Recent events have forced businesses to change their strategies when it comes to marketing. According to Vennhate, almost 57% of business owners said that they had to pivot their marketing plans in light of the global changes. This is why more entrepreneurs have started to use content maps in order to improve their sales numbers. Content maps provide businesses with a general direction that aligns content creation efforts to the ultimate goal of converting prospects to first-time buyers. To illustrate its effectiveness, a recent study shows that 74% of companies with content mapping achieved higher lead generation and increased quota attainment than those without a content mapping strategy. Having said that, here are some reasons why content mapping is an absolute necessity during each phase of the buyer's journey.
Shows Valuable Insights About The Customer
Content mapping is a vital tool for content marketing as it outlines how each piece of content strategically supports the customer journey. It helps businesses of all sizes visualize opportunities to gain accurate insights into the needs and goals of their target audience through an in-depth buyer persona. As an important criterion for evaluating a content strategy, buyer personas provide a detailed description of a business's ideal audience, including their demographics, goals, professional role, pain points, buying habits, influences, and so on. In turn, these insights can help companies improve their product and service offerings and implement more effective marketing strategies to serve that purpose. Once content marketers come up with an effective content plan for their ideal buyer, they're one step closer to engaging and nurturing prospects until they're ready to become paying customers.
Understand Customer Journey Phases
As the top-of-funnel content of the purchase funnel, having a well-thought content mapping for the awareness phase helps businesses understand what type of content works best to attract new audiences. Laying out the customer journey in an organized fashion gives businesses a holistic view of their marketing efforts through the specific stages of their buying cycles. From social media posts to SEO content writing and everything in between, content mapping shows the best performing marketing content so businesses can double down on areas where opportunities can be created. Likewise, it also allows businesses to identify parts of the funnel that have shallow or inadequate content and find ways to uncover existing gaps in the customer journey. This will allow content marketers to figure out how each piece of content can be used to better address the pain points of their customers and use it as an opportunity to build long-term relationships with them.
Since one size rarely fits all when it comes to content marketing, customers would always prefer a personalized experience and would more likely engage with content that resonates with them. With content mapping, businesses of all sizes can publish tailored content and meet their prospects' needs to boost their chances of winning loyal customers.