The Canadian Association of Marketing Professionals (CAMP) held a panel on how to get better results from your content marketing efforts. Here are seven things that every B2B content marketer must know …
One of the biggest challenges in content marketing is getting traction.
You may publish an amazing, thought-provoking article on your blog but then nothing happens.
No shares … no comments … no rush of new leads calling …
How can you get more of your ideal customers to read and share your content?
The Canadian Association of Marketing Professionals (CAMP) held a panel on how to get more mileage from your content. Here are the top seven things that I learned from the panelists:
1. Stop thinking like a publisher and start thinking like a reporter.
Mark Evans, author of Storytelling for Startups, believes that many marketers produce content for the sake of producing content. When they do this, they often sacrifice quality for quantity. However, Mark has seen marketers get better results when they focus on telling compelling stories with interesting angles.
2. Ask your customers for help.
According to Cassandra Jowett, Content Marketing Manager at Influitive, marketers don’t need to go it alone. You likely have an army of customers, fans and evangelists – or advocates – who are willing to help. Invite them into a formal advocate marketing program where they can take an active role in your sales, marketing and product development. For example, they may share your content, participate in beta tests or send you referrals.
Jowett said, “People naturally refer others to companies all the time. But you can scale this way up if you put a formal process in place.”
3. Lead customers on a journey.
Randy Frisch, COO/Co-Founder of Uberflip, loves getting content on LinkedIn. Once he goes on the site, he gets drawn into the web of interesting content. Frisch says marketers should mirror this experience by leading customers on a content journey.
Include a call to action at the end of all of your content that invites customers to take the next step. For example, you can ask them to check out more in-depth content or attend a webinar.
“Your call to action shouldn’t be generic,” said Frisch. “You need to make the right ask at the right time.”
4. Focus on your customers.
Today’s customers can smell a sales pitch a mile away. If you’re constantly pitching your products or services, you’ll bore customers and cause them to tune out. The panelists stressed the importance of creating customer-focused, not product-focused, content. According to Jowett, “Your content should be useful without being salesy. Then, customers can draw their own conclusions about what they should and shouldn’t buy.”
5. Content should come from your entire team.
The panelists believe that content marketing shouldn’t be one person’s job. It should be a company-wide mindset, where everyone produces content. This takes some of the pressure off the marketing team, so they don’t feel obligated to spend all of their time producing content. It also leads to more diverse stories, different insights and better content.
However, you also need a content marketing evangelist to oversee your content strategy. This person can empower others to produce content by providing them with the right training and tools.
6. Compare your content against your goals.
According to Frisch, many marketers think content is successful if it gets tons of shares or views. However, you must step back and look at your goals for a piece of content to determine if it was successful. Was your top goal to get a lot of views? Or was it to generate B2B leads? If you don’t know how many leads you’re getting, it may not matter if you get a lot of views.
7. Be honest.
The panelists’ most successful content included blog posts and videos about their mistakes. Customers will view your company as more human when you admit your mistakes. Being honest and talking about your failures can help you build stronger relationships with customers.
As you can see, the panelists at CAMP’s event shared a lot of wonderful content marketing insights. Follow their advice to get more traction from all of your content.
3 Ways to Apply This Information Now
- Read “5 Ways Small B2B Marketing Teams Can Win at Content Marketing” to learn how to get better results from your content when you don’t have a lot of time or resources.
- Read “10 Steps to an Effective B2B Content Marketing Strategy” to learn how to create a content strategy that brings you results.
- Click to share this article on LinkedIn. Sharing quality content increases your visibility and credibility with your existing contacts, creating conversations and potentially new business.