Every organization is different, every company's process is different, every story is different, and every team in the marketing space is different. This blog is about the one thing that remains consistent in every marketing endeavor — content. Content marketing has quickly become the champion of pretty much every digital marketing strategy today. This is why the number of marketers that leverage content for product marketing is also growing.
As you tussle with how to create effective content for today's consumers, you've likely heard about something called "content marketing". But before you dive in, you need to learn more. The purpose of this blog is two-fold. First, it shows you why valuable content should be a part of your product marketing content strategy. Second, it discusses how to leverage content for product marketing to help achieve your business objectives and carry out successful content marketing. To begin with, here are couple of questions for B2B business owners and product marketers.
Are you worried that your new product will not take off as expected by using only native advertising techniques? Do you think it is difficult to effectively leverage content marketing?
As a product manager, you have complete control over how you promote the launch of your product, what process and strategy to follow to hit immense traffic, engagement and sales. You have a say in which distribution channel to use, how in-depth is your content audit, and what to do to leverage content to promote your product. And for the most part, a successful product launch depends on how skillfully you can leverage content for marketing success.
Why Content Should Be a Part of Your Product Marketing Strategy?
Marketing has evolved for B2B marketers in many different directions, thanks to the digital era. You no longer find B2B product marketers using old and outdated methods for brand awareness. As far as a content marketing agency is concerned, B2B is one segment that needs constant experimentation because every sales cycle is different. This means that the outbound and inbound marketing methods need to be customized according to the target audience.
This is where content marketing comes into the picture, so that a marketer can leverage content to the fullest. It's the single most important way to delight, engage, and educate customers. A single content marketing strategy can bring in more leads than any random marketing activity.
The Content Marketing Institute (CMI) defines content marketing as "a strategic marketing approach focused on creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and retain a clearly-defined audience - and, ultimately, to drive profitable customer action."
The audience wants to learn as much as possible about your product and brand. There are many customer concerns that product marketers need to address, e.g., the benefits and features of the product, the problems that the product will solve, etc. This is why product marketers need to leverage content for product marketing to speak to potential customer's pain points and provide them with the right value.
According to Neil Patel, “it’s content that moves your prospects through the buyer’s journey, reinforcing relationships at every stage of the sales funnel.”
When it comes to creating product marketing content, your objectives as a marketer should be to answer your audience's most burning questions, especially related to each stage of the buying journey. By creating content that addresses FAQs and solves common problems, product marketers will have the power tool to build strong audience relationships. Content strategy that is research-driven and provides more personalized attention, will directly help your customers know and engage with your company.
Now, let's look at some facts and figures from the 2018 B2B Content Marketing Top Performers:
Statistics for a key content strategy that marketers can use:
Source: Okdork
A blog post and infographics receive more average shares than other content types. Listicles are also a unique content marketing effort that gives your readers an exact idea about what to expect (i.e. 10 ways to do something), they're also easy to read on the run. Similarly, infographics make it easier to acquire a huge amount of information in a visually appealing way.
How to Leverage Content for Product Marketing?
There are multiple ways to leverage content to increase lead generation. To narrow it down, here are the top three methods to leverage content for product marketing.
Utilize the Power of Video Content
Social media is and will always be a cost-effective platform to promote your product launch. Most people use social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter for entertainment, in which case you need something that will catch the attention of users, and visual content will help you do that. When you create content for social media you allow that information to reach different kinds of audiences. But undoubtedly to promote your product on social media and to engage the audience you need meaningful visual content. Quality content in the form of a video will help you generate the type of engagement you are looking for. However, you need to do it right to see high-yields. Different kinds of video content marketing ideas are appreciated by the audience since they bring a sense of newness in the way products are marketed.
One of the best visual content that you can add in your content marketing plan is a product demonstration video. Not just any video, but high quality and informative, one that can provide your prospects with a firsthand look at how effective your product is. Showing your product capabilities through video content marketing with necessary information is a flawless way to get prospects to believe and eventually buy what you're selling. Another way to leverage video content is by using various forms of visual content like interviews, guides, Q&As, and tutorials to stir audience curiosity keeping the real value of your product and target audience in mind.
Effective Use of Intriguing Infographics
You can build up the excitement of your audience with visual content, but to get people to spend money on something that they aren't sure of will be a good investment. You'll need content that will inform and educate your audience – something that explains the thought leadership concept your brand follows. When it comes to B2B, infographics are the best possible way to market your product. With an infographic-rich product marketing strategy, you're not only using graphics or infographics (animated infographics), but using bite-sized content with effective data visualization to provide a visual resource that is easier to understand.
Maybe you can create an infographic visualizing product features and its benefits. You can also use the infographic as an explainer video tool to break down concepts, compare products, features, or highlight product details.
Here's the result based on a survey conducted with 500 online marketers about how visual content influenced their marketing strategies in 2018, and what their plans are for 2019
Source: Vanngage
A great infographic can educate, entertain, and inspire. As a product marketer, if you can demonstrate your product and brand value, you've already won half the battle.
Educate your Target Audience with Engaging Webinars
There are so many marketing channels available in the market, but one good content medium that's risen in popularity over the years is webinars. A webinar has become an important part of B2B marketing because they gel well with B2B objectives. Prospects search for webinars today to learn live from an expert and have their questions answered over the video.
Webinars have come to be "one of the most powerful formats in the content marketer's arsenal, used by 46% of B2B marketers" today according to CMI. Using webinars to leverage a content marketing strategy is a trend suitable for all economic situations.
Inviting B2B your clients to the webinar can shorten your product's sales cycle, giving them the right solution — the solution they are looking for. Webinars that deal with a specific topic, industry, or trend not only boost audience attendance but also offer an effortless way to generate new leads within your organization.
Source: Lyfemarketing
B2B webinars can help in generating new leads and nurturing a professional relationship with the existing ones. You may choose to host as many webinars as you'd like on hot industry topics and trends. You'll have the opportunity to connect with, inform, and educate your audience on what's up and coming in your field. This way, you can conduct content optimization in one of its most organic forms.
There are many other content marketing strategies and formats like whitepapers, eBooks, and product sheets which you can incorporate depending on your business. With the methods of content marketing discussed above, you can improve and enhance your marketing strategies while following product marketing best practices and eventually gain a high return on investment.
Frequently Asked Questions
How to leverage content for product marketing?
It is a constant trend of using content as the primary medium to market a product. While there are different methods to leverage content in a product marketing strategy, here are the top ways to do it:
- Utilize video content to the fullest
- Publish interesting infographics
- Conduct informative webinars
Why is product marketing important?
Product marketing is the process of marketing a product and its benefits to the right audience. Product marketing is considered important because it lets marketers understand their customer’s problems and offer products to meet their needs.