In setting up our clients’ lead generation campaigns, one of the most common questions I hear is what type of content works best.
The answer is it depends on what stage of the buying journey the people are in who you are trying to reach.
In the health tech and biotechnology industries Clarity Quest serves, the sales cycle is long and can be anywhere from 3 months to over one year. It’s unlikely that a prospect who has never heard of your company will read your latest blog post and decide to buy your product or service.
As a marketer, it’s your job to nurture the prospects’ journey and guide them from awareness to purchase.
While there are many reasons that marketing campaigns underperform, one of the most frequent roadblocks to success is not having the right information in front of your buyer when they are most receptive to it.
In this blog post, learn more about the content that has helped our clients generate leads at every stage of the buyer’s journey.
Building awareness
During the awareness stage, your potential buyer realizes they have a problem that needs to be solved. Your business could be the one to solve that problem … if you’re able to build brand awareness around the products or services you offer.
Here’s how you can use content to help build brand awareness:
- Expose your potential buyer to free resources: blog posts, infographics, social media posts, and more. This type of content establishes your company and its leadership as thought leaders in your industry. It’s also ideal for introducing the buyer to your products or services as well as what you promote as a company (culture, values, best practices, etc.).
- Have a solid SEO presence so that if the potential buyer is searching for the product or service you offer, your company will show on the first page of the search engine results page.
- Prioritize video to make your product or service feel more personal.
- Leverage social media to gain additional exposure.
Check out this infographic Clarity Quest designed for Beterra, a global patient safety and quality improvement consulting firm, to help the industry understand the differences between a new and an original version of a critical patient safety survey.
Consideration: getting to know the benefits
The consideration step of the buyer’s journey is when your potential buyer recognizes the problem to be solved and is actively seeking a solution.
During this stage, the buyer will start evaluating different businesses that offer similar services – this is your opportunity to shine!
The focus during this stage is to generate leads from people actively researching products and services you offer. Some of the materials that have helped our clients move people further along in the buyer’s journey include:
- Case studies
- Datasheets
- Resource guides
- Toolkits
- Webinars
Bonus tip: the more data that showcases success in numbers, ratings, and performance, the better!
Here’s an interactive tool Clarity Quest built for Psyche Systems to help their potential buyers scope out a custom laboratory information system.
Making the purchase decision
When the buyer has made it to the purchasing stage, they know what solution they are looking for, and now is the time to capitalize on why your solution is optimal.
Hearing from others who have overcome similar challenges enables your buyers to envision how your products and services will help them succeed.
- Testimonials: One of the best ways to captivate potential buyers is by highlighting customer experiences and reviews. Testimonials give credibility to your marketing message and make your business feel more personal.
- Success stories and white papers: Customer success stories and white papers, especially those backed up with data and real-world outcomes, give people assurance that they, too, will find success working with you.
- Product or service demos: This is the time to show your potential customers some love and make them understand that your company wants their business! Buyers want to feel invested in, and by presenting your product or service, you can give them a sneak peek as to how they may benefit from partnering with your company.
What’s in your content marketing funnel?
Developing content that meets your buyers’ needs during every stage of the funnel takes a cohesive content marketing strategy.
If your team doesn’t have the dedicated resources or time to prioritize writing new content on a consistent basis, we can help!
