Extending Marketing Content to Maximize Opportunities and Facilitate Demand
June 9th, 2008 | Garrett MannWe have been discussing the ongoing shift in power in information technology purchasing from seller to the buyer in this blog for some time now. In this new era, a potential IT buyer can fully educate themselves about a company’s technology offerings and formulate purchase consideration before ever speaking to a sales rep. Therefore, it is no longer the IT marketer’s job to generate demand, but to facilitate demand. Facilitating demand is making certain that you are providing potential buyers with all of the content and information that they need to educate themselves about what you have to offer. Which means your marketing efforts will go only as far as the content you can provide.
In order to ensure you keep up with IT buyer demand for information, you need to get the most out of every piece of content you produce. For example, if you create a webcast, transcribe it and turn it into a white paper. Or edit the audio portion and turn it into a podcast. Or take your broad white paper and create multiple versions targeted to industries you work with/sell into. Possibilities are endless. This approach will allow you to most effectively use multiple distribution channels to capitalize on prospect media format/information consumption preference and maximize interaction opportunities. Also, do not be afraid to offer content in different formats together. Recent campaigns we have run that promoted a webcast and podcast on the same subject together have seen very low duplication rates.
June 10th, 2008 at 3:59 pm
I think this good advice doesn’t go far enough. Quantity of content is only relevant for SEO purposes. To engage your community of potential buyers to want to learn more, provide content that includes less marketing and grandiose claims. Instead allow your content to help your customer solve his or her problems. Engage in conversational marketing and technology storytelling, instead of creating yet another white paper or glossy product brochure.
June 11th, 2008 at 12:38 pm
Kelly-
Thank you for the response and you make excellent points about telling your story and engaging your users. Regardless of the format you are providing, content needs to be useful and needs to engage your user. However, I must disagree with your point about content quantity. While it is undeniable that content quantity is good for SEO purposes, it is not the sole reason for extending your content. The reason to extend your content is very simple: it helps you capitalize on your opportunities in a way that is useful for your prospects and to your point, allows you to tell your story and continue the conversation with them in a format of their choice. It is not about stockpiling content for spiders to log.
October 8th, 2008 at 1:15 pm
great post! Consumers in the IT space really do know more. I also think that we can’t forget about the lead nurturing that comes after the demand is present.