• Unclear on how content marketing can contribute to your sales efforts
• How to match messages with a prospect’s buying cycle
• Current tagline and value proposition not unique enough
• Implementing content marketing throughout lead generation processes

How b2b buyers research their potential solutions to business problems

• The buyer of today doesn’t rely on trade journals, print ads, and early calls to salespeople.
• They are researching their solutions online and consuming content in their own terms.
• They want content that pertains to their own needs; and will engage with that content only when they want to.

This means that marketing’s role in communicating messages is far more important than it used to be. Sales people now are contacted later in the buying cycle, after the prospect has done research via content obtained from websites, downloads, and social media.

Time to take all of our research on your audiences and start building a message map.

This is basically a roadmap on what kinds of messages need to be communicated to your targeting audience that will encourage a reaction, such as:

• A website conversion
• A lead capture (Email or phone  number submission)
• A sale.

Since buyers are always seeking information to satisfy their business problems and grow their revenue, we’ll put together a content strategy with messages that will resonate with those buyers throughout their individual purchase cycles.

A NuSpark Marketing Content Strategist will put together a detailed recommendation on what messages need to be communicated to your target audiences, in what environment, and in what distribution channel.  These message recommendations may include the following:

•  Confirmation or reformulation of value proposition
• A compilation of potential words/phrases/solutions that describe your approach to solving business problems
• Potential tag lines
• The seeds to planning revised website copy that resonates with your key buyers
• A strategy to deploy white papers, case studies, ebooks, blogs, webinars, demos, and articles to support lead and sale generation processes

Overall, our goals of preparing a content strategy are as follows:

•  Position your firm as an expert in your industry
• Generate new leads because prospects are interested in your content
• Nurture existing leads because content can move leads via the funnel until they’re sales-ready
• Growth of your database; good content accompanies web forms so you can capture more details on your leads and then can segment
• Increase awareness of your firm
• Provide assets for social media sharing of original content
• Gives sales team something they can share during a sales call or their own social media channels
• Improves SEO and search engine ranking.  In fact, a recent report from Search Engine Land showed that content marketing has an 82% impact on search engine rankings.

Besides crafting your message approach and possible change in tag lines, we’ll put together a visual roadmap so you can see at a glance what messages appeal to which audiences, how they should be delivered, and when they should be delivered.  For example:

How a content strategy is deployed will depend on your marketing goals, and those goals will be specifically addressed as you continue your lead generation journey.

1. If you want to build website traffic, content is what drives search engine optimization, meaning high rankings on search engines.
2. Content for lead generation is the process of offering content for free, in exchange for an email address and other relevant information.

Key Content Statement

The strategic content plan we put together will show how your message will be unique, informative, and engaging.  By matching key messages that interest your target audiences, you will generate increased leads; the leads will come to you.

Summary of Approach

Your personal content strategist will collaborate with you and ensure that our research and content strategy approach is accepted by both sales and marketing.  Your growth depends on it.

Next Stop: Lead Generation Assessment