Become Your Audience’s Favorite eTeacher

Posted by Scott Danish on Jun 25, 2019 6:30:28 PM

Remember Ray Walston's character as the uptight history teacher in the movie Fast Times at Ridgemont High?  He stands at the front of the class, reciting dry facts. 

Don’t be like that guy—and don’t let your audience be like these bored students. Even in a business environment, this type of dry, information-only approach doesn’t work for training sales teams and channel partners, guiding customers through smooth on-boarding, or showing prospects how to solve a problem.

If the approach you take when creating content for your B2B eLearning tutorials is a dry recitation of the processes, your audience will retain just as much information as Jeff Spicoli did that day in class. 

The result: you’ve wasted your time building the content, wasted the audience members’ time because they’ll leave just as uninformed as they entered the training, and wasted customer service representatives’ time because they’ll be forced to deal with customers and partners who are unaware of how to deploy, onboard, or use the solution.

When creating content for eLearning purposes, think back to your childhood. Just as children’s tales teach valuable life lessons with compelling stories that help children retain the story and its message, engaging stories set in the workplace can be a powerful teaching tool.

Study after study has shown that telling a story helps the audience retain more of what they’re being told. Not to mention it captures their attention and keeps them engaged. For business eTraining and eLearning situations, this means that if you can tie the lesson to a relatable business objective that resonates with the challenges the learners might be facing, you’ll capture their attention, unpack complex ideas in a meaningful way, and help them retain the information better. 

How To Build Content for B2B eLearning Programs

Training content should start with a clearly defined statement of what the audience will learn and how learning that will benefit them—otherwise, they may not care to engage in the first place. Think of that as your pitch to them. Then build the content of the course around a scenario that relates to the pain points the audience may be experiencing.

Give the content a narrative arc—a beginning, middle, and end. Introduce a main character, someone the audience would recognize from their own workday, and present his/her obstacle. Walk the audience through the problem. As you do so, be sure to relate what’s happening with the protagonist back to the learner. That shifts audience members from passive observers to active participants.

Then move on to how the protagonist solves this problem, which would be by doing what they need to with your solution to solve their pain points. Show the best practices that got him/her the desired results, and show the benefits they get from it. Conclude with a summarization of what was learned.

Include a mix of engaging text, graphics, and video, if appropriate. But be careful: You want your content to be engaging but not superfluous. Only use text, graphics, and video that support the course, and stay narrowly on that path. Don’t add needless side trips that distract from the lesson.

And remember, eLearning offers the opportunity for interactive elements. Hopeful, you get more response than that poor economics teacher.

Does Laying the Foundation Seem Like a Lot of Work? Fear Not!

By building a narrative arc into your eLearning and eTraining content, you create stories that will engage with the audience and help them remember what they learned—and what they need to do going forward. 

But creating the content for B2B training takes a lot of upfront work.

That’s where BayCreative can help. We have experts who can guide you through the process, or even take on most of the course creation themselves. If you think it might be time to take create more engaging eContent, let us know.

All the best,
- Team BayCreative -

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Topics: strategic marketing, marketing agency, Content Development, inbound marketing, full service marketing, marketing strategies, Messaging, b2b marketing, Thought Leadership

Thoughts on the Value of B2B Thought Leadership Pieces

Posted by Scott Danish on Jun 13, 2019 12:30:46 PM

BayCreative talks to our clients quite a bit about thought leadership. But what exactly is thought leadership, and why is that important to your B2B marketing efforts? Read on, and we’ll explain.

B2B Thought Leadership Is …

An industry “thought leader” is somebody or some company that has demonstrated knowledge of the real problems and issues plaguing their industry and have suggested solutions to those problems. You offer those examinations and solutions in free content such as white papers, presentation decks, eBooks, infographics, webinars, and videos.

Even if your suggestions aren’t universally agreed to be the best solutions, the fact that you homed in on a real problem shows that you’re plugged into the industry and the community in your industry. (Note: This only holds up if you are examining real problems, not “problems” that you’re making up to fit your product/solution.)

Just that demonstration of industry knowledge makes you credible in the eyes of those inside and outside the industry. They’ll come to trust you—as long as the thought knowledge demonstration isn’t accompanied by overt sales pitches—and that trust will transfer to your product or solution, which can help sell it when the time comes.

The Benefits of B2B Thought Leadership Content

The B2B decision-making process is complex and lengthy, with a lot of people involved. That’s another reason why thought leadership pieces are so important. When you lay out the problem and solution in a non-biased, non-salesy way that everybody involved in the process can understand and relate to, you help them gain alignment with each other, potentially hastening the buying process.

A study by Edelman and LinkedIn found that thought leadership has meaningful impact on attracting RFP invitations, creating preference with buyers, and directly contributing to increased sales. It also revealed:

  • Decision-makers value timeliness and relevance of thought leadership content more than pure originality of ideas.
  • However, poor-quality thought leadership piece can directly lead to lost business opportunities.
  • A majority of decision-makers are disappointed in the quality of available thought leadership.

