The Digital

Audience
Home
The Marketer’s guide to
increasing trust, loyalty and
engagement with your
audiences Explorin
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 Part 1

A new approach to 

B2B marketing

01
 A shifting tide?

The changing B2B buyer journey

57%

The person who buys from you today is embarking on a complex process. The
1
average B2B buyer journey involves between six to ten people and requires 27
2
touchpoints to convert (an increase of 10 since before the pandemic) . What’s striking,
of the buyer

is that more than half this journey is complete before any contact with sales. The journey is already
modern buyer wants to research and engage with your brand on their own terms.

complete by the
time prospects
3
reach out to sales.

27

Marketers are being forced to cut their cloth to suit. The focus on linear lead nurturing

campaigns with the sole aim of capturing MQLs and shipping them off to sales

has run into a number of problems. Prospects are now wary of filling in forms and
touchpoints are
sharing their details with companies who are not also laying the groundwork to
required on average
establish trust. And even those that do, aren’t necessarily ready to buy.

before a prospect
2
converts

Trust is the most important currency of all

At some point, we forgot that what we really wanted was for prospects to
90%

remember and emphasise with our content, not just download, skim it and move of B2B buyers trust

on. With B2B buyers trust is everything. So much so, that ideally we want people
peers as reliable
4

sources of information compared to only:

to come knocking on our door when they are ready to buy, and if we’re knocking

on theirs, we should at least have a good reason to.

But getting the right content at the right time is only half the story.....

29%

of B2B buyers who trust

4

sales teams from vendors

02
 The Digital Audience Home

Creating a community around content

To really ingrain our brand within the B2B buyer psyche, what matters is not
just the strength of a single piece of content, but how we can build a human
connection around it. Both live experiences and online communities offer this.
These channels cut through the noise because they allow buyers to interact
with those they trust most; industry influencers and peers.

Communities have been described by McKinsey as the “big idea of 2020’s Digitally
Content

enabled events Hub

marketing”5. If the energy invested into community building by companies In-person events,
Videos, articles,
such as LexisNexis, SAP, Cisco, IBM, Figma, Salesforce and Hubspot is anything Virtual events, webinars podcasts
to go by, then this statement appears to hold water.

Yet the problem with many communities is that they are built around a
message-based forum and not much else. What this effectively does is annex Digital
our members from our content.

Audience

Home
A new way to build a community

Networking
Learning
The next generation of communities offers both content and connection for Forums, chat,
academy

video calls Training, courses,

customers and prospects. They offer engaging ways to demonstrate deep CPD
industry expertise, providing a gateway to articles, reports, videos, webinars
and live events, alongside networking and, of course, forums.

Something we call a Digital Audience Home.

03
 Giving greater visibility into a
complex buyer journey
Before our prospects get to the point where they are ready
to have a conversation with sales they have likely already
visited company websites, read a blog and perhaps attended
a company-produced virtual or in-person event. Throughout
this non-linear journey there are multiple signals that are
missed for a variety of reasons.
Prospect Customer
More parts of this journey are being completed
anonymously
LEARN CONSIDER
CONSIDER SELECT
SELECT MPLEMENT
IIMPLEMENT GROW
GROW ADVOCATE
In-person touch-points such as face-to-face events 
 Podcasts
Case studies



 Webinars
(BOF)

Webinars Digital User groups

User groups
Whitepapers
Whitepapers Ad vocacy
Advocacy
programs

aren’t routinely embedded with digital touch-points Video series

Community Productvideos

Product Audience
Training

Training
Communit y
Community Programs

Blogs
forums Cvideos

ustomer calls

DCustomer

emos
Home Onboarding
Onboarding evevents
ents
Product

Product videos
Spea
peakkerer
programs
Where digital data capture is in place, multiple 
 Academies
In-person 

events videos
Programs
Whitepapers calls
Seminars
platforms can mean it is difficult to view granular 
 Virtual events Demos Seminars
User conference
detail all in one place - even if they do partially & webinars User
Conference
synchronise with your CRM.

