Marketing and sales have evolved over the past few years in response to the ability for consumers to research products and companies. Consumers are increasingly looking for value and evidence that you can actually deliver on your brand promise. Authenticity is everything - companies have to prove they can add value. Over the last 12 months we’ve helped Dell to launch thinclientbenefits.com. Using Fuel's Focus, Purpose, Value framework we broke the task at hand into these components.
This is how we approached the problem and what we learnt.
Focus.
Whether your company has a marketing machine of 1 or 100, the principles are the same.
Content marketing is not about “what you sell” it’s about “how you’ve helped”.
Focus on the benefits to the customer, because they won’t care about how many new buttons or shiny features you’ve added. They just need answers to the questions they have. What value are you adding to their lives? People think in binary ways when making decisions, such as ‘what’s in it for me?’
Your company is not in the features business — you’re in the business of providing customer benefits (just like every firm, no matter what the industry).
What’s your content mission statement? What offers will they respond to an what are their needs? Use our value proposition canvas to make it easier.
Value proposition canvas.
At fuel we use our value proposition canvas (pictured above) to find out what your customers driver are. The more you know about your customer the easier it will be to provide them with valuable content.
Theodore Levitt.
Renowned as a founder of modern marketing wrote in 1960, Levitt’s quote this still rings true today. We focus too much on the product and not the customer needs. Our job in content marketing is to put the customer front and centre.
“In the ease of electronics, the greatest danger which faces the glamorous new companies in this field is not that they do not pay enough attention to research and development, but that they pay too much attention to it.”
Purpose.
Build content around your audience needs, not your current assets.
BUILD THE AUDIENCE FIRST. Content marketing is not about “what you sell” it’s about “how you’ve helped.”
Ask yourself:
Does the content reflect our company mission defined in the focus stage? Is our content noteworthy enough to draw attention to our brand and get people to share it?
People will only pay attention to your content if it’s relevant to them. The only way to find out what they want is by asking them, researching and listening to the needs they have. Each different persona will need a different type of content.
To move them down the sales funnel you will have to produce different types of content for each of the three different stages.
The three stages of the sales funnel.
1. Awareness
The most important stage, because if you don’t build an audience then you can’t achieve your other business goals.
These customers aren’t necessarily looking to purchase from you immediately, but are researching the sector for trends and innovations. They’ll consume your content and keep you in mind when a decision is about to be made. Use gated content to gather email, vertical and regional information about these customers.
2. Consideration
These customers consume case studies, e-books and email marketing. They like social proof that you have worked in their sectors and that you have a proven history of delivering solutions.
3. Decision
These customers are looking for webinars, white papers, price/discount driven offers and technological advancements. Fear of missing out (FOMO) is the human condition they dread most.
About the author.
Stephen Mead, is a UX & Digital Consultant at Fuel Integrated.
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