Working our way down the list of essential Lead-to-Revenue (L2R)
components, I have covered sales models, branding, offers and processes.
You can review any of these articles here. But of all the components, content marketing can make the most difference to your success.
Content marketing sounds very simple on its surface but I can tell you from
lots of experience that it can be tough to do it right. Even if you have
innate writing ability, this may not translate well into results-producing
writing if you don’t do your homework and understand what you are selling
and who you are selling it to. Plus, prospects are inundated with content
from your competitors, many of whom take the creation of content very
seriously.
Like Dana Brookes, author of
Content Marketing Revolution: Seize Control of Your Market in Five Key Steps, who stated,
“Think of every contact a customer has with your brand as the most important encounter of your life.”
Businesses that need to increase their brand awareness, credibility, and
preference with their target audiences are turning to content marketing in
greater numbers as a proven, pull-marketing strategy that aligns with
business metrics. Whether your goals are to increase market awareness,
drive website traffic, build lead generation or improve sales funnel
conversion, understanding how to create copy that delivers results is
fundamental to achieving success.
From strategy to execution, you need content that is consistent and
on-target. To leverage your brand’s core promise, quality content turns
differentiators into a narrative that systematically engages your critical
audiences. Tailored content for every stage of the process compels
prospects to take action. In a
Lead-2-Revenue Machine, we are not creating content for content’s sake, but rather to drive
specific business objectives.
The Payoff Earned from Effective B2B Content
Effective B2B content attracts visitors to your website, provides value for
your social media outreach, converts website visitors to leads, and much
more. High-quality B2B content can have a big payoff in five major areas:
1. Increases brand awareness. People buy from companies they know and
quality content can help you get known.
2. Makes it easier for prospects to find you. Quality content helps web
searchers find you quickly. This is true for both non-paid organic search
traffic as well as paid methods such as pay-per-click that depend on a
quality score.
3. Credibility boost. Visitors to your website will judge you by the
quality and quantity of the content that is relevant to their needs. Good
content can reinforce your brand promise and educate your prospects.
4. Lower cost-per-lead. Content marketing is a pull-marketing strategy that
produces leads at a fraction of the cost of push-marketing leads. Quality
content can help convert lookers into readers and readers into leads.
5. Shorter sales cycle. Good content helps prospects learn about your
products and services, thus self-qualifying themselves. This enables
prospects to make a much faster purchase decision, especially if you are
targeting content based on where they are in the buying cycle.
To shorten the B2B or B2C sales cycle, there is no right or wrong when it
comes to content length. The point is to get quickly digestible information
to the prospect in the easiest manner possible. Brevity is often better
than comprehensive content, but do make sure that you have links from a
top-line piece to more detailed information.
Six Keys to Transform Your Content Marketing
1. Identify target segments carefully. The more time sales
reps spend with people/companies that are legitimate prospects, the more
successful they will be. As
Joe Pulizzi, Founder of the Content Marketing Institute put it, “Actually talk to your
customers. Use the language that they use. Talk about the things they talk
about. Never feed salad to a lion.” As one who has probably spent too much
time trying to feed salad to lions, I appreciate Joe’s point.
2. Show, don’t tell. Include examples and explain your
brand story: Use visuals the way a fiction writer uses words – lead
prospects along the path.
3. Present a powerful message. Attract the right prospects
and let the unqualified go before they use valuable rep time. Your brand
promise, value proposition and benefits must be compelling, differentiated
and crystal clear.
4. Understand the buyer’s “compelling events.” What are
the triggers that motivate the buyer to purchase now? What are the
consequences? Put your offer(s) in front of the prospect when the
motivations and/or consequences are greatest.
5. Let your website do some of the heavy lifting. The
right website content assists prospects at several stages of the buying
journey including FAQs, product specifications, pricing (if applicable) and
how-to guides.
6. Provide value. You will often get better results if you
change your content focus from “How can I sell this prospect” to “How can I
serve this prospect”?
As an example of how to use content marketing to make a difference – we
worked with a large East Coast software company that had a traditional
method of creating content like case studies, blog posts, etc. The content
was focused on features and benefits and while the content was solid, the
buyer’s perspective was missing.
To solve the problem, we shifted to focus on the challenges and pain points
faced by prospects and on telling stories about companies overcame
challenges and achieved success using our client’s products. We used
challenges and pain points in videos and podcasts to provide “quick-hits”
and serve buyers and non-buyers alike. The result: a 90 percent increase in
website visitors and 120% increase in qualified leads.
Many companies suffer from “paralysis by analysis” when it comes to
content. The key to success is to get started. You can’t procrastinate and
hope that positive results will miraculously happen. Make the effort today
and begin creating a strategy and then a cascade of good-quality B2B
content that will help you meet marketing and sales goals. And make sure
your content works to within the framework of these components we talked
about earlier in this series: a powerful brand, an effective sales model.
It also must be delivered using an efficient process to measure its
results.
Too many companies throw content at the wall and hope it sticks. Get
started with a strategy that solves customer problems and create content
today that will ensure you meet revenue goals tomorrow.
For me, your point #6 is the most important. Content must have relevance and usefulness, i.e. value. As noted in a post about content from a couple of years ago: “Core to any good content strategy is the effectiveness of websites as information sources and relationship-builders. Without innovative and useful content, not only will Google not reward the site with high search placement, but associated efforts – email campaigns, social media marketing, and search engine optimization – will also fall short. Why? Because, even if they are attracted, visitors won’t have a good usage and emotional experience, and they will be less likely to return or convert. And, because return frequency and/or conversion are the twin objectives of any good content development program, that’ll translate to content ineffectiveness, or worse.”
Hi Michael, thanks so much for your thoughtful comments. Creating value is indeed critical to successful content marketing. I urge our copywriters to always be cognizant of the fact that when it comes to website copy, they are writing for two purposes – to be attractive to Google’s algorithm and to be of value to the prospect or customer.
Chris