1. Listen for the "pain points" and interests of your prospects and customers
The content you create must be relevant to the needs of your target audience. That means it must be about them, not about you. This idea can be difficult to remember when we are focused on boosting demand for our products and services; however, buyers usually have many, often indistinguishable, choices and will choose to do business with the company that they think understands their needs best.
2. Develop different content to appeal to different types of decision makers, purchase influencers, and opinion leaders
The decision to buy your products and services is usually made by more than one person. And don't forget the importance of word-of-mouth and referrals. Content that speaks to one group, say software programmers, will not speak to the person who is approving the purchase or writing the check.
Consider developing "buyer personas" (fictional characters with personalities and traits matching those of different target groups) to help the authors of content understand how to address the interests of your target consumers.
3. Create different content for three stages in the buying cycle
As you develop content to connect with your target, think "early," "middle," and "late":
Some prefer to read and some may prefer short videos or audio; some may prefer serious, in-depth pieces and some may enjoy short, humorous content. Different formats may also be more suitable to the different stages in the buying cycle.
Consider ways of repurposing content in different formats if that content is well received. For example, if a webinar is well received, consider publishing a summary of ideas in an e-newsletter or as a whitepaper.
5. Use social media to build relationships and directly engage with prospects and customers
When you adopt new social media platforms for distributing content, make sure to incorporate conversation features. You may be attracted to social media as a content distribution platform because of its relatively low cost and word-of-mouth potential, but your prospects and customers who have embraced such new platforms as Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc., expect you to engage them in dialogue.
With these new media, you must learn new skills to shift some of your resources from broadcast campaigns to conversation and one-to-one relationships. When you employ these new media in your campaigns, at the very least make efforts to think about enhancing your customer relationship management (CRM).
6. To build your brand identity, publish content that differentiates your organization and its offerings in the minds of consumers
In most industries, customers have many choices for products and services that can meet their needs in any one category. In short, buyers are in control. Accordingly, it is not enough to say you publish the best or high-quality content. The problem is, quality is not a distinguishing brand attribute; you must publish content that is useful, distinctive, and memorable. Most important, the content must be consistent with what you want consumers to think when they see your brand name.
With that in mind, the creators of your content—including writers and designers—will have the necessary guidance for producing material that meets your goals. To make sure the output is always "on brand" and fresh, regularly audit your content library and refresh the resources there.
7. Shift dollars from "push your offering" content to "educate the target" content
Buyers today conduct research in virtually every product category before buying. They use the Web to find information that makes them better consumers. Ideally, your content will be among the resources they find and consume. Accordingly, invest in creating educational content.
Also, learn the new ways of generating "earned media"—such as organic search marketing, blogs and other social media, and public relations—that attract ("pull") an audience of prospects and customers so you can save money on "purchased media," which buys attention.
Good content will earn media distribution and thereby save you money, but you should be prepared to make content marketing a significant share of your marketing investment. Devote resources and attention to conducting tests to learn how to optimize your combination of content-publishing tactics.
8. Select metrics that will measure progress toward reaching your goals
Each goal you establish should have an appropriate success metric. Some metrics are intermediary indicators—not measures of business results. For example, Web traffic is widely used as a success metric, but it is not a measure of demand generation results. Similarly, email newsletter open and click-through rates are also intermediary measures.
For content marketing to demonstrate ROI, the metrics you use to evaluate strategy and campaigns must be measures related to demand generation. Sometimes, however, it is impossible to determine a clear cause of any particular effect, and often outputs are produced by more than one marketing activity. So understanding what works for you and what doesn't may take time and systematic testing.
In the end, you must be able to determine and credibly report the financial impact of your content-marketing efforts.
Guest post: MarketingProfs
The content you create must be relevant to the needs of your target audience. That means it must be about them, not about you. This idea can be difficult to remember when we are focused on boosting demand for our products and services; however, buyers usually have many, often indistinguishable, choices and will choose to do business with the company that they think understands their needs best.
