inboundJenna PerusNovember 13, 2018owned media

INVEST IN OWNED MEDIA

inboundJenna PerusNovember 13, 2018owned media

INBOUND MARKETING YIELDS RESULTS PT. 4

WHY B2B BUSINESSES SHOULD INVEST IN OWNED MEDIA

Customers determine the course of the purchasing process. Identifying customer potential and providing personalised content in order to enable better customer experience is increasingly important. Owned media is a content platform allowing targeted communications and creating buying journeys for each customer persona.

In the future, customer relationships won’t require buyers contacting sellers. At the same time, the importance and impact of marketing automation increases as the market landscape evolves. Capturing the attention of potential customers without personalized content is next to impossible due to the chronic information overflow. Creating personalized marketing messages is increasingly vital when aiming to address the individual decision-makers within the decentralized purchasing process. Generic marketing messages are simply not enough anymore and marketers need to create highly personalized content to attract potential customers. The content needs to be insightful and based on individual customer behaviour.

What is owned media?

Owned media comprises a company’s content and marketing communications on platforms that the company has complete control over, such as their website and blog. Owned media doesn’t include social media channels or other platforms that are not controlled by the company.

Owned media and marketing automation enable customer identification and nurturing customers with highly personalized content. Customers can be identified, for example, as they fill out their contact information when subscribing to your newsletter. Later on, the system identifies the customer and allows providing them with content that is relevant to where they are in their decision-making process. The marketing automation system tracks the customer’s behaviour and evaluates the progress of their buying process.

Why investing in owned media is a good idea?

Owned media allows extraordinary customer service. With automated marketing, you’re able to offer content that is highly relevant to the stage the customer is at in their purchasing process.
The content and structure of owned media are completely under your company’s control. Changes in pricing and algorithms of different platforms won’t affect your content and how it’s represented.
Owned media creates possibilities for building content journeys to encourage customers to proceed in their buying process as desired.
With personalized content and automated tracking, the sales team can contact potential customers at the right time.

What are the customers willing to pay for?

If a company is sharing their knowledge and expertise online for free, it’s natural to wonder whether it means less paying customers. Information that has before been shared to a customer within the sales process is now available for the customers for free, without ever contacting the company providing the knowledge online. To meet the requirements for high quality expertise companies need to present their knowledge and skills before and after a customer decides to purchase. Optimally, providing knowledge and consultative content leads to customers perceiving the company as an industry expert and makes them increasingly interested in your company.

Owned media checklist:

Delivering extraordinary customer experience is increasingly important → act now!
Content strategy is key:
- Find out who are your prospects and customers and create customer personas based on them
- Determine the aim of your content and offer suitable content throughout the customer buying journey
- Use marketing automation to create relevant and personalized interactions with your customers.