Effective Content Marketing for Technology Companies

You can run a B2B or B2C technology company; it can be a large enterprise or a small startup; it can offer services on the local or global market. In each of these cases, content marketing is an opportunity for you today, which gives you a real possibility to stand out in a highly competitive market. The basis for the effectiveness of these activities is the appropriate preparation of content for a given stage of the customer journey.

During our many years of activity in the marketing industry, we have encountered many myths about promoting brands on the Internet. It was no different in the case of companies from the technology industry, around which two popular statements related to the effectiveness of content activities circulate. First: technology companies do not need content marketing. Second: with such a company profile, it is impossible to create interesting materials. 

Of course, both points are false. Tech companies, like any other, need this kind of strategy, and what’s more, it can be incredibly interesting and, therefore, effective.

Why does a tech company need content marketing?

There are many reasons to invest in content marketing, but there is one that definitely comes to the fore. 

If you run a technology company, it's probably not the only one of its kind on the market, right? How many similar businesses can we find, whether in Poland or around the world, if we type in the product you offer in a search engine? 

As a technology company, you need content marketing to stand out in a highly competitive market and reach potential customers with limited knowledge of new technologies.

Promoting yourself online with content is also a chance to:

• present yourself to the world and potential customers, and thus increase your company's visibility on the web and strengthen brand awareness.
• build a leadership position in the industry,
• respond to the needs of your audience, educate them, gain the trust of your target group and, ultimately, convert visitors into buyers, which leads to a real increase in sales.
• maintain and deepen relationships with those who already trust you.

Effective content marketing helps you achieve each of these goals by regularly creating and distributing valuable content, targeted through appropriate channels to a precisely defined audience at each stage of their journey.

The basis for developing such a strategy is basing it on the structure of the sales funnel. The idea is for the content you create and publish to correspond to the process a potential customer goes through from their first contact with a product or service to the moment of making a purchase. 

Building awareness

This is the moment of discovery, when customers learn about your company, product, or service. This is the top of the funnel (TOFU), meaning your content is the one that is garnering the most audience. 

The cognitive and decision-making process that begins at this point can last up to several months. At this stage, marketing activities should be focused on an educational role, not sales – the content created is aimed at the recipient, who realizes that they are facing a challenge or a problem and starts looking for a solution.

Therefore, the goal of the content at this stage should be:

• increasing online visibility, website traffic, and building brand awareness.
• educating the client about the solutions offered, responding to their needs and difficulties and helping them find a solution.
• interest a potential customer in the brand enough to stay with it longer and come back for more in the future.

Two types of content will be particularly helpful in achieving these goals:

• PR, which focus on presenting the brand, its history and values. They can be presented in the form of storytelling, which will introduce customers to the world of the company and encourage them to discover it further. A great example of such action is a story told by the company Mercedes-Benz.

• Educational, which will work for your company for years as evergreen content. There are many possibilities:

• guides in the form of e-books or blog articles, tutorials and webinars, all kinds of how-to materials,
• e-learning materials, courses and training,
• content built on the basis of frequently asked questions and emerging inconsistencies,
• glossaries of popular phrases and industry terms,
• useful tips to help solve your customers' problem.

A goldmine of ideas and inspiration for this type of material are the YouTube channels of companies such as x-kom (How to cool down your computer?) or Media Expert (How to choose a graphics card?). If you are more interested in guide-type articles than videos, you can get inspired by the company Techlord. You can also use a non-standard approach to the topic chosen by the company Blendtec testing your product in a somewhat extreme way.

Answering the following questions will help you create content plans that will target your potential customers:

• What are my client's problems and how can I solve them? 
• Why do recipients reach for the content I create? 
• What value can I offer them beyond products and services?

You can publish educational materials on virtually any channel you have, including social media, YouTube, and your company blog. Most of them should be free and widely available, but it's also worth offering content that can be sent or shared in exchange for an email address (you'll learn how to use that in a moment). 

Consideration

In other words, the funnel stage (MOFU – middle of the bottom), where some recipients who already know you go. This is still a potential customer, but they already know your company, what you offer. They can also name their problem, but they have not decided to buy a specific solution. They continue to compare companies looking for the best one for them. 

Therefore, your content should:

• engage the potential customer even more., 
• convince the recipient that it is right to purchase the product, 
• show that you can solve the recipient's problem and respond to their needs.
• provide people with comparisons between your offering and competing companies while highlighting your advantages.
• lead to the next stage, which is the purchase of your solution.

At this stage, it's all about creating persuasive content. The best choices that meet this requirement are:

• case studies and success stories, i.e. the real stories of your clients. 

This type of content should take a specific order: a brief description of the client, a description of the problem they faced, a presentation of how your solution helped them and what the effect was. You will see a slightly different, but equally good structure in article by Transition Technologies. You can also get inspired by various case studies Siemens, which has devoted an entire section on its website to this topic.

• product reviews received from customers.

You can publish them in any place you choose. In addition to customer reviews sent to you directly, written on social media or in Google, you can use portals created for evaluating companies such as: G2, Capterra and Trusted Reviews.

• content created in collaboration with influencers. 

And while the tech industry may not be the first thing that comes to mind when you think of this type of campaign, there are sites and channels that review and test different types of equipment, such as TechNow Whether TestHubPL.

Remember how in the previous step we wrote about offering guides and educational content in exchange for leaving an email address? This is the moment when you can make great use of previously created mailing lists by sending potential customers content from this stage of the funnel, encouraging them to buy.

Decision making

This is the point where some of the people who stumbled upon your company reach (BOFU – bottom of the funnel). At this stage, content marketing should provide confirmation that your company or services are the best option for this particular customer and make it easier for them to make a purchase so that they will want to come back. You should ensure that the purchase process is smooth and trouble-free to minimize the risk of abandonment at this last stage.

Therefore, the purpose of your content is:

• convincing the customer to make a choice, encouraging them to take action.
• emphasizing the value of the product.
• information about the purchasing process, promotions and special sales campaigns.
• closing the sale.

So what information should your content contain?

• Free consultation or other support.
• Special offers for regular customers, discounts, promotions, bonuses.

• Free samples, trial periods, product demos.

• Warranties and after-sales support.

• Educational content relating to the implementation or use of the product. 

An example of such activities is the company's offer AdobeThe company offers trial periods for its software, such as Photoshop and Illustrator, so users can test out features for free before purchasing the full version.

You have content and don't hesitate to use it

Once you’ve analyzed the customer journey and selected topics that might interest them at a given stage, focus on a publishing plan. Simply create a physical or electronic calendar (it can even be a simple table) where you’ll post specific content for a given day. 

Some plans are more of a rough outline, just a topic that the company can cover on its channels. Others are more detailed and may already have specific, ready-made content, a chosen channel, and a day of publication, such as a ready-made Facebook post that just needs to be copied and published the following Wednesday. 

The most important thing is to mix content from each level of the funnel and use channels where the audience is interested in your niche. 

Remember, too, that as a technology company, you have incredible opportunities to create diverse, highly engaging forms of content, especially visual content: from product videos, through infographics, to webinars and training. Your products are just waiting to be unleashed to their marketing potential.