Guiding the B2B buying decision with content marketing
If you’re marketing to HR, how are you going to make your content work for you?
Let’s delve into the finer details of curating your content and start utilising the power of the buyer stages.
In today’s environment, you can bet your audience is consuming your content with thumbs hovering, ready to scroll through what you’re saying or finger poised to simply hit the delete button.
Buyers – be they HR or other – don’t want to be sent wading off into a mire of misdirected sales content without direction.
They expect to be taken on a progressive journey and they want your content to work for them as a trusted and clear guide. By strategically creating functional sales stages with your content, you’ll be keeping your audience focused, their thumbs still and deliver them happy and fulfilled at the end of the journey.
So let’s take a look at how to craft an optimally functioning, high converting B2B content funnel.
Demands of the Modern B2B
Content Funnel
Use format to your advantage
It’s often overlooked, but the format your content takes in the early, mid and end stages of your funnel is paramount, as the stage at which the potential buyer is at in their buying journey guides how much time they are willing to invest in a marketing asset.
Always judge your content by its appearance
And to give you another facet to juggle: it’s also necessary to make your content look fantastic.
Take white papers as an example
I work with clients to research, write and roll out reports and white papers. We don’t see many white papers nowadays of 6,000 word plus set out in compact paragraphs punctuated only with the odd pull-out quote.
And the B2B buyer agrees: 37% of buyers surveyed as part of Demand Gen’s 2020 Content Preferences study say design is important, to not overload the copy, and to make the content shorter overall.
Meet your audience at their level of awareness
But perhaps the most vital element of the effective content funnel is factoring in your audience’s awareness levels.
Here is how to optimise those content stages
for conversion with these demands in mind:
Early Stage / Top of the Funnel: Building Trust
The initial stages of your content funnel need to provide for those buyers who have little to no awareness of you, your company or your product - and/or to those who are aware of their pain points and the fact they need a solution, but don’t yet know what that is.
This will usually be the first stage your audience meets you. They probably have little interest or investment in you - yet. Therefore, content here is quick and compelling and designed to grab the attention you’ll need to carry them to the next stage. Think snackable content you can easily feed your client-in-waiting with as they browse.
It pays here to consider the amount of time a prospect is willing to spend with different content formats so you can strategically utilise different types of content depending on their commitment levels at this stage.
Whereas video, for example, is mostly only given up to 10 minutes a B2B buyer’s time (all those producing lengthy video content in the belief it increases engagement, take note! Context matters), unsurprisingly, 58% of prospective buyers say they’ll spend up to 5 minutes with an infographic.
According to the 2020 Content Preferences Study, 81% of buyers will engage with listicles in their early stage research, 72% with infographics, 66% with blogs, and 62% will watch video; bite sized content formats that are quickly and easily digested with little investment.
Most marketers immediately think of lead magnets at this first stage. When it comes to having a lead magnet as your first contact with your prospect, though, you’ll have to offer a more fair exchange for their details.
The quick sign up…?
Signing up for a short snappy, top 10 listicle are long gone in the B2B market.
But B2B buyers still recognise a fair exchange for their email address, and like most of us, they’re happy to receive emails and content until they hit the unsubscribe button, making that piece of content that got them on your list worth the investment in the time it takes to create it.
To get them to share their email address, the content you offer has to be long form and of more value than they would be able to get for ‘free’.
And simple sign up forms will always win over those asking too many questions: 81% of people are happy to provide their email address, 71% will leave their company name and 66% will even give you their job title or industry – but then it tails off. So ask for as little information from them as you need to get them into your CRM system.
This isn’t the time for dense jargon and heavy data; this is where you simply and clearly make your prospect aware that they have a problem and you can help.
The white paper
And yet, 55% of potential buyers access white papers at this early stage, which seems puzzling given their time commitment.
I believe white papers hold such value that they are engaged with here as the potential buyer checks in on your credibility, whether you have something important to say, and your thought leadership as a potential partner or supplier.
You can tell a lot about a company by their commentary on trends and challenges in the market.
Have good quality white papers as part of your early buying stage that cater to the buyer’s awareness level and provide exactly this information with which they can satiate their need for trust in you.
Mid Funnel: Time to be the Hero
Top of funnel brand awareness is usually catered to fairly well by B2B marketers. But the golden opportunity to convert further into the funnel can be missed through lack of building connection with the prospect.
In other words, you need to secure that first contact in the early stages, and then actually nurture it into a relationship here in the mid funnel.
Fail to do this, and rather than guiding your client-in-waiting smoothly to the sale, you’re leaving them drifting and more likely to wander off to a competitor.
So, this is where you establish yourself as the hero, here to save your prospect from their pain or add greater value than they thought possible.
Take them on the walk to show what you can do, that you can understand them, and you’re listening to them.
This stage is your opportunity to address and deal with objections before they arise. To tick all of these boxes, more immersive content formats are therefore necessary in the mid funnel.
50% of prospects will join a webinar here
97% happy to attend for up to an hour
40% will read a case study or opt for interactive content,
37% read white papers
End Stage: Tie it up and make the sale
Once your client-in-waiting has made it here, congratulations, hone this stage and they won’t be in-waiting much longer.
You can consider this the evaluation and validation stage. Your content here, then, is all about bringing them to the sale.
By the end of your content funnel, there is no single piece of collateral that stands out as predominantly used by marketers nor favoured by buyers, but no doubt, it is the more evaluative pieces of content about your particular service or offering that provide the most value for both of you here.
At this point, prospects are relying more on peers and industry influencers and the most popular content formats are therefore case studies, user reviews, analyst reports, and ROI calculators (all accessed by 28-36% of B2B buyers at the late stage).
Here, only 8% are looking at white papers and 14% are attending webinars. This is likely because if they’ve reached the final stages of your content funnel, your buyer is fairly committed. They’ve stayed with you through white papers and webinars, have handed over their details and (so far!) remained on your mailing list, and they know that you may be able to help them.
Your buyer might be convinced - but they still likely have a team to report back to and win over before the purchase is made, so make sure your content helps them with this: answer any final FAQs, and factor in the potential objections of the team behind your individual buyer.
Then, utilise your end funnel content to incite swift action and add a guarantee that removes potential risk for the buyer.
This stage is fairly short and sweet: reiterate the benefits of the offer, demonstrate its efficacy with social proof, and present an irresistible call to action.
As marketers, we have a lot of balls in the air as we juggle the increasing demands of our B2B audience.
And this is what I do with my clients. If you’d like me to help you build your content strategy, let’s get a time to talk. Over the last 20 years, I’ve worked with start-ups, small and not-so-small businesses to plan content - and content workflows - to engage with prospects, leads and clients.
If you sell to HR decision makers and need fresh eyes, fast thinking and great quality content, then let’s get started.