As a sales or marketing manager, you understand that your customers’ buying process is difficult. There are so many stakeholders involved in making purchase decisions. So you’ve (wisely) decided to implement a buyer enablement strategy.
In an effort to meet your goals, you’ve created a plethora of content. However, this abundance of content that you believe is helping your audience, may actually be doing the opposite. Too much content can make it more challenging for key groups to make decisions.
The good news is there are a number of ways you can keep your buyers from getting overwhelmed and help them find what’s useful to them. We’ve compiled 6 tips to help.
1. Create Content for Different Personas
The first and most important step in buyer enablement is figuring out who is in your prospect’s buying decision group. Once you do, create and organize your content around these personas. For example, if you’re selling software, your content types may include:
- Security and privacy details for the infosec individuals.
- Technical specs and features for potential users.
- Financial and cost information for the procurement teams.
- Case studies and social proof for end decision makers.
Determine what types of information each particular group is likely to need. You'll be making their jobs easier by keeping things organized and helping the right buying stakeholders find the specific answers they need.
2. Speak Your Buyers’ Language
Remember that you’re talking to people who may not be familiar with your industry jargon or internal acronyms. For this reason, it is in your best interest to avoid using language that will do nothing but confuse them.
And remember that you may need to use different messaging for your prospect’s security team than for their potential users. The language your content collateral use should always match and resonate with the various stakeholder groups you’re trying to reach.
Discover: Syncing Marketing and Customer Success: The Path to Winning the Customer Journey
3. Appeal to the Modern Buyer
Gone are the days of long, boring PDFs. Swap out these oldschool formats for modern content types like interactive brochures, personalized spec sheets, and dynamic content experiences that are more compelling for today’s audiences. Don’t make your readers pinch and pan around on their phones. Today’s business content must be responsive and visually appealing.
It also needs to be concise and easy to digest. Today’s audiences have short attention spans and won’t take the time to read pages and pages of text. Use visuals to communicate your message whenever you can. And always include an element of personalization as the one-size-fits-all approach is unlikely to yield results.
4. Eliminate Fluff
In this phase of the buyer’s journey, your prospect’s decision-making group doesn’t need clever marketing copy as much as concrete information. While you may have gotten their attention via great advertising and “selling the dream,” now they care exactly what they will get for their money. While it’s important to keep them enthusiastic, conveying understanding should be your primary goal here. So cut the fluff and make your content short, sweet, and to the point.
5. Keep Content Consistent
When it comes to effective buyer enablement, consistency is key. While information needs to be specific to the needs of individual stakeholders, the overall brand message you’re conveying must be consistent.
This is why themes, templates, and the right content creation technology are all invaluable. Although they require an upfront investment, these tools can make it far easier for you to scale up your content velocity while still keeping things consistent.
6. Offer Purchase Decision Affirmation
In today’s crowded marketplace, there are countless products and services B2B buyers may select. It’s your job to provide each persona with the confidence they need to know your offering is the best decision.
There are many ways to instil confidence. When you create content for infosec individuals, for example, you might add security badges and awards that show you’re compliant. If you’re speaking to future users, a video about ease of use may do the trick.
ROI calculators and a cost-benefit analysis may be wise when targeting decision-makers. Essentially, it comes down to providing each stakeholder in the decision-making group with the comfort and confidence they desire. Doing so is likely to pay off as customers who are more confident in their decision-making are 2.6 more likely to buy.
Foleon & CMI White Paper
How to Overcome Content Creation Barriers
Why the time is now for B2B marketers to develop modern digital content experiences.
.png?width=527&name=Overcome-Content-Creation-Barriers%20(1).png)
