Content is a weapon, you must help clients find you.

In a recent post I mentioned that the sales process starts before you think it does Clients look for solutions long before they hit your website. This begs the question, how do you best create a weapon out of your content? The core idea is that you must populate the web with your content in as many places as possible so that the seeker can find you. This has to be much more than using SEO, paid ads, campaigns, newsletters, trade shows and magazine promotions/placements. Good content talks to seekers in their language, about their problem, using example companies just like themselves. To do this well, marketing has to really step up to the plate.

Marketing Sherpa tells us that 75% of decision makers use webinars as an information source. They love them! More decision makers than influencers use webinars . Do you make a regular use of webinars with good content on your site? Also, fewer folks each quarter are attending the live webinar, but they will go to them later (up to a year) This means your archive of webinars has a much longer lifespan than previously expected. Leave them up for as long as you can.

We help some clients become a thought leader in their field. This allows for numerous postings, comments, and article submissions on your site as well as others. This increases your cultivation of analysts who write about your vertical. Of course to do this you have to be a “leader”. Leadership is something that Canadian companies all to often squander until their US cousins figure out the business and do the sales and marketing right. Remember, prospects are not interested in you, they are looking for experience in solving their problem.

Todays blogosphere allows anyone to be a commentator on issues in an industry. There is a lack of thoughtful, regular, perceptive comment that stimulates discussion and idea generation. In less than a year. a thoughtful blogger who posts useful info on relevant sites with good follow-up content on their own site can become a thought leader.