(This is Part 2 of a 3-part series on getting more out of your marketing data)
The challenge seems simple enough: You want to get your ISV’s content – white papers, product brochures, company videos, webcast recordings – in front of the best possible prospects for your products. But how do you do that? And what are the most effective promotional vehicles to use?
As noted in Part 1, the answer hinges on having access to the right kinds of data about where your prospects go to consume content and conduct solution research. Utilizing this data as a roadmap for executing your content marketing strategy enables you to make informed decisions that are data-driven instead of emotionally-driven. The data you gather on where your prospects hang out will reduce the probability that you will waste marketing dollars should you choose to promote your content on the platforms your prospects frequent.
This data is hard to find, but luckily for Dynamics ISVs, MSDynamicsWorld.com (MSDW) has this data, and more. In a recent survey conducted by MSDW, 76% percent of Dynamics customer respondents stated that they utilize Microsoft-focused IT News & Editorial websites to consume vendor content and research solutions, while only 21% of respondents said they primarily utilize conferences for it.
In addition to having concrete data about where your prospects go, you also need data about what they do when they are there. What types of content do your prospects typically consume when they’re visiting MSDW? Do content consumption habits differ between users in different Dynamics product groups? In 2019, as an example, we found that ISV and partner white papers were consumed more than 7,300 times by AX users. However, GP users only consumed around 4,300. Business Central users consumed ten times as many ISV and partner videos as they did white papers, and D365 F&O users consumed just as many white papers as they did videos and webcasts. These trends are important, because depending on which product group you’re trying to reach, you’ll be able to tailor your content marketing strategy to ensure that you’re giving users the types of content they prefer to consume.
Probably the biggest factor to consider is making sure that all of your content marketing activities yield easily trackable results. Do you have a way of collecting the information and data of prospects who consume your content? Are you collecting the right data to help further qualify those leads?
The challenge for marketers is that while there are any number of platforms yielding anecdotal data, there are very few, like MSDW that yield the highly specific and targeted data needed to isolate prospects and quickly begin the sales process.
In other words, there is data that will help you play market hunches, and data that will help you make real sales. Both are important, but the second type is the most immediately precious.
