Have You Identified Your Buyers’ Trigger Events?
These days, we’re seeing an increase in the level of sophistication throughout the content marketing world. Content marketers are putting much more emphasis on solid, up-front strategy, and buyer profiling is a big part of that exercise. In this post, I’d like to dig into the concept of “trigger events”, an often-overlooked component of buyer persona development that helps us identify some very granular pain points and often provides great fodder for content ideas.
Identifying Your Buyers’ Trigger Events
What the heck is a “trigger event”? I define a trigger event as the very specific, often painful event that happens in your buyers’ day that makes them aware of a need and prompts them to start looking for a solution. Said another way…”the straw that broke the camel’s back”.
Think about the last time you thought to yourself, “Ok, that’s it! I’ve had it with this (insert product name here)!” You probably didn’t have to think back too far. These trigger events happen every day. The key, from a marketing standpoint, is to identify the relevant events that may trigger a search for your products/services, either by putting yourself in your buyer’s shoes or by talking to buyers directly.
DivvyHQ Buyer Trigger Event Examples
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New Additions to the Divvy Dashboard
As the saying goes…April showers bring May flowers. Well, it rained a lot in April, so our development team has had no choice but to knock out several big platform updates. Last night, we launched an expanded version of the Divvy dashboard that adds a few inches to your view and several new features to add to your productivity.
Adding Inches (just in time for bikini season)
As days go by, we continue to learn how Divvy customers are using the application to manage all types of content. On the social side of the coin, we’ve seen many customers input entire tweets and Facebook posts into our Title/Headline field, including hyperlinks. Come to find out that long hyperlinks can do a number on fixed-width columns.
So, our front-end gurus have made several modifications to the overall interface so that it responds/adapts nicely to both your content and the devices/screen sizes that you might use to manage that content. From your phone or iPad, to a huge, wide-screen monitor, the new dashboard will adapt and utilize as much space as you give it.
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What’s On the Agenda? How to Structure Your Content Planning Meetings (Agenda Template Included)
Over the last decade, you have probably played a big role in transitioning one or multiple organizations from traditional marketing to our new content-centric, digital marketing world. From my experience, very few of these transitions have been easy. Roles have to change. New people often have to be hired. As Robert Rose, Lead Strategist for the Content Marketing Institute, puts it, using content to engage potential customers is “a new muscle” and new internal processes have to be built that support a more publisher-like structure. More on this from Robert here (video).
Regular Content Planning Is a Big Chunk of That New Muscle
As companies start making this transition, I commonly hear such concerns as, “Brody, I just don’t think we’re going to be able to come up with enough interesting or valuable content on a regular basis.”
Well, after an in-depth content strategy effort that digs in deep to the needs, pain and buying/selling cycles of your buyers and your organization, this concern is often met with clear direction and a focus on your ideal content path. You have your roadmap. Now you just need to follow it and make sure you keep enough fuel (content) in the tank to get you to your destination. The best way to do this is with regular, strategic content planning.
Now picture this.
Your content team sits down around your conference table. Each team member has a blank notepad and pen ready to go. You kick things off… “So…Does anyone have any good content ideas?”
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A Killer Divvy Tip from One Smart Cookie
Let me start this post by saying…I love my job. Day in and day out, I get to work with some of the smartest and most creative people I’ve ever met. Online biz strategist and productivity coach, Tanya Smith (@CoachTanya), is no exception.
Tanya and I connected a while back when she produced a webinar that helps educate her clients/prospects on the “why” and “how” of content strategy and editorial planning. As a Divvy customer, Tanya graciously featured us on that webinar and walked through how she uses Divvy to schedule out her entire year of content themes, monthly podcasts and webinars, and weekly blog posts and social posts. Seldom do we come across a solopreneur that has put that much thought and time into their content marketing efforts. She’s doing it right.
Also within that webinar, she shared a really cool tip that blew me away. So a few weeks ago, Tanya interviewed me for her monthly podcast (listen here) and I asked her if she’d be willing to do a video demo that walks through her killer tip.
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New Feature Announcement: Lock Down Your Ideal Content View
Hey folks! Just a quick update to let you know about a recent addition to our new Content interface.
