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Activate the ‘Dark Funnel’ and unlock fresh leads in this new channel

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Activate the ‘Dark Funnel’ and unlock fresh leads in this new channel

What would it feel like if you could chat with your prospects here and now from this article – or better yet, a third-party article on your product or service? No sitting around waiting for intent signals. No banner ads with pesky redirects.

Well, it’s here – and not only is it the future of selling in saas, but sales teams are using it today to engage with prospects in the earliest stages of the dark funnel.

The dark funnel explained: Did you know 75% of buyers are already halfway through their buying journey before they even speak to a salesperson? At that point, they’ve already completed their pre-purchase process – checked reviews, browsed comparison sites, and perused articles on third-party sites – before even reaching your site. In other words, all of these activities have occurred anonymously in what marketers have coined the “Dark Funnel.” 

In fact, you can experience what it’s like to engage in the dark funnel simply by clicking the widget below.

Okay… but what is the dark funnel exactly? 

It’s the touchpoints a buyer experiences before they are tagged and identified in any marketing stack – whether through self-identification, or traditional methods like downloading a whitepaper, form fills or cookies. 

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The problem lies in that the digitization of the sales environment has marketers falsely believing that they can accurately track a customer’s journey. The reality? Much of the customer journey happens offline and when activities occur online, they rarely follow a linear path. Instead, the modern consumer meanders along a path that bends and twists, leaving sales teams/marketers “in the dark” on intent. 

Activate the ‘Dark Funnel and unlock fresh leads in this

So, why isn’t intent data enough?

Intent data isn’t a lead, nor are most intent signals actionable for sales/marketing teams. Often, intent data comes in at the account level and not the contact level, making it challenging to action. In other words, intent data lets you know that someone at a particular company is possibly interested but isn’t detailed enough to identify who to reach out to. 

On the flip side, if a salesperson can discover who the contact is, they can reach out quickly. In a world where speed to lead is everything, intent decays almost instantly. The chance of the user biting on an email cadence, picking up calls, or clicking on retargeting ads diminishes every minute that a salesperson is not in contact. ​​  

Most marketers believe a form fill on a website indicates the highest moment of intent. This does not appear to be true with recent research. 

A study on 2000 B2B companies found that on average: it takes a sales rep 42 hours to contact a new lead, of which 38% will never respond. Additionally, 4.3 days go by before the first meeting ever takes place. In the simplest terms, timing is everything, and the longer you wait on opportunities, the fewer responses you will receive. 

In the modern-day age, convenience and quick response times are everything.  Studies show when businesses respond in under five minutes, they are 100x more likely to connect and convert opportunities. 

Imagine this process:

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  • Zero seconds: A prospect asks to chat on an article, review site, or 3rd party blog post.
  • 3 seconds later: The prospect selects whether they’d like to talk now or schedule a call
  • 1 second later: The prospect chooses to talk now
  • 6 seconds later: The prospect is chatting with a BDR or SDR

This all occurs in 10 seconds, and the prospect hasn’t even reached a company’s website.

Buyer intent is highest at the beginning of the buying journey while solutions to the buyer’s problem are explored. If a prospect actively researches, discusses, and evaluates a company, they clearly express interest. At this point, many intent signals are collected by data aggregators to re-sell for marketing purposes. Naturally, consumers’ intent to buy decays as they move throughout their buying journey. When an intent signal is received and the prospect books a meeting/demo, leads are lost. It costs time, money, and resources to rumble over prospects with your competitors. 

1646224544 558 Activate the ‘Dark Funnel and unlock fresh leads in this

The dark funnel is where the most advantageous opportunities can be won – where you can curate your brand and dominate sectors, all while creating demand. 

Sitting around waiting for intent signals is a passive approach. Actively engaging with prospects in real-time when they need you is much more effective. You are there first. Meet their needs, and they won’t compare you to anybody. Once ready to buy, they will simply choose you. 

And don’t we all want to be chosen?

