The Digital Transformation
Many marketing experts have discussed the current digital transformation in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic—by now, we all know that while in-person events are suspended, it’s necessary to use digital marketing to reach potential buyers. But a deeper understanding of this transformation reveals that this trend has been accelerating for years and that it will probably continue to shape marketing strategies for the foreseeable future.
Technologies that were once used as simple cost-cutting devices are now becoming more central to revenue growth. In the past, technological transformation would have been spearheaded by CIOs or CTOs. Now, CEOs and executive committees are playing a more active role after recognizing technology as a key revenue driver.
With this in mind, expanding technological capabilities is a matter of necessity for today’s marketers to deliver revenue growth for their company—which brings us to our next point.
The Growth Mandate
In the past, marketers might have been tempted to measure the impact of their strategies using metrics like clicks and email open rates. It can be difficult to measure the return on investment (ROI) of marketing strategies using these metrics, leading to a disconnect between marketing and the value of the business overall.
On the surface, metrics like clicks and open rates might seem important—these are valuable tools to measure your company’s visibility online. However, these metrics are not directly correlated with revenue growth. Even if a million people click on your ads and open your emails, what matters most is how many people take it a step further than that.
This is further compounded by false positives, where anti-virus software clicks on every link you placed in your email to ensure there are no malicious links, thereby creating clicks that were originated by software, not your intended recipient.
This is at the heart of marketers’ new mandate—to drive revenue growth. As a marketer, you must target the people who are more likely to be interested in your company, research it further, and eventually start a conversation with sales. By taking full responsibility for delivering these Conversation Ready Leads (CRLs) to the sales department, marketers can decrease their cost per conversion. By focusing more narrowly on the target market, growth marketers can streamline the sales process as a whole and deliver on their mandate to increase revenue growth.
How to Reach Buyers Online
Let’s consider the facts. First, we know that 77% of B2B buyers reported spending more time researching products online in 2020 before purchasing. We also know that 67% of buyers report relying more on content in 2020 to inform purchasing decisions than they did in the past. Finally, we know that today’s buyers are over 70% of the way through the decision-making process before contacting a sales representative, on average.
Taken together, these statistics illustrate the increasing importance of content in the buyer’s journey. For the majority of their journey, buyers rely entirely on your content to help them determine whether your product is right for their company or not.
This begs the question: what do buyers want to see in your content as they are researching solutions online? One key element buyers look for is a strong understanding of their individual industry—76% of today’s buyers expect more personalized attention from providers based on their specific needs. They want to know that vendors understand what they need and can deliver specialized solutions.
Storytelling is another crucial element of content creation. You want your content to draw readers in, intrigue them, and make them want to know more about your product by the end of it. This is why well-written and well-designed content is key to increasing conversion rates. But it takes a significant amount of skill and experience to create this level of high-quality content—which comes at a high price.
The Cost of Compelling Content
Experienced marketers are well-aware of the costs of generating content in-house. To create the amount of content you need to feed your marketing campaigns, you have to hire three full-time employees. This includes a senior writer, a junior writer, and a designer—and that’s the bare minimum.
Marketing budgets are already stretched thin as marketers try to deliver revenue growth in the era of the digital buyer. Wouldn’t it be great if you could focus your in-house team’s efforts on generating demand and delivering CRLs to sales while still receiving all the content you need to reach buyers online?
Fortunately, this isn’t a hypothetical scenario—with a subscription-based service to take care of creative content production, marketers can focus more of their efforts on more strategic functions. This is exactly what the Creative Content River™ does.
SOMAmetrics’ Creative Content River™ delivers all the creative content you need while saving you 55% to 58% of the cost of full-time employees. With content creation increasing in both importance and cost in the era of the digital buyer, the Creative Content River™ can increase your conversion rate and help you maximize your company’s growth.
To learn more about generating creative content as a subscription, download this white paper.