My Name is Marketing, and I’ll Be Your Server

When you dine at restaurants, good servers will converse with you to learn more about your tastes so they can recommend dishes that appeal to you. Unless you are a regular customer, it’s unlikely that they know enough about what you like to provide you with a tailored recommendation.

Fortunately, B2B marketing and sales representatives don’t have this problem. If they’ve completed buyer personas, then they know a great deal about what appeals to their target buyers and influencers. With this insight marketing can create content that resonates with these target buyers and guide them through the buying cycle, reducing friction at every obstacle. Not only can marketing deliver this tailored content directly to buyers and influencers, they also can produce content that sales can provide to prospects, often before they even ask for it.

Getting back to our great restaurant server, how frequently do you experience service that’s tailored just for you? I bet it’s rare. Likewise, if you’re a marketer, when was the last time your sales team, or better yet your prospects, complimented you for delivering just the right content at the right time that satisfied their needs?

Do you want to be the marketer that receives a $100 tip on a $100 check? That’s a 100% tip. If so, then stop providing what your competitors and colleagues deliver to their prospects and start exceeding your sales team’s and prospects’ expectations.

To be recognized by your prospects for understanding their problems and anticipating their concerns, it’s imperative that you create content with differentiated messages for your target buyers and influencers. This does not need to be a complex process. If you’re like many B2B vendors, then you probably have a buyer who’s responsible for the line of business that your product targets. Additionally, that buyer likely reports to a C-level executive who influences the purchase decision. If the product is technical in nature, then an IT person will also influence the deal.

After you create specific messages for the business manager, the C-level executive and the IT person, don’t simply rely on sales to deliver your message or hope that your target buyers happen to view your content to learn more about your solution. It’s critical that you create tailored content for each buyer/influencer that anticipates the questions they will have. Embed your key messages to each audience across a range of content types, including visuals such as infographics and video. Relying solely on the written word will not make you stand out from the competition nor will it be enough to reach your audience.

To accelerate sales for your company, your prospects must be able to get answers to their questions, and if your content doesn’t satisfy them, then they’ll get their answers from your competition. You don’t need more content that speaks to only one audience. You need more quality content that addresses the needs of multiple buyers/influencers.

The best restaurants invest in their servers just as you should invest in your content strategy and development. An agency can help you extend your content development, but make sure that the one you choose asks you the right questions. If your agency is not constantly peppering you with questions about your buyers and influencers, then how could it possibly create content that will resonate with them?