The Helium platform provides sales/marketing teams direct real-time access to chat with prospects on articles, review sites, and any third-party site whereby your company is mentioned. An entirely new channel, Helium lifts the veil on the dark funnel by creating new actionable touchpoints earlier in the buyer’s journey. 

Many mar-tech strategies have been created to uncover vital consumer information (intent data) within the dark funnel. However, these approaches still follow a linear sales/marketing funnel that doesn’t exist. This limits the ability to adapt to present-day buyer behavior. Buyers don’t want to complete forms, receive numerous email cadences or wait two weeks to speak to a sales rep. Simply put, they want to ask a quick question to qualify or disqualify a potential solution. 

Helium creates a direct line for organizations to engage in chat with prospects using new touchpoints in the dark funnel. During a prospect’s highest intent moments, sales reps are able to answer questions and book meetings immediately. 

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The result?

  • Beating competitors to prospects
  • Accelerating your sales cycle
  • Increasing conversion
  • Expanding your audience
  • Being the primary source of education for your prospects

While Helium does not eliminate a traditional lead gen workflow, it creates an accelerated path for prospects to progress through the funnel. If you are able to activate direct engagement in conversation, traditional marketing funnels and intent data can be bypassed. 

So, curious to learn more about how to engage with your prospects from third-party content? Click the button below now and experience the magic for yourself. 


About The Author

1646224544 797 Activate the ‘Dark Funnel and unlock fresh leads in this

Have some big goals? The Bot Lab helps CMOs and Marketing leaders increase conversations, demos booked and accelerate sales, leveraging the power of conversational marketing. That’s right, bots are back in style.
With the launch of its newest platform, Helium, The Bot Lab provides Publishers with an additional mechanism to drive revenue and brands with instant access to high-quality leads on third party publisher sites. We do this through the power of conversational marketing and enabling real-time chat inside content. This creates a win-win. Publishers drive revenue and brands gain access to a new high-intent channel.

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How To Combine PR and Content Marketing Superpowers To Achieve Business Goals

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A figure pulls open a dress shirt to reveal the term PR on a Superman-like costume, reflecting the superpower resulting from combining content and PR.

A transformative shift is happening, and it’s not AI.

The aisle between public relations and content marketing is rapidly narrowing. If you’re smart about the convergence, you can forever enhance your brand’s storytelling.

The goals and roles of content marketing and PR overlap more and more. The job descriptions look awfully similar. Shrinking budgets and a shrewd eye for efficiency mean you and your PR pals could face the chopping block if you don’t streamline operations and deliver on the company’s goals (because marketing communications is always first to be axed, right?).

Yikes. Let’s take a big, deep breath. This is not a threat. It’s an opportunity.

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Reach across the aisle to PR and streamline content creation, improve distribution strategies, and get back to the heart of what you both are meant to do: Build strong relationships and tell impactful stories.

So, before you panic-post that open-to-work banner on LinkedIn, consider these tips from content marketing, PR, and journalism pros who’ve figured out how to thrive in an increasingly narrowing content ecosystem.

1. See journalists as your audience

Savvy pros know the ability to tell an impactful story — and support it with publish-ready collateral — grounds successful media relationships. And as a content marketer, your skills in storytelling and connecting with audiences, including journalists, naturally support your PR pals’ media outreach.

Strategic storytelling creates content focused on what the audience needs and wants. Sharing content on your blog or social media builds relationships with journalists who source those channels for story ideas, event updates, and subject matter experts.

“Embedding PR strategies in your content marketing pieces informs your audience and can easily be picked up by media,” says Alex Sanchez, chief experience officer at BeWell, New Mexico’s Health Insurance Marketplace. “We have seen reporters do this many times, pulling stories from our blogs and putting them in the nightly news — most of the time without even reaching out to us.”

Acacia James, weekend producer/morning associate producer at WTOP radio in Washington, D.C., says blogs and social media posts are helpful to her work. “If I see a story idea, and I see that they’re willing to share information, it’s easier to contact them — and we can also backlink their content. It’s huge for us to be able to use every avenue.” 

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Kirby Winn, manager of PR at ImpactLife, says reporters and assignment editors are key consumers of their content. “And I don’t mean a news release that just hit their inbox. They’re going to our blog and consuming our stories, just like any other audience member,” he says. “Our organization has put more focus into content marketing in the past few years — it supports a media pitch so well and highlights the stories we have to tell.”

Storytelling attracts earned media that might not pick up the generic news topic. “It’s one thing to pitch a general story about how we help consumers sign up for low-cost health insurance,” Alex says. “Now, imagine a single mom who just got a plan after years of thinking it was too expensive. She had a terrible car accident, and the $60,000 ER bill that would have ruined her financially was covered. Now that’s a story journalists will want to cover, and that will be relatable to their audience and ours.” 

2. Learn the media outlet’s audience

Seventy-three percent of reporters say one-fourth or less of the stories pitched are relevant to their audiences, according to Cision’s 2023 State of the Media Report (registration required).

PR pros are known for building relationships with journalists, while content marketers thrive in building communities around content. Merge these best practices to build desirable content that works for your target audience and the media’s audiences simultaneously.

WTOP’s Acacia James says sources who show they’re ready to share helpful, relevant content often win pitches for coverage. “In radio, we do a lot of research on who is listening to us, and we’re focused on a prototype called ‘Mike and Jen’ — normal, everyday people in Generation X … So when we get press releases and pitches, we ask, ‘How interested will Mike and Jen be in this story?’” 

3. Deliver the full content package (and make journalists’ jobs easier)

Cranking out content to their media outlet’s standards has never been tougher for journalists. Newsrooms are significantly understaffed, and anything you can do to make their lives easier will be appreciated and potentially rewarded with coverage. Content marketers are built to think about all the elements to tell the story through multiple mediums and channels.

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“Today’s content marketing pretty much provides a package to the media outlet,” says So Young Pak, director of media relations at MedStar Washington Hospital Center. “PR is doing a lot of storytelling work in advance of media publication. We (and content marketing) work together to provide the elements to go with each story — photos, subject matter experts, patients, videos, and data points, if needed.”   

At WTOP, the successful content package includes audio. “As a radio station, we are focused on high-quality sound,” Acacia James says. “Savvy sources know to record and send us voice memos, and then we pull cuts from the audio … You will naturally want to do someone a favor if they did you one — like providing helpful soundbites, audio, and newsworthy stories.”  

While production value matters to some media, you shouldn’t stress about it. “In the past decade, how we work with reporters has changed. Back in the day, if they couldn’t be there in person, they weren’t going to interview your expert,” says Jason Carlton, an accredited PR professional and manager of marketing and communications at Intermountain Health. “During COVID, we had to switch to virtual interviewing. Now, many journalists are OK with running a Teams or Zoom interview they’ve done with an expert on the news.”

BeWell’s Alex Sanchez agrees. “I’ve heard old school PR folks cringe at the idea of putting up a Zoom video instead of getting traditional video interviews. It doesn’t really matter to consumers. Focus on the story, on the timeliness, and the relevance. Consumers want authenticity, not super stylized, stiff content.”

4. Unite great minds to maximize efficiency

Everyone needs to set aside the debate about which team — PR or content marketing — gets credit for the resulting media coverage.

At MedStar Washington Hospital Center, So Young and colleagues adopt a collaborative mindset on multichannel stories. “We can get the interview and gather information for all the different pieces — blog, audio, video, press release, internal newsletter, or magazine. That way, we’re not trying to figure things out individually, and the subject matter experts only have to have that conversation once,” she says.

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Regular, cross-team meetings are essential to understand the best channels for reaching key audiences, including the media. A story that began life as a press release might reap SEO and earned media gold if it’s strategized as a blog, video, and media pitch.

“At Intermountain Health, we have individual teams for media relations, marketing, social media, and hospital communications. That setup works well because it allows us to bring in the people who are the given experts in those areas,” says Intermountain’s Jason Carlton. “Together, we decide if a story is best for the blog, a media pitch, or a mix of channels — that way, we avoid duplicating work and the risk of diluting the story’s impact.”

