Content Marketing Blueprint Questionnaire
Intro and Contact Information
Welcome to the questionnaire for the Content Marketing BlueprintTM.
If you've made it to this page, it's because you are taking the first step towards having a full
content marketing strategy developed for you. This strategy will include a large amount of
incredibly valuable educational information, content ideas, scope of work, and more.
However, it requires is an upfront time investment in the form of completing this
questionnaire.
With this in mind, please pay careful attention to all sections of the questionnaire. Each section
has an introduction and tips for answering the questions, including good and bad examples of
answers. Stop and think about your answers, pull in other team members, and seriously
consider incorporating an experienced member of the sales team during this process.
The survey is going to ask questions about a variety of topics, including those below:
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Ideal Customers
Problems your prospects face that lead them to you
Questions asked during the sales process
Pushbacks that your sales team get prior to making a sale
This survey should take close to two hours to complete, but it's worth every second. Your input
here is invaluable to the process; and the more time and effort you put in here, the better the
strategy will be.
1) Please provide your contact information below.
First Name*: ____________________________________________
Last Name*: ____________________________________________
Company Name*: ____________________________________________
Company URL*: ____________________________________________
Title*: ____________________________________________
Street Address*: ____________________________________________
Apt/Suite/Office*: ____________________________________________
City*: ____________________________________________
State*: ____________________________________________
Zip*: ____________________________________________
Country*: ____________________________________________
Email Address*: ____________________________________________
Phone Number*: ____________________________________________
Fax Number*: ____________________________________________
Mobile Phone*: ____________________________________________
How many visitors do you currently receive on a monthly basis?*
() 0-100
() 101-500
() 501-1,000
() 1,001-3,000
() 3,001-5,000
() 5,001-10,000
() Greater than 10,000
What is the expected lifetime value of a new customer?*
() Up to $100
() $101-$500
() $501-$1,000
() $1,001-$2,500
() $2,501-$5,000
() $5,001-$10,000
() $10,001-$25,000
() Greater than $25,000
Do you currently use agency services to facilitate your marketing?*
() Yes
() No
Do you currently use PPC advertising services like Google AdWords or LinkedIn ads? If
yes, how much?*
() Yes
() No
If you could improve one of the following aspects of your current online marketing, which
would most impact your business?*
() More leads
() Better qualified leads
() Lower cost of leads
() More website traffic
() Higher quality content
Part 1: Company Information
On this page, you will be answering questions about your company, industry, and ideal target
customers.
Company Name*
____________________________________________
Company URL*
____________________________________________
What Industry do you operate in?*
Describe your industry by answering the following question: What does your company do?
Keep it short. Good Examples: "Inbound Marketing" or "CRM Software"
____________________________________________
Who are your top three competitors?
Competitor 1: _________________________
Competitor 1 URL: _________________________
Competitor 2: _________________________
Competitor 2 URL: _________________________
Competitor 3: _________________________
Competitor 3 URL: _________________________
Part 2: Customer Insights
Success in inbound marketing first begins with understanding your customers. Who buys from
you? What problems do they have? How can their problems be solved?
The biggest mistake that many marketers make is not understanding that their content strategy
should be aligned around their customers. After all, you write content for your prospects, and
not for your management team. If you start with understanding your prospective customer,
then you will be well on your way to inbound marketing success.
This page asks questions to get an understanding of your ideal buyers, the problems they have
in the marketplace, and the goals they may have in seeking out valuable, helpful, content.
Let's first start with basic information about your ideal customer. We realize that you may have
many types of target customers, and that's a good thing. However, the Content Marketer's
Blueprint is all about focus. We want to hone in on one specific customer (the ideal customer)
and understand the information they need. This type of focus will help tremendously during the
test phase of an inbound marketing strategy implementation.
Tips for completing this section
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Answer this section by thinking of your ideal customer. Meaning, if you could only do
business with one type of customer, who would it be?
