Is Your Content Marketing Strategy Relevant?
Inbound Marketing seems to be the latest buzzword in the world of marketing right now. Inbound Marketing however, is not a buzzword. It’s not the new black. It is the way your customers are or will interact with your business, your products and your services, now and into the future, and you need to be ready. - Darryl De Necker
Inbound marketing converges several digital marketing channels - social media marketing, content marketing and website SEO. Content is vital for a successful inbound marketing strategy but making content for content’s sake, leads nowhere. Failure to choose an appropriate content strategy causes inefficient marketing, frustration, and even giving up entirely on content marketing.
Specific content forms are more relevant to buyers at specific times during the buyer journey
The challenge is to understand what content is relevant for a specific situation and align it to that particular context. A well-though content mapping strategy ensures that the buyer has access to relevant content in every stage of the buyer journey - awareness, consideration, decision - and continuing after the conversion to a customer. It builds on the relationship between three key fundamentals and is illustrated in the image bellow:
- Type and form of content
- User behavior and needs
- Keywords and relevant terms (used for example in offer titles and abstracts, landing pages, call-to-action buttons, and email body and subject line)
Click here to see the image in full size. Source: Savvy Panda.
Awareness stage
In the first stage of the buyer journey potential customers have begun to experience symptoms of a problem and have initiated research to fully understand it. They are seeking educational third party content, which is also vendor neutral.
Suggested content: At this point you should avoid talking about your own products and services and focus on the buyers and the problem they are facing. The focus should be on high-level educational content, delivered in the form of free eBooks, eGuides, white papers, editorial content, blog posts, and analyst reports.
Key terms: Use issue or opportunity terms such as troubleshoot, resolve, upgrade, optimize, prevent, improve etc.
Consideration Stage
In the second stage potential buyers are committing to solving their clearly defined problem and are shifting their focus on solutions and comparisons. They are exploring options across industries and determining a solution strategy.
Suggested content: The best way to deliver a message in this stage are podcasts, educational videos, expert guides and editorials, and solution comparison white papers.
Key terms: Solution type terms are most suitable for this stage. For example solution, service, provider, supplier, tool, device, software etc.
Decision Stage
In the third stage users are researching products and vendors, building a short list of options and assessing ROI. They are seeking validation that they are making the right choice.
Suggested content: This is when you should start presenting your products and services. The relevant content is offered in the form of free demos, trial downloads, case studies, consultations, audits, product literature or vendor comparisons. The buyers are ready to make a decision, so you must really stand out by providing your best content.
Key terms: Ideally use comparison/review type terms such as compare, pros and cons, test, review, benchmarks, versus etc.
Delight Stage
The potential buyers have been converted to customers and focus should be placed on delighting them. Hopefully they are evangelizing your brand and interacting with you on a regular basis. They are expecting great customer service and support.
Suggested content: You should reach out and support proactively the converted customers in the use of the product. You can offer customer rewards, loyalty programs, build online communities, user groups, or organize customer events.
Key terms: They should emphasize delight and entice customer approval, for example pleased, happy, leave a review, recommend.
A Great Content Brand is a brand that's famous for producing intelligent, useful and entertaining content that's always worth consuming. - Velocity
With content marketing being an essential lead generator, businesses are still figuring out the best practices. Unfortunately this results in the the creation of overwhelming amounts of low quality content. For more on the subject, take a look at this brilliant slideshare created by Velocity.
Nora Frostbrink is a Marketing and Export professional, based in Sweden. She has a strong interest in marketing trends, international business, personal branding and innovation strategies.