Hey ,

Today I’ll share with you 7 bottlenecks you need to fix before you start noticing increased revenue, shorter sales cycle, and higher ACV.

1. LACK OF CUSTOMER INSIGHTS IN YOUR CONTENT STRATEGY.

Focusing on providing answers to the questions your target audience is interested in generates more opportunities than mediocre articles optimized for keywords with high traffic volume.

Want to generate demand with your content?

Leverage this simple formula:

In-depth answers to your buyers' most important questions + your expertise/examples = demand.

2. COPYING B2C/E-COMMERCE.

More articles -> more keywords + longtails -> more traffic -> more revenue works in B2C but not in B2B.

Your buyers don’t need MORE content. Yeah, you read it well.

They need better, high-quality content that answers specific questions they have as they move through the buying process.

3. HIRING CHEAP WRITERS.

Most B2B companies:

• hire cheap SEO content writers that find keywords with high traffic volume,
• analyze the 10 most popular articles
• rewrite the summary of these articles adding your product features.

The truth is, B2B buyers smell low-quality content from miles away and ignore it.

And no salesperson will ever help you to distribute it if they feel this content presents them as amateurs.

4. BLINDLY COPYING MARKET LEADERS.

Lots of companies are copying leaders in their industry just because «if they do this, it should be the right approach».

But unfortunately, you don't:

• Know the goals and the context
• Have their skillset
• Have their budget

They can afford experiments & losses, but can your company afford it?

5. REPLACING DEMAND GEN WITH LINEAR "CONTENT FUNNELS".

Demand generation is not linear.

If a person downloads an ebook or signs up for your webinar, it means they are interested in the topic, not your product (well, not yet). 

If you are going to send these contacts to sales, you’ll burn out your pipeline fast.

6. PRESS RELEASES WRAPPED INTO DEMAND GEN PROGRAMS.

Here is a harsh truth. Nobody cares about:

• the trade shows or conferences you’ve attended
• the money you raised (aside from SDRs who’ll use it as a trigger to spam you)
• pictures from your corporate events, or the awards you won.

It provides 0 value to your buyers and doesn’t generate demand for your product.

7. ATTRIBUTION AND LEAD GEN OBSESSION.

The primary goal of your content should be to help your buyers, educate them, and get them interested in your product, not sell.

But because B2B companies can't attribute these programs, they turn demand gen into lead gen.

Webinars become sales pitches.

Blog articles promote product features instead of answering the most challenging questions your buyers have.

Define leading indicators and get everybody aligned.

Example:

• ABM: # of connections with buying committee members, # of engaged accounts.
• Thought leadership: # of chats about your product, brand mentions, media invites
• Awareness: # of views/clicks from target accounts 

Best shares from Trenches Community

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Questions from fellow Trenchers

Dear , your help is needed. If you can answer any of the questions below, please click on the link and share your ideas.

1. Morning everyone, are there any CDP experts in here? I have a few questions about the fundamentals of CDP's and the various offerings on the market.
2. Looking at marketing automation tools to finally get one established. What do you recommend that works well with Salesforce? Not interested in Salesforce Marketing Cloud/Pardot.
3. Does anyone know the pricing structure of Alyce gifting? Looking for a gifting platform. I saw Alyce and postal. Any recommendations?

Job Opportunity 

Gradient is hiring a B2B marketer

What skills and experience should the candidate need to get the job done:

• 3 to 8 years of experience in a B2B content marketing role.
• You can work independently whilst aligning with the broader team on goals & expectations.
• You’ve got a positive and flexible personality, the ability to cope with changing scopes, and solid problem-solving skills.
• You’ve got a proactive, entrepreneurial, results-oriented attitude with the ability to work effectively in a fast-paced organization.
• You have solid experience in content creation, the desire to really understand what drives the customer, and the skill to describe complex things in simple words.

To learn more and apply, click here.

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See you in Trenches 😉

Adechina ODJO