Ngozi is the head, business unit at an established Pension firm in Nigeria. Her job is to increase her firm’s market share and that means getting as many businesses so her firm can be their preferred PFA partner, even if it means acquiring these clients from competing firms.
Her goal is simple – acquire as many businesses as possible and take businesses from competing firms. Achieving that goal is another game entirely.
Yes, her firm has a sales force of foot soldiers going from door to door, calling one business at a time and the firm also invests in traditional marketing. However, little has been done online, even though digital marketing is a lot more affordable and efficient (especially when monitoring results).
So, Ngozi hired a digital marketing firm to help her firm tap into the huge market that’s online. Arinze is the head consultant at the agency she hired, and he offered the following services to her.
- Content Marketing
- Online Advertising
- Search Engine Optimisation
- Email Marketing.
This article shares the processes and methods you can use to sell to businesses using content. It looks at how Arinze, the digital marketing expert
- Developed Ngozi’s B2B content marketing strategy.
- Developed content that sold pension to her clients.
- Promoted content for her.
Developing B2B Content Strategy
While Arinze was developing a documented strategy for Ngozi’s firm, he ensured he understood who the firm was, who the firm targeted and what the firm was trying to accomplish.
Ngozi’s firm wanted to project their brand as a customer-focused brand. So Arinze took that message and documented it.
Ngozi’s firm was targeting medium scale enterprises primarily, so Arinze took that and documented it.
Finally, Ngozi’s firm as mentioned earlier, was after new businesses and acquiring more businesses from their competition. So Arinze documented that as well.
From the 3 major insights above, Arinze also needs to answer the following question to complete the content marketing strategy.
- What tone of voice will Ngozi’s content take? Since it is a customer focused brand, the brand tone will move towards a helpful tone.
- Where would he find Ngozi’s target customers online? What online platforms do they use? LinkedIn is a great platform to find businesses.
- What is the best form of content for Ngozi’s target? Articles? White papers? Case studies? Video?
- How can the content make buying simpler?
Let’s take a look at how these questions are being answered.
Developing Content That Sells – Thought Leadership Vs. Customer Guidance
In Brent Adamson and Patrick Spenner’s HBR article, it was shared that ”Only content that teaches customers something new about their business and provides a compelling reason to change their behaviour proves sufficient to influence the decision process.” Yes, building thought leadership is a common goal among B2B content marketers, however, if you are focused on getting results, like Ngozi is, focus on guiding your customers through their buying journey.
Arinze followed this route. He identified common questions and concerns Ngozi’s ideal customers’ were likely to expresses and answered those questions in the content produced. That way, customers are guided carefully through the customer’s buying journey and ultimately to a buying decision.
Promotion of Content
A common mistake of content marketers is focusing all their time and energy on producing content and hoping that that will be enough. It doesn’t work that way. Think of your favourite artiste. After they produce an album, they spend months promoting that album. Except you’re Beyonce, you’re going to have to invest just as much time in producing your content as you would promoting it.
In promoting his client’s firm’s content, Arinze used the following methods:
- Guest blogging on industry sites
- Social media promotion especially LinkedIn and Twitter
- Search engine optimisation and
- Email marketing channels.
There you have it, the 3 core processes to using content to sell to businesses. Have anything to add to this?
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