Does Your Content Marketing Make You Different?

Being recognized as unique, different and desirable is what every company strives to achieve to stand out in their marketplace. Unfortunately, this appears to be easier said than done.

Take a look at these three tag lines:

Achieve Dramatic Cost Savings, Increase Operational Efficiency and Business Agility

Reduce Costs, Improve Service Delivery, Enable Business Innovation

Reduce IT Costs, Improve Performance, Do More with Less

Do you see anything unique that sets one apart from the others? If you had to choose a vendor based on this, which one would you choose? And yes, they each sell the same type of solution.

“Only 14% of the ‘unique benefits’ promoted by companies drive enough preference to have a commercial impact.” Corporate Executive Board

Every single one of us likely has a slew of competitors trying to sell a similar product or solution to the same markets. The problem is that what we think is important and “differentiating” about our products quite often misses the mark for what the prospect is trying to buy.

You’ve all heard the adage that you may think you’re selling a drill, but what the buyer wants is really a hole. We get so wrapped up in our products that we forget that we know too much. We all believe our products and solutions are the best possible choice for solving our prospect’s problems. We know the nitty-gritty details about just why that’s so.

What we forget is that customers don’t really care. They care about what they’re going to get, the difference it’s going to make for them and how certain they are that they’re really going to get what you promise.

Sadly, what we promise isn’t always what the prospect wants. Or we're up at the 30,000 foot view so our messaging doesn’t have any immediate impact that’s easy for the prospect to hone in on.

Which could be why research from IDG discovered that buyers say they only find relevant content 42% of the time. Yep - less than half the time. That should serve as a wake-up call.

[Unless of course you've convinced yourself that your content is well within that 42%. But I'd encourage you to take a look anyway.]

If our content is going to serve as a differentiator, we’ve got to think differently about how we seek to establish a dialogue with our prospects. We’ve got to flip our focus to what they’re buying instead of what we think we’re selling. It’s not about the solutions, products or services. It’s about what they enable your customers to achieve that they couldn’t do before. It’s about why that’s important to them.

In case you think it's not that big a deal, IDG also found that the lack of relevant content perceived by buyers is responsible for reducing the vendor's chance of closing the sale by 45%!

That’s a big deficit. And one we can't afford to allow to continue.

Comments

[David Dodd]

Ardath,

I agree with your post, but I would add a couple of points. In your post, you wrote, "We all believe our products and solutions are the best possible choice for solving our propect's problems. We know the nitty-gritty details about just why that's so." I would suggest that in most B2B markets, buyers can choose from among several similar solutions and that none of these options may clearly be the "best possible choice," at least not by a wide margin. I suspect that marketing content often misses the mark because we don't really understand how our solution creates value for customers.

Therefore, I think it's important to map all the ways that your solution creates value before you create marketing content. After you have a clear and complete picture of how your solution creates value, then identify how (or whether) your solution is different from competitors' offerings. Be sure to include positive points of difference, negative points of difference, and points of parity, and be brutally honest in your assessment. Whatever the outcome of this assessment, at least you will know where you stand.

I do believe that marketing content can be an important source of differentiation. Lately, I've been arguing that we need to view our marketing and sales activities as a process that must in itself create value for potential buyers. In some cases, the value provided by the marketing and sales process can be the deciding factor in the final purchase decision. If your solution and my solution are roughly equal, but your marketing and sales process provides much more value than mine, who is more likely to win the business?

[Ardath Albee]

Hi David,

Your statement: "Lately, I've been arguing that we need to view our marketing and sales activities as a process that must in itself create value for potential buyers."

Right on the money! Thanks for your comment.
Ardath

[Melinda]

Hi Ardath

Great article.

I'm a web copywriter and one of the first conversations I have with new clients is about what truly makes them different. If everyone has the same product or service to offer, in the same location for a similar price, why should I buy from you? Generally they need to think about if for a while but it's a great thing to work out. Then, as David mentioned, what can they offer that creates value for their clients which will keep them loyal and motivate to spread word of mouth marketing and referrals.

Regards
Melinda

[Lee Kirkby]

Ardath:

I really like the tenor of what you have said. We find that in our industry there is a lot of product that is very similar and it is easy for clients to think of it as commodities. We have to research with prospects and clients what their real issues are and often they relate more to the soft activities (attitude, ease of doing business, timely response, nice people...etc.) more than the hard stuff of the product itself. Much harder to deliver in a marketing piece than a list of specs.