This is what the top-performers in marketing are doing right now

• Kim Raines
• Apr 07, 2022

Revmade regularly scours the internet for new studies that offer important insights for marketers. Then we write them up for you in as few words as possible. (Want to get them emailed to you? Sign up here.)

What are the most successful content marketers doing differently from everyone else?

New research from Content Marketing Institute studied organizations with more than 1,000 employees to understand what makes them successful – or not. They boiled it down to three key tactics that top-performing enterprises focus on when creating content, which top performers “always / frequently” do. 

1. They prioritize their audience’s information needs over their organization’s sales and promotional messages.
2. They actively work at differentiating their content from the competition.
3. They craft content based on specific stages of their buyer’s journey.

Takeaways: If you want to be among the top performers, here are some ways to get started:

• Make a case for audience-first content. The role of brands is changing as audiences expect more from the organizations they engage with and buy from. While old-school sales techniques are becoming less effective, new opportunities exist for content to solve audience challenges and earn the relationships that lead to sales. As a marketer, invest first in holistically understanding your audience, how they consume information, make decisions and prefer to buy. Then focus on leveraging that data to make the case internally that the central premise of your brand’s content should be solving problems and meeting unmet needs.

• Create content mapped to critical moments within the buyer journey. Regular investment in research that surfaces audience pain points and key decision moments in the buyer’s journey are critical to understanding how to earn (and ease the process toward) the sale. Consider collaborating with your sales or business development team to understand the challenges buyers face – and how to craft content to ease friction at those key moments.

• Know the organizations influencing your target buyer. Whether it’s a traditional competitor (a company vying to take your market share) or a nontraditional one (an org also vying for your prospect’s attention), it’s key to monitor how they’re meeting audience needs. Competitive research can be daunting – start here to understand how to use data effectively. 

TL;DR: There’s a reason why top-performing enterprises are top performing – they put their audiences at the center of everything they do. To adjust your approach, start by working on understanding your audience’s needs, then focus on meeting them at critical moments in the buying journey with relevant content. 

Trying to figure out what your audience’s ever-changing challenges are? Need to figure out if your current marketing fits the needs of those audiences? Reach out to us for more info.