Engaging SMBs Through Content Marketing

Content Marketing (CM) is the use of educational (as opposed to promotional) information to develop strong relationships with prospects and customers. Providing useful advice and relevant information creates a foundation of trust and relevance that differentiates your brand and enhances your sales and marketing efforts.

Our research has found that 50% of SMBs are more likely to favor a vendor whose website has educational content. As with all marketing initiatives, the success or failure of a CM program depends on its execution. Download our new white paper to learn more about the critical success factors of a CM program:

Target Your Audience
The most effective CM programs create content for SMBs according to their industry, size or life stage. It’s also important to target specific staff within the SMB – for example, content that's relevant to IT managers, versus marketing directors or CEOs.

Gain Senior Management Support
Since the results of CM initiatives may not be immediate, or easy to convert to hard ROI figures, it's crucial to have senior management commitment while the program is in its early stages. Seek a minimum of a one-year commitment from senior management and create a plan to monitor program performance data such as awareness, brand perception / net promoter score and likelihood to purchase.

Get Your Sales Force on Board
You can create terrific content, but if you don't get your sales force to disseminate it, your program will lose much of its potential impact. Involve influencers early and use your top performers to evangelize your educational collateral such as handbooks and guides.

Create a Clear Purchase Path
Once you have engaged your prospects or customers through CM, make sure they can follow a clear path to purchasing your products or services. The ideal CM elements generate trust in your brand and interest in your products in a non-promotional way. Each content element needs to play a distinct role, whether to generate awareness or to create interest by describing the benefits of a particular solution, and then enabling the person to try or buy.

For more tips, download our content marketing white paper. You'll learn: