ClickInsights: What is the biggest mistake to avoid in B2B Content Marketing?

Posted by Ambal Balakrishnan July 16th 09

ClickInsights is an Expert Interview Series brought to you by Connect the Docs (ClickDocuments blog). In ClickInsights Expert Interview Series we feature top notch industry experts and thought leaders and get their insights, opinions and predictions. We also ask for their suggestions on recommended reading resources to keep abreast with latest trends in their industry.

B2B marketers are producing, managing, and distributing marketing content to reach prospects and turn them into customers. With all this energy fueled into content marketing, what are the pitfalls to avoid? Ardath Albee's B2B Marketing Content Turn Offs and Patsi Krakoff's The Content Marketing Two-Step Trap are must read blog posts on what mistakes to avoid in content marketing. We have invited B2B Experts to shed light on the following question: What is one big mistake to avoid in B2B Content Marketing? Read on to get their insights.

 

ClickInsights: What is the biggest mistake to avoid in B2B Content Marketing?

View more presentations from Ambal Balakrishnan.

Ardath Albee

Blog Marketing Interactions Twitter Ardath421

Avoid the One-off Send Syndrome

Ardath Albee's Bio

Ardath Albee is a B2B Marketing Strategist. Her company Marketing Interactions helps companies with complex sales and quantify marketing effectiveness by using interactive e-marketing strategies driven by compelling content. She empowers her clients to create customer-centric nurturing programs that leverage strategic story development to engage prospects until they are sales ready. Ardath’s book, E-Marketing Strategies for the Complex Sale, will be published this fall by McGraw-Hill.

Ardath Albee's Tip

Content marketing is about more than getting clicks and views. To be effective, content marketing needs a strategic execution. B2B marketers need to avoid One-off Send Syndrome in their content marketing programs. Think about this typical scenario for a minute:

• Company sends an email with a link to a white paper produced by a third-party expert.
• That effort produces a 27% click through rate (CTR).
• Next month, the company sends a notice about a webinar on a different subject because it’s something the company is all hyped up about.
• CTR is 17.5%, but only 5% of those register for your webinar.
• The following month, a new product update comes out and the send is a features review.
• That compelling all-about-them announcement garners an 9% CTR, but only 1% view the online demo.
• When the marketer’s boss asks why he’s not hitting the numbers produced with the white paper, he resolves to get more 3rd party content developed to keep showing those response numbers.

What’s the problem with this type of execution?

It lacks customer focus and—even worse—it lacks consistency and defined objectives. Numbers without substance doesn’t move the sales needle. One of the best tools B2B marketers can utilize to ensure they’ve corrected those problems is an editorial calendar that prevents the One-off Send Syndrome. Just sending whatever content is at hand each month isn’t a strategy that delivers on objectives. And, quite frankly, without customer focus, why should your prospective customers care? 

Marketers need to build a consistent content marketing program. Content needs to reach across the buying process to help your prospects and customers continuously engage with valuable information that helps them build their knowledge—as well as a business case—about how to solve their highest priorities. 

At its simplest, a content plan can be a spreadsheet with months across the top, content assets listed vertically and the topical focus summary recorded under the send date—for each track or segment. Scan the summaries across time to see the story you’re telling, the takeaways you’re offering and the calls to action designed to help you further qualify prospects and turn them into opportunities for sales.

This tool will help you identify gaps and irrelevance you can correct more easily. And it will help you discover exactly the content you need to schedule for development to ensure your content marketing program delivers on objectives.

Ardath Albee Recommends

• Valeria Maltoni's eBook Marketing 2009
• Julien Smith's and Chris Brogan's eBook Trust Economy
• Content Strategy: The Future of Marketing (via Joe Pulizzi with Christine Halvorson)
• Cashing in With Content (a classic by David Meerman Scott)
• Outputs, Outtakes, Outcomes...Oh My! (via Beth Harte) -Although applied to social media, this post works for setting content marketing objectives just as well.

Rebel Brown

Blog Phoenix Rising Twitter RebelBrown

Avoid Me, Me, Me Marketing!

Rebel Brown's Bio

Rebel Brown is go-to-market strategist and Spin Doctor specializing in start ups, turnarounds and start-arounds in the high technology arena. She has helped to define, position and launch over 75 individual products and companies since she began consulting 20 years ago. Her clients who are technology vendors and venture firms leverage her strategic marketing and go-to-market expertise. She identifies and transforms differentiation - customers crown jewels - into compelling, customer-centric value that sells. Her blog is Phoenix Rising and her business is PeopleWhoKnow.

