Tune Content for Buyer Stages

Marketing storytelling has different uses at different times. In order to catch more than momentary attention, you want to nurture your prospects through their buying stages. And, each stage has different requirements to meet prospect needs. By tuning your content to meet the requirements of each stage, you can progressively transition your leads into customers.

In the beginning stage, the buyer knows they have a problem to solve (or at least thinks they do) and is looking to educate themselves about the issues, unveil the opportunities available by addressing them and better understand the ramifications of the problem itself. This is when stories that educate—without a sales pitch—are appreciated. Educational content gives you a platform for exposing your company's expertise and differentiating factors.

During the educational phase, your buyers don't want to know that much about your company. That's won't be important until they've actually become interested enough in what you provide to put you on the short list. As there are always many options for how to solve every problem, buyers will be casting the net wide to learn about best practices and innovative possibilities. B2B vendors hate this part, but buyers do want to know a price range that tells them if they're in the budget ball park before they spend time, only to be disappointed later.

After your potential buyer has enough information to decide to take action, then they start to research more deeply to decide which option [and vendor] is a viable choice for them. This is when dramatizing your product's benefits can help you transition the prospect to a qualified lead. This is because instead of making claims like "Our breakthrough product employs the latest in cutting-edge technology." your marketing story is going to be told in such a compelling way that you'll never say that type of thing once. And, your buyers will draw that conclusion themselves.

Once your prospects journey to this point, customer stories and testimonials can help validate the buyer's belief that your product does indeed accomplish the result they have already "concluded" it does.

Only after your company makes the vendor short list, does the buyer really want to know in depth about your company's values, financial stability and customer service behavior—in essence, what it will be like to work with your company, moving forward.

It's not just which content you tune to use at which stage, but how you tell the story that creates momentum to transition your potential customers through their buying stages. Content, used creatively, facilitates customer acquisition outcomes.

Comments

[John]

Great insights...and thank you for highlighting the use of storytelling. In an age where content is often reduced to key words, it is wonderful to hear a marketing expert who understands that begind every great marketing campaign is a good story -- stories build brands, customer loyalty...they can revive a tired product or launch a new platform.

[Hans De Keulenaer]

There are also risks to storytelling. If the story is not fully in tune with the customer's expectation, it may be counter-productive. And if you're dealing with a sophisticated buyer, she may resent the simplification through story telling.

[Ardath Albee]

John,

Thanks for your comment!

Hans,

I find it interesting that your interpretation of "storytelling" is oversimplification of issues. That couldn't be farther from the truth. Although, your point about being in tune with customers is critical to effective communications, and lies at the heart of effective marketing storytelling. If marketing is not in tune - regardless of what you call it - your buyer will not engage.

Ardath

[Kelly Balarie]

Delivering the right targeted message at a moment's notice is what will make or break the deal. I actually work at SAVO, a sales enablement technology company where we focus on delivering enabling sales with the right infomration (whether competitive intelligence, case studies, specific vertical information, etc.). Sales can even answer a series of questions about thier target market and the best assets are presented to enable a great selling conversation. I am excited to see such a great entry at this one that highlights the importance of telling a story that is relevant to the prospect.

[Ardath Albee]

Hi Kelly,

I am a big fan of SAVO and enjoy attending webinars held by your company. The most recent, Building the Perfect Sales Beast, with your CEO, John Aiello, was well done.

Getting the right information to sales in "usable" form is quite a challenge - and your company's system does a good job of putting it at a salesperson's fingertips, from what I've seen. The difficult part is generating that "usable" sales content.

Thanks for your comment.
Ardath