How to Use Content to Generate and Nurture High-Quality B2B Leads

B2B marketing is kind of like dating: “Love at first sight” almost never happens, and you need to figure out how to get someone from an initial interest level to the point where they’re comfortable having a relationship with you. This is where content marketing comes into the picture.

“Marketers are the nurturers,” said Cyndi Greenglass, senior vice president of strategic solutions at Diamond Marketing Solutions, at a B2B LeadsCon session in New York earlier this month. It’s their job to proficiently use content to nurture leads and get them to the point where sales can close the deal. The problem is that too many B2B marketers send all leads directly to sales and most have not established a lead-nurturing process.

Mapping Content to the Decision-Making Process
“The first thing we have to do is map our sales cycle to the decision process of your potential buyer,” Greenglass said. “If you can map that process of how an individual goes through and decides how to start with you and go all the way through to the sale, then you can deliver up different kinds of content where it makes sense in this process.”

Greenglass laid out the stages of the buying process:

• Interest: prospect begins search
• Learn: prospect identifies potential vendors
• Evaluate: prospect evaluates potential solutions
• Propose: prospect presents a short list of solutions for internal review
• Purchase: contract review and purchase

“You can map your content to fall into these early, middle and late stages of the buying process,” Greenglass said. Marketers should look at their funnel and content (existing and non-existing) and see where they need to fill in their content pipeline.

Greenglass added that most of a B2B marketer’s early-stage content is about proving functionality and setting a level of credibility. This means educating buyers, as well as overcoming known objections typical for buyers in that stage of the buying process.

Case studies are a particularly helpful form of content in the early stage of a buying process, since they are a sort of testimonial about how another company was able to solve its problem with your company’s services or products. “Nothing builds credibility more strongly then somebody else’s opinion,” Greenglass said.

In the later stages of the buying process, B2B marketers should shift their focus toward thought leadership. This is where focused white papers, videos, podcasts and brochures come more into play.

How to Build a Content Marketing Machine
For an on-the-ground-level look at what it looks like to get a B2B content marketing operation up and running, Jane Buck, director of customer acquisition at Dyn, explained her company’s story.

To begin with, Buck listed all the different content types (e.g., white papers, case studies, blog posts, videos, analyst research, tools/calculators, product pages, infographics, etc.) and “took inventory” to see what Dyn had on hand and what types of content the company should focus on creating.

Buck and her team of 15-20 people started with blogging daily. “You have to develop these people,” she said. “You have to feed them caffeine and sugar to continue to blog daily.”

After nailing down daily blogging, they focused on developing testimonials, listening to sales and customers, listening to social media, incorporating feedback from various sources, and repurposing content.

Buck added that an editorial calendar is necessary to maintain a consistent, predictable routine. “Marketing is discipline,” she said. Webinars, white papers, case studies, videos and social media updates are all included. Content is also tied to where it fits in the sales process