So you’ve got the framework in place for a content-generation machine. Having that capacity for generating content is key, but it’s also going to prove critical that you can lead your team to deliver effective messages.
It’s common for companies to make the marketing about themselves. When we create marketing collateral from internal interviews, we build stories around ourselves. This practise is company-centric, not customer-centric. We want messages that focus on how you
help the customer. How you help solve the customer challenges. How you are educating prospects on the market shift.
Good salespeople talk in terms of outcomes and benefits first, before features. The best marketers talk about the value to the customer before they talk about your product.
In order to get your team’s messaging to shift to a customer-centric approach, the biggest question you must ask is:
3.21 How does your company empower customers? Put another way: How does your solution help people to become successful? Ask your customers and
use their words. What are your prospects’ “jobs to be done?” What are their core challenges? What is their strategy? What do your prospects need to do to be successful in their role (tune into that…)?Put customer value firstTry to embed the value you create for customers into your story. Tell business stories that aren’t self-serving, but instead show a clear focus on the customer journey. This becomes fascinating to the reader, because it links to a personal challenge they’re facing themselves.
Case Studies: Salesforce and Twilio An obvious example here is Salesforce’s use of ‘
Trailblazers’ as a marketing concept, creating a customer-centric community that appeals to our desire to be innovators.
Twilio did a fantastic job of making their product
about the developer. Their marketing focuses on how they make customers’ lives better, and their comms consistently tell a nice story. Could you do the same?