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3 Qualities of Customer-Centric Marketing Content

By Candyce Edelen

PropelGrowth Blog

In her talk at the Content2Conversion conference this week, Ann Handley offered some great insights on qualities of great customer-centric marketing content.

In case you’ve never heard of Ann Handley, she’s recognized by ForbesWoman as one of the top 20 women bloggers and was recognized by Forbes as the most influential woman in social media. She’s the Chief Content Officer at MarketingProfs, and she co-wrote the bestselling book “Content Rules:  How to Create Killer Blogs, Podcasts, Videos, Ebooks, Webinars (and More) That Engage Customers and Ignite Your Business

The Best Content Marketing is…

Ann Handley of MarketingProfs speaks at Content2Conversion conference on the best contentIn her presentation, Ann talked about how to create content that offers real value for the customer. One of her slides was particularly potent: “The best content is packed with utility, seeded with inspiration, and honestly empathetic.”

So what does this mean?

Packed with Utility

First and foremost, customer-centric marketing content must be USEFUL to the target audience. It can’t be packed with sales pitches. Instead, it needs to be packed with meaningful information that your prospects NEED in order to:

  • Fully understand and diagnose their situation
  • Effectively evaluate all of their options
  • Manage the risk associated with committing to a solution
  • Understand the full scope of what it will take to deploy

Seeded with Inspiration

Your content should provide seeds of ideas that inspire your buyer. They should come away with “aha” moments that allow them to figure out clever ways to solve their own critical business problems.

If you seed inspiration into every piece, then they’ll keep coming back to you for more ideas and more clarity and inspiration.

Honestly Empathetic

This is the bullet that inspired me the most. Marketers tend to create content from a very limited point of view. It’s as if they’re convinced that their product or tools or service will magically solve ALL the customer’s problems with no effort required from the customer and no risk. But it NEVER works that way.

In all cases, whether you’re selling services or sophisticated financial technology systems, your customers have to cobble together a solution that includes:

  • careful business analysis and specification development
  • a collection of vendor products and internal development
  • teams to implement and run the system
  • the ability to foresee, trouble-shoot and quickly resolve problems

Great customer-centric marketing content should demonstrate empathetic understanding of this situation and provide insights that help the customer understand the full scope of the problem and what’s needed to solve it. The more your content can demonstrate an understanding of what customers are going through, the more likely that you’ll earn TRUST.

The Ability to Empathize and Understand Helps Win Deals

I’ve seen many vendors with more expensive products or even less functionality win deals over bigger, stronger, better funded competitors. In these cases, it’s because they could demonstrate their understanding of the broad problems. Customers trust these vendors’ ability to empathize and help the customer get through the whole process. I think this is why small vendors are such a desirable resource in the financial services industry. Often, the team involved in selling and deployment is senior and really understands the customer. They embody the concept of customer-centric selling. But if they want to spread the word and foster rapid growth, they also need to start embodying customer-centric marketing.

To download a buyer persona template that helps identify your target audience, click here.

If you’d like to discuss how to make your financial technology marketing content more customer-centric, give me a call.

(Photo courtesy of @LeeOdden)

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Candyce Edelen
CEO at PropelGrowth
Candyce is the founder and CEO of PropelGrowth. She brings more than twenty years of experience in managing technology companies and has founded four companies prior to PropelGrowth. For the past ten years, Candyce has focused exclusively in the capital markets industry, launching two financial technology companies. Now, she helps financial technology vendors improve their marketing strategy, publish compelling content, and drive revenue through marketing and sales enablement. Contact Candyce at +1 970-300-2280.
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Filed Under: Content Marketing, PropelGrowth Blog Tagged With: Ann Handley, content marketing, customer centric marketing, MarketingProfs

About Candyce Edelen

Candyce is the founder and CEO of PropelGrowth. She brings more than twenty years of experience in managing technology companies and has founded four companies prior to PropelGrowth. For the past ten years, Candyce has focused exclusively in the capital markets industry, launching two financial technology companies. Now, she helps financial technology vendors improve their marketing strategy, publish compelling content, and drive revenue through marketing and sales enablement. Contact Candyce at +1 970-300-2280.

Company Profile

PropelGrowth helps companies improve their marketing and sales. We start with in-depth buyer research. Then we develop a marketing and sales strategy and customer-centric messaging. Then we coach your team and help you execute on the strategy by developing thought leadership programs, content for every stage in the buying process, sales collateral, and tools to help buyers buy.

Figure out why and how your buyers buy

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Recent Posts

  • 4 Steps to Optimize Your LinkedIn Profile for Sales Prospecting
  • The Reality of Cold Calling for B2B Sales
  • Can Inbound Marketing Generate Enough Leads?
  • How to Fill Your Sales Pipeline Using LinkedIn for Prospecting
  • Tips from 8 ERP Resellers on How to Leapfrog Your Competition​
  • How to Win 74% of Your ERP Deals
  • Buyer Persona Research, the Key to Niche Marketing
  • 8 Ways a Niche Strategy Improves the Value of Your Practice

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+1 970.300.2280

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  • Home
  • Who We Are
    • Why PropelGrowth?
    • Management Team
    • Acumatica Marketing Team
    • Privacy Policy
    • Back
  • What We Do
    • Marketing Strategy
      • Buyer Personas
      • Strategy Development
      • Acumatica Partner Marketing
      • Integrating PR
      • Creative Design
      • Back
    • Marketing Programs
      • Content Marketing for the Buying Process
      • Content Marketing Programs
      • Thought Leadership In The Buying Process
      • Thought Leadership Programs
      • Lead Generation and Lead Nurturing
      • LinkedIn Sales Prospecting
      • Marketing Coaching Program
      • Back
    • Marketing Content
      • Marketing Automation
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      • Website Content
      • Blogging and Article Marketing
      • Case Studies
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      • Live and Online Events
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    • LinkedIn LeadGen Master Class
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      • What This CEO Learned From Buyer Persona Research Transformed Her Company
      • Back
    • Back
  • Resources
    • Sales Resources
      • Solving the No Decision Problem
      • Back
    • Marketing Resources
      • B2B Lead Conversion Rates
      • Back
    • The TrendSpotters Podcast Series
    • Back
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  • Contact
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