How To Map Content to Customer Intent (and Make Your Sales Team Happy)

How To Map Content to Customer Intent

B2B marketers inevitably hear the sales team say things like this: “Yeah, we’re getting leads from all that content you guys write, but they’re all tire kickers.”

On the marketing side, the team commiserates about the sales team with complaints like this: “They don’t follow up on all the leads we forwarded. They cherry-pick the best and don’t communicate with the others.”

What’s a B2B marketing leader to do? You dutifully research the best practices for understanding how to get to better, more interested, purchase-ready leads and hit upon a common theme – intention.

You intend to address customer intent

Experts advise marketers to focus on comprehensive content mapping – to ensure content is available at each stage of the buyer’s journey. If you map the content (i.e., tag the content) to the customer’s journey, you can assume the consumer’s intent: A person who downloaded a piece of content is in the corresponding stage of the buying process.

Problems abound. It’s weird, I know, but customers don’t move through your buyer’s journey the way you paved it. For example, a white paper tagged as “awareness” can attract a download from a potential customer interested in buying and someone who saw your high-level brand awareness campaign.

Isn’t there an easier way?

Define intent with this low-tech process

Step 1: Build personas (not too many)

Many people now think developing audience or buyer personas is a waste of time. My experience tells me if you don’t understand your audience, you have little chance of differentiating your content marketing.

Step 2: Map friction and value into the customer journey

Think about mapping the journey differently. Don’t design it as the traditional, linear (or non-linear) path you think prospects will follow. Instead, identify the most appropriate places to introduce friction experiences where customers get sufficient value to continue their journey.

Step 3: Segment content into buckets of intent

I prefer to design for customer intention as early as possible in the content creation process. I segment my B2B content marketing into intention “buckets” or “eye levels.” These include: Continue reading →