On Words and Business

When you decide to use content marketing as a strategy in your marketing arsenal, the main question is: what type of content should we produce?

Check out this article on a few key content types and their strengths.

If you are struggling to find the right topic or approach for some of your marketing materials, have you checked with your stakeholders?

Sales people, your advertising and PR teams, employees, strategic partners, and customers all have ideas. In fact, they could have a lot of ideas, so it makes sense to have a system in place to solicit and vet them.

There are plenty of good ideas out there. It’s just a matter of finding them, vetting them, and then slotting them into your editorial plan.

Customers and prospects are key audiences for information for your content marketing materials. But so are other stakeholders including your employees, your sales team, and your board of directors.

Do you know how the people you’re trying to reach heard about your company, or how they got hold of your marketing materials?

• Was it through the sales team?
• From your web site?
• As a result of an ad campaign or PR push?
• Perhaps a referral from a satisfied customer?
• Because of meeting an employee or board member at an event?

If you haven’t done so, think about how to expand awareness of your content marketing program. You may already know the primary way customers get into your pipeline. But don’t forget that a few customers may find you in other ways, too.

A new study from MarketProfs and Junta42 shares some interesting trends about content marketing in the B2B space.

Most popular tactics:

• Social media (79%) and article posting (78%)
• eNewsletters ranked 4th (61%)
• White papers ranked th (43%)

Adoption rates by industry:

• Computer/software (94%)
• Banking and financial services (93%)
• Healthcare (83%)

Biggest challenges:

• Producing engaging content (36%)
• Producting enough content (21%)
• Budget (20%)

An effective content marketing program depends on understanding your audience and what they want. Here is an article about the process: Do You Know Your Audience?

Don’t know what they want? Ask.

• Talk to your sales team and find out what they’re hearing on the front lines.
• Get data from your customer service reps.
• Call your customers and ask them.
• Create surveys and post questions on your social media sites.
• Talk to prospects at conferences and industry events.
• Read the industry literature to find out what your customers, prospects, and competitors are talking about.

More importantly, what keeps your audience up at night?

When thinking about the decision makers in your audience, think about the answers to the following questions. Knowing the answers will help you target your content marketing program.

• What are the issues that most trouble them?
• What types of products, services, or vendors are they working with now or evaluating for the future?
• What are key events or situations that impact their goals?
• What government or industry regulations affect their work?
• What do they need to do their jobs better?