How Lenovo Delivers Intentional Content Through Predictive Insights

Predicting Impact

Knowing what your customers are doing on your website is great knowledge to have. You can see where they are going, what is drawing their attention, and how long they stick around. We’d all like to think that’s plenty enough to create a content strategy.
But it isn’t.
In reality, the amount of time spent on your website is a tiny fraction of your potential customer’s online activity. The real data gold is in what they are doing before and after they visit your site.
Understanding the greater picture of their online activity helps ensure you are crafting content that appeals to what THEY need to know, not what YOU want to tell them.
Mike has used predictive insights to successfully craft impactful messages that customers want to hear, and his first step is to ditch the pitch at the top of the funnel. Drawing prospects in is about helping them with a problem, and predictive insights can help you diagnose that problem quickly and efficiently.

In This Episode

• Why understanding your prospects means going beyond your own digital properties
• How reinforcement of your core messaging can lead to prospective buyer tune-out
• Why getting the most out of your data means using it to trigger campaigns and craft your message
• How being helpful instead of pitchy leads to successfully capturing leads and moving them through the funnel

Quotes From This Episode

Lead scoring really only represents a microscopic fraction of a person's day. Click To Tweet
“Now we have the ability to see way beyond just the scope of our digital properties, and with that, we can trigger timely and relevant campaigns and topics and content.” —@mballard5574
The market is very good at sniffing out a sales tech or a sales tactic. Click To Tweet
“If we keep hitting them over the head with the wrong message just because it’s the message we want to get out as a company, then they will quickly tune us out, and we may have lost brand perception right away.” —@mballard5574
“We only engage with those contacts that engage with us.” —@mballard5574
“Data is great for triggering campaigns, but we’re also using this data to make sure we’re speaking the right message.” —@mballard5574
“If I have a pain point around something, help educate me. Don’t sell me something. Don’t push something in my face.” —@mballard5574

Resources

• Mike Ballard on Twitter: @mballard5574
• Lenovo on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Google+, Pinterest, and flickr
• SiriusDecisions Demand Waterfall
• Scott Brinker’s Marketing Technology Landscape Supergraphic (2017): Martech 5000
• MeritDirect
• Adobe Audience Manager
• Bombora

Content Pros Lightning Round

What has Netflix been recommending for you that you’ve actually bought into lately? My wife and I, we don’t watch a ton of TV. The only thing we watch, if we do at all, is HGTV.
What is the item that Amazon is most likely to recommend to add to your basket that you’ll buy into? I’m big into fishing, and so I get a lot of fishing suggestions, different lures and such.
What type of music is most likely to come up recommended for you on Spotify or Apple Music or whatever platform you use? I go through phases. I go through a classical phase. I go through a country phase, and everything in between, but usually I’m that folk guy, the old-school like bluegrass folk stuff.