With the launch of Divvy’s new Content interface a few weeks ago, we rolled out several new filtering tools and gave you a “Save as Default” function to lock down your ideal, default filters. We also added an all-new Edit Columns function that gave you even more control over the data that populates the interface. At the time though, we did not build in a “Save as Default” function for the column editor menu. Thanks to feedback from some of our rock-star users, we quickly realized this missing piece.
Save As Default = Save Time
Every member of a content team has a unique perspective. We hope that these new customizable displays will help you focus in with fewer clicks, and execute in less time.
Thanks for all the feedback folks…Happy Divvying!
Enough With the Emails Already…
Our mantra at Divvy is to make your life easier, not annoy you. As an editorial planning and content production workflow tool, we are forced to walk the fine line between automated accountability and “I’m getting too many email notifications!”. For each Divvy user, and their particular situation, our email notifications are going to be perceived (and valued) differently. But whichever side of the fence you’re on, you now have complete control over the automated email notifications you receive.
New Feature Announcement: Turn Off “New Content Assignment” Email Notifications
Previously, Divvy users did not have the option to turn off the email notifications that are sent when a new content item is assigned to them. This has been one of the most requested features we’ve received over the past few months.
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Convertible Content: One Piece, Many Ways
It is no secret that creating content is a time-consuming venture. It takes time to brainstorm, plan, assign, create, revise, publish and promote content. Much emphasis has been given to re-purposing your content, mostly, from the angle of after the piece has already been published once. However, I think more can be done upfront to start thinking about multi-purpose content (a.k.a. “convertible content”) at the outset, so, like the incredible convertible dress, you can get more mileage out of your content wardrobe.
Here’s a quick example of how to take one piece of written content, and turn it into 5 different pieces.
Step 1: Start with a content concept.
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New User Question: How Many Divvy Calendars Do I Need?
Since launching Divvy back in September of 2011, we’ve had the chance to talk content with hundreds of marketers, content practitioners and media specialists. The only constant that we’ve recognized among these conversations is that every organization is unique, especially when it comes to the maturity of their overall content strategy, planning and production processes.
On the mature, well-seasoned side of the coin, an organization’s “managing editor” or “chief content officer” is typically able to set up a Divvy account and quickly understand/adapt Divvy’s multi-calendar structure, workflow and content data management offerings to fit their existing structures and processes. If Divvy fits like a glove, they’ll be nice and cozy for the foreseeable future. If the fit needs a little tailoring, then we jump on the phone and talk through it.
On the noobie side of the coin, some hand-holding is often required, but the teacher in me loves this part just as much (if not more) as talking shop with the pros. Earlier this week, we received an email asking…
“We are a church. How do you figure out how many calendars you need?”
Most churches probably don’t have a seasoned publishing veteran at the helm of their communications department. But they have a congregation to serve and lots of programs and activities to promote. How many content calendars DO they need?
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Better, Smarter, Faster…And WIDER! Introducing Divvy’s New Content Interface
In the past few months, we’ve received multiple requests for new features surrounding our Content interface. Today, we’re pumped to show you what we’ve built…er…re-built. Check out the embedded video below to see what this thing can do!
Can’t see this video? View it on YouTube: Introducing Divvy’s New Content InterfaceA few noteworthy benefits…
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You’re Doing It Wrong…
If you’ve read our story, you know that we, the founders of Divvy, come out of the content marketing agency world. We needed a better content planning tool for ourselves and our clients, so we built Divvy. With our backgrounds, we wanted to make sure that the methodologies and best practices of content strategy were baked into the application to help us and Divvy customers better plan and produce great content that will truly resonate with our buyers/audiences.
With all that in mind, we’re now a software provider and I get to have daily conversations with all kinds of companies about content strategy, editorial planning and the organizational structures/process that will support these efforts. Being a content geek, I love this part of my job, but I’m often surprised by some of the questions and feedback that we receive, even from some of the largest organizations in the world. One particular question sends red flags flying in my brain, so I wanted to dig into this a little in this post.
Let me paint you a picture…
Picture me in my office, laptop open, headset on (messing up my hair), GoToMeeting fired up and I’m walking a potential customer through the Content Editor interface within Divvy. We get down to the Buyer / Audience Profile(s) field that is designed to capture the specific buyer profiles or personas for which a particular piece of content is being created. Then the customer stops me and asks:
“Is there a way to hide fields that we don’t need? I don’t think we’ll use that Buyer / Audience Profiles field.”
