew of new tools and capabilities in Azure AI for developers and data scientists, including Ink Recognizer, which lets developers embed digital handwriting recognition and a conversation transcription capability that transcribes conversations in real time. In his keynote address, Eric Boyd, corporate vice president of Azure AI, foreshadowed the importance of these innovations and talked though real-world use cases like Microsoft’s collaboration with The Metropolitan Museum of Art. 

2A’s human intelligence team was thrilled to pitch in and design Eric’s keynote presentation. Our designers, storytellers, and consultants built a series of graphics, animations, and icons that brought the compelling story of Azure AI—cognitive services, bot development, machine learning and more—to life. Then we worked with the team to integrate paid social and booth collateral into their event.

At 2A, we are inspired by Microsoft AI’s mission to create what comes next. And we were thrilled to hear feedback that the keynote successfully landed with an audience of over 6,000 people at Build 2019!

Need some help crafting a meaningful story for your next event? 2A is here to help!