Content Strategy

Six Steps to a Winning6

“By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.”

―Benjamin Franklin

Since so many people know and understand Franklin’s quote, why is it that centuries after the phrase was first recorded so many organizations still do little more than pay lip service to planning?

Take content marketing for instance. Content Marketing Institute and Marketing Profs’ B2B Content Marketing 2014 Benchmarks, Budgets and Trends–North America uncovered the alarming fact that of the 93% of B2B marketers surveyed who engage in content marketing, only 44% say that they have a well–documented strategy.1

That means that 56% of marketers are unintentionally planning to fail. Finding time to make a content marketing plan, though, can be difficult because it feels like there aren’t enough hours in the day.

To help ease the burden on busy marketers and overworked executives who don’t have time to start from scratch, we’ve put together this short guide to developing a winning content marketing plan.

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44% of B2B marketers have a documented content strategy.

B2B marketers who have a documented content strategy are far more likely to consider themselves effective (66% vs. 11%).

48% of smaller B2B organizations (10-99 employees) have a documented content strategy, compared with 41% of large organizations (1,000+ employees).

STRATEGY

Percentage of B2B Marketers WhoHave a Documented Content Strategy

44%

Yes49%

No

6%

Unsure

2014 B2B Content Marketing Trends—North America: Content Marketing Institute/MarketingProfs

Source: 2014 B2B Content Marketing Trends - North America, Content Marketing Institute/ Marketing Profs

11

2

3

Why are we doing this?To have any chance of success, first you need define what you are trying to accomplish in the first place.

Do you want to spread brand awareness? Do you want to improve SEO and increase inbound web–traffic? Do you want to increase the effectiveness of email marketing? Do you want to create warmer conversations for your business development team?Do you want to do all of the above?

To be clear, this is not just a discussion for marketing. The best content marketing plans are those that have full buy–in and participation from the sales team.

Are we in it for the long haul?By its nature, content marketing is something that will grow in effectiveness over time. Creating a few blog posts and putting a whitepaper up on your website is nice but will have limited long–term impact. Doing the same thing consistently over a long period of time is another story entirely.

Do we have the budget to feed the machine?A good content marketing strategy requires a never–ending stream of new material. To keep that stream moving you need, planners, writers, editors, and graphic designers, as well as a team with the tactical expertise to distribute the content to all appropriate digital channels. If you aren’t willing to budget the dollars necessary to do it right, why do it?

STEP ONE Start by Asking Yourself Three Key Questions

“Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.”

―Abraham Lincoln

2Once you have complete buy–in on goals, long–term commitment, and budget allocation—all of which should be documented and included in your plan—it’s time to get a bit more specific.

Answer the following questions:

STEP TWOStart Sharpening the Axe

1

2

3

What is unique or different about what we are selling? [our key differentiator]Customer serviceTechnologyKey partnerships

Who is our audience? [the people we are writing for] By market By vertical By role

What are their needs and frustrations? [the pain points our content needs to address]By market By vertical By role

4

5

6

How does our product or service fulfill those needs/eliminate frustrations? [the tie in]By marketBy verticalBy role

What are typically the biggest perceived barriers to a sale? [the key objections]Internal operation/solution already in placeNo need to changeCompetitor currently in place, etc

Look at your answers to questions 1–5, then ask yourself, what related content themes can we focus on that will educate, inform, entertain, and otherwise pique the interest of our identified prospects and customers. [the real meat of any content strategy]

At the lead stage—suspect prospect marketing qualified sales readyAt the account stage—known attributesAt the opportunity stage—known attributes, verbally expressed interest

3STEP THREEKeep Sharpening…Just as an axe grows dull with time, so does content. Take a fresh look at the aforementioned questions at least once a quarter so you don’t miss out on evolving trends. Question six—the actual content themes you want to cover will likely be the most difficult.

Here are some suggestions for coming up with fresh themes:• Hold a brainstorming session. Include participants from other departments. Talk to your sales team. Are there any questions or concerns that come up repeatedly in conversations with prospects? Write down anything and everything. All you need is a starting point.

• Pay close attention to the content being produced in industry magazines and blogs and take notes on any theme relevant to your product.

• Check out what the competition is doing, and weigh if similar strategies would work for you. What areas are they missing that you could deliver?

• Use social media tools to listen in on industry chatter. Follow influencers on Twitter. Join industry LinkedIn groups.

Still struggling with the idea of coming up with repeated fresh content? We like these quick tips, taken from marketing expert Heidi Cohen’s 5 Content Marketing Strategies to Fill Your Editorial Calendar2:

Create evergreen content. Problogger’s Darren Rowse calls this pillar content. He defines it as topics that are central to your overall subject that contain solid advice you’ll link to again and again.

Leverage “just–in–time” content. This is content crafted to take advantage of trending topics. They show that your organization is nimble and on top of things.

