disaster_preparedness_content_carboniteTwo things I appreciate in B2B content marketing: a checklist and easily accessible content. Of course, there are many more things that I appreciate, but here I chose two thing relevant to the content under discussion: How Prepared is Your Business if Disaster Strikes? A white paper from Carbonite, the cloud back-up services company.

Three pages of content and a page for notes (if you print this out). Short, sweet, to the point. In theory, disaster preparedness isn’t complicated; it really can be boiled down to just a few key steps. In practice, of course, it is much more complicated, as each of those steps require varying amounts of attention and other resources to plan and implement. But for this type and amount of information, a checklist is perfect. And it’s a great resource for small businesses (or large ones, really) who don’t yet have a plan or need to update their plan. Yay.

I also really love that this content is not behind a registration form. There are lots of good reasons to put content behind a gate. After all, isn’t all this content marketing supposed to help businesses find potential new customers? And doesn’t that require identifying them at some point in the process? But I do so love it when useful content is easily accessible without filling out a form. As someone who is always looking for interesting B2B content to read and review, often just for fun (yes, really!), there are many instances where it makes no sense for me to register and throw off the numbers of real prospects.

One thing, though. This checklist isn’t a white paper by my definition of the beast. I’ve written a few, so I like to think I know a teensy bit about what I’m talking about. To me, a white paper is a persuasive business document that identifies a challenge a business is facing, then suggests a particular approach to resolving it. Thanks to Michael Stelzner, who was a whiter paper guy before he started Social Media Examiner, I think of white papers as a combo of a magazine article and a brochure. I may quibble about the category of the document, but I won’t quibble about its usefulness.

  • Salesy quotient
    Very low. There is a brief call to action at the end. The rest is all about educating and helping business owners.
  • Educational quotient
    High
    Vital information, especially for those who have never thought about disaster preparedness for their business.

What do you think? Does this document help you figure out how to keep your business operational in the face of disaster? Does it fall into the category of good content from your perspective?

Thanks to Carbonite for not minding that I copied the image from their document and used it here!