Create credible content that buyers trust
In G2’s 2022 buyer behaviour report, four of the five main reasons a buyer stalls or dismisses a vendor are related to content.
Buyers want education
Education on the broader problem:
what is going on in the market?
what are their peers doing?
what are their current partners recommending
how do different technologies work together
definitions of different technology categories
insights into what is coming next
estimates of the economic cost of the problem
worksheets to help them document their current situation
help in mapping out a programme to solve the problem
benchmarking on where they are against their peers
This is high value information, and usually exists in some of your most senior team members’ heads:
Customer Success Managers
Strategy Consultants
Project Managers
Experienced Sales Reps
Implementation Consultants (SI’s/Resellers)
CxO’s (who discuss these topics with their peers)
Other customers who are further along in their journey
Sorry to pour water on the hard working marketing interns - but this information is not gleaned by re-writing what you find when you Google “CIOs top priorities” or ask Chat-GPT “Write me an article listing a CIOs top priorities”
The Corporate Journalist
Instead of churning out low value content “10 ways to blah blah blah…”, have someone in your marketing team, that has experience of journalism, go and hunt this content down within and outside your business.
I think of a corporate journalist whose task it is to find this information and bring it to your potential buyers in a range of formats.
They can pull together content that meets the buyers’ needs:
Industry and segment specific - a story and challenge they can relate to
Multiple format - don’t just churn out 30 page ebooks
Actionable - provide frameworks, templates, worksheets, planners
Don’t pitch - every sentence doesn’t need to show how you help
Connect - make your team members visible and contactable
Feed other content publishers
Looking back at the challenges buyers have with content 7% of buyers say they find a lack of independent or third party content a challenge.
This is an easy one to fix, as other websites, directories, podcasts, YouTube channels are all hungry for content - you just need to offer your speakers to them.
You probably have technology, implementation and reseller partners who all have content teams struggling for relevant content.
Having found your content sources in your executives, project managers and customer success team, create briefs and pitch them out to relevant publishers.
Remember - the task here is not to promote your company, but to promote the ideas and education that buyers are hungry for.
Review with potential buyers
Having created buyer-centric content, review with a handful of customers.
How are you using this content?
What content did you use in your buying process?
What content did you share with others?
How would you adapt the content we’re providing?
An example - you might have splashed your logo all over a business case calculator. But your champion can’t use it with the logo and has to rebuild it themselves. A simple fix to just offer a logo-less calculator.
Hope this helps you get started building credible content.
Get started
Whenever you are ready, there are two ways that I can help you accelerate your revenue.
Buyer Experience Audit - I’ll impersonate a buyer researching your segment and company and let you know what I find. Ideal for planning your Revenue Operations strategy.
RevOps Impact Playbooks - I’ll help you implement one or more tactical processes across your revenue teams - content, referrals, testimonials, adoption and more.