A digital audience home can help fix each of these issues.

04
 Uniting live experiences 

and on-demand content
Let’s put an end to the content cul-de-sac

Our efforts to generate MQLs and progress audiences through specific CTAs,
can sometimes undermine the ultimate aim of marketing; to generate interest
and build long-term trust with our prospects and customers. What we really Course
want, of course, is to make our content experiences as compelling as possible,
so that we build closer relationships with our ideal accounts.

Using a topic cluster model for content, however, allows us to create a rabbit 5 Modu
les

hole effect, grouping different media according to topic. Users can watch a Cyber S
and at Wecurity Best P
150
2
ork ractice
recorded event session, read a companion blog, listen to an industry leader on at Hom
e ideo
a podcast or join a webinar, while saving articles to return to.


48% Co
mplete

Continu
A joined-up digital content strategy

A digital audience home can help join the dots between events, communities
and the rest of your digital marketing strategies across the buyer journey, from 16:32 13 150 2
prospect to lead and customer to advocate. This includes What are ESG Investors loJokin 20 un
2023 and beyond? 18:00g fo2r in3
Capturing data from digitally-enabled live event
G M
T
One area in which both regulat
ors and investors
Enabling you to run any kind of event or course from one platfor seek improvement in 2023 is in
presentation of ESG data.
the quality and
Providing a granular, first-person view of engagement across 

the buyer lifecycle


05 O nline & L
ondon
Invest ,Ta
b le 1
or’s 4
 A single destination to 

learn and engage

Peers
B2B buyers typically have to consult
UGC Forums multiple sources (both third-party and
brand-owned) to get the information they
Mentorship
Events need to excel in their career.

Brands often express the desire to take

Webinars 
 Whitepapers
 “ownership” of key topics. To do this well,
& video

Demos marketers need to think about directing

audiences to a single location, where we
N ews,

Academies podcasts
 can help further our buyer’s career and
& blogs
D emo 
 enable exploration of a topic in the round.

videos/ 
 Company

case 
 news
studies
Academies Marketers could spend all their efforts
talking to audiences where they are, but if
this isn’t followed up by offering them a
place where they want to be, we’ve
CRM
missed a huge opportunity.

CURRENT: Dispersed content

FUTURE: Digital audience hom

Multiple, fragmented channel Live and on-demand content in one plac

Data silos and uneven CRM integratio Single source of truth with CRM integratio
Slightly different brand experienc Consistent brand experienc
High potential for distraction/interruptio Stickier content experienc
Lack of personalisation

Ability to personalise
06
 Own your audience experience
Don’t build your home on rented land

When we rely only on third-party platforms such as LinkedIn, twitter, Facebook or

Youtube to disseminate our content, we essentially give up ownership of our
audience. When we post content on our brand’s page then it is at the mercy of the
social media’s algorithms, but these can be stacked against us.

It’s no secret that the organic reach of social posts is in decline - the average reach of
a post on a Facebook Page, for example, hovers around 5.20%, down from around
11% 6. Third-party platforms that make their money from advertising will always
prioritise paid posts. Even if our content does make it to our followers, they can easily
get distracted, decide not to click, or fail to convert on our website and we’re none
the wiser.

The problem with LinkedIn groups and Slack

LinkedIn groups are stagnating and often overwhelmed by spam, Slack communities
on the other hand, although popular, offer little way to promote content. In either
example, marketers risk splintering their audience, driving traffic away from their
website and missing out on the SEO benefits of driving traffic to particular pages.

Because a digital audience home can be embedded into your website, when
audiences like and share your content, publicly or to other members, they encourage
more page visits and boost SEO.

