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How to find the insights that will radically improve your content strategy

19 Jan 23 | Written by Katie Harrison
The majority of B2B content strategies are developed through guesswork. Learn more about the insights needed to drive a more informed content strategy.

Some years ago, a notable systems integrator (SI) was about to launch an extensive marketing campaign to an audience of UK HR professionals, promoting the benefits of a revolutionary HR SaaS (Software-as-a-Service) platform. 

The marketing team behind the launch decided the unique selling point of the platform should be focused around affordability, and how the solution allowed customers to switch CAPEX to OPEX, while reducing infrastructure maintenance costs. Their campaign consisted of a microsite, series of events, blogs, whitepapers, collateral, SEO/PPC, email, social media, public relations, advertising and sales enablement.

Just before committing to an investment of more than £250,000, the business’s management questioned the marketing team on how they developed the core messaging to guide the whole campaign. They replied that they had studied general information about the benefits of SaaS and believed that HR as a function, generally worked with tight budgets. It turned out that ‘believed’, actually meant ‘guessed’. 

Thankfully, the business suggested some buyer research was conducted first. Ten HR directors were interviewed, precisely none of whom mentioned affordability as their biggest challenge or concern. Instead, they pinpointed employee adoption, as the major and common problem that the new SaaS platform would solve. 

With a comparatively small investment, the marketing team were therefore able to change course quickly and snatch success from the jaws of defeat - pivoting on a campaign that would surely have failed to resonate and waste bundles of cash in the process.

 

Why customer insight should inform your content strategy

This true story is not an isolated one. The vast majority of B2B marketing and content strategies are still developed through guesswork, and it’s no surprise that organisations get frustrated with their return on marketing investment (ROMI). 

Even though customer insight is a much more widely understood concept today, marketing teams are often starved of any meaningful data. Of course, it’s difficult to carry out research to inform every marketing decision, but it’s critical to do so for the important ones -  like value proposition development, ABM planning and thought leadership content strategy.

In challenging times like we live in today, marketing teams can’t afford to make wasted investments based on a hunch. As belts tighten and budgets become more constrained, companies want to make more informed, smarter decisions to ensure their more targeted spend has an impact. 

According to Boston Consulting Group, companies are losing around $2 trillion of potential revenue due to antiquated sales and marketing processes, which act without any real customer or market insight.  

The insights that can be gathered to change this alarming statistic are many, but for the purposes of this blog, we’ll focus on what’s needed to inform your content strategy.

 

The insights that can drive a more informed content strategy

If you’re a B2B tech or consulting company, you’re tasked with solving complex problems for clients. With that in mind, your content strategy should consist of two constituent sub-strategies:

  1. Thought leadership: engaging prospects on the core problems and topics that mean most to them, building credibility through research and experiences that stand you out as a thought-provoking voice. This can be immensely powerful if done correctly: according to Hinge, thought leaders are likely to grow 13 times faster than their lesser known counterparts.

  2. Buyer enablement: understanding the common purchase path your buyers take and identifying the triggers that initiate a buying process. This means ‘walking in the buyer’s shoes’, assessing their information needs at every stage in their journey, and working out which touchpoints and interactions are the most critical to success.

In simple terms, thought leadership is generally focused on top of the funnel (awareness and engagement stages), while buyer enablement is bottom of the funnel (decision stage). The two strategies intersect in the middle of the funnel (conversion stage). 

Thought leadership should help nurture your inactive buyers who make up the vast majority of your market - while buyer enablement helps active buyers move through their purchasing process as quickly as possible. As they are different, they rely on distinct forms of insight to be most effective.

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Thought leadership research

Thought leadership should help your audience understand their problems more deeply and educate them on potential solutions, using your experience and expertise. From a research perspective, insights can be gathered through the following activities:

  • Voice of the Customer (VoC) interviews that identify the core priorities, problems & challenges of your ideal buyer
  • Audience research and polling platforms (such as People Also Ask & OnePoll) that assesses the scale and commonality of your ideal buyer problems across your market
  • Subject Matter Expert (SME) interviews that develop an understanding of how your organisation solves your core client problems
  • Competitor positioning assessments that identify where there are gaps and under-served niches, helping you pinpoint where you are best-placed to focus your thought leadership

Analyst firm IDC once described the buyers' journey as, "nothing more than a series of questions that must be answered.

Buyer enablement research

Buyer enablement addresses the increased desire for buyers to self-serve and ensures their buying journey and experience is easier and more engaging. By allowing buyers to easily access all the information they need and by reducing the complexity of that process, you’ll help buyers move more quickly to complete their various buying jobs.

Research shows that companies are three times more likely to buy from suppliers who are seen as helpful in advancing the purchase process. That means a) providing tools, frameworks and other resources that help in their buying process, alongside b) all the information they need to thoroughly evaluate you online as a potential partner.

The insights you need to accurately understand your buyers’ information needs, can be gathered through the following research activities:

  • Voice of the Customer interviews with prospects and clients who’ve recently been through a buying process with you - this will enable you to map out your typical buyer journey, identifying their information needs at each stage
  • Website analytical tools such as Qualtrics and HotJar can provide you with insights into how your buyers navigate your website. They will proactively suggest actions and changes that can help influence your purchasing journeys 
  • Win/loss debriefs can reveal many unknown activities that buyers undertake and allow you to gain a benchmark of your competitors
  • Sales team surveys can help you identify the most common requests asked by your buyers throughout their engagement with your organisation, providing further insights to help you shape your buyer enablement content
  • Audience research tools such as People Also Ask can be used to identify the questions buyers typically ask when looking for a particular product or service

 

In summary

The ideas above will help you create a tightly focused and integrated content strategy that is directly focused on creating content for every stage of the funnel. It ensures you can avoid the constant pressure of coming up with new ideas and creating content randomly that doesn’t engage your buyers. 

When this is all led by insight, it ensures you minimise the guesswork and de-risk your marketing investment. It means you won’t be developing content for content’s sake, and instead it will all be developed as part of a coherent plan that is laser-focused on content that supports every stage of your demand generation funnel.

Ultimately, it’s vital to remember that the voice of the customer should form the core of your research, given it will give you the greatest depth of understanding and insight.

Written by
Katie Harrison
Head of Client Marketing
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