A story worth telling
In 2013, the average shelf life of a well-written 2000-word blog post was approximately 37 days according to Nate Weiner, CEO of Fast Company. In 2016, it was suggested that a blog article has a life span of 100 days. Whether it's 37 or 100, the fact remains that content doesn't engage people forever and can quickly become stale.
Did you know that 75% of engagement on Facebook social media posts takes place within the first five hours while the maximum number of impressions peaks within the first three hours?
According to State of Inbound 2017 produced annually by HubSpot, content creation and distribution took five of the top seven spots when the survey tallied the responses to the question, "Thinking specifically about inbound marketing projects, what are your company's top priorities [in the next 12 months]?"
Content marketing begins with storytelling. To capture your audience's attention, you need to excite them by having a story, not a marketing pitch. In the B2B landscape, more companies recognize the power of teaching vs. selling through content. While your articles, videos, social media posts, infographics, case studies and whitepapers should highlight specific value propositions, they are more interesting to read when they aren't littered with product features and specs.
In B2B engagements, companies often forget they are trying to compel an individual person to take a specific action. The best way to do that is to create content they can relate to that helps them learn something new - that's when you earn credibility and the client sees you as value-creating.
One of the most important factors in generating content is knowing your audience. Persona mapping is a foundational part of great content creation. You need to know what keeps your audience "awake at night", what their role is within the organization and how you can reach them so your article or video is sure to be seen.
But how do you keep up with today's fast pace?
You create content strategies, build a content schedule and establish a distribution method utilizing a variety of channels to remain at the top of your customer's mind. They need to hear from you often, but quality is more important than frequency. Aside from being entertaining and educational, the content you create should ultimately be there to help your organization conduct business.
Aligning your content for the appropriate channel is an important part of the strategy. What works well on LinkedIn or as a blog post, will need to be repackaged if you also want to tweet it. There are a number of best practices that should be considered when writing for the web vs. a trade journal, and sometimes a message is better delivered as a video or animation vs. written format.
A content strategy should take into consideration:
01. The target audience: Which market segment and persona type are you targeting?
02. The message: What are you trying to communicate and why?
03. The action: What do you want your target audience to do?
04. The channel: How best can you reach the target audience to deliver the message?
05. The delivery: What medium will bring the story to life and engage the audience most?
06. Frequency: How often do you need to repeat the message or engage with the target audience?
learn more about content marketing by 25|25:
Template: Value Propositions
We've created several resources and a step-by-step template to help marketers transform their value propositions into valuable assets designed to deliver ROI. Content marketing should be aligned to product marketing which requires a new method for creating value propositions.
Blog: The 3 W's of Gated Content
Aligning your sales and marketing effort through the use of gated content is one critical step to creating a lead scoring system. Learn the what, why and when of how to use gated content in Part 1 of this 3-part blog series.
Blog: Buzzwords You Should Know
Did you know that 45% of marketing budgets are spent on content? Not advertising, not tradeshows. But rather generating valuable content for their target audiences. To put this in perspective, that represents several billion dollars in annual spend.
Blog: 6 Free (or Freeish) Tools and Resources to make Visual Content Creation Easier
Let's face it... creating appealing content isn't easy, especially when it has to be done regularly and effectively. It's possibly one of the most difficult aspects of marketing, encompassing the most time and effort in day-to-day marketing tasks. We've compiled a list of 6 awesome tools and resources to...
Blog: A Tale of Two Webinars
Some people would argue that it's based on audience feedback. Some would say the content has to have met or included best practices - technical merit and delivery of the mechanics. And still others would say return on the investment, (in other words did the piece of content deliver the desired results), is the only thing that matters. What are your thoughts?
how we can help
Creating the Strategy
Sometimes you just need a fresh set of eyes on your content to help you develop a winning strategy. We can develop a strategy that includes guidance on writing and delivery of content per channel. We approach each piece of content with the founding principles above so your team is engaged and aligned on the purpose and desired outcome for the piece long before we have chosen a medium. We encourage our clients to begin with the message and then we guide them on the appropriate tactics by which to communicate the message.
Engagement Planning
According to The Aberdeen Group in a 2013 survey, "It takes 10 marketing touches from initial inquiry to sales completion in the B2B space." Mapping the customer journey using engagement planning can not only help your team understand how the content will aid the buying decision-making process, but will keep them focused on delivery content for the various phases of the sale. Engagement plans are a great way to guide the conversation between sales and product management so that product marketers can build demand generation campaigns with end goals.
Writing and Ghostwriting
The fast pace of business doesn't afford much time for experts to generate the content required to meet the 10 marketing touches previously mentioned. Hiring a skilled set of writers who can interview, research and develop custom articles, eBooks, blog posts, video scripts, and more can save you a tremendous amount of time. It can also help your company tell a story instead of pitching a feature. Our team utilizes journalistic instinct combined with Marketing Communications expertise to generate meaningful content aimed to meet your target audience's expectations.
Content Management
When business climates are volatile, you sometimes need a temporary solution over a fixed period of time to pinch hit and help you maintain business continuity. We can be an 'extension' to your team and act in an interim role to manage your marketing communications and oversee all content generation - everything from strategy to delivery, and from tracking KPIs to reporting. We can work directly with your team to support continued content generation so your products and services will remain top of the mind.
Additional Resources
Article: "How Machine Learning is Changing SEO & How to Adapt" by Winston Burton of Search Engine Journal, August 2017
Blog Post: "Content Marketing Trends to Watch for in 2018" by Joe Pulizzi as published on Content Marketing Institute, September 2017
- Report: "State of Inbound 2017" by HubSpot