Why Customers Care About Content Marketing
Why do your customers care about the marketing materials you create? Just one reason—to figure out how you can help them run their business.
Content marketing is about educating your customers and potential customers. The best information to provide: solutions to one (or more) of their problems. If your audience doesn’t currently know they have a problem, it’s your job to help them recognize that they do. Then offer a solution.
That doesn’t mean manufacturing a need. It means knowing your industry and your customers’ core business and goals. It means knowing what is most important to them right now, whether it’s increased revenue, decreased cost, faster time to market, or improved inventory turns. When you make it clear that you understand your customers and your industry, they will care about what you have to say.
Let’s look at how content marketing matters in the sales cycle.
Identifying problems
Customers look to you to be the expert. They want you to teach them—about the industry, about the specific challenges they face, about what you can do to make that problem go away.
The goal of content marketing at this point in the sales cycle is to educate your customers about industry issues and challenges and the consequences of ignoring them.
Examples of content useful at this stage:
- Whitepaper discussing the nature of the issue and a resolution
- Case study showing what challenges previous customers faced
- E-book sharing thought leadership about the industry and common challenges
Identifying solutions
Customers need to know there is a resolution to the business challenges they face. They need you to show them how to succeed. They also need to understand the differences between your solution and your competitors’.
The goal of content marketing at this time in the cycle is to educate your customers about the product or service features that solve the right problem, and to identify key reasons to invest in your solution.
Examples of content to consider:
- E-newsletter with brief case studies and testimonials showing how customers have resolved the problem
- Webcast answering typical customer questions
- Whitepaper discussing the nature of the issue and a resolution
Identifying best solutions
Customers want to know how a particular solution works and why yours is the best one to solve their problem.
The goal of content marketing at this stage is to share how and why your solution is the best available, to help customers evaluate your product and compare it against any competitors.
Example of useful content:
- Podcast with one of your subject matter experts talking about the benefits of your solution
- Online video showing your product in action
- Case study of customer who tried many solutions before finding yours
-July 2010