How to Delight Your Audience with Content Marketing

Gaining a new customer or making a sale in business comes down to showing the right product to the right buyer at the right time.  It takes a lot of work to set it all up. From finding the “right” client for the product to timing it so that both the product is available and the buyer is ready, a lot can go wrong.

In marketing, the same elements are required. You need to target the right people. And, you need to wait until they’re ready before they become a customer.

This requires two key elements: the right people and timing.

With today’s advanced targeting options on social channels like Facebook, finding your ideal customer has become a lot easier. There are all kinds of ways to reach your audience based on demographics, location and interests.

However, what’s more difficult is getting the timing right.

Until someone is ready to hear your message, they might consider what you have to say spam. And, if you blast them with your message the first time, then they may never want to hear from you again. Regardless of the fact that they’d welcome your message once they’re ready to hear it – and it may even be exactly the same message that you said the first time.

This one small change to your marketing can make a difference to how your buyers view you.

But, how do you accomplish this?

The answer is with content marketing and promoting it to different segments of your audience so that it is at the right time for them. A common mistake businesses make is believing they just need content, and the rest will take care of itself.

However, content marketing that delights your audience is all about delivering the right message at the right time to the right buyer. By developing content for each of the stages along the buyer’s journey (awareness to consideration to decision making), and delivering it at the right time, then your marketing efforts are:

• more effective,
• make the right impression, and
• can have a big impact on the success of your business relationship.

The term “content marketing” has sometimes been used to describe marketing content with a lot of clickbait. This is the equivalent to getting someone’s email address and then blasting them hourly with each item in your product catalogue. Both of these approaches leave prospects feeling deceived and disrespected.

The strategy that we’re talking about is a beneficial approach. It’s about nurturing the relationship over time by sharing educational content to help them at the stage of the buyer’s journey that they’re currently on, and then helping them move to the next stage when they’re ready.

Whenever someone “raises their hand” to move from the awareness stage to the consideration stage, for instance, we respond with different content that speaks to them at that stage of their buying journey.

Invest in your lead nurturing system

63 percent of people requesting information today will not purchase for at least three months. And a whopping 20 percent will take more than 12 months to buy. And so, a strategy designed to nuture leads can keep the conversation going without overwhelming them.

Using this type of marketing strategy has numerous benefits to your business:

• Research says that on average people need 6-8 touchpoints with a business before they become a customer. Content marketing can do this on auto-pilot.
• Providing valuable educational content establishes you as an expert.
• By waiting until the customer is ready before going to the next step, they start to trust you.

When done properly, it is very subtle and the process of going from one stage to the next is seamless. People may not even be aware that you’re marketing to them.

Timing is everything in business, and it’s the same with marketing too.

If you’re interested in taking the next step and integrating content marketing strategies into what you’re currently doing, then contact us to take the next step.