In our 26th Episode, Olivier L’Abbé, President at Metadata, talks category creation with two B2B leaders from the data security and corporate travel expense management categories.
Panelists for this episode include:
- Alex Poulos, VP of Marketing of Securiti and leader behind the AI data security category
- Meagen Eisenberg, CMO of TripActions and leader behind the corporate travel and expense management category
You’ll walk away from this episode with an understanding of value propositions, content creation, and keyword building.
Or watch the video
Takeaway 1. Define value propositions according to use cases
It’s not always possible to figure out all the different ways that people will use your product. That’s why market research is critical. Research helps you test all your assumptions and validate your buyer personas before investing resources into product development. It can be the difference between building a product that people love and launching features that no one cares about.
Your primary goal should be to create a value proposition around the key use cases you identify during the market research stage. Figure what problems your customers are trying to solve. What are their job titles? When are they most active on your platform? Once you truly understand your users, you’ll have everything you need to start working on the messaging for your value proposition.
You can start with the most common use case. Identify the type of language that customers use when describing how they use your product and incorporate that into your value proposition. After you’ve created a value proposition for your core use case and validated that it works, move on to another use case. Repeat the process until you’re addressing the needs of your entire target market through your messaging.
Takeaway 2. Prioritize quality over quantity when creating content
Content is a lever that you’ll need to use to differentiate your brand and reinforce your value proposition. And while you might think that you need a lot of content to see the results, that’s often not the case. You can still get great results by focusing on quality over quantity.
Keep in mind that quality is subjective. What you define as quality content might be completely different from how your audience defines it. The only way you’ll know what your audience wants is by actively asking for feedback. You might discover that “quality” content for your audience doesn’t just mean writing long-form blog posts. They might prefer other content formats such as videos and podcasts instead.
If you don’t have the resources to create a wide variety of content formats you can always improvise by repurposing your existing content. Doing this is relatively simple, and it can be a great way to extend the shelf life of your content. The key to making sure your content marketing works is to ensure you have the right processes in place – from content ideation to production.
Takeaway 3. Use a separate domain to build a community and increase your search rankings
If you want to extend your content’s reach further, consider building a separate domain based on a specific segment or use case. You can use it as a microsite for publishing content around your category name and its related keywords. It can also double as a place to build a community around a particular topic.
Building a community makes sense for two reasons. For one, it’s one of the most effective ways to increase brand awareness. People trust other people. And there’s no better way to build that trust than through a community. In addition to the word-of-mouth awareness you could generate, building a community also allows you to collect better feedback from your customers.
We all know that traditional marketing research methods such as focus groups and surveys aren’t always accurate. By having a community, you get the ability to collect candid feedback in real-time and completely bypass the limitations of traditional market research.
If you’re interested in more insights about building audiences, creating content, and developing value propositions, be sure to listen to this episode of B2B category creators.
BONUS!
Meagen shares a strategy for generating effective customer reviews.
