If you’re using email marketing, you’re more likely to get your targets to click on links if you offer something you’ve had to spend a fair chunk of budget to create – such as a research report or a white paper – right? Not necessarily. In a study by IDG Connect, technology buyers said they were most likely to click on email links which offer them ‘news and articles’. Links to ‘Competitive comparisons and buyers’ guides’ came second.
I got to wondering why buyers would favour this type of offer over more costly vendor research reports or white papers. And my theory is that most buyers know that vendor research and white papers are inherently biased towards selling the vendors’ technology. While news and articles, or buyers’ guides on third party news sites, are considered more objective.
This leads nicely into my conclusion (which is something I’ve been urging clients to do). If your PR efforts generate news or article content or even if you spot some industry news articles that might be useful to your buyers, you should consider sharing them via email marketing and social networking. You may not be getting them to click through to content on your own web site, but it’s still a way of keeping them engaged with your brand. And another way of keeping the dialogue going during a long sales cycle.