• The Internet is the C-suite’s top information resource. • Executives find search more valuable for locating business-related information than newspapers, magazines, TV, radio, conferences and trade shows • C-Level decision makers are decreasing dependence on scouts and recommenders, they are directly seeking solutions online Well before most buyers become a lead, they realize they have a problem to solve. It’s during this early buying phase that they begin research. As you can see from the previous data, the research phase is more and more being done without a buyer contacting your company’s sales team. Below is what the buying cycle looks like now: The Opportunity The opportunity is to make sure your white paper content is part of the “before Sales Contact” phase. Since buyers are postponing contacting your sales team until much later in the buying cycle, you need your white paper marketing to take advantage of the new ways to connect with buyers in the early phases. You now have to— and can—make this connection with buyers by using search and social media tactics much more tightly integrated with your content marketing than ever before. The good news is it’s relatively easy to reconfigure your existing white paper lead generation program to be found and shared in the new social channels. In the process, you will become more efficient, and your cost per lead will decrease. Five Great Ideas The purpose of this paper is to provide 5 ideas for adapting your existing white paper programs to take advantage of this new buyer driven environment by transitioning the delivery of your static PDF based campaigns to engaging and persistent inbound campaigns delivered on a social platform. Here’s what we’ll discuss: 1. Deliver white paper content within an engaging social environment 2. Move to persistent white paper campaigns 3. Encourage sharing and forwarding of the content 4. Allow for optimized search of the content 5. Track sharing and search activity to generate more and better leads Need Recognition Information Search Evaluation of Alternatives Purchase Evaluation Purchase Decision Before Sales Contact Sales Contact
