In B-to-B Marketing, Who Are We Talking To?

 

Julie Rogier, Principal of Rogier Communications, discusses the importance of providing relevant content to B2B prospects and clients in her latest guest post for j+ Media Solutions.

 

“Nearly 80% of b-to-b prospects contact a business after they performed independent research.” (DemandGen Report)

 

In the business-to-business sector, potential buyers engage with a sales representative much later in the sales process than ever before. This is especially true with a complex purchase involving multiple decision makers and costly investments such as capital equipment, enterprise software, network security services, etc. In fact, research shows that the greater the investment, the more research conducted.

Since content and messaging shapes your prospect’s initial perceptions, what are you presenting to them? Do your materials (website, blog, white papers) connect and speak the language of your audience?

3 Content Thought-Starters

To best connect and engage with your prospects using relevant content, the following three considerations serve as thought-starters.

(1) Content Tone: Will your message be understood? Will it resonate with the audience?

During the independent research phase (which implies effective SEO and keyword strategy so you can be found online), your prospect doesn’t have time to wade through buzzwords, marketing hype or content that simply doesn’t speak their language. Especially in a technical sale, the prospect seeks solid information proving you are the solution to their problems. It’s critical that they understand your message. If understanding does not occur, then won’t give you a second look.

As marketers, we can’t conjure up this type of insight. It takes reconnaissance. Ask current customers what matters to them, what issues and problems were solved by the product or service, and use that information when developing content. There’s no other way to get inside your prospect’s head. Sitting in marketing meetings and “guessing” at what tone to use isn’t effective. Nor is it effective to dream up content that the marketing or executive team prefers.

Make your content about your prospects’ key issues and pain, and take every opportunity to fully grasp your prospect’s language (through regular online surveys, customer Q/A sessions, etc.)

2) Content Type: Do prospects prefer in-depth data sheets, short customer testimonials or frequently asked questions?

A recent Marketing Sherpa blog post addresses this same point. The post asks “how long should marketing copy be?” Is it more effective to make content short in length, longer or somewhere in-between?

The post provides this key takeaway:

“(Copy should be…) however long it takes to deliver one salient point, one piece of actionable advice to the audience.”

There’s a key assumption here. It’s critical to know the audience, and be intimately familiar with what topics and tone key targets find valuable. It isn’t an option. Keeping your target prospect (audience) front and center is the difference between success and failure.

3) Content Format: A b-to-b organization was thinking about developing an E-book as part of their marketing collateral. The thought was that E-books would be a welcome change from the typical white papers, case studies and product brochures. Plus, everybody else was doing it. Fortunately, the client conducted a fairly comprehensive industry marketing survey with a technical trade publication made up of their typical audience. The survey was free to them as long-time advertisers. One of the questions included asked if respondents find E-books useful. Over 80% of those surveyed, target prospects of the client, responded with an overwhelming NO! The E-book idea was shelved.

While this finding holds true now, that preference might change over time. What’s key is that there is an attempt to gain insight into the most useful content format.

Make opportunities to gain some insight about the content format your target finds most useful. Do they prefer multi-media, in-depth reports, product reviews/testimonials, entertaining video content? Is social media an effective channel? Here again, there’s no shortcut. Ask current customers. It doesn’t have to be expensive or complex. A simple email survey works to “inform” your team about the most useful tone, type and format of marketing content.

 

Your Thoughts?

We can’t overestimate the importance of communicating targeted content to segmented groups. While no means an exhaustive list, the three tips here get the conversation started within your team.

What tactics work for you in this important effort?

###

About Julie Rogier:

Julie Rogier is Principal of Rogier Communications and a marketing communications and PR specialist for business-to-business organizations. Follow Julie on twitter.com/jrogier or connect with her on LinkedIn at http://www.linkedin.com/in/julieroger

 

 

photo credit: Gavin Llewellyn via photopin cc

photo credit: opensourceway via photopin cc

photo credit: Ed Yourdon via photopin cc