Rebel Brown's Tip

Many companies fall all over themselves sharing claims of technological, product or service superiority.  Their whatchamadoodle is faster than the competition's, it does everything better, it is obviously made by those of superior intellect.

What they don’t do is focus on the customer problem, or how this amazing solution solved it.

• Not one word about the business value, or the competitive advantage this technology could provide.
• Not one word about anything or anyone but the company and its awesome technology.

If these type of companies were people - we'd call them self-centered ego maniacs.  And I sure as heck would not want to spend a lot of time around someone so self-enthralled. Would you? 

The key to great B2B content is to think like a customer, and speak to a customer about their opportunities, their issues – their world. 

Look at your own buying behavior. When someone approaches you to sell a car, or an appliance, or a house or whatever - using me, me, me marketing -  how do you respond?  If you’re like me – you turn and walk away.  Quickly.

How do you think your own customers respond? Think about it.  How much time and trust do you want to share with someone who is all about me, me and me? The more you boast, the more their eyes glaze over, or roll around in their heads. And then they tune you out.

Claims of superiority don't win business. Nor do they compel your audience to want to learn more about you.  In fact, too much Me, Me, Me can drive customers away - right into the arms of your competition.

When you’re thinking about your content, be a humble expert offering advice, educating your market on issues that matter to them, pointing to customer success as the real evidence of what you can do.

Then just watch the response.

Rebel Brown Recommends

• Charlene Li's and Josh Barnoff's book Groundswell: Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies

Brian Carroll

Blog Start with a Lead Twitter BrianJCarroll

Not being relevant to your audience

Brian Carroll's Bio

Brian Carroll, CEO of InTouch, is part of MECLABS Group (MarketingExperiments, MarketingSherpa, InTouch) and author of Lead Generation for the Complex Sale and the B2B Lead Generation Blog with expertise related to B2B marketing, lead generation and complex sales.

Brian Carroll's Tip

Whether you are creating content for an email, white paper, or a podcast, the biggest mistake I think you can make is not being relevant to your audience. In fact, a recent survey of email recipients found that 58% of those who stop reading, disengage or unsubscribe cite "lack of relevance" as a key factor.

The biggest problem you run into if you’re not connecting with your audience on a regular basis is those “emotional unsubscribes”  - readers that are ignoring you and don’t even bother to click unsubscribe.

There are ways to make sure you are connecting with your prospects:

1. Be relevant to their business. Industry info will tell you what pain points they have, company size give you a clue about the resources they have available, and geography will give you an indication of whether they are influenced by cultural or regulatory requirements.
2. Be relevant to their role. You can target your message more efficiently when you know what role your prospect plays in the buying process because you can cater to their needs. Being relevant to them as individuals for example will mean that techies will want product specifics and data, not an overview of how much it will affect ROI. Giving individuals very specific information based on their role will ensure that you hit home with each touch.
3. Be relevant to their stage in the buying process. You’ll need to provide different kinds of content based on what point they are in the decision process. If you are just starting out in the process, feed them information slowly. Don’t overwhelm them with the same information you would give someone who is on the verge of buying.

And, sometimes, the best way to give your audience what they need is to simply ask. Soliciting feedback is one of the best ways to connect with your prospects. People love knowing that you are interested in what they have to say. So, before you put together your next webinar, take a survey, and ask your audience what their pain points are. Ask them where the holes are in the industry. We have to remember that we are marketing to individuals not companies. That means our content should be driven by individual’s needs.

Patsi Krakoff

Blog WritingontheWeb Twitter PatsiBlogSquad

Not caring about your audience

Patsi Krakoff's Bio

Patsi Krakoff, Psy. D., is a former psychologist and journalist who has been working in online content marketing for the last 10 years helping professionals use e-newsletters and blogs to grow business. Her award-winning blog can be found at WritingontheWeb. She provides quality content and newsletter services for global executive coaches at ContentforCoachesandConsultants. She is co-founder of The Blog Squad, providing blog services and consulting. She lived and worked in Paris for 20 years and now lives in Ajijic, Mexico, where she is an avid tennis player.

Patsi Krakoff's Tip

Everyone knows this joke: A celebrity runs into a friend who politely asks, “How are you?” The star takes off on a 5 minute monologue all about his success and his last film. Not completely insensitive, the star stops himself and asks the friend, “Oh, enough about me! How did YOU like my movie?”

It happens in online content marketing when professionals talk too much about themselves, their products, their services and not enough about the problems and challenges of their audience.

In a sense not much has changed in marketing except it’s easier to get your message out to customers. But the message has to be about your readers and their problems. What’s in it for them if they spend time reading your stuff?