07
 Part 2

Using your audience

home to drive demand
08
 Bridging the gap between 

demand gen and lead capture
A digital audience home helps marketers bridge the gap between
Many organisations have transitioned away from a focus on lead generation, generating awareness, educating audiences and converting leads.
where performance was solely measured by quarterly MQL volumes, to a demand Marketers can leverage it to build trust while also capturing rich
generation model. Under this strategy, success is measured by things like the first-party interest and intent data in a less obtrusive way.
volume of meaningful conversations undertaken and improved pipeline velocity.

The aim is simple; to be top of mind when buyers start searching for a solution
and to only hand high-quality leads to sales. The reality, however, is that many
businesses need a mix of the following
Demand gen
Demand generation (creating awareness in your entire target buyer
population including in-market and out-of-market buyers
Demand capture (a sub-section of demand generation, aimed at educating the 

5% of in-market buyers who’ve expressed a degree of interest DIGITAL
Lead nurturing (focused on converting prospects with high intent)
AUDIENCE
HOME
ABM/ABX (Account-based marketing to a focused group of companies that
continues across the customer lifecycle)

Lead gen
In the demand generation model, emphasis is on building trust with un-gated
content. The problem of course is that it is increasingly difficult to track who is
engaging without some kind of form fill, i.e. getting hold of first-party data. A
digital audience home can help get prospects to a place where they feel
comfortable sharing this.

9
 Why is first-party data

so important? x365 insights generated by 

your digital audience home

Changes to cookie laws and a heightened awareness of privacy in general, are forcing
organisations to place a greater emphasis on first-party data. Put simply, it will be Videos 
 Topics

increasingly difficult to track intent signals, de-anonymise individuals and serve watched followed
adverts using third-party data sources.

Webinars
The rewards of prioritising first-party data are increasingly evident. In a study by In-person/

watched
virtual events

Boston Consulting Group, companies with a robust first party data strategy generated
attended
1.5x - 2.9x higher revenue than their counterparts7. Ant Duffin, one of Gartner’s Senior
Analysts highlights the need for marketers to get their strategy right - and fast.

Articles clicked Event sessions joined


on and e-books & content 

“Many marketers are still scrambling to shore up their first party data downloaded downloaded
strategy. As this data becomes more challenging to collect, marketers must
adapt by leveraging new sources of data to fuel personalisation and build Topics 
 Courses 

deep customer relationships.”

searched for completed

A digital audience home offers rich first-party data because, at some point, prospects
need to complete a sign-up form to get the full offering. After they’ve done this we Podcasts Polling 

can track, in granular detail, what they are clicking and watching and joining across accesed data
Qualitative
the buyer journey.

1.5 - 2.9x

feedback

more revenue can be

generated by brands with a
solid first-party data strategy
10 than their counterparts 7

 Turn invisible prospects into

known, engaged marketable
audiences (KEMA) How to tempt prospects to sign-up
to your community

Just one of the ways to leverage a digital audience home is to help educate new
prospects landing on your website. Media sites have been doing this for years SEO expert Moz offers new prospects who sign
by making some content publicly available to draw people in, then once up free tools such as their Link Explorer, Keyword
prospects have read a certain amount, asking them to sign up to read more.

Explorer and Domain analysis, giving them 10 free

queries per month, as well as access to the
Once we know who these people are, we can then start to identify those who MozCon conference.

are a good fit for our product and who are also engaged. We call these people
our KEMA, or our Known Engaged Marketable Audience.
 Refine Labs, a strategy and research firm for

marketers offers free sign up to The Vault

offering resources, videos and events for free
once you’ve signed in with your details. Members
Dangle a juicier carrot

can sign up to a paid subscription to access to

their Slack community and coaching services.

The chances of our prospects completing a form are now much higher than if
we just used a conventional lead-generation campaign. Firstly, they’ve had time
to read a considerable volume of our un-gated content and see its value and
secondly we’re not just giving them one piece of content. We are offering them
exclusive access to an ecosystem of insights, live events and the ability to join
the community and trouble-shoot problems with their peers.

