Avoiding common mistakes that marketers make when creating content for sales begins with a deeper understanding of the content consumer — the B2B buyer. What type of information are they looking for? Where are they looking? How do they prefer to engage with content? Answers to these questions reveal a B2B buyer whose preferences have evolved considerably in response to a digital-first selling environment.
The Modern B2B Buyer
The B2B buying landscape has been fundamentally transformed over the last eighteen months. There is no longer an individual B2B buyer — it is most likely a buying group composed of a mix of decision-makers, approvers, influencers, and users. According to Forrester, 63% of buying groups include more than four peopleOpens a new window . The days of creating content to meet the needs of a single buyer are well behind us.
Not only has the number of people encountered on the path to purchase increased, but we have also seen a surge in the number of information-gathering interactions these buyers pursue prior to making a purchase decision. According to Forrester, 17 information gathering interactions pre-pandemic have now grown to 27 interactions. And what makes the landscape even more complicated is that these interactions occur both in the digital and in-person worlds. Vendor websites, search engines, social media, webinars, live events, emails, and face-to-face seller conversations are all part of the mix.
And that’s just the beginning: today’s B2B buyers will engage in a practice that Gartner has coined looping, where they will visit the channels several times at various stages throughout their buyer journey. For example, a B2B buyer will likely visit a vendor website or conduct a Google search during the problem identification, solution exploration, requirements building, and vendor selection stages — multiple times. In today’s environment, even while a buyer is engaging directly with a seller and evaluating sales content, they are quite likely to be actively engaging with content on other channels. According to market research firm FocusVision, survey respondents who were asked where they found first- and third-party content listed a variety of sources: directly through vendor website (70%), internet search (67%), social media (53%), sent to me via email (41%), and word of mouth (33%).
The modern B2B buyer is a complex group of individuals who engage across multiple channels, often “looping†back to channels they’ve previously visited, expecting the right content for the stage of the buying journey they happen to be in. Given the changing profile of the B2B customers, there are five mistakes that marketers make while creating content for sales that can be avoided.
Mistake #1: Creating Content in Silos
Some organizations are set up, so that product marketing and enablement teams create sales content and content marketing teams create content for marketing activation. This works well as long as the teams collaborate closely together during content planning to ensure that content, irrespective of which team creates it, is tied to a single, unified content strategy and deployed as part of a coordinated activation plan.
Consistency of messaging across marketing and sales channels will reduce buyer confusion and build brand trust. The buyer will only recognize that the content is from the same brand, regardless of which team created it. According to Salesforce Research, 65% of consumers are likely to switch brands if they don’t receive a consistent experience wherever they engage them.
Mistake #2: Failing To Get Input From Sales
Alignment is important not only within content-creating teams in marketing but also cross-functionally between sales and marketing. Many aspects of the buying landscape have evolved, but one fact is still as true today as it was years ago: understanding the customer is the key to creating content that performs best. Other than speaking directly with the customers (not always possible for marketers), one of the most powerful sources of customer information is the sales team. They are the closest touchpoint to the customer and have the greatest visibility into challenges their customers are trying to solve, both today and in the future.
Seller input should be an integral part of the ideation process for identifying content topics and messaging. Other inputs include company product strategy, broader industry and category trends and insights, and customer insights from customer success teams, conversational intelligence tools and content engagement analytics.
Mistake #3: Focusing on Selling Rather Than Guiding
It’s tempting to create content about features, functionality and wax poetic on the numerous ways your solution is better than your competitors’. However, the most successful sales content puts the buyers’ needs first. The modern buyer wants educational information and customer proof. If you are unable or unwilling to provide this type of content, they’ll find it from a third party or even your competitor. If you take the approach of providing guidance and being helpful, you will stand out from your competitors and build trust, which is key to building a long-term relationship with your customer. According to Gartner, 80% of sellers who use the B2B selling technique of “Sense Makingâ€, which involves helping customers process information, close high-quality, low-regret deals.
Mistake #4: Creating “One Size Fits All†Content
You’ve probably heard the advice when it comes to job searches; it’s important to tailor your resume and cover letter for the job you are applying for. You’re likely to get better results with a more personalized approach that begins with targeting certain roles, identifying connections, and personalizing your resume and communications.
There are similarities when it comes to sales content. “One size fits all†content is easier to produce but rarely gets intended results. Identifying targets (persona, industry, intent stage, etc.) and tailoring sales content for your intended audience is the preferred approach. There are robust enablement solutions that make it simple for sellers to take marketing-produced content and personalize them prior to customer outreach. Results indicate that it’s well worth the effort. According to Salesforce ResearchOpens a new window , 65% of business buyers are likely to switch brands if a vendor doesn’t personalize communications to their company.
Mistake #5: Forgetting That First Impressions Matter
The amount of global content consumed skyrocketed in 2020, with 47% of consumers increasing the amount of time they spent on news sites, websites, and apps and 48% increasing the time they spent on social media. With the growing appetite for content consumption has come a barrage of content for consumers to navigate.
In response, the savviest of brands have evolved their marketing content. They know that it’s important to stand out from the content clutter and make content engaging. Although static content still has an important place in the mix, today’s content marketing arsenal includes a variety of formats, including video, infographics, and interactive content to complement static ebooks and whitepapers. Interactive formats provide marketers the flexibility to activate different types of content by channel and give buyers the choice of consuming content in the format they prefer. According to DemandGen ReportOpens a new window , 86% of B2B buyers prefer interactive content that they can access on-demand, as opposed to static content.
Conclusion
It’s an exciting time to create content for sales. Buyers may be more sophisticated and discerning than ever before. But by avoiding the five mistakes discussed in this article, marketers are well-positioned to develop high-performing content for sales.
What are some of the mistakes you have done while creating content for your sales teams and customers? Share with us on FacebookOpens a new window , TwitterOpens a new window , and LinkedInOpens a new window .