2. Develop different content to appeal to different types of decision makers, purchase influencers, and opinion leaders
The decision to buy your products and services is usually made by more than one person. And don't forget the importance of word-of-mouth and referrals. Content that speaks to one group, say software programmers, will not speak to the person who is approving the purchase or writing the check.
Consider developing "buyer personas" (fictional characters with personalities and traits matching those of different target groups) to help the authors of content understand how to address the interests of your target consumers.
3. Create different content for three stages in the buying cycle
As you develop content to connect with your target, think "early," "middle," and "late":
- The Early Stage is the time when prospects are researching the category and learning about how the offerings can meet their needs to either cut costs or sell more. This stage is when thought leadership is particularly important: Though prospects are not shopping for specific vendors, they are certainly forming opinions about who is trustworthy. Therefore, consider aligning your company with a third-party who has instant credibility—such as an objective analyst or consultant— by licensing a third-party report or presentation or commissioning a new whitepaper or e-book.
- Your prospects may be a long way off from researching alternative offerings or they may be just a short time away from rapidly learning about potential suppliers. This phase is the Middle Stage, the time when prospects are gathering information about specific, alternative ways they may meet the challenges they have, including ways others like them have solved their problems.
- Finally, you will need different content for those in the Late Stage, those who are ready to buy (including your current customers, who you hope will be loyal to you) and are evaluating the merits of alternative offerings on their short list.
Some prefer to read and some may prefer short videos or audio; some may prefer serious, in-depth pieces and some may enjoy short, humorous content. Different formats may also be more suitable to the different stages in the buying cycle.
Consider ways of repurposing content in different formats if that content is well received. For example, if a webinar is well received, consider publishing a summary of ideas in an e-newsletter or as a whitepaper.
5. Use social media to build relationships and directly engage with prospects and customers
When you adopt new social media platforms for distributing content, make sure to incorporate conversation features. You may be attracted to social media as a content distribution platform because of its relatively low cost and word-of-mouth potential, but your prospects and customers who have embraced such new platforms as Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc., expect you to engage them in dialogue.
With these new media, you must learn new skills to shift some of your resources from broadcast campaigns to conversation and one-to-one relationships. When you employ these new media in your campaigns, at the very least make efforts to think about enhancing your customer relationship management (CRM).
6. To build your brand identity, publish content that differentiates your organization and its offerings in the minds of consumers
In most industries, customers have many choices for products and services that can meet their needs in any one category. In short, buyers are in control. Accordingly, it is not enough to say you publish the best or high-quality content. The problem is, quality is not a distinguishing brand attribute; you must publish content that is useful, distinctive, and memorable. Most important, the content must be consistent with what you want consumers to think when they see your brand name.
With that in mind, the creators of your content—including writers and designers—will have the necessary guidance for producing material that meets your goals. To make sure the output is always "on brand" and fresh, regularly audit your content library and refresh the resources there.
7. Shift dollars from "push your offering" content to "educate the target" content
Buyers today conduct research in virtually every product category before buying. They use the Web to find information that makes them better consumers. Ideally, your content will be among the resources they find and consume. Accordingly, invest in creating educational content.
Also, learn the new ways of generating "earned media"—such as organic search marketing, blogs and other social media, and public relations—that attract ("pull") an audience of prospects and customers so you can save money on "purchased media," which buys attention.
Good content will earn media distribution and thereby save you money, but you should be prepared to make content marketing a significant share of your marketing investment. Devote resources and attention to conducting tests to learn how to optimize your combination of content-publishing tactics.
8. Select metrics that will measure progress toward reaching your goals
Each goal you establish should have an appropriate success metric. Some metrics are intermediary indicators—not measures of business results. For example, Web traffic is widely used as a success metric, but it is not a measure of demand generation results. Similarly, email newsletter open and click-through rates are also intermediary measures.
For content marketing to demonstrate ROI, the metrics you use to evaluate strategy and campaigns must be measures related to demand generation. Sometimes, however, it is impossible to determine a clear cause of any particular effect, and often outputs are produced by more than one marketing activity. So understanding what works for you and what doesn't may take time and systematic testing.
In the end, you must be able to determine and credibly report the financial impact of your content-marketing efforts.
Guest post: MarketingProfs