inboundJenna PerusNovember 01, 2018

CUSTOMER-CENTRIC CONTENT SPEEDS UP THE BUYING PROCESS

inboundJenna PerusNovember 01, 2018

INBOUND MARKETING YIELDS RESULTS PT. 2

Customer-centric content speeds up the buying process

Modern marketing avoids imposing products on customers. Central to modern marketing is understanding the customers’ needs and creating value. The more complex the customer need, the more help is required throughout the buying journey. For this reason, attention should be paid to the different stages of the customer decision making process when planning your content. Read on to learn how to create an effective content journey.

Meaningful content creates value for the potential customer. In order to create value, you need to shift your communications focus from brand and products to customer-centricity. Marketing and communications should enable helping the customers on their journey from identifying needs to making the decision to choose the best solution. The goal of superb content is to build trust and credibility.

Content quality is imperative. The purchasing process of a potential customer is more likely to fail if you don’t provide the customer with useful content along the process. Content planning should be based on understanding the needs and challenges of the customer as well as acknowledging that the customer is in charge of the decision-making process. Your content can boost the customers’ buying journey if it helps the customer in outlining and solving their issues. Best case scenario, the customer views you as a trustworthy advisor instead of a pushy sales monster.

Traditional sales thinking is in the past. To make use of content marketing, helping is the new selling. For your business to succeed, you need to be familiar with your customers’ interests and challenges - and understand the different stages along their buying journey. A content is of value when it’s compelling, meaningful and served at a right time. A purchasing process is really a process of information search. Your business can be a valued part of the process when it provides the customer with help and knowledge from the start and throughout the journey.

Let’s bring in another term: pull marketing. It’s based on improving the customer experience by delivering relevant content on demand. An excellent customer experience is attained through coherent, customer-centric communications and service that is based on the customer’s interests.

Companies can be divided into four categories based on the level of customer-centricity of their communications: business-centric, product-centric, customer-oriented and customer-centric. A business-centric company focuses their marketing communications on the excellence of the company itself, whereas a product-centric company is all about their products and services. A customer-oriented company is able to consider various industries, but only a customer-centric company builds the business around the customer and is focused on delivering value for the customer.

To get ahead, you need to start thinking customer-centric. Providing useful and meaningful content from the first steps of the buying journey and throughout the process pays back and builds customer relationships to last.

Marketing automation allows on-point content delivery

Identifying potential customers and delivering better value are increasingly important today, due to media fragmentation and the fact that the customer rules the purchasing process.

Marketing automation allows companies to attract prospects with personalised and meaningful content and help convert them to customers. Customers are then nurtured into happy customers, and so on. Marketing automation helps generate sales and hence enables business growth. With marketing automation systems, companies can identify where a customer is at in their buying process and therefore offer relevant content at the right time.

Highly personalised, targeted and automated messages are the most important feature of marketing automation. The system identifies the customer and provides them with suitable content. Based on the customer’s actions and behaviour, the system evaluates where the customer is at in the purchasing process. Identifying the stage of the process allows the sales team to contact the customer at the right time.

The purchasing process is typically divided into three stages. In the first stage, the customer has not yet recognised the specific need. Should the customer already have identified a certain need or challenge, they might not have a solution in mind. The first stage is attracting the customer to engage with helpful content to increase their knowledge of a specific topic. The next stage is about helping the customer to better understand their problem. The purpose of the content on stage two is to educate and help out the customer and trying to identify prospects. The last stage of the process is where the customer is comparing products and services and weighing their options. Here it is crucial to have a comprehensive understanding of the needs of the customer. Based on that understanding, a company can help the customer to choose the right solution. Salespeople should be available for the customer in stage three and consult them in the decision-making process.

Roles within the decision-making process

B2B buyers usually purchase in teams or groups. There are typically several people influencing the decision-making process in an organisation. These people may work in different departments and roles across the organisation. Information search and decision making are typically distributed throughout a larger group. Delivering relevant content to support the decentralised decision-making process requires identifying distinct roles and people.

Identifying the influencers within the purchasing process and serving them with meaningful and relevant content poses a challenge for both content planning and sales representatives. The purchasing process is increasingly impalpable for the buyers, too. The sky’s the limit when it comes to the amount of information and the solutions available. In addition, the power of the decision-making process is distributed throughout multiple individuals and higher authority is given to lower level executives. While the comparison of products and services has been made easy for the customer, it can make weighing the options and choosing the best solution tricky.

Make yourself available, but enable self-service

Today, understanding the B2B journey is vital for a successful business. Before making the final call to buy your product, the customer has most probably read your blog, seen reviews on social media platforms and visited your website. Understanding the journey that leads your buyers to make the purchase is crucial. Only then can you offer content according to the stage of the buying journey and hence encourage the customers to proceed as desired.

The buying journey starts off with a need or an inspiration, and the search for a solution begins online. The potential buyer compares different solutions on various channels and usually repeats the comparison process multiple times before moving on to considering making a purchase. Thus, buying is increasingly becoming a self-service. To exceed customer expectations, you need to re-think your marketing processes. Customers value information that is accessible, global, flawless and timely served. They value smooth user interfaces and personalised service, delivered 24/7. Whatever the process, the focus should be on customer-centricity, value creation and developing the customer insight.

Digitalisation allows better customer service. Sales and company reps need to be available online, looking for prospects, building relationships and consulting customers. The role of company representatives should be active: they need to be where both the current and potential customers are. They need to be online, distributing the marketing message and complementing it with their personal expertise.

Customer-centric content checklist:

Superb content solves problems, provides solutions and is meaningful and timely served
Enable high-quality self-service
Utilise marketing automation
Understand the different roles within the decision-making process