Bringing a B2B offering to market is a demanding process with multiple stages, each involving different types of content and raising distinct challenges that must be met before the offering is bought, its prospects become customers, and its marketing is considered a worthwhile investment.
This 7th and final post in my series on Sales and Marketing Funnel content takes a bird’s eye view of the sorts of marketing materials that fuel the Funnel and that, when properly designed and deployed, serve as vehicles that help convey your company’s offerings to their ultimate destination, i.e., into the hands of customers.
Just as even the longest journey starts with a single step, an offering’s voyage down the Sales and Marketing Funnel begins with Awareness of the offering in the target market, proceeds to Consideration of it as a potential answer to the prospect’s problem, moves on to its becoming the prospect’s solution of Preference, and, finally, if all goes as planned, culminates in its Purchase as the prospect is converted into a customer. Each of these Funnel stages is enabled by content of a particular sort with unique goals that have to be met. Specifically, Awareness-stage content must establish the offering’s identity, Consideration-stage content needs to build its credibility, Preference-stage content has to persuade the prospect it’s the best solution, and Purchase-stage content must incite him or her to buy it.
Though the Funnel’s stages might vary in length according to the nature, complexity, maturity, and price point of an offering–for example, a low-cost, long-promoted product often quickly completes its journey through the Funnel whereas newly introduced capital equipment will likely take considerably longer–the Funnel stages themselves remain immutable. In other words, whether the offering in question is a long-term B2B service agreement contracted for years earlier or a B2C product picked up on impulse at a cash register, it must navigate the Sales and Marketing Funnel and meet the above-stated content objectives of each stage before it can move onto the next.
Although the theory behind the Sales and Marketing Funnel and its content objectives is constant, its application can vary widely. This is especially true across the Funnel’s last three stages–the Consideration, Preference, and Purchase stages–where an offering’s complexity, price point, industry, and target prospects dictate the manner in which its supporting content must be packaged in order to be effective. For example, an E-catalog or E-configurator might be the best means of pushing an industrial component through Consideration and Preference whereas a brochure or an on-line demo are likely better options for moving an enterprise-level software solution through the same stages. Indeed, perhaps in no marketing area besides content marketing are form and function equally important to achieving the desired outcome.
All this might seem like a lot to keep in mind and to undertake merely to develop materials that, as discussed in Part I of this series, are sometimes mistakenly and unfortunately considered mere filler. However, truth be told, well-developed, -executed, and -distributed content is crucial to ensuring that your offering reaches the Sales and Marketing Funnel’s end: purchase by the customer. And, that, after all, is the whole point and intended destination of the marketing journey. Please see parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6 of this article 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.