As more B2B marketers focus on content generation as part of their marketing efforts, there is increasing pressure to ensure they knock theirs out of the park to stand out among the competition. Perhaps that’s why more are turning to sophisticated content marketing tactics.
So, what exactly is “sophisticated” content, and how can you employ it? Sophisticated content creation and marketing requires a deep understanding of your target audience, including their pain points, motivators, interests, buying behaviors, and purchasing patterns. This goes far beyond generic messaging: Marketers creating high-level content turn their efforts into “journey-based strategies where content is mapped to each stage.” These influencers understand what is important to their prospects and buyers, then address their audiences through clever content and tactful distribution.
How can marketers figure out what resonates with their audiences before crafting the content itself, distributing it, and hoping it evokes their audiences’ feelings? They create buyer personas.
Leverage your buyer persona
The ability for marketers to use them to predict audience actions makes buyer personas essential marketing tools. However, it takes considerable sophistication to create a buyer persona accurate enough to utilize as a useful marketing tool, especially for a B2B company. But once accomplished, you can use your buyer persona to create content that appeals to hypothetical buyers. Some points to consider include:
- What are my ideal prospects’ demographics and psychographics?
- What pain points and problems do they experience?
- What words or phrases do they use when searching for solutions?
- What key factors convert prospects into customers, and what factors deter them?
To answer these questions accurately, first evaluate who can and will likely make decisions on behalf of their companies to buy your product or service. Does the buying team include different members? It’s important to know what their roles are within their companies and what challenges and interests they face. Why? How you angle your value proposition to the vice president of marketing may not resonate with the chief financial officer. While the VP of marketing may be more interested in client success stories, the CFO will likely be more interested in how your solution could improve the company’s return on investing in your product or service. Know your audience, and then appeal to members on personal levels.
Get personal
Generating content specifically tailored to your prospects is another way to employ sophisticated marketing efforts. Analyzing smart, meaningful data can help drive personalization. For example, digital services like Amazon and Netflix, while not heavily focused on content marketing, are deeply engaged in personalization. Company leaders use data from customers’ individual engagement patterns to offer recommendations for them, giving customers the feeling the company understands them. In a similar way, if you have a piece of content you know a client or prospect could benefit from reading, send the link accompanied with a personal message saying you think it could be of value to them.
Sophisticated content marketing isn’t rocket science: Take into account everything you know about your prospects and clients, and turn that information into strategic, insightful content. While it could require more work up front, once you commit to obtaining a deeper understanding of your target audience, including collecting, analyzing, and using buyer data to build better experiences, the process can become easier and content more impactful.
