Creating Relevant Content for Your Buyer's Decision Stages

Editor's Notes

2. All good B2B marketing is based on a solid foundation of the right tools, programs and content. This presentation digs deeper into how to create the right content. For those who like to know up front how the story ends, I’m going to tell you how to: 1. make smarter content 2. sequence your content to align with your buyer’s decision-making process 3. always dangle carrots
3. Let me tell you a story about a company whose frustrated CEO who is about to slash his marketing budget and use that money to hire another sales rep.
4. This company has all the bells and whistles when it comes to B2B marketing content. corporate video corporate brochures translated into multiple languages product brochures and datasheets for every product monthly press releases product demo video archive customer success stories all available on the website in digital format, as well as printed on expensive stock in all of their sales and marketing offices. Sounds familiar right? The majority of B2B companies today have this stuff.
5. We see this with clients we work with, too. Here’s an example.
6. But here’s the problem - prospects aren’t always interested in “All About Us” content. stacks of printed collateral gathering dust boxes of materials being shipped back from trade shows not many website PDF downloads hardly any YouTube views sales reps creating their own sell sheets and presentations Bottom line?
7. Poor engagement. (This is a real screen capture from a real client.) And what’s the most visible result of that?
8. DRAMATIC PAUSE
9. Flatline is the extreme, but the way to improve engagement from whatever your starting point, you need to figure out how to be more engaging. How can you add real value to prospects? You need to understand a couple of things: How do your buyers buy? What information can you provide to help them make their decision?
10. Defining the problem/opportunity How big is it? How common is it? How do others describe it? What does it entail? How significant is it? Investigating options What approaches are being used? What has been tried before? Which approach best suits our company’s strengths, weaknesses, resources? Which vendors offer suitable solutions? How do those vendors compare? Which solution best meets our company’s needs? Making the final decision Securing internal buy-in Committing required resources Negotiation/acceptance of terms
11. Once you understand the buying decision, hang your existing content on that framework to see how your coverage is. (content shoebox reference - not just marketing and sales collateral) Marketing Sherpa has some great content about types of content too. (similar to Scott Moore’s “Content Closet” concept from yesterday) what are the obvious gaps? what content consumption patterns can you see? how do you make your existing content more useful?
12. Different types of content will help your buyer move from one stage of their buying process to the next. Different types of content will be relevant or irrelevant to your buyer depending on where in the process they are. So, once you feel like you have a better handle on how your content will be engaged with once it’s optimized, how do you actually make it happen?
14. First, you’re going to make your existing content work harder for you by making it smarter. We challenge the “more whitepapers” mentality and test a variety of formats and styles to maximize engagement. shorter and more focused turn one long content asset (like a 20-page whitepaper) into a series of shorter assets use embedded links to other trackable content This will help you learn not only what topics are of interest to a given prospect, but also where they are in their buying process.
15. First, you’re going to make your existing content work harder for you by making it smarter. We challenge the “more whitepapers” mentality and test a variety of formats and styles to maximize engagement. shorter and more focused turn one long content asset (like a 20-page whitepaper) into a series of shorter assets use embedded links to other trackable content This will help you learn not only what topics are of interest to a given prospect, but also where they are in their buying process.
16. First, you’re going to make your existing content work harder for you by making it smarter. We challenge the “more whitepapers” mentality and test a variety of formats and styles to maximize engagement. shorter and more focused turn one long content asset (like a 20-page whitepaper) into a series of shorter assets use embedded links to other trackable content This will help you learn not only what topics are of interest to a given prospect, but also where they are in their buying process.
17. First, you’re going to make your existing content work harder for you by making it smarter. We challenge the “more whitepapers” mentality and test a variety of formats and styles to maximize engagement. shorter and more focused turn one long content asset (like a 20-page whitepaper) into a series of shorter assets use embedded links to other trackable content This will help you learn not only what topics are of interest to a given prospect, but also where they are in their buying process.
18. This is Adam’s idea of content chaining. In a decision-making context, we call it pathways. Make it easy for your prospect to find additional content relevant to their current decision stage and topics of interest. Don’t worry too much about guessing right about what the next piece should be. Let them choose from a set of relevant options. This will ensure you’re adding value and building a stronger relationship at every stage of their decision-making process. But doesn’t this slow down sales cycles, you ask?
19. This is Adam’s idea of content chaining. In a decision-making context, we call it pathways. Make it easy for your prospect to find additional content relevant to their current decision stage and topics of interest. Don’t worry too much about guessing right about what the next piece should be. Let them choose from a set of relevant options. This will ensure you’re adding value and building a stronger relationship at every stage of their decision-making process. But doesn’t this slow down sales cycles, you ask?
20. This is Adam’s idea of content chaining. In a decision-making context, we call it pathways. Make it easy for your prospect to find additional content relevant to their current decision stage and topics of interest. Don’t worry too much about guessing right about what the next piece should be. Let them choose from a set of relevant options. This will ensure you’re adding value and building a stronger relationship at every stage of their decision-making process. But doesn’t this slow down sales cycles, you ask?
21. This is Adam’s idea of content chaining. In a decision-making context, we call it pathways. Make it easy for your prospect to find additional content relevant to their current decision stage and topics of interest. Don’t worry too much about guessing right about what the next piece should be. Let them choose from a set of relevant options. This will ensure you’re adding value and building a stronger relationship at every stage of their decision-making process. But doesn’t this slow down sales cycles, you ask?
22. This is Adam’s idea of content chaining. In a decision-making context, we call it pathways. Make it easy for your prospect to find additional content relevant to their current decision stage and topics of interest. Don’t worry too much about guessing right about what the next piece should be. Let them choose from a set of relevant options. This will ensure you’re adding value and building a stronger relationship at every stage of their decision-making process. But doesn’t this slow down sales cycles, you ask?
23. This is Adam’s idea of content chaining. In a decision-making context, we call it pathways. Make it easy for your prospect to find additional content relevant to their current decision stage and topics of interest. Don’t worry too much about guessing right about what the next piece should be. Let them choose from a set of relevant options. This will ensure you’re adding value and building a stronger relationship at every stage of their decision-making process. But doesn’t this slow down sales cycles, you ask?
24. In addition to offering additional content relevant to their current decision stage, dangle a carrot to entice them forward to the next stage. Make it easy to advance when they’re ready. This is how marketers can tangibly accelerate/shorten sales cycles.
25. And in the process of applying this framework, you’re actually redefining your entire marketing and sales pipeline in the context of the buyer’s decision-making process. Sales and marketing are now on the same page. Engagement with your content is telling you what they want to know, and where they are in their buying decision. That informs your marketing AND sales plans for that prospect.
26. So here’s a cheat sheet to get started. Map out your buyer’s decision stages Hang your existing content on the framework to see where the gaps are Then kick it up a notch
27. If you do these 3 things, your CEO will never cut marketing to hire another sales rep.