by tradesmeninsights | Nov 22, 2015 | Marketing Tips, Social Marketing, Traditional Marketing, Uncategorized
By John Sonnhalter, Rainmaker Journeyman at Sonnhalter
Your potential audience doesn’t want quantity, they want quality. So if you’re trying to generate more content quicker just for the sake of having it, don’t waste your time. You need to accelerate demand, not noise.
I recently read an article by Carlos Hidalgo from Content Marketing Institute on How to Develop a Buyer-Centric Content Marketing Strategy that made several good points.
The best way to connect with your audience is to determine what kind of content they want. In other words, what motivates buyer behavior and how do they get information? If you know these, you can build the correct content architecture.
- What motivates buyer’s behavior? You need to have a deeper understanding of how a buyer thinks and then what do we need to say to get him over to our side.
- How do they get their information? What type of content do they prefer and where do they go to get it?
- Building a content architecture – Once you have an answer to the above questions, then you can map out a plan to get to them with the right info at the right time.
Content Marketing’s main purpose is to drive specific business outcomes. So the buyers aren’t looking for more info, just the right info. He points to a 2014 ANNUITAS survey where less than 3% of those responsible for content marketing activities were happy with their outcomes. Here’s another scary fact from Sirius Decisions — that 70-80% of all content is never used!
These are not good numbers to take to the C-Suite to get more funding. If you can’t achieve positive and measurable results that can be tied to sales revenues, you really don’t have a content strategy at all.
by tradesmeninsights | May 27, 2014 | Marketing Tips, Social Marketing, Traditional Marketing, Uncategorized
We all are working hard to create content in various forms, but what can we do to create the demand for it? If we build it, it will come philosophy won’t work.
In the b-to-b space where selling cycles can be long with numerous folks involved, you need to address several different issues along the way down the sales funnel, but do you know what they are?
I’ve long been a proponent of sales and marketing working closely together. After all, the objective of both is to sell more stuff.
I’m amazed that folks in the marketing department spend little or no time in the field talking with customers. I always recommend marketing folks spend time with the salesmen in the field, and I don’t mean a day or two. Spend a week or so and you’ll see customers in various stages of the buying process.
More importantly, you as a marketer have the unique opportunity, while in front of a prospect, to ask some really relevant questions that the salesman might not ask.
Questions like:
- What other types of info would be helpful in your decision-making process?
- What triggers a buyer to start the process?
- What kinds of concerns do your colleagues have that we might address?
- Focus on customers needs and concerns.
Why do I keep harping on getting in front of the customer? Let’s be honest. Most companies don’t know their customers well enough. They don’t know or understand the buying process well enough. They don’t have content framework to communicate with the potential buyer.
I read an interesting article recently by Jay Hidalgo in the Chief Content Officer magazine that outlines 3 steps to create a process to create demand for your content.
His User’s Guide consists of 3 things:
- Developing a buyer’s persona (know your customer)
- Define their buying process
- Developing a content framework for communicating with a buyer
He takes you through a process that engaged the combined efforts of sales and marketing resulting in a well-thought-out strategy, and content that will be on target that users will want to pass it on. You can read his entire article here.
