Even a great product can get lost in the sea of online distractions competing for attention. Simply building and launching something isn't enough. Brand identity—who you are, what you value, and why—attracts people to your business and keeps them engaged. It's what makes customers trust you.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NUbCKzALU1M
David Cancel, CEO of Drift summed up today’s business climate when he said, “Today, you are not going to win on product features — you have to win on brand.”
Building an effective brand requires investing in quality content. Companies produce countless blogs, eBooks, podcasts, and other content daily—all forming the foundation of today's "content economy."
In B2B markets, the average buyer progresses more than 70% of the way through the decision-making process before engaging with a sales representative. In 57% of cases, the purchase decision is made even before the customer calls the supplier.
What’s more? The average person consumes 13 pieces of content before making a purchase decision. That’s a significant amount of time spent getting to know a company through its voice, opinions, and expertise.
If you aren’t investing in quality content, then prospects will get advice from your competitors. They’ll be the ones reaching out when you could be building those relationships.
Every company is a media company
In order to succeed in the content economy, you need to develop comprehensive content creation and distribution strategy. This isn’t an either-or proposition. Great content is worthless if nobody reads it. Conversely, you can have a large audience, but they won’t want to hear from you unless you’re adding value to their lives and work.
Creating a content strategy might sound like a difficult task, but its rewards are worth it. You’ll create lasting connections with customers all over the world, and establish your brand as a leader in an endlessly competitive field. By following this actionable 10-step strategy, you can develop a content pipeline and distribution strategy to drive long-term growth for your business.
A successful content production process requires you to do more than write a few lines about a topic relevant to your business. You need to understand your target audience on a human level and create content that addresses their hopes, desires, needs, and pains.
This is where audience personas and ideal customer profiles (ICPs) come into play. There are plenty of ways to approach developing these documents, but at a minimum, they should contain the following types of data: