B2B companies still talk about the “sales cycle,” but that’s internal thinking. It’s about the company, not about the customer. For a long time now, customers have been in charge of the buying process — researching, finding, and comparing products on their own before ever speaking with vendors. So why are marketers still talking about “demand creation?” That’s still a useful concept, especially in consumer products companies, but B2B marketers also need to be thinking about the buyers they don’t even know yet — the ones who are already out there looking for solutions. Rather than just pushing information out to a big list of prospective customers, marketers need to have searchable, findable content available online, so that when prospects are ready, they can find you.

This means developing a variety of types of content, suited to the different buying-cycle stages where potential customers are at any given time. At some point, customers will talk to your sales people who will provide information in their own unique and valuable one-on-one way (presenting, objection handling, proposing). But even then, suitable content can help move the sale along.

Consider the customer’s buying cycle:

1.    Recognition of Need – The Buyer is looking for a solution to a specific business problem – Traditional demand-creation marketing blasts out information to many companies in the hope of finding buyers who are looking for solutions to a business problem. As lead generation response rates indicate, this type of communication falls on a huge number of “deaf ears.” Furthermore, the small percentage of businesses prospects who respond have probably already been out on the web searching for options. At this point, they may have already read articles in industry publications that identify types of product that address their particular problem. If any of the articles identify your company as one of the solution providers, all the better. Perhaps they have heard your executives or product managers speaking at industry events. These are opportunities where your PR people can help build awareness of what you offer. Collaborate with them to get the message right. If the articles are on-line and contain hyperlinks to your website, better yet. If you have informative product content posted on your own blog, prospects can learn that your company has a possible option for them. Do you have a user forum? Posts on a public forum may also lead prospects to consider you.

2.    Vendor Research - The Buyer is looking for companies that can provide some sort of solution to their problem – Having identified possible ways to address their problem, buyers start actively searching for solution providers. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is important in the early stages of the customer buying cycle, but is most important here. Having findable, relevant content posted and downloadable is key to being one of the vendors included in the buying cycle. Static website content is important, but downloadable content such as White Papers is even more so. At this stage your content needs to explain what you do and how you do it. Wording should show understanding of the customer problem and an explanation of how you solve it. Consider whether requiring visitors to register to download your content is desirable or not. You will lose a certain number of potential customers who aren’t ready to identify themselves yet. But those who do register are qualifying themselves.

3.   Comparing and Evaluating – The Buyer is identifying product attributes and evaluating which ones most closely match their needs – When prospective buyers have reached the stage where they’ve found your information and that of competing vendors, you need to give them tools with which to make a thoughtful comparison. Videos and online demos can make it clear how your product functions. At this stage, case studies and customer testimonial videos can be persuasive.

4. Consideration – The Buyer is seriously considering choosing one of the identified vendors – By now either the prospect will have reached out to you, or if you had them register when downloading content earlier, your sales organization will have reached out to them. At this point Sales will need to learn who else the customer is considering. Now is the time for competitive comparisons. If you have a great deal of confidence in the accuracy of your competitive information, post the comparisons on your website. Invite the prospects who are now in your funnel to one of your webinars and take the opportunity to clearly differentiate your offering from the competition’s.

All of the bold, italicized terms above are forms of content. It is essential that your content is well-written, readable, and pointedly designed for the stage(s) in the buying cycle where it is most likely to be read.

To boost awareness of your content, use social media to draw interested parties. Tweet about your video or White Paper with an intriguing headline and a link so readers can reach it. Post a description of your latest case study and a link to it in a relevant LinkedIn Group. Some companies use Facebook, but prospects need to already “like” your brand for this to be useful, whereas Twitter and LinkedIn are more openly available.

The start of a new year is a good time to review your content strategy and identify what you need to develop to totally support marketing throughout the customer’s buying cycle.

Read more about Content Marketing in articles my Mary:

• Content: The Heart of Today’s Integrated Marketing Process
• The Right Tool at the Right Time

Technorati Tags: content marketing, customer buying cycle, Integrated Marketing, SEO, Social Media