Technology Series: How Content Marketing Can Create Demand

This is quite a succinct "why do it" comment

Technology Series: How Content Marketing Can Create Demand:
from Business 2 Community by Michelle Hill

This week, I want to talk about how technology companies can effectively create demand through content marketing.
One of the frustrations often raised by technology companies who approach us is that, as forward-thinking, innovate companies, they are constantly striving to bring new technology to the market place. Being ‘first’ often brings with it a serious amount of kudos, positioning them as the industry thought-leaders and creating lots of buzz around their brand.
The frustration, however, can arise in convincing purchasers that they actually need this new technology. Most of the time they are happy with their current technology; sure they may have a couple of gripes that they’d like sorting but they’re happy to put up with those if the alternative means investing a whole load of money in something new.

Bridge the gap

So there is a gap between what the technology companies want to sell and what the prospects or customers are happy to settle for. That’s where content marketing comes into play; it can bridge that gap.
The purpose of content marketing is to educate and address the pain points of your prospects and customers whilst subtly influencing their decision-making process. It is not salesy, it is thought-leading and valuable. It creates awareness of industry challenges and provides solutions.

Let’s look at an example

Say you are a cloud service provider but you are struggling to convince companies that they should invest in ‘moving to the cloud’. Most of them seem quite happy with their current set-up so don’t necessarily have any pain points for you to address and sell against. The chances are you might cold call and market to these companies for months, even years, to no avail.
What if, on the other hand, you provided them with a constant drip of valuable articles, making sure that they were kept aware of industry news, developments in the technology or problems that the technology was starting to solve?
What if your news articles informed them that cloud technology was now a priority for 40% of companies or that companies using the technology had demonstrated an increase in productivity?
This type of ‘awareness’ and ‘educational’ content is highly effective as it plays on the emotion of fear. Fear that they are getting left behind. Fear that they might lose new or existing customers to their competitors. Fear that they might lose their number one brand position in the market place.

Content marketing connects

Until your prospects and customers realise that they need your technology, the time and money you invest in cold-calling and traditional marketing is unlikely to generate a return. If you truly want to get their attention and create a need, you must connect with their emotions and a highly effective way of doing this is through content marketing.