With tens of thousands of visitors from all over the world, Mobile World Congress Barcelona is an unmissable event for those in the telecoms industry. With speakers, debates, showcases and exhibitors, MWC offers telecoms companies unparalleled access to prospects, and a chance to demonstrate new ideas and tech to current customers.
However, with thousands of exhibitors lining the halls, standing out from the crowd is both difficult and essential. The right content marketing approach can go a long way, particularly as the prominence of content in the B2B purchase cycle is growing.
Our 2022 survey of B2B buyers revealed they consume an average of 4.5 pieces of content before contacting a supplier, with 63% going directly to a company’s website in search of information. With 73% of respondents now doing more research than they did last year, a content strategy that understands and delivers what prospects want is key.
You need to create content in the right format, in the right place, covering the right topics. Need a little help? Read on.
Who is your target audience?
If your content isn’t hitting the mark, it’s a waste of time. You need to identify and understand your customers’ pain points, and highlight the solutions you offer. Have an agreed, business-wide messaging document to underpin all your content and plan campaigns. This will help you to build coherent strategies and ensure consistency.
You also need to know how your customers prefer to consume content. Our research shows 55% of B2B buyers find video the most useful format. Webinars are nearly as important (54%), having grown from 34% two years ago. Videos and webinars are also the two most likely type of content to be shared (53% and 52%, respectively).
Strategise around MWC
How should you plan for such a big and important event? It makes sense to have a specific strategy for MWC (or other trade shows). An MWC content strategy needs to cover not only what content you want to produce (and who will produce it), but also how it will be shared and disseminated to make the most of your time.
Your content needs to speak to all stages of the sales funnel, and make prospective customers take notice of your expertise and solutions. Use thought leadership pieces to educate potential customers about your solutions, to demonstrate new thinking to current customers, and to improve your reputation and brand recognition. If you have up-to-date data and statistics to highlight, then so much the better.
Content must also form a cohesive whole: when planning for MWC you want every piece to content to be working towards the same goals. There needs to be a joined-up feeling for prospects, and it should all build on your overall messaging.
Think smart to save time
Developing new content can be time-consuming, and in the run up to a big trade show time is probably not something you have a lot of. This is where it pays to think smart: can you recycle or repurpose existing content? These kind of ‘evergreen’ posts, videos, case studies etc., can demonstrate your solutions and expertise without needing to be brand new.
Is your content:
1) Solving a problem? Develop helpful, practical content that highlights common challenges or pain points, and showcase your products, services, and solutions.
2) Specific? Being generalist risks coming across as wishy-washy or boring. To hook a prospect’s interest, focus on a specific problem or pain point and how you can help. Contextualising and simplifying big industry issues can help, too.
3) Showing off? Content marketing should help emphasise how brilliant your business is and how essential your services and products are to the potential customer. By demonstrating your knowledge and expertise, you can position your company as one with which people want to do business. Giving away some advice can pay dividends in brand recognition and reputation.
Whether you’re creating lead magnets (e.g., white papers, reports, ebooks), nurturing assets (e.g., articles, case studies, webinars, infographics), or support assets (short videos, landing pages), they should all be part of your key messaging and strategy.
Get your message out there
Having generated all your content, you need to make sure it reaches the right people at the right time. Promotional tactics are important, to ensure your hard work pays off. Make sure content is being promoted in an engaging way across your social channels – you might want to pull quotes, make infographics, create images, use video stills, or make short versions of video content to make it easily shareable, both for you and for others.
Your shorter content can also generate buzz and interest, driving traffic to your longer content. For example, an infographic of high level stats from original research can drive traffic to the full report or white paper. Make this a gated asset and you can use it to capture email addresses or other customer data, too.
These suggestions can help you deliver success at any event, not just MWC. If you want to know more about how to gain the best results for your content marketing, get in touch at hello@isolinecomms.com, or find us at MWC Barcelona.
