Content marketing is a strategy that relies on the creation of interesting and engaging content to attract prospects and clients to your products or services. As such, it’s a great way to explore and succeed in new markets, by offering your product as a solution to a new group of people.
Strategic distribution of your targeted and useful content around the web is a great way to get your prospective buyers to find great content, interact with it and build your brand exposure. The key purpose of the content is to educate or inform them of your products in order to improve your online success.
Content marketing for new markets
Content marketing in new markets requires not only different types of content, but you must also find your future clients on the web to give them the kind of information they are looking for and will come back for.
Before implementing a content marketing strategy, it is important to have a complete understanding of your target market. Start with market research to build your knowledge from the ground up. The foundation of market research begins with finding out who your new customer is, and what they want.
To really understand them, here are some questions to consider:
- Why do they need your product?
- What are they using right now to fill this need?
- How is your product better than what they are using now?
- How is not using your product costing your customer? (time, money, market share, customer retention, etc?)
- What do they have to gain from switching to you?
- Why would they not want to change?
- Where can you find them online?
- Who do they believe in and follow?
With this information comes the answer to you content questions. Your marketing team can focus their attention on providing these people with content that highlights:
- Your company’s expertise that they don’t have access to right now
- Provocative content that will challenge their current status quo
- Content that will speak personally to each individual
- Content that will support your future client in achieving their relevant goals
- How your future customer’s complaints about their current product intersect with your product’s strengths
- Proof that your product works
- Create a story
Branded content marketing works best if there is a coherent story that is easy to understand. You’ll have different stories for different markets. Setting up a content marketing blog with relevant information may be a great first start to get your message out there.
Test your message
Once you have your core message down, try to simplify it to its essence, and then send it out to professional contacts in the market to get their honest feedback. In addition, ask people from your target market to ask questions about your product and why it is valuable to customers. The more branded content research you do, the more complete a picture you are going to have about your new market’s wants and needs.
These steps are an integral part of all B2B content marketing, but it’s critical to understand that new markets are made up of new types of people with new demands and requirements. So starting with new market research and asking a lot of questions to the right people along the way will help you open up new communications options to garner awareness, reach out to, and engage with your new market.
