Crystal Clear Communications Blog

Read full article in Global Telecoms Business.

Excerpt follows:

Strategic content marketing educates customers and opens their wallets

The scarcest commodity today is your customers’ attention. Customers make their first critical decision in 7 seconds: whether to listen, start a conversation or shut you down. 

For vendors, these 7 seconds mark the first moment of truth. You have 7 seconds to gain customers’ attention and answer their key question, “What’s in it for me?” 

In news media, your spokesperson gets only a 7-second sound bite to make a point. The same holds true for elevator pitches, headlines and email subject lines. 

Address what customers care about most. Unpack the benefits they will receive through these questions: 

• Which problems will your solution fix, today and tomorrow?

• How much more revenue can customers generate?

• How much capital and operating expense can be saved?

• How will this improve users’ quality of experience?

• How hard or easy is the solution to implement?

• What’s the proof? 

Brevity is key. Customers get thousands of messages daily from others and from you. Very few messages break through this incredible clutter. 

For decades, the buying ritual between telecom vendors and operator customers stayed much the same. Operators would recognise needs, then take time to discuss them with vendors, each of which presented competing approaches and claims. That buying process has been upended. Operators are pressed for time, so vendors get few precious opportunities to educate them in person. Meetings are harder to schedule. Only a handful of operator decision-makers attend trade shows, and their calendars fill with pre-scheduled meetings well before the show opens. 

Now, the rules of engagement are changing. So vendors must be strategic about how they appear in the online marketplace. How can you deliver your marketing message more effectively? 

The buying process is now two-thirds online, one-third sales. About 67% of the buying process takes place digitally, says Sirius Decisions. 

Rather than spend time with sales, operators research solutions online and consult peers. They glean content from many websites – including trade media, standards bodies, analysts, vendors and social media. 
  
Useful content wins!
  
In this hunt, genuinely useful content wins. Customers decide which content makes the most sense and delivers the greatest value, which leads them to specific vendors…