Question: Like most B2B companies, we are striving to differentiate our business from our competition. We want to use content as a medium to show our differentiation. What is the best way to accomplish this through our content marketing efforts?
Considering that in today’s marketplace businesses are on average 70% of the way through the sales process before engaging a vendor, you are making a wise choice to use content as a vehicle to better tell your company’s story.
Ready for another mind blowing statistic?
In a recent study performed by Bain & Co, the global consulting firm, they shared with us that 80% of businesses believe that their products and/or services are highly differentiated from their competitor.
Guess what their clients had to say?
Of those companies comprising the study, only 8% of their clients believed that their product/service providers were highly differentiated.
Mening there is a gigantic dissonance between what companies believe their clients think about them and what their clients truly believe about them.
What differentiates Your Business
If someone asked you what differentiates your business, what would you tell them?
Is it your products, customer service or is it something else? What are all of the things that a business can differentiate on?
Although there are many things, ironically, a lot of businesses boil it down to a couple things such as the aforementioned products, services and customer experience.
In the end that means it can be difficult to differentiate since every business seemingly chooses the same things to differentiate on.
Content as a Secret Weapon for Differentiation
Let’s go back to the beginning where I talked about the 70% of the sale that is being done without your knowledge.
This is a prime opportunity for today’s businesses to use content to differentiate themselves. Even if the differentiation area isn’t all that unique.
Creating content (Development) and placing it in front of your current and prospective customers is a tremendous way to tell your differentiation story. Whether a potential client is looking up your business for the first time or a current customer is investigating add-on products to their current relationship with you, make sure your differentiators are constantly at the front of the conversation.
If you are doing the right things with content you are building relationships and trust with your prospective buyer. The goal should be when you meet it isn’t a brand new introduction, but the extension of a relationship that already exists.
So tell your audience often what is different about your business. Let them know why they should work with you in a way that engages and builds trust.
How do you use content to differentiate your business and build trust with customers old and new?
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Daniel Newman is the co-founder of V3*Broadsuite and is an experienced C-level executive, serving as a strategy consultant for small and mid-sized businesses. He’s also an insight/analyst partner to four Fortune 50 enterprises and previously served as the co-founder and CEO of EC3, a hosted IT and communications services provider. Prior to that, he served as the CEO of United Visual, Inc. in Chicago Illinois.
He is a widely published writer who contributes weekly to Forbes, Entrepreneur, Huffington Post and industry publications such as Commercial Integrator, Sound & Communication and Corporate Tech Decisions. He’s also author of three best-selling business books including The New Rules of Customer Engagement, The Millennial CEO, and just recently Evolve: Marketing (^as we know it) is Doomed.
Daniel has established a reputation as a leading thinker in topics such as Social, Big Data, Cloud and Mobile. He has been named to many top influencer lists in all of these areas, including recognition by the Huffington Post as one of the 100 business and leadership accounts to follow on Twitter. He is also an adjunct professor of management at North Central College.