4 reasons marketers struggle to drive decisions
If you want to influence your prospects to make a decision in your favor, you need to match your content and messaging to their interests and intent. And to do that successfully, you need the right data, tools, and understanding of what makes your readers tick.
Don’t forget: we’re marketing to humans. If you want to build a relationship with them, you have to get them engaged.
61% of marketers we interviewed said that creating innovative, engaging content is a major challenge. So, what are the main barriers to providing the experiences that prospects desire, keeping marketers from success?
Content is still typically delivered in static formats, such as PDFs. Partially because it’s the established approach, and partially because they’ve traditionally been easier to produce than more complex, interactive formats.
However, these static formats don’t offer anything in the way of mid-content engagement – and they often don’t do enough to drive readers to engage with the CTA, either.
There are many problems with the PDF; the main one concerns information overload, as they tend to be quite lengthy and don’t have interactive features. They’re not mobile-optimized or built to drive engagement. Studies have shown that it is easier to grab someone’s attention and retain information if the format is much more like a book.
Interactive content – that incorporates videos, supporting links, polls and other features – solves a lot of the engagement challenges of traditional static content formats.
But until recently, there have been high barriers to building this content. Organizations needed specialist technology, resources and team members to create interactive pieces – and they were often expensive and time-consuming.
Many marketers are still focused on using clicks and open rates as measurements of engagement and intent. Often, this leads to sales being handed prospects while they’re still getting to know the brand and the offering.
If you try and push them to the next stage in the journey before they’re ready, you risk alienating them from your brand.
Moving from the PDF to something that’s trackable and being able to see who you should follow up with is absolute gold. Marketers are now providing sales with 50 people who have actively engaged, rather than 3,000 cold PDF leads. That sort of transformation can make a big difference in proving marketing ROI and upping content’s success as a business driver.
As marketing moves from a creative cost center to a revenue-driving function, marketers need smarter content that’s tailored to readers’ interests and preferences – and can deliver the data to inform their strategy.
Building interactive content is now simpler and more effective than ever, so that’s challenge number two sorted. For the other three, it’s all about gaining a new understanding of what drives humans to make decisions – and how to apply that knowledge to the content you create.
By understanding and applying the basics of behavioral psychology, you can build more engaging, creative, and intelligent content.
