Today we see lots of companies still producing 'White Papers' in order to present themselves as an authority in their sector and market, very few coming out of the C-Suite BTW.

Many of these 'corporate' papers require you and me to exchange our contact information in order to be able to 'download' the content contained therein, which quite frankly seems a very odd thing to me.

Its simply part of the old school analog thinking around filling the sales pipe with potential leads in order I can then be spammed with other stuff 'you' think I might be interested in.

Your headline and highlights have peaked my interest, obviously I would like to explore a little more about what you're saying, compare it with my own experience, expertise, and possibly benchmark you against your competitors in the market.

Are these real 'buying signals' or just part of the way due diligence has altered the sales funnel in today's digitally connected, socially savvy world?

The year on year research by 'Marketing Insider Group' (link below) takes a look at the whole process, and its extremely telling in relation to latency associated with request to download corporate info, in simple language IT ISN'T WORKING;

This chart depicts the increase in the number of days before users returned for additional content. Clearly this is on the rise and paints an interesting picture when paired with Consumption Gap.

This is so important if this is your companies way of sharing vital 'buying' information, if you don't understand the latency issues associated with the delays in requesting more information, and providing unfettered access to your product/service information and your competitors does, then there's only ever going to be one winner.

The answer lies with socially savvy changing behaviours that you, me, your potential prospect, and probably your nearest competitor are doing. 

Many B2B marketers recall the days of flooding the web for backlinks and keywords and have since applied an SEO mindset to long-form content. Those days are over as professionals become more discerning and as marketers roll out more sophisticated content that’s aligned to personas and stages of the buyer’s journey. 

The competition have upped their game.

If I'm in the early stages of doing my due diligence on certain products and services the last place I'm going to right now is your website,and the more barriers you create to discourage me from learning more about you, your company, your employees and products its likely we aren't going to have any kind of commercial relationship. 

With over 615 million people registered on LinkedIn, and 300 million of them active on a monthly basis chances are that's where I'm going to start to check you, your leadership team, your company, your competitors, and what your customers are saying about you, most definitely not your website at this stage - because your website is what YOU say about YOU. 

You have to remember; I'm in the moment, I've put aside precious time out of my day to start this due diligence process, and if I can access your competitors story quicker than I can access yours and its more relevant, interesting and informative, then again, chances are your likely to lose out because you think I have all the time in the world to give you my contact info, wait for the download, read, digest and process that info before even thinking about putting you in my research pile for future contact.

Social Media if used in the right way is one of the most awesome Superpowers you can bestow on your employees, your company, and your sales pipeline, because its about recognising that the buying journey has fundamentally changed - forever.

At DLA Ignite we specialise in helping companies and the internal 'Change Makers' deliver on all of these points, and I'm pretty sure we can help you as well. We have a tried and tested methodology, we hold you and your colleagues hand throughout, ensuring we not only 'teach' you what to do, we also make sure its firmly embedded into your firms DNA.