There are generally three aspects to the ideal customer to think about for this question:
title, department, and type of company/industry.
Consider including further descriptive detail about the company such as revenue,
number of employees, growth rate and/or location.
Most Helpful Examples:
"VP of Marketing at an Enterprise Technology Company with 100+ Employees"
"Managing Director at a Major Hospital"
Less Helpful Examples:
"Vice President"
"Manager of IT"
What is your ideal customer?*
____________________________________________
Customer Problems and Goals
Now it's time to think about the problems that your customers/prospects are facing, and their
related goals. It's highly unlikely that a potential customer ended up on your website by pure
chance. If they ended up on your website, reading your content, it's very likely that they have a
problem they are facing that triggers them to seek out information. Either they came to your
website through a client referral, through social media, or most importantly: through organic
search. Whatever the reason, this website visitor likely has a problem they are facing and are
looking for a solution. These problems are called triggers, and they have a
connected goal meant to solve their problem.
Luckily, Inbound Marketing is all about getting found when your customers are triggered to
search for helpful information about their problems. To create quality buyer personas, you
need an understanding of the likely triggers for your buyer persona, and their associated goals.
For example: The VP of Marketing at an Enterprise Technology Firm has seen multiple months
of declining website visitors (the trigger). The VP wants to increase website visitors (the goal).
Therefore, the VP seeks out information on increasing website visitors. When this trigger
occurs, you want to make sure that you are producing valuable content that provides helpful
information related to their goals, establishing trust and thought leadership for your company.
What are your buyer persona's goals and triggers? Please list three separate triggers and their
connected goals.*
Tips for completing this question
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Think of triggers as problems. What problems do your potential customers face?
These must be triggers and goals that your company could possibly address.
However, they should not be triggers or goals that are specific to your brand.
There should not be any direct references to your brand, products, or services.
The goals must match up closely with the triggers.
The goals should be narrow enough to be specific, but broad enough for content
creation opportunities.
Each goal needs to be different from the other goals.
Goals are often simply the inverse of the trigger/problem. If the problem your customer
is facing is declining market share, the goal is likely to gain market share.
Likewise, if you are having trouble thinking of triggers, then think of the goals that your
company accomplishes. The inverse of that is probably the trigger. Does your company
help companies recruit executive level talent? Then the problem or trigger might be the
loss of key executives.
Good examples of triggers: Declining market share, marketing isn't working, need for
expansion, high growth
Good examples of connected goals: Increase market share, learn more effective marketing
tactics, expand into new region, hire new employees
Trigger 1: _________________________
Goal 1 (Connected to Trigger 1): _________________________
Trigger 2: _________________________
Goal 2 (Connected to Trigger 2): _________________________
Trigger 3: _________________________
Goal 3 (Connected to Trigger 3): _________________________
Part 3: Customer Questions and Answers
You now have identified the ideal customer, their problems (triggers) and their goals. You are
well on your way to having an understanding of the buyer persona that will allow you to create
targeted content that provides helpful information related to the problems your prospects are
facing. There is one final step: developing a list of likely questions that your personas may ask
related to their goals.
The reality is that many prospects will type questions directly into Google. For example, a
prospect with high revenue growth may type into Google "How do I find and attract new
employees?" Your goal is to insure that you are producing valuable content that discusses and
answers those questions. Then, you rely on the power of inbound marketing and Google to
insure that your content gets found.
On this page of the questionnaire, we will be identifying eight questions your prospects may be
asking about each goal you identified in the previous section. Then, you will provide the
answers to those questions in the associated text boxes.
Note: This is a long portion of the questionnaire, but it is vital to your inbound marketing
strategy. These questions and answers should be robust, as they feed directly into the creation
of content ideas. Better quality responses in this section lead to much higher quality content
ideas. After you complete this section, the remaining sections will go very quickly.
Remember: If you find yourself getting tired while completing this section, that is okay.
