Podcast Episode 27: A Deep Dive Into ‘Think’ State

Steve Robinson: Hello, Iterative Marketers! Welcome to the Iterative Marketing Podcast, where each week, we give marketers and entrepreneurs actionable ideas, techniques and examples to improve your marketing results. If you want notes and links to the resources discussed on the show, sign up to get them emailed to you each week at iterativemarketing.net. There, you’ll also find the Iterative Marketing blog and our community LinkedIn group, where you can share ideas and ask questions of your fellow Iterative Marketers. Now let’s dive into the show.

Hello everyone, and welcome to the Iterative Marketing podcast. I’m your host, Steve Robinson, and with me as always is the one of a kind and irreplaceable Elizabeth Earin. How are you doing today, Elizabeth?

Elizabeth Earin: I am good, Steve. How are you?

Steve Robinson: I am doing wonderful today. What’s been keeping you busy?

Elizabeth Earin: Oh my gosh, I have been crafting. We have our annual meeting coming up and I wanted to put together a little gift for some of our team members and so I thought it would be fun to make mugs with cute little Iterative Marketing sayings on them.

Steve Robinson: Okay.

Elizabeth Earin: And so I used my Silhouette that my husband got me for my birthday and so excited to do and started crafting and it was like the worst Pinterest fail episode ever. I mean, nothing was working. It was bad and even my husband walked in the room and he is like, “is it supposed to look like that?” I am like, “no, it’s not.” So I am not sure if everyone on the team is going to be getting mugs after all or not.

Steve Robinson: I see. Well, you could call them modern art.

Elizabeth Earin: Yeah, that’s being very kind, very hopeful and I am not sure about that.

Steve Robinson: Okay, well if we’re not supposed to be talking about crafting today, because it sounds like we’re not, what are we supposed to be talking about today?

Elizabeth Earin: Today we are talking about the “Think” state. And we have talked about the “Think” as part of the consideration states before, but today, we are taking a deep dive into “Think.” So, really getting into the nitty-gritty and talking about in detail what the “Think” state is and not only what our goals are for the “Think” state but the content that we use to target the “Think” state, and also the targeting methods for the “Think” state.

Steve Robinson: And then we’ll wrap things up talking about measurement and how we can measure success when we are hoping to improve the journey of those in the “Think” state, right?

Elizabeth Earin: Exactly, but I think before we do that, we probably should do a quick review of the journey states for anyone who hasn’t had a chance to listen to that episode. And Episode 16 is when we do a high-level coverage of the different journey states “See, Think, Do, Grow and Give.” Whoops! Almost messed that up there. And then Steve, you wrote a phenomenal blog post called “See, Think, Do – A Framework For Understanding Your Prospect’s State of Being,” which we will link to in the show notes as well.

Steve Robinson: Well, thank you for the credit but we do need to also release some credit to Avinash Kaushik who came up with “See, Think, Do” and it’s his work that we have really taken and expanded on slightly, modified slightly, and definitely taken to heart and it’s become core to the Iterative Marketing methodology as a whole. When we dive into the different states — and I’ll just run through these really, really quickly here. Our “See” state is the audience that is qualified. So they are in a position where they have the means to purchase your product or service or they have the authority to purchase your product or service and they are the type of prospect that you want to target but they are not even thinking about purchasing your product or service right now, or maybe they already have a vendor that they are happy with. We dive into the “See” state in depth in Episode 23, so if you want, we can jump back to that or plow over to “Think” state now and catch that one later. The next state, the one we are talking about today is “Think” state. That’s where we are not only qualified but now we are thinking about purchasing or making a change in vendors for this product or service in the future but we have no commitment or timeline in which we are going to make this change. So it’s kind of like you know you are going to be making a purchase, so it’s on your mind, it’s top of mind but you are not ready yet. “Do” is when you are ready. That’s when you have made a commitment to yourself or to someone else, so you have a definitive timeline to make a purchase. Those that are in that position are in our “Do” state. And then we have the “Grow” state and the “Give” state that occur after that prospect becomes a customer. So “Grow” is when they are a customer. They are a loyal customer meaning they are going to at least think of you first when they come back to purchase again but they are not singing your praises to others. They are not really entirely bought in and they are not ready to give back to your brand. Whereas your “Give” state are those that have completely drunk the Kool-Aid and they are referring you to others. They are leaving positive reviews on websites. They are part of your army, right? And so those are the five states. Today, we are going to focus on “Think” and we are going to try and hit “Think” from a variety of different angles and see if we can make this truly a deep dive into that “Think” state.

