On Words and Business

Customers and prospects are key audiences for information for your content marketing materials. But so are other stakeholders including your employees, your sales team, and your board of directors.

Do you know how the people you’re trying to reach heard about your company, or how they got hold of your marketing materials?

• Was it through the sales team?
• From your web site?
• As a result of an ad campaign or PR push?
• Perhaps a referral from a satisfied customer?
• Because of meeting an employee or board member at an event?

If you haven’t done so, think about how to expand awareness of your content marketing program. You may already know the primary way customers get into your pipeline. But don’t forget that a few customers may find you in other ways, too.

An effective content marketing program depends on understanding your audience and what they want. Here is an article about the process: Do You Know Your Audience?

Don’t know what they want? Ask.

• Talk to your sales team and find out what they’re hearing on the front lines.
• Get data from your customer service reps.
• Call your customers and ask them.
• Create surveys and post questions on your social media sites.
• Talk to prospects at conferences and industry events.
• Read the industry literature to find out what your customers, prospects, and competitors are talking about.

By now you must have seen the Old Spice marketing campaign.

B2B marketers can learn from the success of this creative strategy, as it includes just the ingredients needed to launch a successful content marketing campaign.

1. It wasn’t an overnight success. It was a three year effort culminating in the ads, videos, and social media presence we see today.
2. It involved trial and error. The agency took risks, evaluated what worked, and didn’t give up when something didn’t work.
3. It involved a lot of planning, a significant budget, and trust in the process.

According to the Tech Target Media Consumption Benchmark Report, 64% of IT buyers always use the Internet to research IT solutions and 31% do so frequently.

The top 7 types of content these buyers find most useful for identifying a problem and gathering information when considering a purchase:

1. ebooks
2. email newsletters
3. whitepapers
4. podcasts
5. online videos
6. customer case studies
7. webcasts

For the IT companies out there…are you sharing your information with the 95% of buyers who are seeking answers online?

Your message is more than the words you choose. It’s how you get the message to your audience.

Social media may be hot these days but it’s just one of the tools in the box. Think about how to use all of your tools to your advantage.

Do you understand what works with your audience? Do they wish to interact? If so, how and where? What channel works best to get their attention and at what point in the buying cycle?

It’s not hard to find a lecture, networking event, or article that focuses on how to use various types of social media to market your business. I’ve talked about it myself.

As the conversation about social media gets more feverish, I get less interested.

Agreed: as a way to get the message out and have a conversation with your customers and stakeholders, social media platforms really do the job.

But shouldn’t the focus be on the actual message? And once you figure out what that is, then spend time thinking about the right medium to share the message? Depending on your message, the best way to share could be rock carvings, skywriting, or good old fashioned paper.

No matter your business, there probably should be some form of social media in the marketing mix. But the exercise of figuring out what platform would work best and why isn’t a trivial step.