How to create content buyers want
Most vendor content is really poor.
It is written by someone with near zero experience in the sector (usually a marketing intern)
The source of the content is external to your business (intern asked Chat-GPT “tell me 5 priorities for CIOs in 2023”)
It states a general opinion, and doesn’t provide actionable advice
The content buyers really want is the opposite of this:
Written by (or sourced from) an expert in your business
Focused on your company’s unique approach, experience or advice
Literally tells the reader what to do
Good content includes:
How to create your account
How to import your data
How to prioritise requirements
How to share outcomes with your executives
How to build the right project team
How to design your project timeline
How to save platform costs
None of these topics can be written by someone without deep expertise in the subject.
Hunt for internal experts
Experts don’t know they are experts.
They just do their job well and add value to their customers.
You will find experts in:
Sales - what questions do customers ask, what personas are involved, what other projects do customers have running, what graphics do the sellers use?
Solution Consultants - what are the technical challenges customers face? What architectural diagrams do they use, what demos are most common, what confuses customers most?
Deal desk -what are the most common questions from customers? What bundles do customers like or dislike? What questions do customers have about multiple year programmes?
Legal - what does the MSA, SOW, Order Form, Appendices look like? What questions come up most often from customers? What are the terms that we cannot move on and why?
Partners - what do our partners most ask of us? What do other vendors provide them with? How can we best help their sellers achieve their goals?
Onboarding/Project Management - what are the most common questions at the start of the relationship? What handover information do you want from the customer or pre-sales team? What templates or forms do you ask customers to fill in? What information is essential but takes customers a long time to find?
Customer Success Teams - what does the ideal customer team look like? How often do customer teams change over? How do customers measure success of their programme? How do they demonstrate their value and business case? Are there any templates used for quarterly briefings?
Product and Data teams - what data does your platform create that demonstrates how customers are using the tool? Are there modules that are not being used properly by customers? What is in the roadmap? What are customers asking for that isn’t in the roadmap?
Executives - when your Execs speak to customer Execs what do they discuss? What are the top concerns of customer execs? How do Execs prove the value of your solution?
The answers to all these questions are a goldmine for valuable content that your buyers do want to know about.
Create multi-format content
Your content team need to make it easy for your experts.
Your CFO or top consultant is not going to sit down and write a perfect 2,500 word article for them.
Instead, they should frame it like an interview. They provide them with a prep document (or call) in which they agree the topics they’ll cover. You need your ‘expert’ to input into these topics - as your content team don’t have that insight.
Your content team then record a ‘meeting’ - just Zoom or Teams is perfect, they don’t need to get tied up in professional videography - it is the expertise that is in their head they you want.
Once they have recorded the conversation they can now edit this down, take the audio and use as a podcast, take the words and turn them into an article.
Your content team can request copies of the templates or graphics that get mentioned and turn these into downloadable assets.
They can then take any long form edited video, audio or text and cut these into multiple micro-content pieces: quotes, sound bites, short-form video for YouTube or Tiktok.
One interview could create 50 pieces of valuable buyer-centric content.
Distribute widely
Now they have multiple pieces of content in multiple formats your content team can distribute this consistently across video, audio, social networks, your website, and importantly - third party channels where your buyers are hanging out.
Update your G2 or Capterra pages
Share with your partners to post on their blogs and socials
Share with industry and analyst websites
Turn into third party event speaking slots
Propose topics for networking events
Put your experts in front of buyers
Buyers are hungry for vendors to answer “How do I….?” questions, and this three step process will ensure your content team is creating content that is valuable and that you are proud to publish.
You are sat on insight that your buyers want.
Release it!
Get started
Whenever you are ready, there are two ways that I can help you accelerate your revenue.
Buyer Experience Audit - I’ll impersonate a buyer researching your segment and company and let you know what I find. Ideal for planning your Revenue Operations strategy.
RevOps Impact Playbooks - I’ll help you implement one or more tactical processes across your revenue teams - content, referrals, testimonials, adoption and more.