Build Awareness with Content Marketing

Think about the early part of the sales cycle and what customers trying to figure out:

  • Do we have a problem or particular challenge? If so, how can we define or constrain it?
  • How does this challenge impact our operations or business goals? And how would a solution improve those operations or help us meet our goals?
  • What are other companies doing to resolve this same issue? What vendors offer a possible solution?

This is where your content marketing can have big payoff. In the IT world, for example, 64% of IT buyers always use the Internet to research solutions before they buy. Always. And 31% do so frequently. That’s 95% of buyers in that space that do initial research online in order to help answer questions like those above. Not all market sectors will have this kind of uptake, but it is important to ensure you don’t ignore a significant chunk of your audience.

With numbers like these…are you still wondering if you should be marketing with content?

Early on the sales cycle, your customers need basic information. They often need to be educated about the issue or challenge they are facing—what does it mean for a business, what are the consequences of avoiding the issue, what are possible solutions to the problem.

Your customers also need to know who to trust, especially if this is a challenge unlike any they’ve faced before. You build trust by sharing valuable information, not by telling them how great your product or service is.

You also build trust by offering that information—white papers, case studies, podcasts, newsletters, etc.—to customers and prospects freely, expecting nothing in return. There is a healthy debate about whether or not to capture customer information when providing access to these types of materials. Questions to ask yourself before you require prospects and customers to jump through that particular hoop:

  1.  At this stage in the cycle, when customers are just building awareness, what do I gain from getting contact information? Will I contact them now? If so, how and why?
  2. Will prospects and customers consider a sign-up process an obstacle at this point? Is that a problem for our company or our potential customers?
  3. Are there better ways to obtain customer information later in the sales cycle?

Content marketing isn’t a sales pitch. When done correctly and consistently, you establish your company as a leader, one who is willing to educate and provide value above and beyond a product or service.

-August 2010