Educating the Customer through Content Marketing

Monday, 01. 26. 2009  –  Category: Enversa

Customers are finding that they are able to be significantly more educated about the products they intend to buy if they just spend some time doing research on the internet. The days of having slick salesmen sell people on the widget they do not need are long gone and marketing departments have become much more important to a company’s sales process than they ever have before. When a customer calls in to talk to the sales organization of a company that customer has usually already read a significant amount of content related marketing material and the customer feels like they are qualified to make their own decisions about whether or not they need your product. Click here to read more

In some cases the customer will turn to a sales rep to answer some questions that the customer feels like they could not answer on their own but more often these days your customers are becoming more educated about the products they are buying. In 2009 many marketing professionals have decided to use that customer quest for knowledge to their advantage.

Content marketing is the idea that the more information you give a customer and the more educated they are about your product the more comfortable they will feel when buying your product. Customers want detailed information to be able to compare products and make up their own minds so rather than continuing to try and force sales people down the customers throats companies have turned to content based marketing and product white papers to help get their message out.

White papers are usually regarded as havens for technical and important information. If a product has its own white paper then the customers that are serious about purchasing that product are more inclined to think that the product has a lot to offer and is more complex than they originally thought. This can also lead to the feeling from the customer that the product is worth significantly more than the company is charging for it. A customer is always looking for the product that will do the job and feels like a bargain to them and with content based marketing you can allow the customer to make that decision for themselves with a little help from your marketing department.

When a customer is searching out white papers on products they will sometimes look in places other than your company website. For many customers information that is found on a company website is biased and not as valuable as third party information. While this is potentially true what many customers do not realize is that the white papers and studies they are finding on third party websites are usually generated by the company selling the product. You can use this to your company’s advantage by being sure to circulate your content based marketing to as many credible third party websites as possible. Technical blogs, reputable emagazines, and even as a press release to large online publications are great ways for customers to read your content based marketing and feel like they are reading something they can rely on.

Using content marketing is a skill like anything else in marketing and in 2009 many marketing professionals intend to perfect their content marketing skills to reach more customers and generate more interest in their products. Give the customer as much information as possible and they just may sell themselves.