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Content Marketing

Sales prospecting is a journey, taking a prospect from initial awareness stage through to evaluation and then purchase. Content marketing plays a key role in today’s sales lead generation process. No longer do companies want to rely on cold calling and see their non-sales ready leads fall through the cracks, only for their competitors to pick up and convert them. This means good quality content is key to sales success.

 

Content Marketing

Sales Planning

The top 5 reasons why the world’s leading companies use content marketing are:

1. Increase sales

2. Retain Clients

3. Build or reposition a brand

4. Ability to integrate across channels

5. Engage clients long-term

You know who your target audience are; you know what you want them to do (buy); you have a fair idea how your prospects need to think and feel, in order for them to do what you want them to do (buy); but….. do you really know how you can make them think and feel the way you want them to? Or, is it that you do know but that you simply need a more thorough approach to content marketing planning?

For example, is it really likely that the content you create for one decision maker (e.g. procurement) will be as appealing to another you’re targeting (e.g. CIO, or maybe marketing)?

Or, is it really likely that content intended for the awareness stage will be as effective or interesting for buyers at the late stage of evaluation?

We all know that to successfully convert prospects into clients we need to develop awareness, trust, credibility and along the way, some kind of relationship, but how often do you sit down and plan content designed for each stage and audience segment?

Lead Nurturing Content

So what are the steps to developing an effective content marketing plan?

1. Determine the goals for your content marketing plan – These should be aligned with those of your company, products or brands

2. Know your content marketing audience – Content doesn’t work unless it’s targeted. If not targeted, it looks and sounds like any other piece of corporate communication you send out

3. Incorporate your brand into your content – Give your content marketing a personality so that its synonymous with your brand messages and values

4. Determine information your target audience seeks – Remember that content marketing isn’t about you or your company, but about your target audience and the information they seek

5. Tell your company’s ‘story’ – Avoid giving out all the facts and figures (as your audience will forget them) and instead, think stories

6. Use different content formats – Your audience varies in terms of how they like to consume content e.g. text, photos, video, voice etc.

7. Build an editorial calendar – Build an editorial calendar to plan your content creation on a regular basis

8. Make your content appealing to prospects – Useful content, while important, isn’t sufficient to convert prospects into clients (think good tasting food in a restaurant that isn’t nicely presented or.. nicely presented food that doesn’t taste good)

9. Make your content easy to find – You can have the best content in the world but it’s a waste of time if no one can find it or ever receive it

10. Allocate adequate resources – Content is a serious commitment of time, resource and budget – Ensure the content marketing plan justifies the investment

11. Distribute your content – Ensure that your content reaches the target audience

12. Promote the content – Don’t assume that distributing your content by itself is sufficient

13. Measure content marketing results – It has to count and so measure web traffic increases, landing page data capture, webinar attendee levels etc.

Demand Generation

We’ll be working through each of the 13 steps in future posts and papers. If you would like to find out more beforehand, please simply get in touch.

Content Sharing

For more details about content marketing, do visit the following URLs:

Lead Generation Content

Lead Generation

Contact us NOW to find out how to produce a winning content strategy and plan to increase your sales lead generation campaign productivity.

Tel:  +44 (0)845 3058145

Email:  info@SalesAccelerant.co.uk

Web:    www.SalesAccelerant.co.uk