Since B2B and B2C audiences have distinct needs and priorities, content marketing strategies aimed at each of them are significantly different. In addition to that, generating qualified leads is especially challenging for companies focused on B2B sales. However, there are some tools to facilitate this task, such as content marketing assessments.
This kind of assessment consists of a series of questions meant to identify your leads’ pain points and provide advice to help them out. It is useful to get information from them and recognize opportunities to improve your strategies. Using the content marketing assessment correctly, it is possible to generate qualified leads and consequently raise your sales.
In the topics below, you will learn what a content marketing assessment is, how to build one, and its benefits. You will also understand the importance of combining assessments with interactive content to generate qualified leads and increase B2B sales.
What is a content marketing assessment?
As we’ve already mentioned, a content marketing assessment is used to evaluate a business’ marketing strategy. You can build one and offer it to your prospects, questioning them about their strategies and providing them with feedback according to their answers. Their responses will show you what their problems and goals are, which tools they are using, their interests, as well as their experiences with content marketing.
How to build a content marketing assessment
Next, find out what are the necessary steps to build a content marketing assessment.
Ideation
The first step is to define what exactly you expect to achieve, including specific goals. It is vital to come up with the right questions, because the goals you’ve selected will direct your strategy, making it easier to plan, create, and execute the content marketing assessment. This step will also allow you to anticipate which tools are more likely to be effective in your assessment. Besides that, objectives help you to keep focused.
To establish your goals, consider what your company needs to know about your prospects: challenges, metrics, and analytics. These pieces of information will enable you to set goals, such as generating more leads, that can be achieved using a content marketing assessment.
Planning
This step involves planning the process to create your company’s assessment. To start, it is important to define what to do, as well select which tools will be used to build the assessment (which includes choosing a format, topics, and questions for these topics). In addition, you must decide when it will be released, where it will be published, and how you will promote and gate it. It is also necessary to set deadlines for each stage.
Creating the content
At this stage, you will already have a plan and be able to start creating the assessment, that is, drafting the questions, feedback, and designing the content. While outlining the questions, make sure to keep your company’s goals, challenges, and needs in mind.
You can count on online platforms to facilitate this process. Usually, they offer templates, some of which can be set up in just a few hours by yourself, and published immediately after editing and customizing.
What are the benefits of an assessment?
Based on the information about your leads acquired through the assessment, you will be able to think about how you can meet their needs, personalize your content, and discover the most effective ways to reach, engage, and encourage them to advance throughout the buyer’s journey.
Additionally, it becomes easier to consume the content, which is offered in small blocks. Your leads will feel encouraged interact with the entire content piece, especially considering that there will be a valuable reward at the end (insights on their company’s marketing strategy).
Moreover, a content marketing assessment increases lead generation, since your audience will freely offer information in exchange for your recommendations. In other words, this type of assessment will give you insights to enhance your company’s B2B marketing strategy and produce an increase in your sales.
How can assessments help you generate qualified leads?
Thanks to assessments, your leads will be capable of learning something valuable to improve their marketing strategy, which piques their interest in the solutions you have to offer. As a result, they will be more likely to provide you useful information and become leads.
One example is this CMI (Content Marketing Institute) assessment. After answering each of the five questions about how content marketing is used at their companies, the leads discover how many marketers do the same thing and see a brief explanation of why it is a good tactic or not. At the end, there is a form requesting a name, email, job title, and company to grant access to the detailed results.
Furthermore, once they get your feedback and recommendations, leads will be aware of their problems and realize that it is necessary to look for a solution. Then, they will start to consider returning to your solutions.
The assessment is also helpful with already qualified leads because it is a means for you to show your expertise and willingness to help. At this point, you can build strategies focused on nurturing and converting these leads into customers.
Interactive content tools
The term “interactive content marketing” refers to content that allows the audience to interact and obtain responses according to interactions. Using interactive elements in your assessment makes it more compelling because this type of content is usually more dynamic and focused on the users’ experience, leading you to provide highly personalized results. All of this helps to boost your leads’ engagement with your content.
A content marketing assessment is a useful tool to generate qualified leads and increase your sales for the B2B audience because it gives you insights on strategies, needs, and pains. Combined with interactivity, assessments are more compelling, which helps to grab your leads’ attention and convince them to not only give you information, but also to consider your company’s services as an option to solve their issues.
If you want to know more about interactive content, visit here to learn how you can use interactive content to accelerate your sales cycle.
