OFF-MUTE 🔈
✨ Content is the soul of a marketing program.
☑️ Done well, it can...
👀 Generate awareness
🍎 Educate the market
💬 Build community
👑 Establish thought leadership
🛠️ Solve problems through how-tos
🔽 Pull prospects into the funnel
🙋♀️ Drive action (like getting people to sign up for your newsletter)
💫 But it takes some serious skill, intention, and strategy to make content whir.
🎙️ Our Vice President of Content Strategy, Stacy Warden, knows this first-hand. I recently sat down with Stacy to pick her brain on the common struggles and mistakes companies make when it comes to content creation. Here are her top insights and strategies to keep in mind for those who may be rethinking their content plans in 2022:
⚓️ Anchor your content in strategy and tie it to key business goals. Organizations should take time to assess their current content program and ask questions like: Are we overdue for a content audit? How are we measuring our content performance?
📝 Don’t just publish new content for the sake of it. There’s often a misconception that content is simply about churning out new pieces (blogs, bylines, podcasts, etc.) in order to remain fresh and relevant. But this can lead to frustration when the piece doesn’t take off. Before you put pen to paper, put a content plan in place and make sure you have the resources to make it sustainable.
🆒 🆕 Find ways to make the old content new again. Newsletters are a prime example of a simple, yet effective way companies can leverage their best content without having to reinvent the wheel — and it takes the lift off the reader because it’s delivered directly to their inbox.
👍 ❤️ Make sure the content is engaging. Do the tone and voice resonate with the audience? Is it telling a story? Is it actionable or useful? These are all questions that should be top of mind when creating any type of content.
👩🏫 Treat B2B like B2C. With more Millennials taking over management roles, the B2B buyer landscape is changing dramatically. We see more B2B decision makers actively resisting conversations with sales reps and instead approaching the buyer’s journey in the same way they would for a personal purchase. Peer reviews, community forums, and customer advocacy on social media have never been more pivotal in the B2B content channel strategy.
👀 Ensure your content has reach. This means that your audience sees the piece without actively searching for it. This visibility is based on vital content marketing practices including channel strategy, SEO, and journey mapping.
⏰ Be patient. Content ROI isn’t often immediate. It can, however, be measured by many of the same metrics as traditional marketing such as brand awareness, retention, lead generation, and revenue.