I’m obsessed with the concept of the silent salesperson.
Let me explain.
It used to be that B2B prospects would connect relatively quickly with a salesperson after becoming aware of your product or solution to get more information about how it can specifically solve their needs.
That live salesperson has the upper hand. They can respond directly to the needs and expectations of the buyer in real time, offering benefits of the solution to his/her particular issue.
Today, however…
Prospects don’t connect with a live salesperson until they are almost 100% sure that your product or solution can solve their problem.
Which means…
Content is your silent salesperson.
Some *proof:
62% of B2B buyers engage with 3-7 pieces of content before connecting with a salesperson
55% of B2B buyers rely more on content to research and make purchasing decisions than they did two years ago
Every content touchpoint matters more than it did even last year.
Just by uncovering this disconnect, you can now solve for it!
Ask yourself, "Where do I have content gaps in the customer journey?"
Here’s how to answer that question and create a plan to fill those gaps when you find them:
Understand: Dig into your data and understand your customer’s path to purchase.
Map: Map current content to each part of their journey.
Fill: If content doesn’t exist, make a plan to fill the gap.
Evaluate: Mine the data every month to keep a pulse on patterns and trends of your customer’s buying journey.
Optimize: Create new pieces of create to fill any newly exposed gaps, double down on content that works in advancing the customer journey, and abandon what doesn’t.
Customer Journey Mapping
The above approach is a paired-back version of customer journey mapping. In marketing, we use a technique called customer journey mapping to visualize a customer's path to purchase. Typically it includes identifying the stages customers go through to become aware of your brand to making the purchase and becoming a customer.
You will map out these stages with the customer pain points and objections as much as you can, getting inside of their head to understand their decision-making process throughout each stage.
From here, you map what content to create to aid in their decision-making process for the stage they're in, removing any potential knowledge gaps and delivering a helpful experience that will hopefully end with their becoming a customer!
The customer journey map is not only helpful to content creators, but the wider marketing team, sales team, customer service team, and product team as well.
It puts the customer at the center of every interaction with your company and helps the organization get clear on what their buyers face in the decision-making process and how your company removes those obstacles with your solutions.
Looking for a fractional head of content to create a customer journey map to make your content marketing efforts more successful this year? Let's connect and discuss how we might collaborate.