Irit Singer, CMO of Maritime AI company Windward believes that we have entered an era of marketing through our data, and in order to breach the noise of countless businesses trying to sell their products, companies should market their data through valuable industry insights that reach beyond their product offering.
Content marketing first became popular in the 90s as internet capabilities expanded. B2B tech businesses and marketers, for example, focused much of their attention on email-based newsletters. To this day, 81% of marketers report it is still their “go-to” type of content marketing.
But as vast amounts of content continue to flood your average decision-maker’s inbox, customers are growing tired of these strategies. B2B marketers must adopt innovative alternatives to these overused assets if they hope to continue selling their products, expanding their customer base, and retaining clientele.
So, what is the “next big thing?”
Enter Data Marketing.
When most people hear data marketing, they think of data-driven marketing, meaning strategies built on the analysis of data, offering insights into consumer behavior to sell a product or service.
But in this case, we’re referring to marketing data itself. To help prospects understand the value of a product, we can first show the value in its most basic form – data. This is far more genuine and convincing and provides real value to prospects.
Maximizing Data Benefits
Many companies are already leveraging their data, creating reports on relevant industry insights. These reports are rarely marketed directly to potential clients, rather they are distributed to various news outlets to bolster the company’s brand, show market leadership, and boost their exposure and traction. A potential customer may eventually see it as well.
Instead of this roundabout method, businesses can take a straight shot toward potential business partners, proving their value even before a prospect has received any initial outreach from the company.
Take, for example, a company that runs an app-based retail delivery platform. That delivery company likely possesses valuable data pertaining to the most frequently ordered products, most popular delivery days and times, total delivery-specific income per retailer, and much more.
By marketing this data to grocery stores, pharmacies, or other relevant retailers, they are able to utilize those insights to better align their operations with the latest market trends. In addition, leveraging such data enables retailers to realize just how valuable the delivery platform’s insights could be, increasing the likelihood of future deals.
Windward as a Case Study
Now let’s examine a real organization: my company, Windward – a maritime AI company that utilizes billions of data points from thousands of carriers, ports, and vessels from around the globe to optimize the decision-making process when it comes to remediating supply chain disruptions.
At Windward, we created a monthly report called Port Insights, a marketing asset separate from our product offering, which presents global data regarding port congestion – which is a key source of insights for ocean trade worldwide. At the beginning of every month, Windward shares the insights gleaned from the previous month directly with potential business partners, providing them with the data and insights through which they can understand the value of Windward’s offering themselves.
Flip the Script
Companies must start utilizing unique ways to show the value of their offering without hard selling their products in order to break through the noise of countless other companies doing the same thing. In today’s digital age, data is a truly indispensable resource that most companies already possess in one form or another and can be a critical asset in giving your customers and partners what they truly want - knowledge.
By Irit Singer
CMO
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