The state of content and thought leadership in the investment world is less than inspiring these days. How many times have you been sent or downloaded an article or some other type of "thought leadership" that looks like it might be of interest, only for it to be a long-winded sales pitch with little in the way of use or education or insight. It's the marketers version of bait and switch, and it rarely gets results.
Think of it this way: if you ask someone for 5-10 minutes of their time to read something you've sent them, it better offer something of value. Jamming a sales pitch down your readers throat for your first impression is a very quick way to have your audience lose interest in you or your solution. You've now lost their trust, or at least made them hesitant about and the next time you reach out. A golden opportunity missed.
Done right, if you have added some value to our initial engagement, then your audience will be more apt to pay attention to your next message.
Good content builds credibility with your audience. It is the very early states of the customer journey - particularly in more complex B2B lead and sales engagement in the fintech world. Long form content - whitepapers, surveys, e-books, etc - are often used as demand generation tools to get you to give up your contact information in exchange for said content. Its a valid technique used on websites across many technology companies (and another reason why gated content should also be more value-orientated than sales-orientated.) Good content is more than a lead generator though. The importance of using high value content to build trust and credibility with your audience cannot be underestimated. It is fundamentally one of the most optimal ways to convert a cold lead into a warm one.
To see a firm that does this exceptionally well, look at CRM and marketing software developer Hubspot. Hubspot has an incredible amount of helpful resources for marketing and sales professionals available on their website and as part of their email newsletters. How they use it though, as part of their own customer journey mapping, is where they really shine. Hubspot is very good a building a high trust factor with their audience with the numerous educational resources they make available. Of course most firms won't build a resource library to this extent, but you can see how Hubspot has built their brand (and their company) by their use of high-value content. It's hard to argue with a firm with a $32 billion market cap.
There are generally three buckets of content that map to what is called the buyers journey:
The Awareness Stage, Consideration Stage and the Decision Stage.
At the Awareness Stage, the prospect has identified a problem they are currently having and are seeking a solution to that problem. They are not specifically looking to know everything about your solution at this point. They are researching and learning about possible solutions. This is where educational thought leadership assets come into play. Whitepapers, blogs, etc intended to build credibility with your audience so they want to learn more about your solution and how it might solve their problem.
At the consideration stage, your prospect has hopefully engaged with sales at this point. They are now in the middle of the funnel and are looking at the pros and cons of your solution. Mapping your collateral to the sales teams efforts and highlighting the value proposition of your solution is key at this stage (its also when most prospects will bail on the conversation.) The pain/value discussion is the key here as specifics to exactly how your solutions can solve their problem will be the focus messaging at this stage.
Finally, the decision stage is when the rubber hits the road. Sales will own this stage for the most part but marketing still plays a role in ensuring your sales team has all the assets they need to allow the prospect to make an informed decision. This is also the competition stage as thr prospect will mostly likely be comparing your solution against your competitors (including doing nothing.) Competitive assets like battlecards and comparison analyses, as well as cost/value messaging will be crucial as sales drives the prospect over the finish line.
As they say, there's a time and place for everything. Engaging with your target audience with the right collateral at the right stage of the buyers journey will drive credibility, interest and conversion.