Elizabeth Earin: So starting off taking a look at what the goal of the “Think” state is — and really, the key here is we want to be a resource for this audience as they move through the buyer’s journey. And while they move through the buyer’s journey, we want to try and influence their decision and I say ‘try’ because we can put content out there and we can talk to them but it’s really up to – it’s up to the prospect as to the decision that they are going to make and when they are going to progress through on to the next state in that journey. But again, we are looking to influence them and we are really looking to build an affinity. And we were talking about this earlier and kind of going back and forth and I said really “Think” state is when you try to get them to be your friend.

Steve Robinson: You are a buddy but you are buddy-buddying up to that prospect and trying to make sure they like you. Do you like me? Do you really like me? But part of that is making sure that you are not pushing that person away by trying to sell to them. None of us wants to be friends with the person trying to sell us on something, right? So it’s giving them content, trying to influence their decision without trying to sell to them which is a really fine line. And usually that influence is limited to how they are approaching that decision or what aspects of that decision are top of mind and how they are thinking about it, not who they are going to buy from or what they are going to buy.

Elizabeth Earin: Um-hmm.

Steve Robinson: Why is this important?

Elizabeth Earin: I think it’s important because a “Think” state prospect is usually not interacting directly with your brand. And what I mean by that is they are not going out and talking to a salesperson. They are not going to the dealership and interacting with that sales guy. Instead, they may be doing some research on their own and they still may be kind of lurking in the background but they are not actively out there. And so a lot of times, you may not even be aware that they are in the “Think” state, or you physically are not aware that they are in the “Think” state but they are out there and they are still consuming your content.

Steve Robinson: So they are not talking to you or your brand. They are not talking to your sales team. They are not there yet. They don’t want to open up that dialogue yet. They are not picking up the phone and calling. They are not placing an order. They are not even putting stuff in their cart if this is e-commerce. They are lurking, for lack of a better term. But they are, to your point, Elizabeth, researching. They are also talking to their friends. They are getting referrals. They may be talking to other influencers or other people in their network and they are hearing about your brand. And they may be engaging with other content as part of that research from your competitors, so it becomes very important that you do what you need to do to be at the table at this critical point in their buyer’s journey.

Elizabeth Earin: Like you said, they are learning and they are engaging and while it may not necessarily be a face-to-face engagement with you, they are still engaging with your brand. So if your brand is going to be at the table while this prospect is in “Think” state and thinking about what solution or product they want to consider as they move forward in their customer’s journey, we have to make sure that we are delivering content that’s tailored to what their specific needs are within that state and get in front of them before they are ready to move on. And that gives us the chance to build that relationship, build that affinity and beyond that shortlist when they are ready to start making that purchasing decision.

Steve Robinson: Exactly. I think this is a great point for us to take a quick break and go help some people.

Elizabeth Earin: Before we continue, I’d like to take a quick moment to ask you Iterative Marketers a small but meaningful favor and ask that you give a few dollars to a charity that’s important to one of our own. This week’s charitable cause was sent in by Jill Syre in Chicago, Illinois. Jill asks that you make a contribution to Cure Epilepsy, where over 90% of donations are directed to their mission of funding research and other initiatives that lead the way to a cure for epilepsy. Learn more at cureepilepsy.org or visit the link in the show notes. If you would like to submit your cause for consideration for our next podcast, please visit iterativemarketing.net/podcast and click the “Share a Cause” button. We love sharing causes that are important to you.

Steve Robinson: And we are back. So before the break, we talked about what “Think” state really is, what puts somebody in “Think” state. We talked about the importance of addressing “Think” state in your marketing. Now we are going to get into how you do that. So we are going to talk about content first and then we’ll talk about how you reach individuals who are in “Think” state. Elizabeth, how would you describe “Think” state content? What makes a piece of content “Think” state and not “See” or “Do”?

