71% of software buyer's content needs are being ignored.

It’s clear, from our Demand Generation Report, that prospects are interested in a wide range of topics when selecting software.

Yet, most vendor sites focus primarily on product features, despite only 12% being focused on topics related to requirements gathering, and a further 17% being focused on discovery. That’s only 29% of buyers receiving content that meets their needs.

A content marketer’s nightmare.

Or the perfect opportunity.

Opportunities can be found when marketing and prospect nurturing expand to other topics such as pricing (21%), comparison (21%), and operations (11%).

However, these areas of opportunity for software vendors often requires us to be more transparent.

In fact, our most recent survey found that software buyers rated pricing as the least freely available information, despite it being their number one topic of interest.

There’s a clear mismatch between audience needs and the content they’re being delivered.

And, that’s why topic diversity improves nurturing content.

Customer experiences are not static. As prospects progress through the customer journey, they require content that is tailored to their stage in the buying funnel.

As marketers, we already know that channel diversity is necessary to succeed; by using different mediums such as blogs, social media, newsletters and more to reach our audience, we provide them with multiple touchpoints to interact with and gain trust in our brand.

Plus, more platforms means more useful data.

More useful data means more actionable insights. Meaning we make better marketing choices.

So, why don’t we do the same for content topics?

Topic diversity provides similar benefits for our marketing campaigns. Prospects who are actively engaged with top of funnel content will seek to further their understanding and need areas to expand into as they reach the middle of funnel.

In fact, 82% of customers view at least five pieces of content before making a purchase suggesting prospects are actively engaged with content as they progress through the funnel.

Diverse nurturing content engages prospects who may not be ready to touch base with a sales advisor but would be happy to receive more useful content.

The intent-segment feedback loop

More engagement with nurturing content equals more intent signals.

Intent signals, driven by topic diversity, allow us to more granularly segment our audience based on their needs. We can identify which pieces of content our prospect is interacting with, and determine what content will be useful as they continue through the buying funnel.

And here’s the best part.

Better prospect segmentation also drives content engagement.

We have ourselves a positive feedback loop.

Good segmentation leads to effective nurturing which reduces the drop-off between middle of funnel and bottom of funnel prospects. This maintained engagement generates intent data that can improve segmentation for active and future prospects.

This intent-segment feedback loop is a wheel that can drive demand generation. Topic diversity is what gets that wheel turning.

Thanks for taking the time to read my thoughts on topic diversity if you’d like to share your opinions on this topic, I’d love to hear from you. You can email any of your thoughts to me directly at: megan@prospectpath.com