Why Relationship Marketing Is Essential To B2B Lead Generation
By Nick Nelson
One of the oldest, and creepiest, adages about the value of content marketing is that you can’t ask someone to marry you on the first date.
Weird as it might feel, there’s a good reason this metaphor has held sway. A marriage is a serious and high-stakes commitment, and nobody wants to enter one without truly feeling like they know and trust their future partner.
In the business realm, purchase influencers and decision makers are under huge pressure to get it right. It’s not enough to understand the product, its price, or its features. Buyers want to believe in the brand and the people behind it.
Increasingly, significant business purchases need to be buoyed by a strong relationship. (The non-romantic type, to be clear.) Smart and strategic content marketing is how those relationships are built.
What Is Relationship Marketing?
The Association of National Advertisers defines relationship marketing as “a strategy of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) that emphasizes customer retention, satisfaction, and lifetime customer value.”
Personally I think that description only partially covers the breadth of the strategy and its purpose. As we’ll explore today, relationship marketing is also a powerful – even essential – tool for attracting new high-quality B2B leads that are more likely to convert.
For this reason, I prefer the broader definition provided by HubSpot: “Relationship marketing refers to the marketing strategy of cultivating more meaningful relationships with customers to ensure long-term satisfaction and brand loyalty.”
The process of ensuring long-term satisfaction and brand loyalty can start long before someone makes a purchase with you.
Content is the currency of relationship marketing
There are plenty of jargony definitions of content marketing out there, but what it comes down to is this: creating something of value to a specific type of audience, as a means of bringing those individuals into your brand’s orbit. Great content is what attracts the right people and sparks the journey.
It’s also what sustains and builds upon these relationships. Nine out of 10 B2B buyers say online content has a major or moderate impact on vendor selection.
Simply put, content marketing is your chance to make a first impression that leads to a lasting, fruitful relationship.
[bctt tweet=”“Content marketing is your chance to make a first impression that leads to a lasting, fruitful relationship.” — Nick Nelson @NickNelsonMN” username=”toprank”]
Benefits of Building Relationships with B2B Content
Why make content-fueled relationship marketing a fixture in your B2B strategy? Here are five compelling reasons.
1 — Leads are more qualified and advanced
The beauty of a smart SEO-driven content strategy focused on intent is this: audiences engaging with your content are inherently qualifying themselves. By searching out articles, guides, podcasts, or videos focusing on subjects and pain points pertinent to your category, they are raising their hands as the kind of people you want to create trust and awareness with. And when they find quality content from your brand …read more
Source:: Top Rank Blog