Elizabeth Earin: That’s an important distinction right off the bat. “Think” state is not “Do” state content. And this is extremely important because our prospect in the “Think” state is not ready to buy yet and if we start pushing sales messaging down their throat, we are going to turn them off. So, we really want to avoid content with features and benefits or with incentives to buy because they are not ready for that yet. And they’re just — they are not ready to buy and if we try to push them down that path before they are ready to get there, we turn them off and that completely defeats the purpose of what it is that we are trying to do in “Think” state.

Steve Robinson: And it’s not “See” state content either because “See” state content — your “See” audience has no interest in your product or service at that moment, so you have to find other things that they are interested in. Here, you have an audience that is interested in your product or service. Your products or service is top of mind to them. They are just not ready to buy yet, so you can take advantage of that and provide content that is contextually relevant to your offering and that’s extremely important.

Elizabeth Earin: I think that for me, “Think” state content is really fun to write or to work on because you’re working at earning their trust while they figure out what it is that they want. But you also get to talk a little bit about your brand because you want them to be thinking about you when they are ready to buy, so it’s kind of that sweet spot. You are providing that utility but you still get to talk about yourself and so I always enjoy writing — we do a lot of blog posts and I love “Think” state content. I think that is, for me, the most fun to produce.

Steve Robinson: Yeah, and you have the ability to influence not so much their decision in which product they are going to purchase but influence their decision-making process. So you get to take whatever the best attributes are of your brand or your product or service and instead of saying you need to buy a printer that prints really fast, you can say one of the key considerations when selecting a printer needs to be the speed at which it prints because this is the impact on your productivity of your office. Never mention the fact that you happen to have the fastest printer on the market, right? It’s your ability to influence that thinking in a way that seems very helpful to that prospect at that moment in time. “I didn’t even think about that. You are right. People are waiting for stuff to print. They are not working. That’s not good.” And at the same time, you are putting yourself in the lead later down that line.

Elizabeth Earin: Definitely. And I think a great example of a company that does this very well is Marketo. And I know that they had a webinar recently titled “Selecting a Marketing Automation Solution That Scales.” Again, it’s not highlighting the features or benefits of Marketo. It’s not trying to sell the solution but it is being a resource for someone who is considering and is in the market for marketing automation. And if this is something that you are considering, this is a piece that you can’t miss and presenting it in that way where it’s something you have to read. You are now getting in front of these people that are in “Think” state and you are becoming an indispensable resource for them.

Steve Robinson: And it’s not just B2B companies that can do this. B2C can do this as well. I think a great example is Home Depot because if you have ever been to Home Depot, you’ll see they have a wall where they talk about their upcoming workshops. And if you are in the position where you are thinking about maybe retiling your bathroom floor, this is a great opportunity for you to walk in and see exactly what’s involved in this. It takes some of the intimidation out and you have an affinity for Home Depot along the way. When you go to buy the supplies to retile your own bathroom floor, you are not going to go to Lowe’s to buy the supplies. You are going to go back to Home Depot where you watched the guy teach you how to do it.

Elizabeth Earin: Now both of the — I think examples we gave are — one was a webinar and one was a workshop. So these are in person. “Think” content does not have to be in person. When you look at the Home Depot example, they have phenomenal how-to guides online. These are articles and blogs that you can reference that are material that you are reading. So again, it doesn’t necessarily have to be an in-person contact. It doesn’t have to be a video or anything of that nature. It just has to be a resource for them.

Steve Robinson: Another one I like is Blue Apron. I’m not a Blue Apron subscriber as far as their service where they send you all of the ingredients to make a meal along with the recipe, but I have subscribed to get their recipes. So now they are scratching my itch which is that I don’t know what it is we are supposed to be cooking every night, so they are helping me with my meal planning, providing me with awesome recipes. It’s only one step further for me to go, you know what? If I am cooking the recipe, why don’t I just have them send me the stuff. So it’s a great opportunity for them to identify those that are in market because they have a problem with meal planning and then target great content and nurture them and be their best friend with these awesome recipes, right up until the buying end. And no, they didn’t pay us anything to put that in here.

Elizabeth Earin: No, no, they didn’t. And it’s a small step from using the recipes to having the food shipped directly to your house, so great strategy there. Let me ask you this because we get asked this question a lot and especially on organizations that have typically been focused on the “Do” state and in converting those sales. Should we gate content? To gate or not gate? That is the question.

