Making purchasing decisions, for consumers and B2B buyers alike, during a time of uncertainty can be daunting — even paralyzing. Now more than ever, your brand should be contemplating ways your organization can be supporting your audiences during their decision-making journey, whether your industry is on pause or not.
Content marketing is a valuable and often underused tactic for marketing products and services that are complicated or specialized. Take health insurance, for instance. Because choosing or switching health insurance products can be a daunting, intimidating and even frustrating task, consumers are often left to struggle through their journey, randomly searching the internet, asking friends and family for recommendations or blindly leaning on the support of their agent. When you are aware of their decision-making struggles, you can create content that says, “We’re here to help. We’re in this together.”
Strategically developed content can educate and guide consumers through their decision making process and help them feel more confident. Content marketers can articulate consumer concerns and present viable answers and solutions in a collaborative and helpful way.
How do you embark on developing content for your marketing initiative?
One initial step is to evaluate your audiences’ greatest concerns and most common questions. Your customer service and sales teams will have great insight into these hot buttons. Secondary research and competitor intel are also resources for identifying concerns and questions. Once you have this foundation, you and your marketing team can create messaging, facts and proof points to help your audience more easily make informed decisions.
What does good “content” look like?
It can take the shape and form that best suits the consumer, his or her preferred communication channel and your marketing budget. Effective and compelling content can be communicated as an infographic, explainer video, downloadable PDF guide, planner or checklist, white paper, or interactive decision guide among many other formats.
No Such Thing as Too Much of a Good Thing
Well-crafted content can often be repurposed into multiple formats. A white paper, for example, can be re-imagined as a fact sheet, landing page, blog post, social media offer or Slideshare presentation, all while driving qualified traffic — and valuable leads — to your website. Using content as an offer is also an excellent strategy for building up your email subscriber list.
How is “content” shared?
Your consumers can access or request your content via your website, blog, landing page, social media posts, email or as a kit component or handout. For highly valuable content, you may ask your prospect to submit a brief contact form before enabling him or her to download the material online or receive the content via email.
How do you know your content will make an impact?
When your prospects value your content, you’ll know it. They’ll engage with it, respond to its call(s) to action and share it with their peers. There are many ways to build measurable tracking into your content and the channels you use to share it.
Know When to Ask for Help
Of course, you can always start a strategic content creation culture by leaning on the professional expertise of a partner like Responsory. Our Direct Branding method not only promises a fact-based approach (rather than starting with design), but our deep roots in public relations and direct response guarantees we’ll deliver spot-on messaging and put ROI accountability at the forefront of our creative efforts. Reach out to Responsory to see how our Content Marketing services or Content Creation Workshop can be tailored for your organization’s objectives.
Content marketing advice and samples:
- Interactive Infographics Drive More Traffic
- Test Market-Savvy Content to Add Value and Build Trust
- DESTINATION: Brand Loyalty (Infographic)
- The Importance of Content Strategy
- Guiding Small Business Decision Makers with Content
- Our Talent is Creating Results – Infographic for The Intersect Group
- ASQ Organizational Membership Fact Sheet
- Your 8 Step Guide to ASQ Certification – Infographic
- Your 8 Step Guide to ASQ Certification – Video
- A Clear Path to ISO Certification – Interactive Decision Tree
