Content marketing is a business strategy involving creation and distribution of content assets to attract new audiences and retain existing ones. Demand generation is a process that creates demand where there is none and increases existing demand for your solutions amongst prospects.
On the surface, content marketing and demand generation seem mutually exclusive processes, each with goals of its own. However; these are interlinked strategies that enhance marketing performance and results when implemented in unison.
Delve deeper for insights into this powerful combination of content marketing and demand generation. Discover how the unison can produce stupendous business results for you, across the sales funnel.
Because content is important to your buyers.
It is content that engages your B2B buyers. Information is available in abundance online and buyers are keener to perform their own research to make well-informed buying decisions.
Research shows that B2B buyers seek short and authentic content assets that are well-researched, informative, and enable them to navigate the purchase process with confidence. This reliance on content to make purchasing decisions has increased for 55% buyers.
Research also shows that 62% of buyers interact with three to seven content assets before interacting with a company’s sales rep (via Thinkific). According to a Gartner report, B2B buyers spend 27% of their time on conducting independent research online when planning a purchase. They are willing to allocate only 17% of their time to supplier meetings.
A sales rep of potential suppliers gets only 5% or 6% of a buyer’s time when multiple vendors are being considered. Therefore, the traditional way where sales reps get to influence buyer decisions is less common now.
These statistics underline the importance of content for your buyers and hence its significance in your marketing strategy. Buyers want informative high-quality content to simplify their decision-making. It becomes imperative for businesses to deliver personalized content assets that address buyers’ needs.
Statistics aside, content marketing works for the simple reason that people are inspired by stories and information that is attuned to their existing needs. Companies that are able to create value with content that speaks to their buyers, generate true engagement and increase their likelihood of winning loyal customers.
The majority segment of content marketers allocates over 10% of its marketing budgets to content marketing. 36% of businesses spend 10% to 29% of their budget on content marketing. (Source: Forbes)
These statistics convey the significance of content marketing for businesses. The shift in perspective is clear- content marketing is no longer an optional “good-to-have” strategy, but an essential “need-to-have” process for better marketing results.
Content marketing blends with demand generation process by serving as a tool that delivers value to buyers. It informs, educates, and equips buyers with insights critical to making purchase decisions.
Content marketing is significant across all stages of the B2B purchase cycle, from awareness-building to decision-making enablement. In fact, the role of content marketing begins even before the purchase cycle begins where it works to GENERATE demand as opposed to its role in IDENTIFYING demand within the purchase cycle.
Content marketing drives greater demand by contributing to the following demand aspects:
This is the top-of-the-sales funnel stage in demand generation where your primary goal is to make your prospects aware of your brand’s existence. Content marketing through high-quality assets such as blog posts and infographics attracts attention, provided they are attuned to prospects’ needs.
Once you have prospects’ attention, you can leverage it to create a greater interest in your solutions. Previews of downloadable assets are a way to sustain prospect interest for greater engagement. To be successful, your content needs to focus on delivering value, not come across as a sales manual.
With educative content assets such as research reports, white papers, and case studies, you generate authenticity for your brand. Inform your audiences about problems your solutions can solve.
Descriptive guides, webinars, podcasts, and case studies are useful to guide your audience on your solutions. Though the focus needs to be on your solutions, avoid an intense sales pitch at this stage.
Trust is the most significant factor that persuades businesses to consider doing business with you, according to Forrester research (via Forbes).
As you continue engaging prospects with value-adding information, you build authenticity for your brand and your solutions. This develops trust for your brand over time. This is the middle-of-the-funnel stage where your prospects are considering your brand among multiple other vendors. This is also the stage to monitor prospect engagement with your content, which will form the basis for prioritizing your conversion-ready prospects.
At the bottom-of-the-funnel stage, content can drive conversions. Hyper-personalized assets such as product demos, comparison charts, and customer stories are key in getting prospects decide in your brand’s favor.
Identifying prospects, engaging them, and generating leads are critical aspects of demand generation. Content marketing helps attract audience, educate and inform them, and build brand awareness. Good content serves as a guide for your buyers at every stage before, during, and after sales.
The most critical factor however is to attract the right audience to engage with your content. FinalFunnel helps address this crucial gap with its data-backed content marketing in demand generation.
From generating demand at a zero-position to identifying, leveraging and transforming demand to tangible results, FinalFunnel can be your strategy partner at every stage. We help you create a sustaining audience, not just leads.
Get in touch with us to discover more!