The previous segment of this multi-portion series on B2B Sales and Marketing Funnel content outlined the funnel’s four stages (Awareness, Consideration, Preference, and Purchase), described their objectives, and provided an overview of their content requirements. This segment takes a closer look at the messaging and marketing vehicles best suited to each stage, especially in respect to high-value and high-cost B2B product and service sales.
Decades ago, creating Awareness for premium B2B solutions usually involved placing advertisements and generating publicity in trade- and business-publications and, occasionally, for major players such as Intel and Cisco, doing the same in mainstream media on the theory that consumer opinion might exert “pull-through” influence on purchasers of high-price point B2B purchases. Today’s digital marketing and social media might make some aspects of this example seem irrelevant but, in high-dollar B2B sales, at least one element, pull through, remains both pertinent and cogent. This is because, in contrast to consumer marketing, wherein the targeted prospect is often the purchasing decision maker as well as the end user, in B2B marketing the two are seldom one and the same. Consequently, to move your company’s offering further down the Sales and Marketing Funnel to the Consideration stage, your B2B marketing content must effectively address and motivate each of these parties.
The distinction between the purchasing decision makers and end users of high-cost B2B products and services holds ramifications for content messaging as well as for marketing-vehicle selection, even at the early, Awareness stage of the Sales and Marketing Funnel. Although, as its name suggests, the principal objective at this stage is to make prospects aware of your offering, the message your content delivers here must be consistent with your company’s brand promise, support the offering’s positioning, and resonate with both the decision maker and the end user. First impressions are not only important but–as typical rebranding costs demonstrate–expensive to alter, so it’s essential that your messaging content be on the mark from the outset.
Perhaps the greatest difference in Awareness-stage content aimed at the end user and that geared toward the decision maker is that the first should focus on the benefits of your company’s offering whereas the latter should concentrate on your company’s reputation and its record as a reliable supplier. The end user, who is also frequently the solution specifier, is searching for the offering that will best meet the requirements of an application while the decision maker, who is typically a manager with budget responsibility, is more interested in ensuring that the selected solution constitutes a sound investment for the company reflects well on his or her managerial judgement.
Optimal marketing vehicles for Awareness-stage content also vary according to the target customer type. For example, influencers/end users are often best reached via SEM keyword ads, organic SEO results, and product press releases that call attention to an offering’s innovative features and unique benefits whereas decision makers’ attention is more likely to be captured by business-press mentions, corporate capabilities videos, and articles in industry and business media highlighting the breadth of a company’s expertise, its functional capacity, and its reliability.
Although Awareness-stage content can and should differ in message and delivery method according to the target, it must have one common aspect–a call to action. This can be a link to a landing page or the inclusion of a contact email address or phone number–whatever seems likely to be most effective with the audience. The important thing is simply that it be included, since Awareness-stage content must not merely capture the prospect’s attention–for an offering to proceed the down the Sales and Marketing Funnel, it must also engage it. Calls to action that provide an opportunity to obtain further information about your company and its offerings are engagement mechanisms that facilitate the deepening of a prospect’s initial interest, and, depending on the information you request when making an offer, also permit you to tailor content subsequently targeted at the prospect.
Please look for my next post, which will discuss the best types of content messaging and marketing vehicles to use to get your company’s offerings successfully through the Sales and Marketing Funnel’s Consideration stage and into the subsequent and all-important Preference stage.
Please see parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7 of this series on content for the Sales and Marketing Funnel at GF&Z’s blog “Perspectives in Global B2B Marketing,” on www.globalmarcomm.com.
Ronald-Stéphane Gilbért, Global and Content Marketing Practice Director— Gilbért, Flossmann & Zhang Worldwide, Cleveland
Contact GF&Z at solutions@globalmarcomm.com for more information on optimizing your content for the Marketing and Sales Funnel.