How to create content your buyers trust
Vendors are creating content in increasing volumes - but is it valuable to buyers?
Picture the scene.
CMO says we need to create more content for the website to attract customers.
The message gets passed down the chain to the marketing intern who is “quite big on Instagram”
Marketing intern is given a couple of hot topics to write about including upcoming priorities for their target persona - the CHRO.
Marketing intern is pretty new to this sector and doesn’t know what those priorities are so opens up their new best friend - Chat-GPT.
Chat-GPT provides a solid looking response for the intern to edit into a nice post that their manager will approve.
Content posted. KPIs achieved.
The Content Mismatch
The problem here is that creating content for content’s sake doesn’t help your buyer.
Your buyer is looking to learn, to educate themselves about the problems facing their business and how their peers are overcoming them.
I look at it from two perspectives.
As a vendor you want to sell your product - that is probably why you have a content strategy.
As a result, much of the content you create is focused on selling.
Every infographic, event, web page, or case study is laced with “and we are the best solution”
Buyers disregard most of this information - they don’t trust it.
From the buyer’s perspective they are looking to learn, and so they seek out semi-independent or independent sources that they do trust.
Semi-independent
Buyers look to analysts, product review sites like G2, TrustRadius and Gartner Peer Index.
They look to third party events.
Buyers know that there is a monetary exchange with the vendors for most of these platforms, but the reviews tend to be more independent and trustworthy than the vendor’s own site.
Independent
Buyers look to their peers being interviewed on third party websites, podcasts or videos.
They join niche Slack communities where questions are asked about which tech others recommend.
They look for referrals from trusted partners that they already work with.
To embrace these channels think from the perspective of the buyer. Can you work with a customer to tell their story on their own website or industry blog?
Can you work with a partner to tell their perspective of how your combined solution solves a customer problem.
Encourage other voices in the market.
The Content Ladder
Having thought through where you place your content you should now think through what content you create.
No disrespect to the hard-working marketing intern, but they don’t have the depth of experience around your industry, your target persona, or your products to write the kind of valuable content that your buyers crave.
The majority of Chat-GPT infused content is opinion content - “Here’s what I think”.
“5 priorities for CHROs in 2023”
“Why Applicant Tracking Systems are essential in 2023”
Blah Blah Blah.
SEO gaming waffle.
Think through the Content Ladder and see how you can elevate your content to being buyer-centric.
Sharing new insight: better - teach your buyer something they didn’t know and couldn’t find out on their own.
As an example Vendr’s SaaS Trends Report. Data on SaaS spending that a buyer couldn’t get anywhere other than Vendr.
Tell me what to do: even better - show your buyer the individual steps they need to take to understand the problem in front of them. Diagnostic tools, benchmarks and calculators. Include guides for the buyer to walk through.
As an example Gong’s Revenue Intelligence Maturity Assessment guides a buyer through the steps to understand their current state and opportunities to grow.
The Corporate Journalist
My recommendation - instead of having your marketing intern trying to create content themselves, reinvent them as a corporate journalist.
The information your buyers want exists in your company, but it sits much further along your revenue engine.
It is in the heads of your solution architects, your lawyers, your onboarding team, your CSMs.
It is in the conversations your CXOs have with their peers or that your alliance teams have with your partners.
Your content team’s role is to understand what conversations are being had later on in the process, to understand what calculators or templates are used to plan the project, build the business case or calculate the progress and to bring these to the front of your process as valuable buyer-centric content.
Get started
Whenever you are ready, there are two ways that I can help you accelerate your revenue growth.
Buyer Experience Audit - I’ll impersonate a buyer researching your segment and company and let you know what I find. Ideal for planning your RevOps strategy.
RevOps Impact Playbooks - I’ll help you implement one or more tactical processes across your revenue teams - content, referrals, testimonials, adoption and more.