Relevant marketing communications are now essential to finding and winning new customers. This white paper describes how astute marketers are using a proven four-step process to develop compelling, stage-specific marketing content that will keep prospects engaged from curiosity to close.

1. KEEPING PROSPECTS ENGAGED FROM
CURIOSITY TO CLOSE
G. David Dodd
Point Balance
1135 Holiday Dr
Crossville, TN 38555
931-707-5105
www.pointbalance.com
July 2012

2. Copyright 2012 by G. David Dodd. All rights reserved. 2
Why Read This Paper
Relevant marketing communications are now essential to finding and winning
new customers. Technologies have created new marketing channels and
enabled marketing techniques that didn’t exist only a few years ago. But
unless marketing messages are relevant, new channels and techniques just
add to the marketing clutter that already fills our environment.
For marketers in business-to-business companies, the need to use relevant
marketing messages and materials is especially strong. Business buyers no
longer have to rely on sellers for information about products or services. They
can go online and find most of the information they need, whenever they need
it. If they receive marketing messages that aren’t relevant to their immediate
issues or concerns, they’ll just ignore them.
One powerful way to make marketing more relevant is to use stage-specific
marketing content. By stage-specific, we mean marketing content that
addresses the issues that are important to potential buyers at each stage of
the buying process.
Astute marketers are using a proven four-step process to develop compelling,
stage-specific marketing content that will keep prospects engaged from
curiosity to close.
Why “Situational Relevance” Matters
Many B2B purchases are the end result of a buying process that contains
several steps. The process isn’t always neat and orderly, but most business
buyers move through an identifiable set of buying stages as they make
purchase decisions. Because they are incredibly busy, business buyers have
become adept at “just-in-time” learning. They will spend time learning the
things they need to know only when they need to know them. If you provide a
potential buyer information that is out of sync with his or her decision making
process, it’s far less likely to capture the buyer’s full attention.
The solution is to use marketing messages and materials that are designed for
each stage of the buying process. This kind of marketing content enhances
what we call situational relevance, and it can be a powerful source of
competitive advantage. In a survey of B2B buyers by DemandGen Report,
93% of the respondents said that the solution provider they chose supplied
ample marketing content to navigate through each phase of the buying
process. (Where Marketers are Missing the Mark With Buyers, DemandGen
Report, 2010)
Read this white paper to discover―
• What situational relevance is, and why it matters.
• How to define the buying process for your products or
services.
• How to identify the critical questions that your prospects will
have at each stage of their buying journey.
• How to map your existing marketing content to buying stages
and identify where the “gaps” exist in your content portfolio.
93% of B2B buyers say
their chosen suppliers
provide ample content
for every phase of the
buying process

3. Copyright 2012 by G. David Dodd. All rights reserved. 3
Developing a stage-specific content marketing program is not an insignificant
undertaking, but it doesn’t have to be an insurmountable task. There are four
basic steps you’ll need to take.
• Define the buying process for your products/services
• Identify the major questions that potential buyers will have at each
stage of the buying process
• Map your existing content resources to buying process stages
• Identify where the gaps are in your content portfolio and create new
resources to fill the gaps
Define the Buying Process
The first step in developing stage-specific marketing content is to identify the
steps in the process that buyers use when purchasing a product or service like
yours. The diagram below depicts the six steps in the buying process
suggested by sales and marketing research firm SiriusDecisions
(www.siriusdecisions.com). These six steps can be placed into three buying
process phases—Discovery, Consideration, and Decision. The buying process
for your product or service may contain different buying stages, but it’s likely
to be similar. What’s most important here is to describe the buying process
that reflects the reality of your business and then define each stage of your
process.
During the Discovery phase, a potential buyer becomes aware of a problem or
need and recognizes that the negative ramifications of the status quo make
change a priority. Once a buyer has committed to addressing a problem or
need, he or she will conduct research to identify possible solutions, and after
evaluating the options, will commit to a type of solution (but not necessarily to
a specific solution provider). In the Decision phase, the potential buyer must
justify the purchase decision financially and select the solution provider.
Identify Buying Journey Questions
Once you have identified and defined the stages of the buying process for your
product or service, the next step in creating stage-specific marketing content
is to identify the important questions that potential buyers will ask at each
stage of the process. The issues that buyers must address change as they
move through the buying process, and the questions they want/need answers
Four steps to creating
stage-specific content:
• Define the buying
process
• Identify buying stage
questions
• Map existing content
to buying stages
• Identify and fill the
gaps