Simply scroll down to the bottom and click "Back". Your progress will be saved and you can
come back and complete the rest later. You will be taken back to the table of contents, where
you are welcome to move on to other sections.
Tips on completing this section:
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Your questions should be one sentence long, and related directly to the goal.
It's a good idea to start with a broad question first, then narrow down. For example, the
broad question "How do I increase website traffic?" can be further narrowed down into
"How do I increase website traffic using social media?" and "How do I increase website
traffic using content marketing?"
Each question should be different, in order to increase the variety of content ideas.
If there are multiple answers to the same question, list them all through separating
them with commas or semi-colons.
Your answers should not be brand specific. They should not directly reference your
brand's products or services. You should answer the questions as if you have zero
opportunity to sell them your services, and you are simply trying to help them out.
Keep your answers short, but still include detail.
The first goal you identified for your buyer persona was: _____________ What information
are your prospects searching for related to this goal? Then, what is the answer to that
question?*
What questions are they asking in the
marketplace?
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
What are the answers to those questions?
The second goal you identified for your buyer persona was: _____________ What
information are your prospects searching for related to this goal? Then, what is the answer to
that question?*
What questions are they asking in the
marketplace?
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
What are the answers to those questions?
The third goal you identified for your buyer persona was: _____________ What information
are your prospects searching for related to this goal? Then, what is the answer to that
question?*
What questions are they asking in the
marketplace?
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
What are the answers to those questions?
Part 4: The Sales Process
The hardest part of the questionnaire is now over, and you are in the final stretch. The next
questions should be quick, and much easier to answer.
The questions in this section will focus on the sales process. The answers in this section will help
us to better understand your current lead sources, the common questions prospects have, and
the final pushbacks they express.
The ultimate goal is to utilize your answers to mirror and automate the sales process through
delivery of targeted content. This targeted content will assist in nurturing leads down the
various stages of the funnel, until they raise their hand and give you permission to sell your
products and/or services to them.
Luckily, inbound marketing is an incredibly powerful tool for mirroring and automating the sale
process. Now is a good time to bring in an experienced member of the sales team to assist with
these questions.
Please list the following lead sources in terms of importance for your marketing and sales
teams:*
_______Website
_______Outbound (e.g. Cold Calling, Contact Development Research, Events)
_______Social Media
_______Client Referrals
_______Partner Referrals
What are the three most common questions that your sales team experiences early in the
sales process? Unlike the questions you wrote for your buyer personas, these
questions are often brand-specific. They are typically questions about your brands, products,
and services rather than broader industry questions. Good examples would be "How much do
your services cost?" or "What features does your software have?"*
Common Question 1: _________________________
Common Question 2: _________________________
Common Question 3: _________________________
In a traditional sales process, prospects often have pushbacks in the final stages of the buying
process. These pushbacks are typically final objections just before they decide to purchase.
These objections would normally arise when they saleperson asks "Why wouldn't you want
to work with us?". Some common pushbacks are "your services are too expensive" and "this
will take too long to implement."
What are the three pushbacks that your sales team often encounter during the sales
process? *
Pushback 1: _________________________
Pushback 2: _________________________
Pushback 3: _________________________
Part 5: Sales and Marketing Content Assets and Offers
This is the final section of the questionnaire. On this page you will be asked to share details of
your current sales and marketing content assets and offers. These assets and offers are
essential to channel website visitors into various stages of the funnel.
Which of these content assets do you currently have?*
[ ] Whitepapers
[ ] Ebooks
[ ] Books
[ ] Videos
[ ] Recorded Webinars
[ ] Slide Decks
[ ] Brochures/Services Overview
[ ] Product/Service Demos
[ ] Case Studies
[ ] Testimonials
[ ] Other
What are the names of some of your content assets? Please list them here.
2) Do you have any of the following sales offers meant to give prospects a reason to interact
directly with the sales team in a selling situation?*
[ ] Free Quote
[ ] Free Consultation
[ ] Free Assessment
[ ] Other