How to Market Your Robots as a Service Business

It’s a good time to be in the Robots as a Service (RaaS) business.

API Research predicts some absolutely massive growth in the market—from $200 million in revenue to over $30 billion by 2026. With the costs of purchasing equipment becoming more and more prohibitive, manufacturers all over the world are starting to turn to Robots as a Service.

With demand for RaaS likely to go up and up in the future, creating as much awareness today can mean more opportunities in the future. One of the best ways to build brand awareness, especially in the B2B space, is through content marketing.

With a solid content marketing plan, you can build awareness around your RaaS solution, position yourself as a trusted source of knowledge in your industry, and convert prospects into customers.

Here are 6 steps to get your RaaS content marketing started:

1. Create Your Buyer Personas

The first step in creating a winning marketing plan is figuring who it is you’re marketing to. You want whoever is visiting your website and reading your articles, posts and emails to feel like you’re speaking directly to them as opposed to addressing the masses.

The best way to pull off this one-on-one vibe is to create buyer personas and create your content with them in mind. You’ll almost always have more than one buyer persona, and the more thought you put into them, the more focused your marketing content will be.

Possible personas for Robots as a Service are:

Executives and decision makers (the people buying from you)
Mid-level management or team members (the people learning about and asking management to use your solution)
Potential investors if you’re an early-stage startup
Influencers in your industry (enthusiasts who can generate a buzz around your solution)

2. Consider the Buyer’s Journey

One of the biggest factors that will influence your marketing strategy and execution is the buyer’s journey. The prospects you reach with your marketing efforts will range anywhere from having no clue what Robots as a Service is, to looking to make a purchase right now.

Here’s a breakdown of the three stages of the buyer’s journey:

Awareness
At the awareness stage, the buyer realizes they have a problem they need to solve. Sometimes they know they have the problem but aren’t aware a solution even exists. Others might not even know they have a problem. An example of an awareness stage buyer for Robots as a Service would be a manufacturer looking to save money on equipment costs or facility upgrades. Blog posts and social media posts aimed at answering questions and solving problems are examples of marketing that targets buyers in the awareness stage.
Consideration
Buyers at the consideration stage know what their problem is and are actively seeking out and comparing solutions. Case studies, newsletters, ebooks and white papers are all examples of marketing channels that target buyers in the consideration stage.
Decision
The decision stage is where buyers are looking to make a purchase to address their problems. This is where you’ll make the case for your RaaS as the best possible solution for them. Decision-stage marketing includes sales emails, buying guides and product or service landing pages.

3. Set Your Marketing Goals

Once you know who you’re marketing to, it’s time to set some benchmarks for what you want to achieve. Whether it’s more sales, web traffic or email subscribers, you’ll want to get as specific (and realistic) as you can with your goals.

A battle-tested method for goal-setting is to use the SMART goal model, making sure that every goal you set is Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-based. Examples of SMART goals are: Growing your email list by 100 subscribers over the next two quarters. Reaching out to 5 social media influencers this month.

4. Brainstorm Content Marketing Topics

For Robots as a Service, think about the kind of information your potential buyers are seeking. What solutions are manufacturers searching for? What topics are they reading up about? Spend some time brainstorming as many topics as you can. Meet with your sales team and discuss the most commonly asked questions from customers and prospects.

Once you have several topics picked out, you can start doing keyword research to see which topics are likely to bring in the most traffic. Take note of any search terms that bring back thin or low-quality content in the search results. If you look at the results and think, “I can do better than this!” chances are your content will outperform the competition.

5. Write Content With Readers (and Search Engines) in Mind

When it comes time to actually write your marketing content, review your buyer personas. Always ask yourself, Who am I writing for?, and write directly to that specific person. At the same time, keep the search terms you want to rank for in the front of your mind.

That doesn’t mean you have to stuff your content with keywords (doing that might actually hurt your marketing efforts). A good strategy is to outline your content first and build your subheads around key search terms. This will keep you focused and let the keywords work their way into your writing naturally.

6. Add a Call-to-Action (CTA)

Drawing traffic to your business website with blog content is even more impactful when you can get that traffic to take action. You can do this by ending each content piece with a call-to-action, or CTA.

The type of CTA you use depends on the Buyer’s Journey stage you’re targeting in your content. For awareness content, you could urge your readers to sign up for email updates to learn more about your industry. For the consideration stage, you might offer a downloadable resource like an ebook or whitepaper. If your content is targeted toward prospects near or at the decision stage, use a strong CTA compelling them to set up a discovery or sales call.

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Robots as a Service might be a new concept with low awareness today, but it’s an industry set to boom in the near future. As more and more potential buyers turn their attention toward RaaS, it’s going to be the companies with the best content marketing that get the lion’s share of that attention. Taking the time to start a content marketing strategy now could pay off exponentially down the road.

Curious how a customer-focused content marketing strategy helped a PMG robotics client quadruple its traffic and increase customers by 800%? (Yes, you read that correctly… 800%!) Read our Customer Story now.