Author: Brother Siliang
We continue to share the content marketing of ToB enterprises. Earlier, we have successively talked about clarifying the purpose of content marketing, customer portraits, and choosing content platforms, and today's main content is to determine the type of content, which is also a very important part of content marketing, and friends who want to do a good job in content marketing must pay attention to it.
The authors divide ToB content into five types, namely: brand awareness (attracting potential users), education (increasing intent customers), conversion (assisting paying customers), service and incentive (service paying customers), and recall (recalling churned users).
Based on the parenthetical text, it's easy to understand that these content types can not only help attract potential users, but also increase intent customers, assist paid conversions, serve paying customers, and recall churned users.
For ToB marketers, understanding and effectively leveraging these content types can significantly improve the effectiveness of their marketing strategies and drive continued business growth.
Let's take a look at each specific content type.
1. Brand awareness content
1) Definition and Purpose
Brand awareness content is a core component of ToB content marketing, with the main purpose of building and increasing brand awareness to attract the attention of potential customers. This type of content typically doesn't directly promote a product or service, but rather engages a target audience by showcasing brand values, expertise, and industry leadership.
At its core, it's about building trust and recognition, delivering brand image, increasing exposure, attracting potential users, and laying a solid foundation for subsequent marketing campaigns.
2) Specific kinds
- Brand Story: Share your brand's origins, mission, vision, and achievements to create a unique brand identity.
- Industry Insight Report: Provides industry trend analysis, market research results, and shows the brand's degree of professionalism and leading position in the industry.
- CEO/CTO/CPO and other expert content: Publish expert articles and research that showcase your brand's expertise and innovative thinking.
3) Strategic direction
- Storytelling: Make your brand story more vivid and engaging with an engaging approach to storytelling.
- Data-driven: Leverage data and facts to support industry insights and increase the authority and credibility of your content.
- Expert Participation: Invite industry experts (especially senior executives) to participate in content creation or interviews to enhance the professionalism and influence of the content.
With these strategies, brand-aware content can not only capture the attention of potential customers, but also create a positive image of the brand in the minds of potential customers, laying a solid foundation for further customer conversion.
2. Educational content
1) Definition and Purpose
Educational content focuses on providing information and knowledge to help potential customers understand industry-related issues and challenges, and how to address them. The purpose of this type of content is to convert prospects into prospects, educating and inspiring them to make a purchase decision.
At its core, educational content is about increasing our clients' industry knowledge and helping them make more informed business decisions.
2) Specific kinds
- Industry Solutions: Provide solutions to specific industry problems and demonstrate practical applications of the company's products or services.
- Scenario Solution: A solution that focuses on a specific scenario or case to help customers understand how a product or service might work in a real-world environment.
- Educational live broadcast: Conduct product value demonstrations and industry lectures in the form of live broadcasts to answer customer questions in real time.
3) Strategic direction
- Case Study: Use real customer stories to show how a product or service solves a specific problem.
- Interactive learning: Use interactive methods such as online live broadcasts and community Q&As to improve customer engagement and learning effectiveness.
- Multi-channel publishing: Distribute educational content through different channels (e.g., social media, official website, etc.) to expand your reach.
With educational content, businesses are not only able to establish themselves as industry leaders, but also help customers gain a deeper understanding of their products and services, thereby increasing their willingness to buy.
3. Transformative content
1) Definition and Purpose
The core goal of converting content is to help customers convert into paid conversions. This type of content focuses on showcasing the specific value and benefits of a product or service, addressing potential customers' concerns and guiding them to make a purchase decision.
Converting content often plays a big role in a customer's decision-making process, and when the customer already understands the industry and possible solutions, more persuasive content is needed to drive purchases.
2) Specific kinds
- Customer Stories: Showcase success stories of a product or service in real-world applications, emphasizing its problem-solving skills, and leverage positive reviews and testimonials from existing customers to increase trust and credibility.
- Product value delivery: Demonstrate the features and usage of the product in detail through short videos, articles, or live broadcasts.
- Promotions: Although the Tob target group is often not price-sensitive, promotional activities such as discounts and gifts can still be used as a means of secondary conversion to drive payment.
3) Strategic direction
- Highlight unique selling points: Clearly demonstrate the unique value and benefits of your product or service.
- Lead action: Include a clear call to action in your content that encourages customers to make a purchase or make further contact.
Effective use of conversional content can significantly increase sales conversion rates and convert leads into paying customers.
4. Service and incentive content
1) Definition and Purpose
Service and incentive content is designed to provide ongoing support and value to paying customers, enhancing customer loyalty and satisfaction. The focus of this type of content is to maintain relationships with existing customers, provide additional services or incentives to promote repeat purchases and word-of-mouth.
Service and motivational content not only enhances the customer experience, but can also be used as part of a competitive differentiation to help businesses stand out in the marketplace.
2) Specific kinds
- Customer Training & Product Skill Training: Provide detailed product guides, tutorial videos, or online courses to help customers get better out of the product.
- Answers to relevant questions: Provide immediate answers and support for questions customers may have.
- User Community Sharing: Establish an online community to encourage communication and experience sharing among users.
3) Strategic direction
- Regularly update content: Keep your content up-to-date and provide the latest product information and tips on a regular basis.
- Personalized service: Tailor content to the specific needs and feedback of your customers.
- Encourage interaction: Encourage feedback and suggestions from customers through surveys, social media interactions, and more.
The effective implementation of service and incentive content can not only improve customer satisfaction, but also promote customer loyalty, and even bring customer referrals, bringing long-term benefits to the enterprise.
V. Contents of the call type
1) Definition and Purpose
Recall content focuses on re-engaging and re-engaging customers who have lost or are inactive. By providing targeted information and offers, this type of content is designed to arouse the interest of customers and lead them to reconsider the brand's products or services.
In a highly competitive ToB market, it is often more cost-effective to recall old customers than to attract new ones.
2) Specific kinds
- Product or Service Update Notifications: Notify customers about product updates, new features, or services.
- Special offers and promotions: Offer deals and promotions that are specifically targeted at existing customers to motivate them to make a repeat purchase.
3) Strategic direction
- Personalized Communications: Deliver personalized content and offers based on a customer's past purchase history.
- Focus on what's new: Highlight improvements and new features of your product or service since the customer last came into contact.
- Survey optimization: Invite customers to provide feedback on why churn and adjust their strategy accordingly.
By effectively using recalled content, businesses are able to not only re-engage lapsed customers, but also learn from their feedback to further improve products and services and enhance the overall customer experience.
At its core, ToB marketing is about understanding and satisfying customer needs. By effectively using brand-aware, educational, convertive, service and motivational, and recall content, companies can build deep connections with customers at different stages to drive business growth and success.
Each content type has its own unique role, specific content, and strategic direction, and ToB marketers should be flexible enough to use them based on their business goals and customer needs to achieve the best marketing results.
In today's rapid development of digitalization, content marketing has become an indispensable part of ToB enterprises. Marketers need to constantly innovate and experiment with different types of content strategies to adapt to changing market conditions and customer needs.
Remember, the power of content lies in its ability to resonate with your audience, address their pain points, and guide them to make informed business decisions.
That's it for today, and we'll continue next time.