The road to sales is paved with good intent content

mlns='> Here’s how to lay the groundwork. [View Message in Browser]( / [Add Us to Safe Sender List]( Weekly News 6.23.23 Connect With CMI  [How To Find External Sources To Create Trustworthy Content]( Including third-party sources elevates content with diverse viewpoints, examples, and experiences. In turn, your audience is more likely to recognize your brand as a publisher, not just a vendor. Here’s how to do it. [Read more]( By Ann Gynn More of the week's best stories: - [4 ContentTECH Summit Takeaways for a Better Marketing Tech Strategy]( Content Marketing Institute Team - [5 SEO Content and Design Tips to Improve Your Ranking in SERPs]( Lesley Vos - [How To Map Content to Customer Intent (and Make Your Sales Team Happy)]( Glasses]( Robert Rose - [ICYMI: How To Make Content a More Effective Part of Your Sales Funnel]( Ann Smarty  The road to sales is paved with good intent content B2B marketers inevitably hear the sales team say things like this: “Yeah, we’re getting leads from all that content your team writes, but they’re all tire kickers.” Or this golden oldie: “Your MQLs don’t match our customer profile. There’s no purchase intent.” Then, there’s my favorite: “We don’t need more leads … We need better leads.” On the marketing side, the team commiserates about the sales team with complaints like this: “They don’t follow up on all the leads we forwarded. They cherry-pick the best and don’t communicate with the others.” What’s a B2B marketing leader to do? You dutifully research the best practices for understanding how to get to better, more interested, purchase-ready leads and hit upon a common theme – intention. But how do you determine the customer’s intention in the moment? Experts advise marketers to focus on comprehensive content mapping – to ensure content is available at each stage of the buyer’s journey. If you map the content (i.e., tag the content) to the customer’s journey, you can assume the consumer’s intent: A person who downloaded a piece of content is in the corresponding stage of the buying process. But it never works out that way, does it? Problems abound. It’s weird, I know, but customers don’t move through your buyer’s journey the way you paved it. For example, a white paper tagged as “awareness” can attract a download from a potential customer interested in buying and someone who saw your high-level brand awareness campaign. What do you do then? “Aha,” you say. “Technology to the rescue.” You look at how to implement new technology that scores people by the number of content downloads and engagement rates. Then, it should be able to create personalized, automated drip campaigns and more. Suddenly, this intent problem got expensive, hard, and too complex. Isn’t there an easier way? There is – and you can handle it yourself. In [Rose-Colored Glasses]( this week, I explain a fairly quick and simple process for segmenting your audience without needing technology. Give it a look, then let me know what you think by [email](mailto:Robert@contentadvisory.net?subject=Good%20intent%20content) or in a comment on [the article page](. I check both. Until then, remember: It's your story. Tell it well. Robert Rose Chief Strategy Advisor Content Marketing Institute Would any of your colleagues or friends benefit from Robert's weekly updates? Please invite them to [subscribe]( here.   More From CMI Google’s Chief Decision Scientist to Keynote at Content Marketing World Cassie Kozyrkov, the pioneering force behind Decision Intelligence at Google and their current chief decision scientist, will take the keynote stage at Content Marketing World. Cassie has trained over 20,000 Googlers in data-driven decision-making and AI. Her insights about the intersection of data, technology, and business will empower you to make informed decisions that drive success in the ever-evolving landscape of content marketing. Join us on September 26-28 in Washington, D.C., to hear from Cassie and 150+ more thought leaders in content and marketing. [Register here]( by July 14 before prices increase!  [CONTENT CREATION RESOURCES](  Events [Content Marketing World]( [ContentTECH Summit]( [Content Marketing Awards]( Resources [Research]( [White Paper/eBook Library]( [Content Voices]( Education [Content Marketing University]( [Chief Content Officer]( [Webinars]( [Job Listings]( Interested in advertising with CMI? [Learn more.]( To change your email preferences or unsubscribe, visit our [subscription center.]( Copyright © 2023 Informa Connect, All rights reserved Content Marketing Institute, an Informa Connect brand 605 3rd Ave | New York | NY 10158 [Terms of Service]( | [Privacy Statement]( [informa tech]