Are You Human or Are You Robot?

In ‘the good old days’ if you wanted to buy something B2B you relied on salespeople to keep you educated – where else could you get detailed product information (outside of trade magazines, exhibitions and the like)?  As part of your education, they also educated themselves regarding your likelihood to buy what they had to offer and when.  The really good ones then ensured that you received appropriate information at the right time and, all things being equal, you bought something from them.  Happiness all round.

In a recent blog post, Gerhard Gschwandtner of Selling Power, quoting the Corporate Executive Board, said that “57% of B2B buying steps are completed before buyers connect with a salesperson.”

Clearly, purchasers are now educating themselves by some other means.  Step forward and take a bow, content marketing.

Actually, before you do that, sit down and read this.

A few weeks ago, I had the audacity to download “The Future of Social Media Lead Management” from HubSpot.  Immediately after downloading it I got an automated e-mail thanking me and suggesting “After you read the ebook, get a live demo of how HubSpot marketing software can help you manage your social media leads.  Our inbound marketing experts will provide you with advice on growing, segmenting and nurturing your social contacts.”

A day or two later, I get an e-mail from the Head of International Marketing (or, more accurately, her robot) offering to “help transform my marketing.”

In her excellent blog post Have we reached the content tipping point? Sharon Tanton of -Valuable Content says “Timing is everything.”  She also asks marketers to “Create content that helps, connects and entertains your particular group of clients.  …don’t just create content that adds to the pile of stuff nobody wants to read.  For god’s sake make it valuable.”

HubSpot could rightly argue that their ebook is valuable.  They could also argue that their timing is good, following up immediately and again within a couple of days.  Again, no disagreement from me, if I was in the market for what they are offering.

However, what their automated system is not taking into consideration is that I work in Sales, not Marketing, (they probably have this information because I will have told them at some point by filling in a form) and I have no authority to buy what they are offering and precious little to no influence on those who can buy it.  They won’t know this because they haven’t bothered to try and find out.  Their automated lead nurturing is just not doing it right in my particular case.

To show I’m not particularly having a go at HubSpot – they just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time – here’s some other examples:

•         I once registered for a webinar hosted by Citrix.  Now I get invitations every week to attend various Citrix-hosted webinars.  Not interested!
•         In my last post Do you understand your buyers? I made mention of the Buyersphere Project.  Since then, I receive regular e-mails from Mediative.  Also, not interested!
•         Seth Godin tweets a link to his latest blog post.  Immediately, another dozen tweets appear from people you follow all saying they are reading Seth’s latest post and including the link.  Despite the fact it is 2 am where they are. C’mon!  Linking your name to Seth’s just because you can?

Where am I going with all this?

Whilst automation has its place, it’s not a panacea.  Content marketing should never be used in isolation but as part of a larger strategy.  Put some human back into your processes!

You just might find you get a better response from the humans you are trying to connect with.

Do you agree?