If you’re a marketing manager in tech, you likely have at least one well-defined buyer persona that you use to guide your content marketing efforts. But do you have a well-balanced mix of content to support them throughout the three specific stages of their buyer’s journey?
If you’re only focused on churning out multiple blogs per week, you may be missing opportunities to convert marketing qualified leads (MQLs) to sales qualified leads (SQLs) during the consideration stage. And, if you’re running multiple webinars per month, are you ignoring top of the funnel activities?
(Don’t be too hard on yourself…Forrester reports that one-third of B2B marketers fully admit that their #1 problem is figuring how to serve up the correct content to specific buyers when the time is right.)
Want to see where you may be missing valuable content for your tech buyers? Read on.
Take inventory of your marketing
Time to whip out a spreadsheet: start by listing the names of your buyer personas across the top (column headers), then listing the three stages of the buyer’s journey—awareness, consideration and decision—down the left side (row headers). Now it’s time for some manual work…take inventory of every piece of content your organization owns and assign it to the corresponding cell.
Not sure what should go where? Here are some general guidelines:
- Awareness: analyst reports, research reports, eGuides and eBooks, editorial content, expert content, white papers, educational content
- Consideration: comparison white papers, expert guides, live interactions, podcasts, videos
- Decision: vendor comparisons, product comparisons, case studies, trial downloads, product literature, live demos
Notice any gaps? There’s your opportunity for improvement!
ToFu fixes: getting leads
During the awareness stage, you will be focused on getting traffic to your website and converting them into a lead. Think you might have a top-of-funnel problem? Here are some ways to tell:
- Overall website traffic is low
- Visits to landing pages are decent, but the bounce rate is high
- Form submissions are down
If your tech company is exhibiting any of these symptoms, you could be doing a better job at helping your buyer during their awareness stage by creating content that helps them clearly define their problem or opportunity. Here are some content types to support that goal:
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MoFu fixes: qualifying prospects
During the consideration stage, you’ll want to nurture leads down the funnel until they become an opportunity. Think you might have a middle-of-funnel problem? Here are some ways to tell:
- Low number of repeat visitors to your website
- Lots of newsletter subscribers, but low open/click rates
- High volume of inbound leads, but low opportunities
If your tech company is exhibiting any of these symptoms, you could be doing a better job at nurturing leads during their consideration stage by creating content that helps them understand the available options to solve their problem or opportunity. Here are some content types to support that goal:
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BoFu fixes: converting opportunities
During the decision stage, you’ll want to turn opportunities into actual customers…score! Think you might have a bottom-of-funnel problem? Here are some ways to tell:
- Deals take forevvvvver to close
- Percentage of lost vs. won opportunities is increasing
- Previously hot opportunities “ghost” on you
If your tech company is exhibiting any of these symptoms, you could be doing a better job closing deals during your buyers’ decision stage by creating content that helps them choose the best provider to solve their problem or opportunity. Here are some content types to support that goal:
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