How to Engage Prospects Who Aren’t Ready to Buy

It’s easy to default to marketing content that promotes your products and services – I mean that’s what marketing is all about, right? Maybe a blog about a new product feature, a case study touting a customer success or a post on LinkedIn featuring a one-day sale. That’s all important, but to be successful at content marketing – to attract prospects, engage them, and ultimately, convert them into new customers – make sure you’re not forgetting a second type of content in your schedule:

Content that provides value, whether your target audience is ready to buy or not.

The truth is, as Nina Baker of distribution software provider Tribute told me this week, most people in your target market are not ready to buy or to switch suppliers. No amount of one-day sales posts or blogs on your latest features will probably change that.

That’s the case for a lot of B2B organizations, especially those with longer sales cycles. So balance out promotion with content (blog posts, whitepapers, guest posts in industry publications, sharing articles that your targets would find interesting) that showcases your knowledge of their business, their industry and their pain points. Because your targets will be looking one day.

So will you wait until they are researching that decision and hope they’ll land on your website, or will you grow an audience of prospects who come to depend on you for great insights on issues that matter to them – and as a result visit your website every week? (Baker does the latter.)

This is the very top of the funnel and requires playing the long game, but if you’re publishing content of value (and that’s the key – it has to be of real value), this strategy will put you top of mind when they are ready to buy, or will make you the one they recommend to others.

Read why slow and steady wins the content marketing race.

You’ll get to hear more about Baker’s experience in a soon-to-launch project from 3 Aspens Media. Stay tuned!