Photograph divided into 2 sections. The right hand section shows a market of people with an overlay of a ideal customer persona and the text, 'questions'. The second half shows a workshop setting and two people working with the text overlay 'answers'.

Selling to a Single B2B Prospect OR Selling at Scale? The Function of Marketing Content

Does your marketing content address the information need of prospects across the customer journey to purchase?

Are you aiming to help one customer or many? Do you have the ability to communicate with prospective customers at scale? Gain greater familiarity with prospects information needs across the journey to purchase.

Answering B2B Customers Questions at Scale

Excellent, well-prepared sales people know the critical information that customers’ need, but did not (yet) know to ask. Developing marketing content requires that same knowledge but lacks the ability to customize and respond to prospects on-the-fly. So understanding your customers needs, and their information needs on the journey to purchase, is essential for scaling beyond 1:1 sales conversations.

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Customer needs (as well as their organizational and team context) can be developed and shared across your company via idealized B2B customer persona. In the B2B world, these idealized composites typically indicate solution needs, information sources, and influencers (such as budget holders and co-workers). Further, because B2B sales often involve selling to multiple people within a single organization / account, some information needs will be common to everyone within the target account, and other information is only relevant for a particular function /responsibility.

Prospects Information Needs in B2B Markets

Product and technical people sometimes have a tendency to think selling successfully is all about the product. Indeed your product / solution is typically the single most important ‘attribute’ for customers long term. But the product is only part of the story: B2B customers need to be assured that your organization can *deliver* value. The greater the time lag to value and the larger the price tag, the smaller part your product plays. While communicating with prospects is the job of your sales and marketing communications team and processes, the story you are telling goes beyond the product. Your story includes things like examples that indicate trustworthiness, and demonstrating integration or training capabilities. Marketing content, therefore, needs to consider the ‘journey to value for prospects’. Typically, marketing content aids sales people and prospects, and is also a core element of the marketing communications toolkit.

One way to frame these information needs is by using customer journey mapping to capture the questions your prospects ask on the journey to purchase. There is no need at this point to attempt to answer the questions but do consider the different customer persona.

Characteristics of Good B2B Marketing Content

Informative / Informative / Informative

While consumer marketing often considers whizz-bang and on-trend language, B2B marketing content is all about fulfilling your customers’ information needs. Yes, there may be emotional and social needs, but typically B2B solutions aim to fulfill very tangible organizational needs.

  • Trust & Professionalism: Tone and presentation is on brand
  • Professional & Accessible: Uses the language of prospects (neither jargon-filled nor dumbed-down).

  • Informative: Answers customers questions, concerns and objections.
  • Informative: Guides the customer to a solution that meets their needs.
  • Informative: Accurate and trust-worthy

  • Reusable: Create once for multiple customers.
  • Reusable: Suitable for use across multiple communication channels

  • Timing: Address core questions at different phases of the customers’ journey
  • Timing: Serves organizational goals from creating awareness to nurturing processes to supporting customer retention.

Review Your Existing B2B Marketing Content through the lens of Content Marketing Research


About Jane Morgan

With 20+ years high-tech marketing & product development experience from Boston to Billund, Berlin to Bangalore, Jane has managed teams and tech products with millions of installs, and millions of revenue (annually). She's researched and developed market strategy for global markets, and established the blueprint for product management in many new teams. As an intrapreneur turned entrepreneur, she changed vowels in 2014 and founded JEM 9 Marketing Consultancy. Today she works with CEOs & business leaders to assist them in understanding and reaching customers. Speaker on market research, technology marketing and product management.