7 ways to develop valuable marketing content

Creating and sharing valuable content is an effective way to drive sales leads and build customer loyalty. Valuable content can help attract and engage prospects by delivering high quality information that’s aimed at educating – not selling – allowing prospects to move themselves into your sales pipeline.

There are a few things to keep in mind when developing content:

    • Know your audience. Identify the issues important to your customers, not to you. Find out from sales and support reps the most common questions they’re asked. Do some research to understand where the information gaps are in the industry. Know the demographics of your customers so you can use appropriate language and tone.
    • Educate, don’t sell. This is a difficult mindset for many organizations to embrace. It’s important to take off the sales hat and put on your expert hat. Create content that showcases your expertise and positions your organization as an industry leader. Both prospects and customers will thank you for it.
    • Let your customers do the talking. Prospects like to learn how other companies solve similar issues. Create case studies that detail the customer challenge, how they solved it, and specific metrics that show success.
    • Use what you have. Chances are your organization is sitting on great content without even realizing it. Can you aggregate and mine customer data to identify trends? Perhaps you have a unique approach to hiring or retaining employees. Your employees might have unusual hobbies that cultivate a skill that’s important to business success. The possibilities are endless.
    • Curate for your industry. Make your website a destination for those seeking industry knowledge by curating content pertaining to your industry. Make sure you include content from competitors, as well, to show that you’re unbiased. Update information often so visitors keep coming back.
    • Think beyond print. Remember that content comes in many different forms. Feature a video of your manufacturing process on YouTube, upload an industry presentation deck onto SlideShare, or create a podcast that discusses important industry trends.
    • Make information easy to consume. People don’t always have time to read a white paper, so develop different kinds of information in various formats and lengths. Boil down a white paper into five main thoughts and blog about it or create a two-minute video highlight, then give prospects the option to download the entire paper.

Up next, now that you have all this great content, how do you market it?

 

This entry was posted in Brand Awareness, Content marketing, Grammar, Lead Generation, Media Relations, Messaging, Online Marketing, PR, Public Relations, Sales, Social Media, Writing. Bookmark the permalink.

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