A recent research report “Better Lead Yield in the Content Marketing Field” provided strong insight into both how marketers and buyers were satisfied with the current state of affairs of the digitally driven world of content marketing. I found the results amazing, but not in a positive way.
From the side of the marketers, there has been a huge increase in the creation of on-line content, which now accounts for one quarter of marketing budgets. From the side of the buyers, they are consuming the content in search of the promised benefits of the product or service. But there are mixed results in which content is helping them through their decision-making and justification efforts. Key points that stand out from the buyers’ responses with regard to research reports and white papers:
-High value is placed on reports from professional associations and industry groups
-Much less value is placed on vendor-created white papers
So what does that tell us? Buyers are looking for authority. Otherwise, it is hard to budge them. And why is this authority so elusive? Because it has to come from real experience and from an unbiased source.
It reminds me of the famous story of Gandhi and sugar. As the story goes, a mother had great difficulty with her son because of his large consumption of sugar. The mother observed that the kid was overly rambunctious, bounced-off-walls, and was just not himself. But nothing she did worked. So she goes off to see Gandhi and waits in line for half-a-day to see him. When she gets in front of Gandhi, she explains the story and pleads with Gandhi to tell the kid to stop taking sugar. So Gandhi looks at the kid and his mother, and provides no instructions, other that to come back in 2 weeks. So 2 weeks later, they are back in the long line-up. When they get in front of Gandhi, he puts his arms on the boy’s shoulders, looks firmly into his eyes, and says “Don’t eat sugar”.
As you might guess, the mom was really astonished by this. So she approached Ghandi and asked him “Why couldn’t you have told him that 2 weeks ago?”. And Gandhi responded: “Because I had to try it myself to see if it would work”.
So there you have it. Authority at work. And the buyers in the marketplace are no different than the boy in the story. They are just not going to take your word for it. Buyers know that the marketer’s purpose is not to evangelize their product or service solely for the benefits it provides. They must make a profit after all. So even though the marketer can provide useful, informative, and educational content, and provide it in nicely orchestrated delivery, with answers to all objections, the buyer will still have their guard up.
So the path to making everyone happy is quite simple. Marketers need to find their own Gandhis to serve as sources of authority for the buying cycle.