Buzzfeed's marketing and sales content has been carefully constructed to educate their B2B buyers, the sponsors of content and advertisements. Rather than just pass this by and tip my hat at the genius inbound marketing wizzard behind the curtain, I took the time to dissect the strategy and process behind the inbound marketing engine that powers Buzzfeed's ad revenue - because as marketers, we can all learn something from them!
I was lucky enough to catch up with the team responsible for the strategy and implementation of Buzzfeed's inbound marketing engine so they can help us understand that process and work that goes into developing something like this, and what kind of results they have seen thus far.
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Buzzfeed is essentially an advertiser for brands that want to reach an audience of 19+ million subscribers of which 50% are aged between 18 ad 25. B2B and B2C brands pay Buzzfeed to consult on and develop relevant articles, videos, quizes and other content, then distribute it to their website visitors, facebook fans, and youtube followers via sponsored posts: generating leads and business opportunities. They get over 10M daily visitors and have 2k videos with over 1M views each.
They have a micro site that turns corporate marketers (their target buyer) into hot sales leads by educating them on Buzzfeed's advertising solutions and providing the buyer with easy ways to share the content with other decision makers and influencers.
First, they quickly and clearly explain their process for delivering value.
Keep it short and simple. Under a couple hundred words and a few small visuals.
Then they back up their value proposition with a series of quick and powerful data points that establish credibility.
These are things that a researcher can easily remember and share with their co-workers. You want to give a buyer as many chances as possible to bring you up in conversation, and sound smart when they do it.
The products are placed right after the credibility.
By now the buyer is thinking: "these guys have something that MIGHT be able to help me. Better yet, it might make me look like a superstar! These are some impressive numbers and they are very credible".
Perfect time to capture their personal information and get them talking to the sales team.
People researching a B2B solution need statistics. Statistics build confidence. And for some reason when you are the first person at the office to know a statistic before everyone else... it makes you look smarter.
Everyone wants to see examples sooner or later. So the product showcase page is a must.
The how it's done page gives enough information to the buyer so they can explain how it works (briefly) to other colleagues.
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Each internal page of the Buzzfeed micro site follows a similar formula: all roads lead to capturing the buyer's information with the "get started form".
I like that each page re-enforces the desired action with the buyer. But this is where I think they can make an improvement to their engine with not much added effort. The problem is that Buzzfeed is only giving buyers one opportunity to convert, and it will obviously result in an immediate phone call from sales. A few "easier" options to convert would increase their conversion rates (total leads generated as a percentage of web traffic). Like I said not everyone is ready for a sales call - and Buzzfeed isn't capturing any information on the leads that aren't ready for a call.
Something like a "subscribe to our marketing blog" or "watch the exclusive interview with Buzzfeed Head of Ad Products" or "download Buzzfeed's marketing goal budget calculator". These can all be gated offers behind forms and offer buyers another way to continue the researching process.
Each of the 3 landing pages are short and follow a similar formula as the main page: mixing product information with credibility and data. But this time with just a little more meat on the bones.
I love how they ask for budget right on their form. They get tons of leads through their inbound engine and they need to quickly be able to prioritize them. What better way than based on their budget?
Where does the traffic come from? How does Buzzfeed attract the right buyers at the right time to these webpages? What happens to the leads after they fill out the form? What makes a lead marketing qualified vs sales qualified?
I had to know. So I asked the marketing team at Buzzfeed and they were kind enough to share some details.
I will post a list to the recorded interview an the lessons learned - stay tuned!
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