Steve Robinson: And by gating content, you mean putting up a contact form when we ask for a bunch of personal information in order them to be able to get this valuable resource, right?

Elizabeth Earin: Personal information, first born child, take your pick.

Steve Robinson: This is really a balance and it comes down to the questions of what are your goals. If your goals are really pure to what we talked about earlier about “Think” state in being that prospect’s best friend as they go through the buyer’s journey, then gating the content and getting their contact info doesn’t need to be part of that at all. On the other hand, it can really help drive revenue if you start to fill up a contact database and be able to score them and identify who is in market and ready to buy when, right? So it is somewhat of a balance. The way that I look at it is you are going to produce a piece of content, is it more valuable for a small number of people to be holding that piece of content and for you to know who they are because they completed a lead form to get it? Or is it more valuable for a larger group of people to be holding that piece of content which has your logo on it and maybe puts you in a good light but you don’t know who they are?

Elizabeth Earin: I think there’s a second consideration there actually, and that is it doesn’t make sense. Does it make sense for you to gate that content? Is that in line with the user experience that you are creating?

Steve Robinson: That’s a good point, particularly if that content isn’t extremely valuable but also it creates I think you referred to is a — just a quid pro quo sort of relationship where I feel like I’m giving you my contact info, my privacy, in exchange for something else. And now do I really feel like you have helped me, that you are my friend? I don’t know if it totally negates the whole buddy-buddying up with your prospect component of “Think”.

Elizabeth Earin: Either way, and at the end of the day, whether you get it or not, that there’s a kind of an ultimate thing that we need to keep in mind is, is the content valuable because whether you gate it or not, if it’s not valuable then it’s not going to create that relationship and build that affinity and be that resource that we are looking for our “Think” content to do for us.

Steve Robinson: So we have talked about content. I think we are pretty well wrapped up on that part. How do we get this content in the hands of the right people? How do we find people who are in “Think” state so that we can get them this valuable “Think” state content?

Elizabeth Earin: That is a really good question and kind of the key here is first-party data. Because again, we want to be delivering the right message to the right person at the right time. And so to do that, we need to know that they are in “Think” state and that’s where our first-party data comes in. We want to look at those signals that they have sent us over time that have let us know that they are in market, that they are interested, and we want to use that information to then get this content out to them.

Steve Robinson: And we can get these signals in a variety of different ways but digitally, the two most common ways to get the signals of those that are maybe thinking but not ready to buy would be through your marketing automation system which will track who is engaging in which content. And then also through retargeting technology where you can build up pools of device cookies for people who have engaged with specifics that’s a content on your website. And you can use both of these to figure out and target and direct content to those that are in this particular buying state.

Elizabeth Earin: Something else to keep in mind or consider is that we also want to advertise our “Think” content to our “See” audience because this is how we tell when they are ready to move on. And this is the part where it gets a little bit confusing. So please, Steve, help me clarify if I mess up a little bit, but in order for us to know that someone has moved from “See” to “Think,” we need some sort of indicator. And so by showing them some limited “Think” content, not a lot, just enough that if they see that ad and they are ready to be – they are in that state, they are going to act on it. Once they act on it, that becomes the indicator for us that they are now in “Think” state and we can continue to market them with the rest of our “Think” state messaging.

Steve Robinson: Yeah. So in order for this to work, you have to have multiple pieces of “Think” state content, right? Because if we dangle one piece of “Think” state content to those people and see they bite, great, now we know they are in “Think.” But what are we going to do about it? Because they have already got the one piece of “Think” state content we have. So you have to have multiple pieces of “Think” state content. You have to dangle some of that to your “See” audience and then you have to have the rest of it in reserve so that if anyone engages with either that piece that you have dangled in front of “See” in a paid media sort of way or any of the other content that maybe you have hosted on your website or out on social media, that now you can go back and give them the rest of that content and fill in all the holes so that you are helping and nurturing and being that friend that’s full of all that helpful advice and resources, right?

Elizabeth Earin: Yes, definitely and don’t let that need for additional content scare you because one thing we need to keep in mind, and this is going to vary by industry, but how long your prospect is in “Think” state, this isn’t necessarily going to be a one- or a two-day thing. I mean, it could — there’s always that chance, but I think in most cases you are going to have an extended period of time, whether that’s a few days, a few weeks or a few months. If you only have one piece of content, that’s going to get stale. If they consume that content, it’s going to turn them off. If it’s content that doesn’t appeal to them and they never click on it, then now you have no message in front of them. So it’s always a good idea to have a few different pieces so that you can make sure that you have got relevant and timely messaging along each point as they are waiting to or as they are getting ready to move into that “Do” state.

