Consultative Marketing & Content Creation
Consultative marketing is a solutions-centric approach to content creation that focuses on properly understanding your customer's needs and providing products and services to solve their problems. In B2B marketing, the content creation team must position your organisation as a trusted advisor, rather than just a vendor. This approach nurtures new potential clients towards your brand over time, building trust even before the first meeting.
So for example, instead of saying on your website/LinkedIn/capability document ‘We are Ireland’s best/leading/number 1 provider of’ say something like ‘You have a problem you need to solve, we know all about this, and here’s how we solved it before for another client.’
(You may already know this but I am allergic to slogany, unverifiable claims such as ‘leading’.)
The 5Ws of Thought Leadership Content
Thought leadership content is a type of content that demonstrates your unique, thought-provoking insights into your industry. Blog posts, videos, white papers, e-books, webinars, and case studies are all forms of thought leadership content. So when the blank page is in front of you and you need to create something that will generate new contacts and opportunities, ask yourself these 5 questions (which all conveniently begin with W so you can easily remember it):
Why am I making this?
Who am I making this for?
What do I want them to feel when they are reading\watching? (Again, you may already know this, but feels are really important for me, don’t be afraid to catch them.)
What do I want them to do when it’s finished?
Where will it be shared?
When you create thought leadership content, you provide potential clients with valuable information to help them understand how they can achieve their goals. In this way your content becomes a go-to resource during the research phase of the buying cycle. Thought leadership content positions you as a knowledgeable, expert consultant - not just a vendor. Using social media to share this content will drive more traffic to your website where (if you have a decent marketing consultant) you will have strategic conversions that will nurture them on the journey toward becoming a customer, or an influencer in a decision to procure your offering.
This blog is a perfect (if I may say so myself) example of consultative marketing. Hope you liked it. If you want to know more drop me a note: tiffany@generateleads.ie
