Gone are the days of single-handed decision-making. Today's B2B purchases involve a complex web of influences, often referred to as "buying groups." This multifaceted group, comprising individuals with diverse roles and priorities, presents a unique challenge for marketers. Engaging each member effectively becomes crucial to getting that final signature. Content syndication, when strategically deployed, can be a powerful tool in your arsenal to capture the attention and interest of the buying committee.
However, taking a one-size-fits-all approach won’t do. To truly resonate with the entire buying group, you need a targeted approach that aligns your content with each persona’s unique challenges, needs, and expressed interests throughout the entire buyer’s journey. In this blog post, we will discuss the nuances of engaging with buying groups and highlight content syndication best practices that will help increase your conversion rates and accelerate your pipeline.
Understanding the Buying Group Landscape
According to Gartner, there are between 14 and 23 individuals within a buying group. In a separate study, Forrester determined that each B2B purchase involves 27 interactions per individual. If you do the math, that's a total of anywhere from 378 to 621 interactions across the entire buying group. Monitoring all these interactions and engaging with key individuals of the buying group across all stages of the buyer’s journey can get tricky.
Now imagine a buying group for new CRM software. You might encounter the Chief Information Officer (CIO) concerned about technical specifications, the Marketing Director focused on campaign effectiveness, and the Sales Manager prioritizing user-friendliness. Each persona has different pain points, needs, and content consumption preferences. Ignoring these differences and taking a one-size-fits-all approach to your content can leave your message falling on deaf ears, jeopardizing your content syndication program results.
Tailoring Your Content: The Key to Persona-Focused Engagement
The key lies in creating content that speaks directly to each persona within the buying group. Here's how to achieve this:
- Step 1: Persona Profiling: Start by meticulously defining each persona's role, responsibilities, challenges, and information needs. Conduct interviews, surveys, or analyze existing internal data and market research to gather insights.
- Step 2: Content Mapping: Based on your profiles, map your content assets to specific personas based on their business challenges and needs. White papers might best suit the CIO, while case studies resonate with the Sales Manager, and infographics could be ideal for the Marketing Director.
- Step 3: Publisher Selection: Consider where each persona consumes information. Each persona may consume content through different industry publications that target specific audiences (e.g., CIOs in the IT industry). Diversify your selected syndication publishers to engage with the buying group effectively.
Best Practices for Content Syndication
1. Tailor Headlines and CTAs: Craft compelling headlines and calls to action (CTAs) that pique the interest of each persona. Use language relevant to their pain points and highlight the specific benefits they'll gain from engaging with your content.
2. Personalization Beyond the Surface: While personalization based on industry or job title is helpful, consider adding a layer of dynamic personalization. Intent data can help you deliver content based on each buying group’s unique research behaviors and website engagement.
3. Social Proof Matters: Feature testimonials and case studies showcasing success stories with similar companies or personas. This builds trust and demonstrates your value propositions for everyone within the buying group.
4. Access to the Buying Group: Ensure that you have accurate contact information for key decision-makers and influencers within each buying group so that you can effectively follow up with target accounts that download your content. While content syndication is a great channel for generating leads who are interested in and engaging with your content–typically only providing 25% of the buying committee–you need other means of acquiring contact data for the rest of the buying group.
5. Personalized Sales Follow-up: When a target account has met all the criteria that indicates they are ready for sales follow-up, make sure your sellers have access to the right intelligence around the buying group–including the challenges, interests, and solutions they recently researched. This will allow them to personalize their talk tracks and ensure consistent messaging throughout the buyer’s journey.
6. Measure and Adapt: Track the performance of your syndicated content across different personas and publishers. Analyze engagement metrics like downloads and clicks to understand what resonates and what needs improvement. Continuously adapt your content strategy based on these insights.
Taking a Holistic, Strategic Approach
Remember, the buying group is a team. While tailoring content is crucial, don't lose sight of the bigger picture. Offer content that is tailored to each persona but also showcases how your solution addresses the collective needs of the group and facilitates smoother collaboration among its members. This could include white papers outlining the overall business impact, joint demos highlighting interdepartmental benefits, or case studies featuring successful collaborative implementations.
Also, it’s important to not lose sight of the target personas with the most influence within the buying group. Focus your sales engagement strategy on building a strong rapport and trust with these individuals to create internal champions that will help advocate for your products and solutions and generate interest throughout the organization when you are not there.
Content syndication, when wielded strategically and with a nuanced understanding of buying group dynamics as well as access to the entire buying group, can be a powerful force in accelerating your sales pipeline. By recognizing the unique needs and preferences of each persona within the group, tailoring your content accordingly, and fostering meaningful interactions with the entire buying committee, you can turn a complex buying group into a unified force championing your solution. The result? Better efficiency, higher conversion rates, and faster pipeline velocity. It’s a win-win for all.
