It’s ironic that as traditional media companies are floundering to rethink business models in the digital world, technology companies have to start thinking and behaving more like, well, traditional media companies.
Tom Foremski, veteran journalist in the technology and media industries, asserts the basic equation: EC = MC. Every Company is a Media Company. You can read his excellent blog for more details.
You might take issue with the claim, but it’s hard to ignore the basic reality of the equation. Particularly in the technology industry, it’s increasingly true that creating the right content is essential to moving the technology that you produce.
B2B technology sales require many ‘touches’ with the prospect to complete. Engaging with the prospect requires that you get on their radar screen in the first place. And your prospects, like everyone, are flooded with information at home and at work. You have to be there with the kind of information they need, when they need it. For that, you need to think hard about your audience and where they look for insight.
As prospects start researching online for the solutions to their problems, it’s imperative that you have interesting and relevant content for them to find. To get attention, trust and mindshare, you have to develop content that is useful and relevant to the prospect at their current stage in the decision cycle. You may have the most elegant technology in the market, but if you cannot make it relevant to their jobs, your sales team isn’t like to get the chance to make the pitch in the first place.
It all comes down to the basics of content marketing, and that starts with understanding your prospect. Much as magazines analyze their readership and buyers to target content to them, you have to understand your prospects and their problems. Who do they turn to for information? Once you know this, earn their trust and attention with useful and actionable content.
So, put on your editor’s hat, look at your resources and your customers, and start assigning those stories that will help you reach your prospects.
Anne Janzer 