5. Measure what matters

Cutting through the noise to earn media mentions requires keen attention to metrics. Since content marketing and PR metrics overlap, synthesizing the data in your team meetings can save time while streamlining your storytelling efforts.

“For content marketers, using analytical tools such as GA4 can help measure the effectiveness of their content campaigns and landing pages to determine meaningful KPIs such as organic traffic, keyword rankings, lead generation, and conversion rates,” says John Martino, director of digital marketing for Visiting Angels. “PR teams can use media coverage and social interactions to assess user engagement and brand awareness. A unified and omnichannel approach can help both teams demonstrate their value in enhancing brand visibility, engagement, and overall business success.”

To track your shared goals, launch a shared dashboard that helps tell the combined “story of your stories” to internal and executive teams. Among the metrics to monitor:

  • Page views: Obviously, this queen of metrics continues to be important across PR and content marketing. Take your analysis to the next level by evaluating which niche audiences are contributing to these views to further hone your storytelling targets, including media outlets.
  • Earned media mentions: Through a media tracker service or good old Google Alerts, you can tally the echo of your content marketing and PR. Look at your site’s referral traffic report to identify media outlets that send traffic to your blog or other web pages.
  • Organic search queries: Dive into your analytics platform to surface organic search queries that lead to visitors. Build from those questions to develop stories that further resonate with your audience and your targeted media.
  • On-page actions: When visitors show up on your content, what are they doing? What do they click? Where do they go next? Building next-step pathways is your bread and butter in content marketing — and PR can use them as a natural pipeline for media to pick up more stories, angles, and quotes.

But perhaps the biggest metric to track is team satisfaction. Who on the collaborative team had the most fun writing blogs, producing videos, or calling the news stations? Lean into the natural skills and passions of your team members to distribute work properly, maximize the team output, and improve relationships with the media, your audience, and internal teams.

“It’s really trying to understand the problem to solve — the needle to move — and determining a plan that will help them achieve their goal,” Jason says. “If you don’t have those measurable objectives, you’re not going to know whether you made a difference.”

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Don’t fear the merger

Whether you deliberately work together or not, content marketing and public relations are tied together. ImpactLife’s Kirby Winn explains, “As soon as we begin to talk about (ourselves) to a reporter who doesn’t know us, they are certainly going to check out our stories.”

But consciously uniting PR and content marketing will ease the challenges you both face. Working together allows you to save time, eliminate duplicate work, and gain free time to tell more stories and drive them into impactful media placements.

Register to attend Content Marketing World in San Diego. Use the code BLOG100 to save $100. Can’t attend in person this year? Check out the Digital Pass for access to on-demand session recordings from the live event through the end of the year.

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Cover image by Joseph Kalinowski/Content Marketing Institute

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Trends in Content Localization – Moz

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Trends in Content Localization - Moz

Multinational fast food chains are one of the best-known examples of recognizing that product menus may sometimes have to change significantly to serve distinct audiences. The above video is just a short run-through of the same business selling smokehouse burgers, kofta, paneer, and rice bowls in an effort to appeal to people in a variety of places. I can’t personally judge the validity of these representations, but what I can see is that, in such cases, you don’t merely localize your content but the products on which your content is founded.

Sometimes, even the branding of businesses is different around the world; what we call Burger King in America is Hungry Jack’s in Australia, Lays potato chips here are Sabritas in Mexico, and DiGiorno frozen pizza is familiar in the US, but Canada knows it as Delissio.

Tales of product tailoring failures often become famous, likely because some of them may seem humorous from a distance, but cultural sensitivity should always be taken seriously. If a brand you are marketing is on its way to becoming a large global seller, the best insurance against reputation damage and revenue loss as a result of cultural insensitivity is to employ regional and cultural experts whose first-hand and lived experiences can steward the organization in acting with awareness and respect.

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How AI Is Redefining Startup GTM Strategy

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How AI Is Redefining Startup GTM Strategy

AI and startups? It just makes sense.

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