We'd like to start creating compelling, relevant content that helps you form stronger relationships with your customers and makes you more attractive to prospects.

But we just couldn't. We don't know enough about you yet. We're going to need some help.

Understanding your products and knowing your customers. Two things that you'd think are a slam dunk for everyone who is in business. Therefore, it's always astonishing when I ask clients questions about those subjects and get nothing but one or two words in response. If you're in a position at your company where your job includes any aspect of sales, promotion, marketing, or advertising you should be able to clearly and succinctly talk about the benefits of your most important products and pinpoint who buys them.

Some can. But many cannot.

Of the two topics, the one about identifying the customers stumps more people. I hate to break it to you, but your target market - and therefore the audience for whom you create content - is NOT "everyone". There is a subset, a sweet spot, where your products provide the greatest benefit or solve the most onerous problems. THAT is your market. That is the group you should have in mind before you ever put your hands on the keyboard to create newsletter articles, blogs, or web site content.

Aiming for Everyone Isn't Really Targeting

The fear of missing a sale because your message didn't reach every single prospect, no matter how implausible, makes marketers rely heavily on a description of features and benefits. They hope that everyone who reads their general-purpose stuff will see something there that resonates. It's no mystery why those efforts are failing to generate many high-quality sales leads these days.

At Print/Mail Consultants, before we start generating content for our writing clients we do our best to find out some of this information that is so critical in deciding what to say, how to express it, and where to post the messages. These are valid questions even if you're creating informational or marketing content for your own company. Without the answers, you are trying to hit the target in a pitch dark room.

Here are a few of those questions:

• What kinds of companies are you trying to attract? (Industrial sectors, company size, type of work they do)
• Who do you need to reach? (Operations managers, CEO's, CFO's, IT execs)
• What do you wish to accomplish? (Prompt a contact with sales, increase the number of demos, add prospects to your mailing list)
• What do buyers need to know about your company before they will make a sales inquiry - what are your core strengths?
• How will buyers find out about your product? (Avoiding the Field of Dreams syndrome)
• Which of your products do your customers need or want the most?
• What distinguishes your company from the competition?

These aren't all the questions we have. There are some more detailed inquiries that we make. But with just these answers we can do a pretty good job at generating the kind of content that will capture the attention of the intended audience and start generating the results our clients have told us they want to achieve.

There are lots of ways to get the answers when you start asking these questions. If you can't find the information internally, ask your customers, conduct a survey, or hire an analyst to do some research for you. Or you can do some testing with your messaging campaigns to find out.

Today's B2B marketer needs to be smarter if they are going to be successful. Having a crystal clear understanding of their market, their audience, and their own products is a good place to start.