Digest...

It’s About the Content, Smarty…

In order to measure your content’s effectiveness you must actually create content. Sounds logical, no? And yet, while so many marketers say they create content and are planning to increase their content generation for next year, so few are willing to commit to a long-term and consistent content generation plans.

Choose a Media

Not only are marketers thinking of increasing their overall content creation efforts, but they are putting more emphasis on video as the central media. Forrester agrees, noting in the AdAge article that “Using video to tell the story is really important.” Adding that while ”[w]e are seeing more video [...] a lot of it is shot from the perspective of advertising adapted to the web.”

Know Your Audience. Then Educate & Entertain Them.

So in order to solve “Marketer Arrogance” Syndrome: 1) You must actually perform discovery and brand identity work to truly understand your audience, their demographics and the real problems they face. Utilizing a consumer advisory board is a low-cost and effective way to achieve this. 2) Then you must leverage this knowledge and craft content that speaks to how you solve these problems. This content is not an ad for your greatness. Subtlety and humility rules, and that’s achieved through differentiated thought leadership that simultaneously educates and entertains.

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Excerpt...

"The majority of b-to-b websites fail to engage users with content, according to a new report from Forrester Research.

The report, "B-to-B Content Fails the Customer Engagement Test," was based on a review of 30 b-to-b websites in six industries: technology, software, investing, medical products, manufacturing and services.

Forrester identified 10 criteria for engaging content, ranging from a customer-centric home page to innovative use of video. A perfect score was 30 and a passing score was 20. Only four companies passed (Forrester declined to say which ones), and the average score was just 12.8."

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Digest...

While 81% of marketers says they use context-based facts specific to a prospect to shape their marketing messages and sales conversations, a new survey from Corporate Visions reveals that they may be focusing on the wrong types of insights. Marketers ranked forward-looking content as the most effective, but reported that their assets focused primarily on common challenges.

The survey defined four specific insight types:

>> Anecdotal insights — Content that is created in-house and focuses on more tactical day-to-day issues such as best practices, lessons learned, and features and functionality.

>> Authoritative insights — Content that leverages the work of respected third-parties, such as analysts and external subject matter experts, and is used to reinforce key company messages around trends, problems, challenges, risks, opportunities and requirements.

>> Current insights — Content that centers around original research and surveys that are produced by the company as supporting facts for campaigns and selling messages.

>> Visionary insights — Content that leverages in-house expertise but looks to the future of the industry and defines what is next.

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To outsource content marketing you’ve got to do the work to create systems, processes and routines that ensure a high quality end product.

Key excerpt...

When you do decide to get some help from outside services or individuals here’s how I recommend you proceed.

• Create a list of proposed titles for blog posts or articles and briefly describe the context of the article. This list should come from an annual editorial plan based on key topics or themes for your business. (Think SEO!)
• Find a service like Zerys, InboundWriter or Blog Mutt and locate a couple potential writers to give a try.
• When you receive your articles, don’t just cut and paste them, take the time to go over and edit for specifics, tone, voice and that personal touch.
• If you find a particular writer that seems to work well for you, you may decide to set up a routine – so many blog posts per month, for example.
• Then you can go about focusing on creating perhaps one very thorough post on your own each week. (The writing process, research and need to explain something in writing will benefit you in the long run so I never advocate total outsourcing of writing.)