So it’s important that your thought leadership pieces speak to a real problem in the industry; offer solid, credible data to support your statements; and offer an innovative, relevant solution to the problem being discussed.

You Can Be A Leader in Thought Leadership

Whatever formats you choose for your thought leadership pieces, they’re well worth your investment. In the competitive B2B marketplace, any advantage you can gain is important.

At BayCreative, we’ve produced numerous white papers, presentation decks, eBooks, infographics and videos that demonstrate our clients’ thought leadership. And we can help you do so, too. Just let us know when you're ready to speak up.

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Topics: strategic marketing, marketing agency, Content Development, inbound marketing, full service marketing, marketing strategies, Messaging, b2b marketing, Thought Leadership

Research Firm Clutch Identifies BayCreative Among Top U.S. Marketing and Advertising Agencies

Posted by Scott Danish on Sep 3, 2015 12:30:00 PM

Today Clutch, an independent B2B services research company, published its first report on marketing and advertising agencies in the U.S. The research identifies leading agencies that have competencies across a range of both traditional and digital marketing functions. The full report can be found at: https://clutch.co/agencies/leaders-matrix.

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Topics: full service marketing, marketing strategies, b2b marketing, digital marketing

B2B Lead Nurture Campaigns Improve Personalization, Targeting

Posted by Scott Danish on Aug 13, 2015 1:24:00 PM

I frequently use eMarketer for trusted information, research and resources on B2B digital marketing.  You probably do too.  

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Topics: full service marketing, marketing strategies, demand generation, lead generation, b2b marketing

5 Essentials for Managing Successful B2B Pay-Per-Click Campaigns

Posted by Scott Danish on Jul 31, 2015 4:00:00 PM

Paid search advertising can be a great way for B2B marketers to rapidly grow business. It can drive massive traffic to websites but must be managed properly for businesses to succeed. However, to successfully manage Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Campaigns, B2B marketers must put their focus on the following five essential areas.

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Topics: keywords, full service marketing, marketing strategies, demand generation, lead generation, b2b marketing, Pay-Per-Click

8 Tips for B2B Marketers to Rock SEO Management

Posted by Scott Danish on Jul 29, 2015 1:00:00 PM

As a B2B marketer, you're always in search of new customers to grow business. To do so, you've got to "get found" by your target audiences. While the use of search engine optimization (SEO) might have made things easier, there are several mistakes B2B marketers still make when trying to manage an effective inbound marketing strategy. The following SEO management tips will help B2B marketers succeed among stiff online competition.

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Topics: SEO, Content Development, inbound marketing, full service marketing, marketing strategies, b2b marketing

Top 10 Ways B2B Marketers (Like You!) Make LinkedIn Rock

Posted by Scott Danish on Jun 8, 2015 3:10:39 PM

Sure, Facebook is a terrific channel for connecting with consumers, and Twitter is a great way to capture the buzz on the street. But LinkedIn is the social media platform for B2B marketing — hands down. Whether your focus is on inbound marketing, lead generation, building brand awareness, or simply drawing comments from prospective clients, few networks can match LinkedIn in importance or features. Here are the top 10 ways to make LinkedIn a key part of your B2B marketing mix.

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Topics: Social, Content Development, full service marketing, marketing strategies, b2b marketing

What’s So Special About B2B Marketing?

Posted by Scott Danish on Jun 2, 2015 6:19:34 PM

You’ve probably heard the saying, “No one ever got fired for buying IBM.” 

IBM didn’t get its sterling reputation overnight. It achieved it by creating a superior product, being a leader in innovation, and building trust with its clients to ensure they would return.

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Topics: Client Relationships, full service marketing, marketing strategies, b2b marketing

7 Steps to Effective B2B Inbound Marketing

Posted by Scott Danish on Jun 1, 2015 4:49:45 PM

Meeting key performance indicators (KPIs) in your inbound marketing efforts needn't be difficult. In our experience, there is a simple seven-step process that companies of any size can follow to achieve success. Using this process, the various pieces of the puzzle – from content development to marketing automation — fall into place seamlessly.

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Topics: Content Development, inbound marketing, full service marketing, demand generation, lead generation

Five Steps to Energize Messaging for B2B Marketers

Posted by Scott Danish on May 29, 2015 2:02:46 PM

Most of our B2B clients find themselves in markets that suit themselves well to good branding practices. For them, good branding represents an effective, persistent way to communicate their company's value proposition. It's also the cornerstone of their relationship with everyone from customers to prospects to business partners. By ensuring their brand is well-managed and maintained in the long term, they build familiarity and confidence — two key components in ensuring that prospective and current customers feel comfortable doing business with them.

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Topics: strategic marketing, Branding, Brand Development, full service marketing, Messaging

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