When strategically planning your B2B content marketing initiatives there are many tactical considerations necessary to inform your marketing, sales, and content teams as they execute the plan. And these aspects are obviously important. However, if you truly want these efforts to deliver optimal sales and ROI, what needs to be at the heart of all this planning is THE BUYER. And in that regard, we know that the most important touchpoint with today’s B2B Buyers is our content. THIS is where your strategy will make or break the success of these tactical efforts.

In that context, there are 3 critical considerations that should always underlie the planning and execution of your content marketing initiatives:

ALIGN

You must appropriately align your content to each stage of your Buyer’s lifecycle and ensure that it spans the ENTIRE journey. For example, we all know about the devastating gap between qualifying that MQL and closing the actual deal. If done right, your content can bridge this gap by bringing the sales voice into the later-stage content experiences, thereby increasing trust in the qualification, while also moving more truly qualified Buyers to that purchase discussion. Just as importantly, you should consider how that content fits the education/qualification needs of your Buyer at that stage of the journey.

DO

Ask not what the content in each stage IS – but WHAT IT DOES, both for you and the Buyer. This requires much more actively intelligent content. Again, the goal with each touch is to provide the Buyer personalized, customized information that compels her to keep moving toward purchase via this high-value content she’s engaged with, while simultaneously driving the deeper qualification data your marketing and sales teams need to optimize their own efforts. This way, when this Buyer raises her hand, she can expect the same fully-educated, personalized one-to-one conversation with the salesperson she has already experienced through this far more intelligent content.

DIRECT

Both in your core Journey content and in your existing nurture assets which orbit these core assets in each stage – every CTA should ALWAYS drive the Buyer to WHAT’S NEXT. This unidirectional, end-to-end linking of all your content is critical to ensure a seamless, accelerated sales pipeline and to bridge the gap where Buyers (and won deals) have been stranded for far too long.

So take a look at your own B2B content marketing initiatives. Are you nailing these 3 critical considerations for your Buyer and for your business?

If you want to know more, or need some help in these areas – give us a shout. It’s why we built Splashmetrics.