As content marketers, we prioritize thought leadership as a way to win B2B prospects’ trust and loyalty. Turns out we’re missing the mark a bit.
In a recent survey conducted by LinkedIn, buyers are hungry for detailed product information including features and functions. The Center for Media Research summarized that buyers crave “technical details about products and how they work.”
Bottom line? Content marketers forgot about marketing.
Before content marketing, copywriters focused primarily on traditional marketing content touting features and benefits. Once content marketing developed, our focus shifted to educating prospects on bigger issues that impact adoption of our offerings.
Turns out the sweet spot is to offer both.
Of the types of content prospects identify as most effective, product info tops the list (35%), followed by demos (31%), best practices (20%), case studies (19%), expert opinions (18%), and product ratings/reviews (16%).
This is especially significant in the tech industry with the proliferation of largely intangible SaaS offerings.
Today’s SaaS websites focus on benefits, talking points and some branding, but rarely get down to the nuts and bolts of how the thing works. This is a huge outage for potential buyers, especially in the early stages of online research. Chances are, these individuals are tasked with presenting top options to other key decision makers. They need details to help them narrow the field effectively and confidently.
Those of us fortunate enough to have a background in copywriting, now's the moment to dust off our toolkits. It’s time to combine content marketing with traditional marketing to give buyers exactly what they need.