4. Copyright 2012 by G. David Dodd. All rights reserved. 4
Typical Buying Journey Questions
Discovery Phase
• Why should I change, and why should I change now?
• What will happen if I don’t change?
• What events/circumstances would force me to solve this problem/challenge?
• How is the problem/challenge adversely affecting my company/industry?
Consideration Phase
• How are my peers/competitors dealing with this problem/challenge?
• What are the available options/alternatives?
• Are there best practices I can use as a guide?
• What are the peripheral effects of the possible solutions?
• What criteria should I use when evaluating possible solutions?
• Who has the expertise to help me solve the problem/challenge?
• Which potential suppliers can I trust to help me solve the problem/challenge?
Decision Phase
• What if my end users won’t use the proposed solution?
• What could cause my chosen solution to fail, and what will happen if it does?
• How will I need to change my business processes in order to maximize the
benefits of the proposed solution?
• What will my total cost of ownership be?
• What return on investment will the solution generate, and how long will it take
to achieve?
• Can the company/solution I’m considering meet my needs as they evolve?
• How have people/companies like me/mine succeeded with the solution I’m
considering?
for also change. Marketing content that was highly relevant to a potential
buyer when he or she was first learning about a problem will be far less
relevant when that buyer is evaluating a specific solution. The table below
shows some of the critical questions that potential buyers are likely to have
during each phase of their buying journey.
Map Existing Content to Buying Process Stages
Before you begin creating new marketing content, you need to evaluate the
content you already have. If you’re like most companies we work with, you
already have content assets that can be adapted to work in a stage-specific
content strategy.
To understand where you currently stand—and to identify where the “gaps”
exist in your content portfolio—you need to perform a content audit. One
major component of a complete content audit is the development of buying
stage maps that link each of your existing content assets to one or more of the
buying process stages you’ve defined.
We use a simple spreadsheet to create buying stage maps, and a highly
simplified example is shown on the next page.
You should create a separate buying stage map for each buyer persona that
you identified during the development of your marketing strategy. (Note: A
Marketing content that’s
highly relevant to a
potential buyer who is
first learning about a
problem will be far less
relevant when that buyer
is evaluating a specific
solution

5. Copyright 2012 by G. David Dodd. All rights reserved. 5
discussion of buyer personas is beyond the scope of this white paper. If you’d
like to learn more about why buyer personas are important and how to create
them, please take a look at our white paper titled Two Powerful Ways to Make
Your Marketing More Relevant. To get a copy of this white paper, please send
an e-mail to ddodd@pointbalance.com).
The first column of a buying stage map contains the title or a brief description
of the content asset, and the second column is used to identify the asset type
(white paper, case study, etc.). An additional column is used for each stage of
the buying process. In the example shown above, we have used the three
major buying process phases—Discovery, Consideration, and Decision. Your
buying stage map may contain more buying process stages.
Each content asset is entered on a separate row in the map. When you’re
mapping content assets to buying stages, the basic test is whether the
resource contains content that answers the major questions the buyer persona
is likely to have at that stage of the buying process. A content asset may be
linked to more than one buying process stage, but if you link an asset to more
than two stages, you should think about whether that asset is too broad to be
really effective.
Fill the Gaps
When you complete the mapping process described above, you’ll have a clear
picture of where the gaps in your marketing content are for each of your buyer
personas. This process will also tell you what kinds of content you need to fill
those gaps.
At this point, your job is to create new content assets to fill the identified gaps.
While there is no universal rule for prioritizing these content development
projects, we usually recommend that marketers identify their most important
buyer personas and use that ranking to guide content development work.
When mapping content
assets to buying stages,
the test is whether the
asset answers the
questions that potential
buyers are likely to have
at that stage of the
buying process

6. Copyright 2012 by G. David Dodd. All rights reserved. 6
For More Information
If you’d like to learn more about how to design and implement a stage-specific
content marketing program, contact G. David Dodd at 931-707-5105 or via e-
mail at ddodd@pointbalance.com.
To read more of our current thinking, take a look at our other white papers.
• Two Powerful Ways to Make Your Marketing More Relevant
• Cracking the Growth Code: Winning Profitable Growth from
New Markets
• Lead Nurturing Plugs the Leaks in Your Sales Pipeline
• Is a Marketing Asset Management Solution Right for Your
Company?
About Point Balance
Point Balance helps B2B companies design and implement buyer-focused and
technology-enabled marketing programs that will connect with prospects and
convert those prospects into customers. Our marketing services include:
• Marketing strategy development
• Buyer persona development
• Content audits
• Content marketing programs
• Marketing content development
• Lead nurturing programs
• Lead scoring system development
• Marketing technology selection and implementation
• Marketing supply chain optimization
Point Balance
1135 Holiday Dr
Crossville, TN 38555
931-707-5105