It may seem obvious to say that you must build your industrial content marketing strategy around your buyers but it doesn’t happen with regularity with most manufacturers, distributors and engineering companies. At least, that’s been my experience with industrial clients.
I often hear my clients tell me they know their customers very well. They can rattle off the industries they sell to and the job titles of their buyers at the drop of a hat. Some can even tell me the size of the company and other demographic data about their customers.
Unfortunately that is the extent of their knowledge about their buyers, very rarely if ever do they know the roles played by various stakeholders involved in the buying decision. Their assumption is the person who contacts their sales team is the buyer. Their entire content marketing strategy and SEO are built around that assumption.
The thinking goes something like this, “So and so from XYZ company called to inquire about our ABC widget. Therefore others (substitute job title) from similar companies must be searching for our products.”
Then they’ll ask me, “Isn’t that how it works?” My answer: Not exactly!
To illustrate my point, let me describe two scenarios that are very common in industrial buying.
Your particular situation may be somewhat different from the two scenarios that I’ve described here but the underlying principle is the same – know thy buyers before you develop a content marketing strategy and start doing keyword research.
Read some of my earlier posts categorized under Content Marketing for more on developing strategies and for effectively implementing industrial content marketing tactics.
Let’s chat to determine if this will be a good fit for both of us. It will be a friendly conversation to get to know each other better, not a high-pressure sales pitch.