60-70% of B2B communications content is never used. Why? In a word, relevancy!
So, how do you make B2B content relevant? It begins by understanding and tailoring messages to each stage of the buyer’s personal journey. There are three: Awareness; Consideration and Decision. Most B2B content is ignored by sales or their prospects. Why? Because it doesn’t address the right stage a prospect is in. Each prospect’s stage will vary greatly.
- Awareness: the very beginning, where buyers don’t know your company or what its solutions do. B2B content should therefore focus on pain points and how your solutions overcome them. It also has to be easily searchable as studies show 72% of first-stage buyers use Google.
- Consideration: comes when the awareness stage ends. The buyer seeks more in-depth information about your company and solutions. Industry reports and white papers are crucial as the buyer is considering multiple vendors.
- Decision: the final step. The buyer knows exactly what’s needed but hasn’t decided on a vendor. Content must detail your solution through customer case studies and testimonials. Perhaps even arranging contact with these users if possible.
Additional targeting by persona
Knowing the prospect’s buyer persona is another key element. By researching and developing different personas, you can further segment and nurture prospects with appropriate B2B content. Identifying personas results in a B2B content strategy to target each segment with appropriate messaging.
Customer interviews, surveys, market research and similar investigatory tools achieve this. The buyer persona and personal journey should align to identify and create relevant B2B content:
|
Awareness |
Consideration |
Decision |
|
|
User Behavior |
Have realized and expressed symptoms of a potential problem or opportunity |
Have clearly divined and given a name to their problem or opportunity |
Have defined their solution strategy, method, or approach |
Actionable, engaging content
One last thing. Effective B2B content is not just addressing relevancy to the buyer journey and persona. The actual message that’s conveyed has to be actionable and engaging. Here are some basic tips:
* Should generate a sense of urgency among prospects;
* Raise questions about current methods; encourage exploration of more efficient alternatives;
* Foster a sense of need. First research and then address prospect’s pain points;
* Try telling a story the prospect can relate to; then invite them to engage;
* PDFs, Word documents, pamphlets are passé. Use interactive alternatives such as HTML5, videos, sales playbooks; a more storytelling approach.
Download the white paper
This white paper provides added detail on the buyer journey and buyer persona, creating actionable and engaging content as well as content distribution tips (promoting its use by sales reps.) Also, content tracking for reporting to stakeholders; determining ROI.
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