First be of service, and don’t waste people’s time. It’s alright to tell a story about yourself or your company, people expect that. But keep the audience first, entertain them and help them.

Nobody cares about you unless you care about them and their challenges. Your job is to inform them and entertain them. If you aren’t doing that well, hire a good journalist who can help with your content marketing.

Patsi Krakoff Recommends

• Joe Pulizzi's and Newt Barrett's book Get Content. Get Customers.
• Jon Wuebben's book Content Rich
• Top42 Content Marketing Blogs
• Alltop Content Marketing Blogs
• Velocity's The B2B Content Marketing Workbook
  
• B2B Marketing Fundamentals Don't Change

Mac McIntosh

Blog Sales Leads Insights Twitter B2B_Sales_Leads

Not finding multiple uses for your content

Mac McIntosh's Bio

M. H. (Mac) McIntosh is considered to be one of North America’s top B2B marketing consultants and an expert the subject of using marketing to generate leads and drive sales. In addition to consulting, Mac conducts marketing workshops and seminars, writes regularly for leading marketing and business publications, is the publisher of Sales Lead Report, a newsletter with more than 15,000 subscribers, and Sales Lead Insights, his B2B marketing blog. He holds the Certified Business Communicator (CBC) designation awarded by the Business Marketing Association and was designated by BtoB magazine as one of its “Top 100 in BtoB Marketing.”

Mac McIntosh's Tip

I think the one big mistake to avoid is not finding multiple uses for your content.   After all, you invested money or effort to create the content.  Shouldn’t you look for ways to maximize the return on that investment?

I believe that B2B marketers should start by taking an inventory of their current content, and then give some thought to other uses for that content.

For example, should that newsletter article also be added to your website?  Can you use it as a starting place for a blog post on the subject, or link to it from your blog?  Could you offer a customized version of it to someone else’s newsletter?  Would it be a good addition to your seminar handout materials? Can it be repackages in a set of “best of” articles?  Would it be an appropriate offer in your marketing for leads programs? Or is it appropriate to include as part of an information kit to send to interested prospects? 

Mac McIntosh Recommends

• MarketingSherpa
• B2B Lead Generation Benchmark Study 2009
• Sales Lead Expert’s Learning Center

Maria Pergolino

Blog Modern B2B Marketing Twitter Marketo InboundMarketer

Missing opportunity to create content specific to buyer personas

Maria Pergolino's Bio

Maria Pergolino works as Inbound Marketing Manager at Marketo, leading their efforts in adoption of social media channels for brand awareness and demand generation. She has worked in marketing for over ten years, and specifically in online marketing including social media, search marketing, and lead generation and nurturing for the past six. Maria has a Marketing Degree and MBA from the School of Business at Rutgers University, is a Salesforce Certified Administrator, and a speaker at numerous marketing events. She has also written for many marketing blogs, and is a frequent contributor to Marketo’s popular blog, Modern B2B Marketing.

Maria Pergolino's Tip

Marketers are changing their content strategy, but even as the messages are becoming more informative and less product-centric, I find that marketers are often missing the opportunity to create content specific to each of their buyer personas.  By focusing on specific personas, marketers can create content that is used to nurture different types of buyers through their buying decision, shortening the revenue cycle and increasing the chance of a sale.

Once your buyer personas are created, follow these quick steps to improve the results of your content marketing:

1. Make a list that shows each of the personas and the content they are currently consuming (in the order that it is typically consumed
2. Look for gaps in the path they are taking, and use these gaps in the sales and marketing ‘story’ to decide what content is missing.  Use this data to decide on future content to be created.
3. Use your marketing automation software to create time and action triggered nurturing campaigns for each of these personas, ensuring that every recipient has all the information they need for their current place in the buying process.
4. Test the results of new content by incorporating it into the current nurturing campaign.  Test on samples of your audience to understand the true impact of new content. 
5. Make changes to the nurturing program and review buyer personas on a regular basis looking for ways to improve current campaigns and start new ones, which will avoid current programs from becoming stagnant.  

By following these steps, marketers can not only create extraordinary value in their content marketing program, but quickly prove that value to sales. 

Maria Pergolino Recommends

• Forester Blog for Interactive Marketing Professionals
• Ardath Albee's blog Marketing Interactions
• Brian Carroll's blog B2B Lead Generation Blog
• Laura Patterson's book Marketing Metrics in Action
• Hugh MacLeod's Ignore Everybody: and 39 Other Keys to Creativity

Related Articles  

• ClickInsights: Tips on how B2B marketers should leverage social media
• ClickInsights: Tips on how B2B marketers should do Content Marketing

 

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