We Need More Content
Building a Strong Content Strategy: Start with the Basics
As a Marketing or Content leader, how many times have you heard (or uh-hum...actually uttered) the following....
"We need more videos for our YouTube channel!”
"We need an infographic!"
“We need a new white paper!”
I know I’m guilty as charged here – I’ve both heard and uttered these words to my team many times in my career. What’s wrong with this scenario? It’s vague. It’s aimless. And more important, it gives zero creative direction or objectives for your content creators.
Most entrepreneurs would agree that speed should trump perfection every time, and in most instances, I would agree. However, this doesn’t mean random acts of content are acceptable or effective. Let’s look at a couple of facts:
Fact 1: Self-Service B2B Buying is a Reality
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It has been well documented that B2B buyers are overwhelmingly moving towards more self-service methods of the buying process. The Enterprise Growth Alliance Buyer Insights Report this year reported that half of its respondents spent 75% of the buying journey in self-guided activities, with senior executives over indexing on these self-serve activities.
The Demand Gen Report Content Preference Survey found that 71% of respondents downloaded, consumed and shared multiple assets to help with the decision-making process. Which leads us to fact 2.
Fact 2: Content Relevance is Critical
Generally speaking, content experiences are still falling short in meeting the needs and desires of today’s buyers. That same Demand Gen Content Preference Survey substantiated this with the following:
51% said assets were too objective and too much of a sales pitch
39% said it was difficult to find content that caters to their needs
38% said content was too generic
37% said the assets were not always informative or even entertaining
Relevant, targeted, valuable, and easy-to-consume content is arguably more important today than it’s ever been. The buying process has seen seismic shifts in the last 3-5 years, but marketing and sales, and more specifically content, have lagged in meeting the needs of these evolved buyers.
So how can marketing and content teams get more focused and effective in their content creation plans? Here are some key questions to ask yourself as you embark on content creation (spoiler alert: you shouldn’t start with format type):
Stand out with a unique perspective or point of view. This goes beyond incrementally better (maybe) features and functions of your product. They want to first know who you are and your area of expertise. Are you thought provoking? Are you demonstrating an ability to provide value to them and their business? Create a unique POV on the industry or relevant trends and communicate it with conviction and confidence.
Who are you trying to reach and talk to? It’s imperative that you get specific here. Title, function and industry aren’t enough. If you want to create meaningful content and experiences that resonate, you need to really understand your audience. What do they like and dislike? What are their biggest pain points, and how is their pain keeping them from solving problems or reaching goals? This is the single most important step in your content strategy. Want to create a sound content strategy? Start with an in-depth audience strategy. If you are unsure of some of these, simply ask them. In my experiences, I’ve never known customers to NOT willingly provide you with insights that will help you better serve them.
How are you defining success? You need to get very specific here or you could sabotage the whole content plan before it gets off the ground. If you are trying to determine (or being asked to determine) the ROI of a single piece of content, the program isn’t going to go well. Trying to tie ROI to a single asset is asinine. Rather, look at consumption by your ideal audience, shares by your target audience, engagement where applicable (e.g. social channel engagement), etc.
Don’t try and boil the ocean; start first with a small pot of water. What does this mean? Unless you’re a large enterprise with dozens of marketers on your team, and a multi-million-dollar budget, you likely won’t have the resources to dominate across multiple channels. So start with one channel and go big. This will allow you to align the elements above, gain valuable learnings on what resonates and what doesn’t, and move quickly to execute.
Tying it All Together: A Real-World Example:
A number of years ago, while leading the content and branding teams at a leading scheduling and labor management solution SaaS provider for the restaurant industry, we were embarking on a significant product launch, the largest such in the company's history. Months ahead of the actual launch, we embarked on a "stall the market" strategy with the objective of re-framing back-office solutions in the minds of our buyers, and "stalling" their decision to go with legacy solutions. Here's what it looked like:
Our unique perspective/POV was that while restaurant back-office solutions have been around since the dark ages, there were all pretty much the same and had narrow features and benefits. The industry was missing a fully integrated solution that allows all of the disparate functions to work and talk together.
We were talking to multi-unit restaurant operators (think larger chains), and their leadership (VP of Operations/COO). Through our ongoing relationships as well as our advisory councils, we knew a lot about their pain points, their desires, how they made decisions, etc. Where we really honed in on was the fact that tech bloat in the industry, and lack of integration across the various point solutions were key contributors to inflated operating and labor costs.
Our primary goal was driving content downloads and engagement. We were shifting the narrative around legacy back-office solutions and it was important to get our POV to as many people within our sweet spot as we could. While we were able to collect some leads throughout the campaign, our focus was on starting a new kind of conversation. And because we launched this campaign roughly 4-5 months prior to launch, we were playing the long game.
While we didn't necessarily start with one single channel, we did focus our efforts across paid content syndication, social engagement, and PR. This allowed us to get our POV out into the market through various vehicles, and customized the message and delivery based on those vehicles. Conversely, we stayed away from demand and lead capture channels during this phase; we were focused on education and engagement.
When launch day came, we had thousands of content downloads and views, social media engagements, article views, etc. We held an in-person event for the formal launch and had over 175 prospects and representatives from all major trade publications in attendance. Following the launch, our strategy shifted to more direct focus on the unique attributes of the platform and how it was vastly improved from standalone, legacy solutions. We incorporated smaller, regional "road shows" to allow for more personalized experiences with top prospects. All of this resulted in millions in incremental pipeline, engagement with new logos, and five lighthouse customers - all within the first 2-3 months.
“Let’s be honest, creating content is easy. Creating relevant, insightful, compelling and valuable content can be hard, but it’s more important today than it’s ever been.”
Looking for help in building out a content strategy? Already have a solid content strategy and looking for creative resources to help scale? Or maybe you truly just need a video…no matter where you are on your journey, Altitude has the resources and expertise to meet you where you are and help you grow your content engine that ultimately drives growth. Having worked closely with Altitude during my tenure at AT&T, I experienced first-hand the level of objective, strategic perspectives they brought to each program; the quality of their work; and most important, their commitment to true partnership.
To learn more about our digital marketing solutions, contact Jennifer Throop, VP, Sales and Marketing.
At Altitude, we’re focused on creating content that delivers the ‘most relevant information’, in the shortest amount of time.