The sales process begins long before your sales representatives pick up the phone. With more than 80% of buyers using supplier websites for research, capturing your market share depends heavily on how well your content marketing strategy is executed.
What are Your Buyers Top Concerns?
Before you start crafting a content marketing plan, you need a clear understanding of the market and the top concerns of your buyers. For example, Gartner has reported that in 2017 IT spending will continue to grow:
Businesses will continue to invest in IT and will continue to expect revenue growth, but there will be shifts in spending patterns. Worldwide IT spending is down slightly from a previous projection of 3 percent and is projected to increase 2.7 percent over 2016 bringing the total IT market to $3.5 trillion in 2017.
“2017 was poised to be a rebound year in IT spending. Some major trends have converged, including cloud, blockchain, digital business and artificial intelligence. Normally, this would have pushed IT spending much higher than 2.7 percent growth,” said John-David Lovelock, research vice president at Gartner. “However, some of the political uncertainty in global markets has fostered a wait-and-see approach causing many enterprises to forestall IT investments.”
IDC predicts even bigger growth in cybersecurity:
IDC released research that organizations will spend $101.6 billion on cybersecurity software, services, and hardware by 2020, representing a 38% increase over 2016. In 2016, IDC projected that the banking industry will spend the most on cybersecurity.
Data insights are another top concern:
With regards to big data, most CIO’s and other senior IT executives know their organizations are not fully prepared to make sense of the vast stores of data coming into their organization. A Bain survey of 325 global companies found that 59% of those organizations believe they lack the capabilities to generate meaningful business insights from their data. In another Bain survey of 250 companies, 85% said they will require substantial investments to update their existing data platform, which includes consolidating and cleaning data, simplifying access and rights management, and improving access to external data sources.
Tying your Content Marketing to Technology Trends
Research shows that 83.4% of buyers use a supplier’s website for their research, yet only 37% of them find the websites helpful. In fact, the typical B2B buyer is already 57% through the buying process by the time they engage with one of your sales reps. (Source: CEB) The key to getting on the short list is to reach technology decision makers with content that proves you understand the market, showcases your ability to meet the buyers needs and builds trust in your organization.
In order to translate your years of technology expertise into thought-provoking, original content, you need a content strategy that addresses your buyer’s journey. Consider how you will develop a unique, compelling voice that draws buyers in, and a clear understanding of your buyer personas. Your content plan should also cover what types of content you will need to curate to validate your voice and provide value to your audience.
A critical component that cannot be overlooked is addressing how you will accomplish your goals to consistently publish your content across various channels, like your blog and social. To amplify your voice and push your content to perform you will need to publish email newsletters, create landing pages for lead capture and use syndication with destination sites that increase your exposure and convert your prospects into customers.
About ContentMX
To drive more engagement and increase your chances of getting found, the ContentMX team works with you to understand your buyers and produce a content plan. We then deliver everything you need to build and implement a complete content marketing strategy for your technology company. Our unique workflow and underlying technology allow us to offer you a uniquely powerful solution at a very affordable price.