Steve Robinson: Excellent. How do we measure success? How do we know when we are winning with our “Think” audience?

Elizabeth Earin: Yes, always a good question and we always want to measure. With the “Think” audience, our goal is to be their guide and their friend as they move along the journey and the key indicator here is going to be engagement. And so this is how many minutes can we get them to interact with our brand? How many pieces of content can we get them to read? Are they scrolling all the way down the page? Are they watching our video all the way through? All of these different key engagement metrics that are going to help us to identify that, yes, they are engaging with our content.

Steve Robinson: So key things that I like to throw out there is metrics. If we are putting together dashboard here, things like time on site or time on page or even better, dwell time on individual pieces of content. How long are they engaging with each individual piece? How much time are they giving our brand on screen, right? You can also look at scroll depth, so what percentage of articles or how many articles do they scroll 80% of the way down or more? We can look at downloads, just sheer number of pieces of content. How many e-books have they downloaded and whitepapers and guides and everything else? Seconds of video, you can actually tally up how many seconds of video one individual has watched over forever, right? And now you can kind of get a picture of how well you are impacting that individual. And then in some cases, and this isn’t applicable all the time, but you can look at sharing statistics. So if you are truly creating engaging content that solves somebody’s problem and provides them value, they are going to share that with others. That’s not always true, particularly in situations like B2B where I don’t think that piece on “Finding scalable marketing automation solutions,” that webinar got a ton of shares because the itch that it scratched was a smaller, very targeted audience. But things like Blue Apron’s recipes, you bet, those gets shared around and all the time.

Elizabeth Earin: Really great point, and again, I think there’s a couple of factors to consider there when it’s applicable and who is your audience. Is it a very targeted audience? And what is your — sort of the size of your audience? Is the product or service appeal to a mass audience? Where Blue Apron appeals — everyone’s eating. Not everyone is looking for recipes, but everyone’s eating and so you have got a pretty big group to pull from.

Steve Robinson: Another thing that you can look at with your “Think” content is did this “Think” content contribute to your conversions? Now, it’s not going to generate conversions because these people aren’t ready to buy, so this is not going to be the last thing that they touch before they go to buy. So in order to really understand whether or not this content contributed to conversions, you have to have a more complex what’s called an attribution model than Last Touch which is the default for a lot of systems. The good news is Google Analytics, free version, out of the box, has more complex attribution models than Last Touch and you can actually set it up so that you are watching if they engaged in “Think” content. Did that contribute to my conversion? So what percentage of my conversions were assisted by this set of content? And you can get that statistic and now you know, well, okay, without “Think” content, it may have hurt or with “Think” content it did help X percentage of my conversions.

Elizabeth Earin: I think one other note is if you are gating your content, you can also count the number of contacts gathered. But again, make sure you are using that in the right way and that it aligns with that user experience that you are creating.

Steve Robinson: We are not saying gating is bad. We are just saying that use it cautiously and not make it your default, necessarily. And on that note, I think it pretty well wraps things up, wouldn’t you say, Elizabeth?

Elizabeth Earin: I think we did.

Steve Robinson: So I want to thank everybody for making time again for us this week, and until next week, onward and upward.

Elizabeth Earin: If you haven’t already, be sure to subscribe to the podcast on YouTube on your favorite podcast directory. If you want notes and links to resources discussed on the show, sign up to get them emailed to you each week at iterativemarketing.net. There, you’ll also find the Iterative Marketing blog and our community LinkedIn group, where you can share ideas and ask questions of your fellow Iterative Marketers. You can also follow us on Twitter. Our username is @iter8ive or email us at [email protected]

The Iterative Marketing Podcast is a production of Brilliant Metrics, a consultancy helping brands and agencies rid the world of marketing waste. Our producer is Heather Ohlman with transcription assistance from Emily Bechtel. Our music is by SeaStock Audio, Music Production and Sound Design. You can check them out at seastockaudio.com. We will see you next week. Until then, onward and upward!