Your buyers could care less about the number of blogs, eBooks, infographics, or case studies you produce each month. So, why do marketing teams care so much?

Your buyers aren’t focused on content production, they want personalized content. They want stories about value that speak to their individual goals, roles, and market segments.

This is #3 in our “Modern Marketer” series: Personalizing your content marketing to resonate deeply with potential customers. Successful marketing teams are adopting a buyer-journey-first approach, including their approach to content.

Understanding the Buyer’s Story to Tell Yours

Buyers are no longer passive consumers. They crave content that speaks directly to their needs and demonstrates how your offering solves their challenges –achieving specific business goals, fulfilling role objectives, or keeping pace with industry trends. Every piece of content should tell a personalized story about buyer value.

Every piece of content should not only inform but inspire by addressing how your offerings meet the specific goals of your audience. 

Content at Each Step of the Journey

To effectively guide prospects through the marketing funnel, it’s crucial to tailor content journeys according to their stage in the buying process:

• Top of the Funnel (TOFU): Capture attention with engaging content such as blogs, infographics, testimonials, and videos that introduce your brand and its value proposition.
• Middle of the Funnel (MOFU): Provide in-depth resources like checklists, diagnostics, guides, and customer success stories that help prospects evaluate solutions and consider your offerings.
• Bottom of the Funnel (BOFU): Encourage decision-making with comprehensive content like white papers, eBooks, and case studies that showcase your expertise and provide social proof.

Overcoming Positioning Silos 

Positioning silos are ubiquitous across companies of all shapes and sizes, severely hindering effective communication between marketing and sales teams, and it creates a jarring disconnect for buyers who are getting different messages at different points. 

Somewhere between 60% and 90% of marketing-generated content never gets used by sales. . 

To bridge this gap, it’s essential for marketing teams to commit to building their content in a cross-functional way with sales – testing, iterating and learning directly from field conversations.  

When it comes to content, less is more. You don’t need a huge volume of each content type. Instead, use each content asset to tell a consistent story about value at each point across the buyer journey.