Customer Advocates are Your Keys to Creating Content that Matters
Content marketing continues to be a growing area of investment for marketers but building content that really matters and has impact can be challenging. While most of the companies we work with are not struggling to create content, they do struggle with creating content that connects with prospects and customers. Enter, your customer advocates.
Your clients and customer advocates can help you build content that connects with your target audience. In our work we have found that case studies delivered by your customers help drive more return on investment than most other content. Of course, the challenge remains of how to connect to those customers and build the stories. Farland Group recommends an ongoing program and a co-creation approach to help build out the content library.
Co-create Content
Work directly with your customers. Develop a program that includes interviewing customers on a regular cadence; use those interviews to determine areas of interest, challenges, success stories, lessons learned, and future areas of investment. In the interviews, listen for stories that can help in building out your content roadmap. These stories do not have to be long or complex; sometimes the highest-rated content is very short and powerful.
Not convinced that co-creation is the best approach for you? Here are three important outcomes co-creation brings to your content:
Credibility – Executives value their peers’ experiences and perspectives above many other sources. Extracting ideas, solutions, and best practices from your clients (peers’ insights) provides a vital ingredient for successful content.
Relevance – Working with your customer advocates allows you to determine the topics and highest priority issues they care about. This makes your content relevant and targeted to your most important audience.
Authenticity – Stories told by peers help strengthen the content’s value.
When you take the time to listen to your customers, you will be amazed at all the things you learn that are impactful to your business. Often your best content engine is right in front of you!