In recent articles and video, I mentioned the term “Qualified relevance”, a few people have been in touch about what that really means so I thought I'd a little deeper into the topic.

visibility

[vɪzɪˈbɪlɪti]

NOUN

1. the state of being able to see or be seen.

Everyone is chasing visibility.

Thousands of organisations flooding the digital highways with brochure after brochure, constantly spamming their networks with sterile, corporate content in the hope that this will create demand.

Does this sound familiar: Low engagement, no conversation, team members liking and sharing each others content, echo chambers, no traceable link to revenue, spamming precious prospects and clients when we should be focussing on building influence, creating commercial interaction and digital dominance.

Ask yourself and your team a few questions…

• If we stopped putting this content out, would anything change?
• If we switched off the approved, homogenised, approved content generator would it impact our order book in any way at all?

Often when we ask this of management teams we meet, there is a muted response.

We hear it all the time…. "we do this because it’s good for visibility".

We even hear this from trained and experienced marketing professionals.

1. Visibility is cheap and temporary
2. Visibility is what everyone is chasing
3. Visibility is the very start of the story not the end

Try paying suppliers and making payroll with visibility alone...

Jumping to 'throwing out content' as the answer to pipeline issues is common, but its back to front. 

Its the equivalent of saying “we are going to build a house…..first things first, let’s order the wallpaper…”.

We have to set the strategy, then understand what we are doing and why.  We have to train the team, we have to set the environment and the framework….then we can think about content.

Forget chasing visibility and aim for Qualified Relevance.

But what is it…?

The 2021 LinkedIn-Edelman B2B thought leadership impact report is an excellent report which saw Edelman and LinkedIn collaborate on the fourth annual B2B Thought Leadership Impact Study to examine how thought leadership influences perception and buying behaviours among B2B decision-makers (link below).

The report says…

"64% of buyers say that and organisation thought leadership content is a more trustworthy basis for assessing its capabilities and competency than its marketing materials and products sheets".

It then goes on to say:

“63% of buyers also say that thought leadership is important in providing proof that an organisation genuinely understands or can solve your business challenges".

We can’t hope to achieve this level of connection and qualification with brochureware. This needs new thinking and a new approach.

Think beyond ‘visibility’, think beyond ‘being seen’….When you are doing what you need to do to have you buyers trusting in your capability and competence and believing that you genuinely understand and can solve their business challenges….is the beginning of you turning mere visibility into qualified relevance…

Creating interesting, engaging content across the organisation is a key skill in today’s business world, just like knowing how to use a smartphone, video call or collaboration hubs. It’s not just for the Sales and Marketing team, it’s across all levels and functions: The board, directors, management, technical, human resources, procurement, financial and operations.

Believe it or not, getting into this now will impact your H2 pipeline hole.  

Yes, you still need your Sales team in enablement mode, that doesn't change but, you need to be prospecting in a different way and we can help with that. 

None of this comes for free and it isn’t easy….if it was everyone would be doing it already. Getting this right requires different thinking and perhaps parking some pre-conceptions of ‘how things are supposed to work’.

In an article by Adam Gray, Co-Founder of DLA Ignite, he takes us through all the excuses we hear and explains why you should not fear creating content:

• I need to appear professional. No you don’t you need to be human. Nobody cares whether you’ve been doing your job for 10 years or 30 years they care whether they like you and believe/trust you. Every person who has changed their profile to reflect who they are rather than what they do has benefitted from doing so.
• I don’t have time. Yes you do. Every single individual we work with has seen that this is a good use of their time and with practice all the tasks they need to do take less time and deliver more value.
• I’m not a writer, I can’t write. People often cite this as a reason for not blogging but in reality what they’re saying is “I don’t want to write.” Everyone is capable of writing a good blog if they write about themselves, this doesn’t mean that everyone will become a great author, but everyone can write.
• I don’t want to connect to people I don’t know. It’s a good job that you don’t adopt this philosophy in life otherwise you’d have no friends! A large, diverse network is more powerful than a small one. No ifs, no buts, this is a fact.
• What if people don’t like what I say. Well, so what if they don’t! It doesn’t matter. In a universe of “average” having a position on things is important. Clearly, being offensive or discriminatory is never a good idea, but it doesn’t matter whether the reader agrees or disagrees, what matters is they feel something and leave a comment.
• I’m sacred to publish something. We all are. That’s okay. Change is always scary and putting stuff out there is also scary but in reality the worst thing that happens is…nothing happens.
• I can't coach my teammates. Yes you can. If you’re good at social and are active/effective you absolutely should help others…not just to bring them along but to help cement in your own mind what you should be doing and to see you focused.
• It takes a long time to see results. No it doesn’t. Many people see results really quickly because they just “happen to be in the right place” more often when they’re active. We see this often.

Every piece of content the team publish is part of a plan, it plays to the strategy and is a crucial contributor to the intended result. 

There is no ‘post and hope’.

We measure everything and extract all the value.

We are not in the business of teaching people how to publish content and hope. We teach you to create action-based content – A point to note: if you are not creating content, you are invisible to the modern buyer, if you are invisible you are losing deals to the competition. 

We are Socially hardwired

Humans are social! Just about every aspect of our lives has shifted to platforms that allow us to be social and we love it.

• Uber tells us what passengers think about the driver and their car - Socially influenced choices
• Try and play a video game these days in campaign mode….all of the players are connected and talking to each other - Being Social online.
• We 'Strava' our exercise and post it for our network to engage – “If it’s not on Strava it didn’t happen”, right?
• Netflix tells us what we are all watching and what is trending
• Trip advisor allows us to help each other with reviews

The Social evolution of our daily lives is growing, and it isn’t going away. 

In the latest Global Statshot Report – Jan 2022 from Kepios, the numbers are in:

Understanding how to fit into this and how to convert your activity to real, measurable business improvement is important these days.

If your pipeline is down on forecast and you are struggling with what to do…Get your people, trained and get them them building influence on Social Media. 

No corporate content...this is the opposite of rich and diverse content and, it’s what everyone else does - this is chasing 'visibility'.  

Get them to be build influence and create well pointed though leadership content.

Where the proof I hear you ask.... I was revisiting a classic TimTalk (Tim Hughes’s podcast) with Danielle Guzman, the Global Head of Social Media for Mercer. In the interview, Danielle shares the value that Mercer have gained from empowering their employees with Social Media.

The result…. Mercer are seeing 3 to 4 times the attributed revenue than the brand generates. Think about that for a minute……. If the brand is creating $10 million, then empowering the team on social will generate $40 million.

Should you wait?

That depends on your average Sales Cycle. 

We have a client whose average the average is 100 days. If yours is the similar and you want to close sales, you should have started 100 days ago.

Avoid being lost in the visibility rush, stand out and aim for qualified relevance within your prospect and client base.

In 2022 it’s important we give our team the skills to build influence online, at scale.

You and your people should be the leading Technical and Commercial digital influencers in your sector.

Is it you or your competition…?

Live Social '22

Eric Doyle

Crux / DLA Ignite