From our buyer’s point of view, the fear of entering a drip campaign where they
will receive a flood of sales emails has been reduced. It feels like a different
value transition.

11
 Strengthen existing relationships 

with our KEMA
The digital audience home has, by now, helped us identify more of our
prospects and what their interests are. However, this is only half the
battle. On average at any given time, only roughly 5 -15% of buyers are
in-market and ready to buy. The other 85 - 95% might well be a good
fit for the company, and even regularly reading your content, but not
looking for your product or services just yet.
For those of our KEMA who might be ready to buy, we need to listen
out for buying signals and start targeting them more proactively.
These buying signals, or intent data, might include more bottom-of
the-funnel content they have accessed within the digital audience
home, in combination with anonymised intent data from reputable

third-party sources and tracked visits to your website page.

Marketers need to find a way to stay top of mind in both audiences. As We are now better equipped for the 

Peter Weinberg from the B2B Institute comments:

next stage; closing deals.

“If you wait until the buyer goes in-market, it’s already
too late. You need to prime the market far in advance.”

For those of our KEMA who are not yet ready to buy, our mission is to
build trust and problem awareness with useful content, news and
networking opportunities. We want our brand to be top of mind when
they ask for a demo, invite us to take part in a pitch or submit an RFP.

12
 3. Close more deals with ABM and
personalised lead-nurturing

When it comes to personalisation in marketing, the research in unequivocal. The Using your community for ABM

more targeted the campaign, the more likely people are to convert. A digital
audience home provides you with the data to do this, as well as the environment to Address finding software PostTag, created a
start small group or one-to-one conversations.

private online group, The Last Mile Consortium

to bring together their key ABM accounts within
Account-based marketing

the supply chain vertical. They invited them to a

series of roundtable events and served them
There are two main ways to use a digital audience home for ABM. Firstly you can with content that explicitly dealt with their
use it as a listening and data capture tool to learn more about the interests of your shared problem. The result was that when their
key accounts and target them with personalised messaging, for example through clients were ready to buy they came to them
LinkedIn adverts and promoted content. You can also analyse data from directly, enabling them to land enterprise deals
conversation threads to build a clearer picture of the topics and themes that are with Domino’s Pizza, British Gas and Arrow XL.

resonating with your audiences.

Alternatively, you could create private groups specifically to build relationships

with these customers, as well as having internal experts on hand to add their
perspectives through events or answering questions posed by the group.

Lead nurturing

76%
up to 50%

of customers are 
 reduction in customer

As long as its not too prominent, bottom and middle of the funnel content can also more likely to buy from acquisition costs can be
live in your digital audience home, such as product demo videos and case studies. brands that personalise achieved by offering
By tracking data about our member’s interests and buying intent, we can trigger
interactions 9

personalisation 10

personalised lead nurturing campaigns when prospects are likely to be ready to buy.




13
 Other ways to boost performance

with an audience home

Draw a bigger crowd to your conference: With audiences Create a partner advocacy program: By inviting partners
more selective over which events to attend, promoting your and advocates to your community you can start leveraging
flagship conference within your community and letting others their content within the community and attracting new
see who else plans to attend helps maintain audience share members
Measure content performance: Measuring content popularity, Internal events and communities: Bring remote workforces
shares and likes can help you identify what to be producing together to join events, participate in advocacy groups, find
more of and share information and access online learning courses or
virtual town halls.
Crowdsource expert opinion for new content: Improve
content marketing by seeking quotes, opinions and video
shorts for your pillar content pieces
Audience research: Leverage a cheaper and faster way to do
qualitative and qualitative market research
Increase webinar attendance: Promoting middle of the funnel
webinars within your community helps boost attendance and
can move prospects more quickly down the buying funnel


14
 Part 3
How to build your
digital audience
home...and grow

a community
15
 Establishing a digital audience home 

A four point plan
While a digital audience home is something that can be built to a
deadline, community is something that will ‘grow’ over time,
provided you put the right foundations in place. Focus less on
pushing your audience towards joining a community and more
about using your engaging content as a pull factor.

