No engagement = No leads = No business!
Research suggests that it is very important to educate your target customers in the demand generation process of technology-driven companies. We’ve outlined a few reasons why:
Excessively cluttered market
Our world is in a perpetual state of information overload. Your competitors are reaching out to your customers with excessive promotional materials, and your customers have an oversupply of emails, cold calls, and marketing messages from the inception till the end of this journey.
To consider: Are you able to communicate your Unique Selling Proposition (USP) to your customers effectively through all the touchpoints? Is it reaching them? And are they able to analyze the information in a timely manner in order to make a buying decision?
Micro-Moments
Research suggests that “One of the significant findings of the study is dwindling human attention span, human attention dropped from 12 seconds in 2000 to just 8 seconds in 2018, beating out the ever-distracted goldfish, which clocks in at 9 seconds.” – Nielsen and Taboola report on consumer attentiveness and emotional response to different content experiences online.
Traditional lead generation is now ineffective with the concept of micro-moments and the short attention span of your audience. They want a personalized approach catered to them, as compared to just another message to the crowd.
To consider: Did you approach your target audience by proving value as compared to a simple pitch? If your answer is yes, and your customer became a lead… But has not taken the next step yet. Have you now taken the time to ‘educate’ your lead by providing a timely solution to his/her needs?
The Moment of Truth
Circling back:
No engagement = No leads = No business!
While selling to a B2B customer, a technology-driven company must touch base with its customer through the buying journey, in order for them to stay engaged. This tool has proven results that attain a high-quality return on investment.
Leverage your existing internal data, and repurpose it to distribute across the top, middle and lower funnel. While content creation is important, the engagement created for it and methods of sharing it on various platforms and regular follow-ups with your target audience is what will convert your mere leads to existing customers.
Here are a few steps a business take to break through the clutter and cater to their customers’ short attention span:
- Standout visuals: Using colour accurately and interesting visuals will usually get more eyeballs to your post.
- Storytelling: B2B storytelling makes a brand ‘real’ to its audience. It enables easy communication about your brand’s story, its products and its services.
- Visual storytelling: Carousels, infographics, slides can make it very interesting for your technology audience to relate to and engage with.
- Magnetic content: Establish your brand with thought-provoking and personalized content, that connects with your audience.
- Personalization: Personalization is key in every marketing activity today. It can take your customer from a ‘satisfied’ customer to an ‘elite’ customer, enabling them to stay loyal and stay with you long-term.
Which content forms should you use to educate your audience?
- Blog posts
- eBooks
- Podcasts
- One-on-one meetings
- Webinars
- Case studies
For technology companies, educating customers throughout the demand generation process helps them not only acquire new customers but also retain them.
How does educating your customer in the demand generation process help technology companies?
- It reaches your audience in the very first stage of epiphany and builds the framework to position your brand
- It creates awareness of your product or service and how it can address their pain points
- It established credibility for your product and shows the reasoning behind how your company can address challenges and face them head-on
- It provides gated content that helps you gather valuable information about your audience while sparking upselling and cross-selling opportunities
- In the process of educating your audience, you also train your employees which makes your organization stronger as a team!
By identifying the goal of educating your customer, you can create an actionable plan in terms of creating the right content, choosing the right delivery platforms, monitoring, and improvising on your existing strategies. Make sure to craft your customer’s learning experience in a way that will appease your customers.
The education of a customer at every stage is as important as the nurturing and retention of the existing customer, who can potentially drive business for you if you win his loyalty. As always said: It’s always easier to retain a customer than acquire a new one!
Which B2B demand generation strategy has worked for you, and what has been your most powerful tool? Share your story with us.
