In the first post on The Road to Revenue, we learned that buyers are going online in droves to solve problems and find service providers who can help. But when it comes to content marketing, not just any old content will do. And as a business development professional, that’s where you come in.
The Keys to Great Content
Strong content has a couple of key attributes. It should be:
Educational. This isn’t guerilla promotion. Your content should teach audiences something valuable, not promote your firm.
Relevant. Your content should speak to target audiences’ real challenges and opportunities. It has to be rooted in a sophisticated understanding of their needs and marketplace.
Accessible. Content should speak your audiences’ language. Keep it clear and accessible while avoiding unnecessary jargon.
Right away, these three key characteristics should give you an idea of why your expertise is so important: as a business development specialist, you have the ability to ensure that content meets all of these criteria.
Identifying Expertise
Your accumulated experience in your industry is valuable – often, more valuable than you realize. Knowledge that you take for granted, ideas that may feel like the “basics” to you can provide essential insight to others. For this reason, it can be useful to take a step back and assess what you know.
Ask yourself what you know a lot about from your work with clients. What are some typical client problems that you help to solve with your knowledge? See if you can identify three. What has your experience taught you about the causes of these problems?
As further food for thought, check out potential clients’ job postings to see what skills and technical expertise they require. You’ll get a good feel for which areas of specialty these employers are seeking – and these needs are often aligned with what prospective clients might require from service providers.
Take, for example, the business of being a proposal house for government contractors. Think about the areas of expertise involved in providing that service: interpreting RRPs, responding to RFPs, word processing, government regulations and schedules, contractors, proposals, proposal creation process, document version control, approval process, binding…the list goes on. If your firm provides services in this area, you likely have sharp insight into many of these challenges.
SEE ALSO: The Road to Revenue Part 1: How Buyers Buy
Giving It Away
Now: you’ve considered how your expertise can apply to potential clients’ challenges. These are the areas where you may find people interested in learning what you know.
Next, you want to put yourself in a position to advise your target audience. This is a great way to be introduced to a prospective buyer of your services, as well as to build credibility as a problem-solver in your marketplace. If you build a reputation as a knowledgeable advisor, potential clients may come to you over a competitor.
But how do you build that reputation? You give away you knowledge for free.
Like anyone else, you potential clients will frequently go online to find solutions to their challenges, hoping to get some easy-to-read information on topics of importance to them. If you’ve shared your relevant expertise is in a blog post and made it easy to find with targeted keyword phrases, these folks will see what you have to offer – and if you’ve given them useful information, they’ll keep coming back for more.
This is an aspect of content marketing that makes some people nervous: they fear that they’re giving away “the secret sauce.” But the fact is, this is one of the most direct ways to build your credibility: showing clients exactly what you know.
Simply claiming expert status simply isn’t impressive. You have to back it up. And as an experienced business developer, you have the experience that can make a content marketing campaign succeed – and bring potential clients back for more. In our next post, we’ll show you exactly how content marketing generates more leads…and where you fit in.
Download our Content Marketing Guide for Professional Services to find out more about developing a successful content marketing campaign.
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