The challenge for many industrial marketers is making their content relevant to their prospects and customers. Industrial sales cycles are usually several months long and involve numerous people in different roles.
Identifying where a prospect is on the buying cycle is sometimes difficult because there are long periods of silence with little to no online activity to track. It is not possible to automatically trigger content when there are no regular behavioral patterns to measure and score.
Yet, these are qualified prospects so you can’t just discard them.
One solution that I’ve found to work well is to reengineer your existing content to focus on answering the “What’s in it for me (WIIFM)?” question for each of the stakeholders involved in the industrial buying cycle.
Why is industrial content reengineering important?
Because your customers know what they want and what is important to them, your content must address their concerns or they will go looking for the answers elsewhere (your competition).
Reengineering transforms your “one size fits all” content to one that is highly customized and relevant to each job function or decision-making role.
It can help to reduce the length of the industrial sales cycle and provide you a competitive advantage.
Here is a possible scenario for a manufacturer of in-line PD flowmeters that sells primarily to the hydrocarbon, industrial and food processing industries.
- The plant engineer/maintenance manager – the end-user, his biggest WIIFM is “Will your product make my job more difficult?” You say, “No, our flowmeters will make it much easier on you” and your reengineered content validates that claim by stating:
- There are only two moving parts so they are virtually maintenance free
- The unique patented design makes our flowmeters far easier to maintain than other conventional PD flowmeters that use bearings, timing gears, rotating shafts and dynamic seals
- Takes 15 minutes or less to completely disassemble and reassemble our flowmeters
- Get access via Live Chat to our in-house engineers to answer your technical questions
- The process design engineer – the specifier, his WIIFMs are “How accurate are your flowmeters and can they handle my operating conditions?” Your repurposed content says:
- Dual-rotor turbine flowmeter offers 1000:1 turndown, which is 5X greater than any existing single-rotor PD flowmeter
- Non-intrusive sensors measure flow with repeatability of +/- 5% at rates ranging from 0.001 to 300 GPM
- Built-in true self-diagnostics with alarm, dual pick-up redundancy and comes standard with NIST traceable calibrations
- Requires no secondary flow conditioners and straightening vents
- Handles operating pressures from 3,000 to 10,000 PSIG, temperatures of +/-400° F and viscosities up to 1000000 cP
- The staff engineer – the influencer, his WIIFM is, “How will you make me look good to my superiors?” Your reengineered content provides:
- An online product configurator for finding the right flowmeter quickly and easily using the parameters given to him by the process design engineer
- Product datasheets with full specifications, available options and accessories
- Flow rate charts, dimensional drawings and CAD files
- Part Number builder for error-free RFQs and orders
- VP of Operations – the decision maker with budget authority, his primary WIIFMs are, “How much will it cost and will it save me money?” You repurposed content assures him by reinforcing:
- Lowest cost of ownership because fewer parts need to be maintained
- Save money from lower replacement costs because of our proven long-term survivability in the harshest of operating conditions
- Reduce costly downtimes because our flowmeters can be serviced in-situ
- Gain greater control over custody transfer applications because of our high accuracy and wide turndowns
- Validation from similar customers with case studies
And the best part of this strategy is that it can be executed without creating any new content. You can pull the core information right out of your existing product datasheets, catalogs and Website copy.
All it needs is some reengineering/repurposing of your existing marketing content to put the focus on addressing the WIIFM of each stakeholder in the industrial buying cycle.