The Stanford Graduate School of Business is recognized as one of the leading business schools in the world.
Their Executive Education programs are also world ranked for attracting
established business leaders to its leadership and management programs. With a
mission to recruit senior-level executives into their landmark Executive
Education programs in the U.S., and to build the brand outside the United
States, the school developed a content marketing strategy that combined highly
personalized content delivery and multichannel marketing to both nurture leads
and drive conversions.
Why Content Marketing?
Content marketing has
become essential in 2013 as buyers demand more personalized, uniquely relevant content. Between
search engines, social networks and peer reviews, there’s a wealth of content
available to customers and prospects who are trying to make buying decisions.
The result is that in both the B2B and B2C worlds, buyers are typically much
further down the buyer cycle by the time they begin interacting with businesses
directly. In fact, according to Pardot, an Exact Target company, 70% of marketingleads are abandoned by sales, but 43% end up buying in 13 months.
Marketers have found that content can increase likelihood that
they buy from you! By providing educational content across the entire buying
life cycle, and providing a seamless dialogue from first touch to initial sale
to loyal advocate Stanford has been able to increase both engagement and
conversion of their target audience. Their quality cross-media content is the
foundation of their 2013 marketing campaign.
Top 5 Take Aways
Through vigorous testing and a disciple approach to their
communications, Stanford has learned:
1. Effective use of embedded videos in push communications is highly
effective in developing engagement, but it is important testing the placement
and length of the videos for maximum impact.
2.
Webinars
are effective for lead generation as long as the webinar content is timely,
relevant and related to the Call-to-action.
3.
Knowledge
content such as white papers and research need to be fresh and current at all
times and is best used in the early stages of the buying cycle.
4.
Older
or static content should be made available as a call-to-action in the middle of
the buying cycle. This content would also be excellent for building your
prospect databases.
5.
Incorporating
progressive profiling decreases abandon rates on your website and landing
pages. Starting with a limited number of qualification questions upfront is
best, and progressive profiling is tied to behavior and interaction.
