Devising a digital marketing content strategy for their products with lifespans that stretch into multiple years can be difficult for brands.
They know they need to keep their customers engaged, but they often struggle with how to keep the conversation and relationship going between product replacement cycles.
For permission-based channels, such as email and SMS, it can be dangerous to not reach out to subscribers on at least a monthly basis. Less frequent messaging can zero out your email sender reputation, for instance.
More broadly—and perhaps counterintuitively—it can be much, much harder to maintain permission if you mail, say, every other month than if you mail twice a month.
In her presentation at Litmus Live last fall, Ann Handley shared two stats that highlight the challenge and the opportunity. First, 95% of buyers are not in the market for you at any given time, according to LinkedIn B2B Institute. And second, 90% of buyers ultimately choose a vendor they had in mind before they began research, according to Bain and Google.
So, brands need to stay top-of-mind with customers between purchases, but—to avoid alienating customers—they need to do so largely by sharing nonpromotional content.
What Should Brands Message Their Customers About?
Consider a mix of content from the following nine topic areas, which range from promotional to nonpromotional, and from brand-centric to customer-centric.
The first step in keeping a customer engaged is ensuring they get the most possible out of their existing purchase, so let's start there.
1. Maintenance & Safety
Through an automated post-purchase series or personalized content in a newsletter or other broadcast campaign, help your customers understand how to use their purchased product safely and how to take care of it. Consider content topics such as these:
- How to use the product properly and safely, including hazards to watch out for
- How to care for the product, including do's and don'ts
- Promoting apps or app features that help with maintenance
- How to get response-center assistance
- Announcements of product recalls
- When professional care may be needed and how often
- Frequently asked questions about maintenance and safety
2. Instructional & How-To
Go beyond safety; help your customers get more productivity and efficiency out of their purchase. Consider content topics such as these:
- How to use various product features, including your most popular features, and highlighting little-used and niche features
- How to configure the product to work best for individual customers, depending on their goals, environment, industry, etc.
- Explaining how product usage can change throughout selling seasons, as the buyer's company grows in size, etc.
- Covering compliance with international, national, and state regulations
3. New Features & Product Improvements
Especially in the software industry, many products are updated over time. Make sure your customers are aware of occasional improvements, bug fixes, and new product features that they can take advantage of for free as existing customers. Consider announcements such as these:
- New features, updates, and patches
- Website and app enhancements
- Infrastructure improvements that affect customer support
4. Educational & Industry Issues
To be successful, your customers need to know more than just how to use your product. They need to understand their industry. Consider content such as the following:
- Explanations of, and commentary about, industry news
- Discussions of industry trends, best-practices, and the future of the industry
- Collaborations and interviews with industry experts
5. Community & Customer Success
This is the voice of your customer, whether it's a forum where customers talk to each other or customer stories that are given voice by your PR and marketing teams. Consider the following types of content:
- Customer-forum topics
- User-generated content
- User/customer surveys
- Testimonials, product reviews, etc.
- Customer success stories
- Customer award programs
6. Branding
This is the voice of your brand. It's generally best to be heavily biased toward talking about your customers and your industry, but your customers do care about what you're doing, because they care about their association with you. Consider content such as these:
- Announcements of industry accolades and news
- Celebrations of corporate milestones, such as customer counts, funding rounds, and going public
- Announcements of new partnerships
7. Events
Although live and virtual events are themselves a medium for all the content types we've discussed so far (plus the remaining two to a lesser degree), they're also a content type in and of themselves. Especially in the case of live events, the event experience and everyone's reaction to it becomes content. Consider content such as these:
- A summary of key sessions, including with a focus on themes
- A spotlight on the most popular or favorite sessions, according to attendance, attendee feedback, industry experts, etc.
- Viral or fun moments, whether from speakers, attendees, or sponsors
- Photos from the event, both by organizers and attendees, particularly during networking events
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Thus far, we've been talking about content that's largely nonpromotional. But, of course, promotional content is also important, especially since it can be difficult to know when a customer is going to be back in market. Sometimes, it's much faster than you expect. Other times, it's not.
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8. Replacement, Repurchase, and Upsell Campaigns
A satisfied customer is likely open to purchasing again or upgrading, so use lead scoring and other methods to identify engaged customers who would be receptive. Then use customer success content and promotional content to look for more definitive signals of buying intent. Consider the following topics and types of content:
- Financing, insurance, leasing, and other information that may be critical to a customer who's becoming ready to purchase again
- Key product features and value propositions
- Feature comparisons across your line of products so customers can understand the key differences
- Spotlighting key differentiators between your products and services and those of your competitors
Although replacement cycles can be fairly predictable, especially if you are involved in the regular servicing of the purchased product, repurchases are less predictable. That's because a customer could at any time hire additional people, open additional facilities, or otherwise add capacity or seek to boost productivity.
9. Cross-Sell Campaigns
Customer behavior and lead scoring can also identify those who would be receptive to cross-sell messaging. Consider content such as the following:
- Accessories and services directly related to already-owned products
- Products and services tangentially related to already-owned products
- Products and services unrelated to already-owned products (this one is the toughest sell)
The Right Messaging Mix
As you can see, brands have lots of potential content they could create and share with their customers. Having a solid mix of such content and then letting your customers' engagement drive personalization, segmentation, and automation helps you meet your customers where they are in the buying cycle.
