1. HOW DO THEY DO THAT?
expert advice on implementing strategies
EXTEND
Your BUYER
Relationships
How to build a distinctive
brand experience with content

2. June 2016 | SPeaKeR | 33
by JEff Korhan, mba
E
veryone eventually learns the
key to building relationships
with buyers is getting them
to know, like and trust your
business. While this has
always been true, how it’s accom-
plished has changed. Product and serv-
ice excellence were once the keys to
winning the hearts and minds of buy-
ers, but that is now an expectation.
Today, the key is learning how to
create the exceptional customer service
experiences that add value to those
products and services. One way to
accomplish this is content marketing.
Why Content?
Once you engage them, buyers become
invested in their relationship with your
business. This starts the moment they
discover your business and continues
until long after you step off the plat-
form. You can enhance that relationship
and the comprehensive experience
with your products and services with
targeted content.
The Content Marketing Institute
defines content marketing as “the
creation and distribution of valuable,
relevant and consistent content that
attracts, engages and inspires a clearly
defined audience, with the objective to
ultimately drive profitable actions.”
As marketers, we used to exclusively
promote our speaking services and edu-
cational products. Now we promote
everything that progressively adds
value to them at every stage of the
buyer's journey.
From the buyer’s perspective,
valuable content literally becomes
part of the product, thereby enhancing
the customer experience. This content
can come in the form of blog posts or
articles, videos, white papers or other
useful materials.

3. 34 | SPeaKeR | June 2016
the right time. Breaking the code on
that process is an ongoing challenge.
Insight No. 5: Decision Criteria. What
motivates buyers can be a complex
process that ultimately is based almost
entirely on emotion. The decision crite-
ria often surprise companies that are in
love with their products and services.
It’s more important to fall in love with
the people who become your customers.
When you have a clear understand-
ing of your ideal audience, you will
likely discover there are multiple buyer
personas. This is important because it
helps you to personalize your content
to create an experience that addresses
each persona’s unique pain points. As
you know, if your marketing speaks to
everyone, it speaks to no one.
Now, Feel This
Because customers can readily share
their experiences across many commu-
nication channels, everything your busi-
ness does is marketing. What is shared
is usually the result of either an amaz-
ing--or inferior—customer service
experience because average experiences
are not talked about.
That is why it’s vital to understand
what buyers are seeing, thinking, feel-
ing and doing so that you can create
content that adds value to that experi-
ence. A simple tool called an empathy
map can help accomplish this. Grab a
whiteboard and sit down with your
team. On sticky notes, jot down every
interaction that buyers or audience
members have with your business.
The objective is to develop a deep,
personal empathy for their needs and
wants as you iterate the experience.
Insights into Your audience
To know what content will help address
their pain points, it’s critical that you
understand your audience. Adele
Revella, founder of Buyer Persona Insti-
tute, suggests interviewing buyers or
audience members one-on-one to gain
insights from their story. Using The
Five Rings of Buying Insight, Revella
lays out a predictable path for creating
experience-driven marketing that helps
buyers who feel lost.
“Many buyers give up because
nobody is really helping them,” she
says. “This is the big opportunity.”
Insight No. 1: Priority Initiative. Deter-
mine the most compelling reasons buy-
ers decided to invest in your solution,
and develop strategies that trigger these
actions in the future.
It is recommended this information
be acquired by personally interviewing
eight to 10 buyers to learn the exact
words they use to describe what trig-
gers their process. You may learn that
the meeting planner may be the eco-
nomic buyer, but a committee is techni-
cally the decision maker.
Insight No. 2: Success Factors. The
results your buyer expects to achieve
from a solution like yours, and the risks
involved with achieving it, must be
clearly understood.
You must understand the changes or
outcomes your buyer expects from
your solution so that this can be
reflected in your marketing. Also, show
how those outcomes are uniquely
achieved, such as a data-driven presen-
tation that is also entertaining.
Insight No. 3: Perceived Barriers. Every
industry has its perceived barriers.
Using your content to remove them
often involves pulling back the curtain
and sharing relevant stories that res-
onate with buyers.
There are countless negative percep-
tions speakers must overcome to give
the buyer confidence that he or she will
deliver. Demonstrating that you have a
way to eliminate these obstacles is vital.
Many speakers promise the moon on
the topic of social media, but I have
had success by being honest about the
actions the audience must take to suc-
ceed.
Insight No. 4: Buyer’s Journey. Buyers
seldom make decisions in isolation.
Understanding these influences enables
a business to allocate resources to
address these needs.
If yours is a high-consideration pur-
chase, such as a keynote or critically
important safety training, there are
likely multiple decision makers who
must receive the right information at
“It’s vital to understand what
buyers are seeing, thinking,
feeling and doing.”

4. June 2016 | SPeaKeR | 35
In general terms, here is a description
of what I want buyers to feel throughout
their experience with my business:
• Curious because they’ve heard good
things or consumed my content online
• Excited to meet me or engage online
because they like what they’ve
learned from that first touchpoint
• Patient to give me the opportunity
to explain our process
• Confident moving forward because
everything seems to make sense
• Safe when we get into things that
can be challenging, such as budget-
ing, choosing a program and com-
mitting to contracts
• Trusting that I’ll deliver on the
promises I’ve made
• Hopeful that I’ll deliver even more.
The key is ensuring that the experi-
ence you are delivering helps potential
buyers actually feel these emotions.
How can you create an experience that
encourages buyers to feel confident
rather than anxious? Or trusting and
hopeful rather than doubtful? Part of
that experience can be achieved with
strategically crafted content.
The Right Content at the RightTime
Most marketers place their greatest
emphasis on customer acquisition, but
that may not necessarily be right for
you. Maybe your focus should be on
repeat business, for example.
As a speaker who does a lot of associ-
ation work, my greatest challenge is con-
vincing meeting planners who are happy
with my work to bring me back the fol-
lowing year, as opposed to finding a
“fresh face.” I’m always looking for
ways to extend the experience with an
organization’s leadership and members.
Robert Rose of the Content Market-
ing Institute often says, “Create the
least amount of content with the most
impact.” More content isn’t necessarily
better. Never mind that there is a limit to
how much content we can create. That’s
why it’s important to look at the points
along the buyer’s journey where your
content can have the greatest impact.
For example, when I received feed-
back about a recent talk, it included an
attendee comment about wanting more
specific industry examples. I saw this as
an opportunity to suggest to the meet-
ing planner that if one person needed
more information, I should address it
for everyone because they also may
need more. So, I created clarifying con-
tent specific for them that they could
include in their newsletter, thereby suc-
cessfully extending the relationship.
While I still agree to write articles as
requested to “build buzz” before an
event, using content to extend my
experience with the audience after an
event is now a standard practice, too.
For many speakers, this period after
an event is a key opportunity because
that is when the relationship either
ends or grows. This blind spot could
become your competitive advantage if
you dedicate your best talent and con-
tent to this critical touchpoint.
Many speakers tell me they have lots
of valuable content. But that content
only has value if it is strategically posi-
tioned to help create exceptional cus-
tomer experiences that get your
audience to better know, like and trust
your business.
Jeff Korhan, MBA, is the
author of Built-In Social
and founder of Landscape
Digital Institute. He helps
organizations create excep-
tional customer experiences that drive
business growth. Connect with him on
Twitter @jeffkorhan and learn more at
JeffKorhan.com.
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