Content Marketing: Expectation vs. Reality
By: Jeanette Stevens
In today’s world of digital marketing and social selling, now more than ever having a focused strategy is imperative to B2B selling goals. 47% of buyers viewed 3–5 pieces of content before engaging with a sales rep. (Demand Gen Report, 2016) Source: Hubspot — Marketing Statistics, 2018; with so many buyers using content as a driver to making purchasing decisions, a seller cannot overlook its importance.
Expectation: Posting lots of content across all social platforms will attract the target audience and convert to sales.
Reality: Content must be crafted to speak directly to the target audience on the social platform that they have chosen to utilize. Content should have a relevant focus which correlates with current problems and needs.
The main goal of having a targeted content strategy is to establish yourself and company as the answer to the current issues or needs that the buyer is facing. “A thorough understanding of the buying audience is the fundamental backbone of the techniques and tactics many B2Bs want to use today, such as account-based marketing, programmatic advertising, personalization, targeted emails, and outbound sales. But without a marketing data management strategy in place, B2Bs fail to understand the audience and have trouble executing more sophisticated programs”. Source: emarketer — The Right Data Management Strategy