Alpha
Define, build and test
Work out what your MLP (minimum loveable product) is - do you
want to create an engaging content hub, or encourage members
to hold active discussions?

Beta

Small member base. Understand what

it takes to make your audience home work

Look at your highest performing content and work out how it can
be segmented. Then identify the next new asset - could this be
launched to your community first before other public channels?

Launch

Establish your audience home and, when you

are ready, encourage more interaction
Build a plan for rolling out more articles, blogs, and migrating
content over from your website, as well as how often you will post
new content on your platform.
Scale

Increase the cadence and types of content, 


both live and on demand

16
 Phase One: 
 Find the North Star of your audience home
Alpha What is its driving purpose that will attract your audience

Define

Build

Test

Ask yourself Things to consider Points to remember

What are the objectives for your
audience home
What’s the user journey to access gated
content?
Are you looking to add private groups
within your audience home
What will be the hooks to attract them
What will make your audience home
sticky
Do you want to focus on building an
engagement hub or having
asynchronous member interaction and
discussion?
What existing content do you have
What can you re-use, re-purpose or
recycle
What content types will deliver most
value to your audience
How often will you need to post new
content?
What will be your hero pillar pieces that
attract people?
How will you communicate/promote
new pieces of content to your
audiences
A topic grouping and content tagging
Work with your provider to map out
different persona journeys before you start
testin
Most of the technical testing should be
done by your provide
Look for vendors that offer a content
migration servic
Factor in time to check your content is
displaying exactly how you’d like it to

system that mirrors how your event

content is tagge
Do you want to switch membership
directories and networking on
immediately or when you have a certain
17 critical number of subscribers?

 Find your most engaged, loyal prospects and

Phase Two: 

test with a small group

Beta

Feedback

Have in place Turn testers into community advocates If interaction is one of the goals of your

audience home

A breakdown of features you need Ask partners as well as customer

feedback on, allowing time for Ask them to continue to provide Create a clear offering for your

unstructured general observations and feedback for future update advocates e.g. discounts, speaking slots,

honest opinions as well. The MoSCoW Ask them to share launch posts on featured articles, other opportunities to

framework (Must-haves, Should-have, social medi raise their profil

Could-have, Won’t-have) often works well Provide them with the calendar of Ask them to commit to a regular program

A timeline for incorporating feedbac community events - ask if they would of user-generated events, mentorship or

A plan for asking enthusiastic participants like to join the first community meet-up

content creatio

if they would agree to become advocates

Ask them to chair a community event

18

Phase Three:
Launch
Step 1. Focus on content
Step 2. Expand
engagement channel
Make sure your launch plan contains
A framework for soft launch (ideally at least
three months before your flagship event
Promotion at your next in-person even
Email outreach (newsletter etc.
A social media pla
An internal comms pla
Plan how often you will take feedback from
A communication framework for sales team
A plan for your membership directory and
how accessible this will b
A content release schedule
During/shortly after launch
Be clear about what’s in it for your member
Send a newsletter out within the first month
19
You’ve got all the feedback, now it’s time for launch.
Make sure you involve internal communication teams
as well as the C-suite.
Step 3. Encourage more
discussio
Add engagement channels such as Create a community event pla
podcasts, webinars, online training Include at least one community-led event
courses and spin-off virtual event in the first 12 month
Consider opening registration to your Include community events in the run up to
flagship events via the communit and during your flagship conferenc
Consider creating private groups within Plan a series of in-person social
communities
your community - (for example running
quarterly feedback sessions
Create a plan for encouraging discussio
Interview speakers and members during or
in-between events to ask what their burning
questions are and post them in the
community or find subject experts to
comment
 You should always be led by the needs of your members.

Phase Four:
 What’s in it for me? That’s what your audience are

thinking and what marketers should always have top of mind.

