Content Marketing
Content and its role in your customer's journey
Content marketing is competing with traditional advertising, as more brands move from 'push' advertising toward 'pull' marketing and greater customer engagement.
With traditional outbound marketing you push products or services to customers using techniques that often don't warrant communication and are easily overlooked.
With inbound marketing you earn the attention of customers, making your company easy to find and drawing customers to your website with relevant content.
Why should companies use content marketing?
Risk mitigation, lead generation, lead nurturing and lead scoring are some of the benefits companies today are reaping from their content marketing efforts.
Text content pulls in consumers and lets them know you are here. Rich media content such as video provides a deeper emotional relationship with your customers, with a more human element. Neither text nor rich media content alone is sufficient.
How are companies using it?
Some of the most popular ways, according to a recent study by Marketo, by percentage of companies, are non-blogging social media (79%), article posting (78%), in-person events (62%), e-newsletters (61%), case studies (55%), blogs (51%), white papers (43%) and webinars/webcasts (42%).
Are content marketing budgets growing?
Most definitely, with 54% of B2B firms increasing spending over the next 12 months, 45% maintaining their current level of spending, and only 2% planning to decreasing content marketing spending.
We help you use the appropriate content format in the appropriate stage of the buyer’s journey for maximum success.
Driving demand at every stage of the buying decision
AWARENESS
Position your company as the experts. Stimulate insight and research. Interpret the latest trends. Re-purpose blogs, webinars and ther content to establish thought leadership. Provide an 'introduction to' guide and video, a short 'how to' video, or online event sponsorship with keynote.
CONSIDERATION
Convert casual awareness into product curiosity with a webinar series on actionable best practices, industry news commentary blog posts, and 'how to' webinars and videos including case studies.
DECISION
After building trust and a relationship, make it
clear that your product is the solution to your customers' challenges by offering detailed textual content, webinars and longer videos to capture vital customer information, including product demo webinars and video, e-books that illustrate solutions, and product value clips.
Customers expect a personalized and customized approach to content and websites
When it comes to text that influences decisions, buyers in B2B marketing are looking for the facts. Nearly 90% of respondents to the 2015 Demand Gen Report and Content Preferences Survey said that supplier-focused content such as case studies and product data sheets are triggers that influence their purchase decisions.
Thought leadership content is another important part of the mix.
This is the case for 75% of B2B buyers who say content such as white papers and infographics are among the top references they use when deciding to buy.
Also important to 87% of buyers is a good mix of content that helps them through the research and decision-making stages. Content that builds a clear business case or shows a clear ROI for the purchase are considered important by 83% of buyers.
Multiple channels of content play an important part in decision-making.
Just over half of buyers say they view two to four pieces of content from a winning supplier before deciding. More than a quarter view five to seven pieces of content, whilst 10% view eight pieces or more.
Is it time for your company to think content?
