One of the biggest problems B2B organizations have is that our content marketing strategies are aligned only with the late stages of the buyer’s journey.
We focus our content creation efforts on describing the features and benefits of our products and services. And then we find ourselves, whether we know it or not, in a head-to-head competition with other solution providers that the buyer perceives as the same. When this happens, the buyer’s partnering decision risks being based on price. Over time, our solutions become devalued. That’s no way to run a business.
What we should be doing is developing customer-centered content marketing strategies that are aligned with the real buyer’s journey. To avoid the lose-lose scenario of devaluation, we must be engaging buyers in the early stages of their journey when we have the best opportunity to build trust. When this is done well, buyer’s contact sellers clambering to be customers.
This edition of our newsletter is an immersion into being more customer-centered and includes the first in a series of articles on adopting customer-centered content marketing strategies. We’re confident, you’ll love the results.
Exploring ways to improve the relationship between sales and marketing in B2B businesses is like venturing into the Sahara on foot without water. Rarely do business leaders intentionally set out to change marketing and sales operations, to include organizational structure and processes. We too easily retreat to the risk-free zone of “but that’s the way we’ve always done it.” However, the harsh truth is that this modus operandi is fraught with risk.
When you create content for your business, do you stop to think what the goal is? Many people think they need to create content for their business, yet they don’t know why. They are busy drafting a blog post or thoughts for social media, but they lack a plan. Or, if they have a plan, they don’t have a clear objective around what they want their content to accomplish.
We’re now in the second consecutive year of economic uncertainty. Or is it the third? Despite this pesky funk, there are some signs of improvement and talk among economists of a soft landing. Yet nearly everyone I speak with feels nervous and that is understandable.
Here is the problem that many of us have. We define the B2B buyer’s journey in three stages: awareness, consideration, and decision. And we define awareness as when a buyer becomes aware of us and our solutions. We then develop content strategies focused on our own products and services which is what buyers seek in the late stages of their journey. We miss the opportunity to build trust with buyers when it is most crtical. What we need is a content-marketing strategy that is aligned with the real buyer's journey.
A buyer persona is a description of a specific person for whom your products and services are intended. It goes beyond statistics and demographics and defines behaviors, motivations, likes/dislikes, traits, etc. Its intent is to help you reach your customers on a human level.
Many will have heard talk of taking a data driven approach to Sales and Marketing and having a Data Strategy but what exactly does it mean? Well quite simply it is about using data to help inform your decision making, strategy and tactics, particularly in terms of sales and marketing planning and activity.
By Grace Peoples, Social Media Coordinator, Altitude Marketing
B2B social media content is one of the hardest things for companies to get right. In this article, I explore what social media is, why businesses should care about it, and tips for getting started with seven types of posts.
What language do you use in your B2B marketing and sales communication? Is it buyer or seller? Too often our marketing and sales messaging is aligned with our selling process rather than the buyer’s journey. When we do this, prospects ignore us or view us negatively which hurts our brand.
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