Scale

Keep attracting new Encourage user- Host community-led

member generated conten event

Encourage your key clients to visit your Create a channel for short-form 
 Ask advocates to commit to hosting

digital audience home for webinars, virtual video conten roundtables, webinars or smaller events live

roundtables, slides, meeting notes etc. as Encourage community members to or pre-recorde

well as to join the communit upload their own articles and video Schedule brain dates:: let members take

Keep a regular cadence of virtual, 
 Encourage employee-led content the lead with one-on-one or small group

in-person and hybrid interactio production for internal communities and conversations based on topics where each

Promote your audience home to new and also external communities (under member has expertise

existing customer moderation

Note down questions taken at events that Post videos that encourage members to

you didn’t have time to answer then direct generate their own answer

attendees to your audience home with a Ask users for opinions on fresh content

promise that speakers will address e.g. a new newsletter format, research

questions ther report, webpage etc.

Keep a regular pipeline of content flowing

by segmenting recorded sessions into 20

minute soundbite

Keep partners involved

20
 The flywheel effect

Encouraging users to upload their own content is one way to

maintain and actively grow your community.

The more UGC (User-Generated Content) is produced, the more

other members will feel your digital audience home is a safe space
to self-publish and will be encouraged to do so. This multiplier or
flywheel effect reduces the pressure on community managers to
create content.

Interestingly, communities also tend to generate content in other

ways. For example, they can provide the critical volume required to
justify more satellite events as well as community-led gatherings,
which can be written up as blogs, recorded or used as opportunities
to create videos with members.

Both UGC and content captured from satellite events can be used
across wider marketing campaigns to build authenticity, establish
trust and win more business. This, in turn, means more potential
members for your community and so the loop continues.

21
 Final thoughts

The daily lives of our professional audiences are busier than ever and filled The good news is that many marketers are already doing a lot of
with many B2B brands vying for their attention. People are more selective the hard work producing great live experiences and on-demand
about the emails they read, forms they complete and even the in-person assets. By bringing all of this work all together in one destination
events they attend.

they are maximising the value they provide to audiences and

capitalising on the content they already have.

B2B marketing can sometimes feel like a never-ending arms race to capture
audiences, particularly when it comes to their data. But Marketers cannot force
out-of-market buyers through email drip campaigns and hope they will
immediately convert. Instead they must complement outbound activity with
building awareness and generating demand - a process which revolves
A digital audience home can be used in many different ways, as a
soft landing into public online communities that attract new
prospects, as a dedicated private space for ABM, or as a way to
keep clients engaged in-between flagship events.

around trust, education and giving audiences a reason to come to you.

Regardless of how you choose to use it, it can offer a key way to
These activities will only work effectively if we offer both in-market and out of differentiate your audience offering, start a new type of community
market buyers a fresh way to engage with our brand and our content. A digital and make your brand the destination of choice.

audience home allows us to hold the attention of our buyers until they are
ready to engage with sales teams or fee earners. Not only that - it continues to
engage them across the customer lifecycle, while helping us build a better
picture of their interests, challenges and eventually, buying signals.

About Totem

Curious about creating a digital audience home? 

Visit www.wearetotem.io to find out more.

22
 Reference
Gartner: Future of B2B Buying Journey Report click here to acces
Forrester: 2021 B2B Buying Survey click here to acces
CEB and Google: The Digital evolution in B2B Marketing click here to acces
Forrester: 2023 B2B Brand And Communications Survey click here to acces
McKinsey: A better way to build a brand: The community flywheel click here to acces
Hootsuite: The state of digital in Q3 2019 click here to acces
Think with Google and Boston Consulting Group: 5 keys to creating value with first-party data click here to acces
McKinsey: The value of getting personalization right—or wrong—is multiplying click here to acces
Matt Ariker, Jason Heller, Alenjandro Diaz and Jesko Perry. “How marketers can personalise at scale,” Harvard Business Review, 2015 

click here to access

23