If you are having trouble catching your prospect’s attention with your inbound marketing, ” you may think that SEO or a less than stellar strategy is to blame. And it’s possible you’re right. But there may be something just as important causing low engagement. It may be that the content you are creating is boring your customer and causing them to look elsewhere for information.
If you are blogging 3-4 times a week, following SEO optimization best practices, sending out lead nurturing emails, and even A/B testing, yet you still aren’t seeing results, it may be time to reevaluate the content that you are creating.
You may think, how exciting can we make this stuff? B2B marketers often feel they get the short end of the marketing stick. While your B2C counterparts are coming up with sexy ad campaigns that make people laugh and cry, you’re stuck blogging about the latest product trend in your industry. YAWN, right? But let’s step back a second. There is nothing inherently sexy or fun or emotionally endearing about a soda can or bag of chips. Yet, Coca-Cola, Pepsi, and Doritos routinely find ways to make these inanimate objects take on life through the ads their marketing teams create.
While Cindy Crawford will probably never promote your product, there are ways to stand out from the crowd and keep from boring your customer.
Make your content useful and relevant
Let’s get one thing straight, relevant, useful content is not boring. But it can absolutely be created in a way that bores the heck out of your customer. But before we tackle the boring aspect, let’s make sure we understand what exactly makes content relevant or useful. The definition of relevant is; bearing upon or connected with the matter in hand; pertinent. I think the key word there is pertinent. Your content, in order to be relevant has to be pertinent and address your customer’s;
- challenges,
- opportunities,
- and pain points.
Just because you have written or know a topic inside out, don’t assume that your prospects are as well informed. If you are answering your consumer’s questions then you can rest assured that the content is interesting to your prospect.
Make sure your writing is engaging
We had this teacher when I was in 9th high school. It was apparent he had given up. He was at the end of his career and all he would do was sit and talk about world history in a monotone voice for the entire class. It was the first and only time I fell asleep in a class.
Writing styles can mimic the monotone speaking voice. By finding ways to catch your prospects attention you will keep them engaged. This can be done through using;
- bullets,
- headers,
- imaged,
- and easily digestible paragraphs.
Your content should appeal to your buyer personas
I love a good joke. I tend to become more engaged when the content I am reading or viewing is light and fun. And if I fall into a specific buyer persona demographic, the content writers should keep that in mind. But, the fact is, I am just one of many types of buyer persona possibilities that may be interested in your product or service. When you keep your persona’s preferences and pain points in mind while creating content you will help increase engagement.
If you only have an outline of your buyer persona and are basically winging it. I urge to stop what you are doing and make the creation of your buyer personas a key priority.
Take a step out of your creative box
When we are told to create content, our immediate thought is to hit the keyboard and start writing. But that’s just one of the many ways we can share the value of our organizations. In a recent blog I wrote, it talked about the different ways we can create content without actually writing or having little writing involved. A few of the items on that list were;
- video,
- infographics,
- POD casts,
- and surveys.
Take the buyer’s journey into consideration
As your company’s marketer, you’re familiar with your organization’s offerings. But it’s important to remember that your customer may not be as familiar. So make sure that you create content that appeals to your prospects, no matter where they are in the buyers journey. Some are going to want content that is down and dirty in the weeds with all the industry buzz words and statistics. While others, who are just getting started on their journey, need content that is informational but that doesn’t go into quite as much detail.
Don’t work in a bubble
When is the last time you reached out to your sales team and asked them for their ideas on blog topics or email content? If that just made you roll your eyes, it’s time to reassess. Our account managers routinely meet with our sales manager to talk about our content. Why would we do that? Sales is on the front line with your customers. They know firsthand your customer’s;
- FAQs,
- challenges,
- pain points,
- current solutions, and
- buzz words, etc.
Not connecting with their sales team is a key way many marketers fail. Your sales team is an easily accessible and free way to get instant access into your personas.
You don’t tell a story or use emotions
Let’s go back to my example above about my World History teacher. Some people think history is boring. That’s probably because they had teachers like mine. But think about all the movies based on historical events. When history is made into a good story it captures the audience. The same is true for your marketing and don’t make the mistake of thinking good storytelling is restricted to the B2C world. While the themes and characters will be different, a good story can be just as compelling for an IT manager looking for a new technology supplier, as it is for a consumer who wants to buy a new pair of shoes. The trick is to find the stories that will appeal to your buyer persona. Take time to discover the stories within your organization and use them to grab the emotions of your prospects.
Being a B2B marketer can be challenging but it shouldn’t ever be boring, especially to your prospects and customers. Keep things fresh by keeping the tips above in mind, and don’t forget to subscribe to our blog.
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