Repurpose content. This content is information that you’ve used elsewhere and are refining for other platforms and needs.

Curate content. At its core, curated information extends your content–offering by selecting the best content on your niche that’s available, organizing it into a structured format for easy consumption, and explaining why it’s important for your target audience.

Co–create content. This content is developed with input from your community through the help of influencers and customers. The key benefit of this information is that it’s social by nature and lends itself to social sharing.

Read her full post

4Even though on rare occasions you will have your prospects “at hello,” more often than not your first touch–point with a prospect will not result in an immediate sale. To be an effective content marketer, you must create pieces that speak to your prospects’ evolving needs. In other words, map your content to the buying cycle.

As Content Marketing Institute’s Nancy Liberman wrote in Content Strategy: 4 Tips for Communicating at Every Customer Stage, “The typical sales funnel reflects the stages of engagement — from awareness and consideration to decision and purchase. The types of content that will engage customers and prospects will likely be very different at each stage of the purchase cycle—a one–size–fits–all content strategy simply won’t work.”3

The following chart highlights examples of the various types of content that should be used at each stage of the process:

STEP FOURMap Your Content to the Buying Cycle

Sales Cycle Lead Account Opportunity Client

Buying Cycle Unknown through Awareness

Awareness & Demonstrated Interest

ConsiderationPurchase

Support AdvocacyRenewal

Appropriate Content

• Press Releases• Whitepapers• Infographics• eBooks• Thought leadership

articles • Blog Posts

• Press Releases• Whitepapers• Infographics• eBooks• Thought leadership

articles • Blog Posts

• Case Studies• Demos• Product Literature• Product updates &

announcements• FAQs

• Newsletters • Tips & Tricks• Product

updates and announcements

• Webinars

5B2B Content Marketing 2014 Benchmarks, Budgets and Trends–North America indicates that B2B marketers use an average of 13 different content tactics. This by no means says that you need to use all 13 to be effective. The key is finding the right mix. As with everything else marketing and sales related, that boils down to knowing as much as there is to know about your customer, including how technically savvy they are, where they spend their time online and how they like to be communicated to.

Because that is not information you can easily uncover overnight, we recommend implementing a dual outbound/inbound approach that leverages multiple different types of media.

• Outbound campaigns use email marketing to distribute your content to your prospect database.

• Inbound campaigns use content to drive SEO and social tactics to attract “unknown” prospects that fit your buyer profile.

Content that you create for your outbound efforts should be used for inbound campaigns, and content you create to drive inbound traffic should be sent out via other channels as well. As for actual media format, start broad and then narrow it down as you begin to identify which tactics resonate best in your marketplace.

STEP FIVEChoose Your Delivery Methods

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B2B marketers use an average of 13 content marketing tactics.

Tactic usage has remained relatively consistent when compared with last year.

Infographics has seen the largest year-over- year increase in usage. Last year, 38% of b2b marketers were using infographics, compared with 51% this year.

TACTIC USAGE

B2B Content Marketing Usage (by Tactic)

0

20

40

60

80

100

Socia

l Med

ia –

Othe

r tha

n Blo

gs

Artic

les o

n You

r Web

site

eNew

slette

rs

Blog

s

Case

Stud

ies

Vide

os

Artic

les o

n Oth

er W

ebsit

es

In-p

erso

n Eve

nts

Whi

te Pa

pers

Web

inar

s/W

ebca

sts

Rese

arch

Rep

orts

Micr

osite

s

Info

grap

hics

Bran

ded C

onte

nt To

ols

Mobi

le C

onte

nt

eBoo

ks

Prin

t Mag

azin

es

Book

s

Podc

asts

Mobi

le Ap

ps

Digi

tal M

agaz

ines

Prin

t New

slette

rs

Annu

al Re

ports

Licen

sed/

Synd

icate

d Con

tent

Gam

es/G

amific

ation

87%

76% 76%

64%

Onlin

e Pre

sent

atio

ns

63%

44%

40%

51%

38%

34%35%

30%

Virtu

al C

onfe

renc

es

25%28%

22%24% 10%

73% 73%

81%80%

68%

62%

38%

27% 26% 25%

2014 B2B Content Marketing Trends—North America: Content Marketing Institute/MarketingProfs

Source: 2014 B2B Content Marketing Trends - North America, Content Marketing Institute/ Marketing Profs

6When it comes to creating an editorial calendar, we suggest you start broad and then narrow it down. Pick four quarterly themes. Break each theme down into three monthly topics, then break each month down from there. When possible, use the creation of smaller pieces to seed the content of larger pieces later in the month. There is no perfect, one–sized–fits–all calendar format. Play around with what works for you, but getting it on paper is a great first start.

Example [Lead Stage] Content Calendar:

STEP SIXCreate Your Editorial Calendars

Theme Date Media Title Delivery Method Assigned To

Q1–Sales & Marketing Infrastructure

Jan–CRM

week1 blog 5 reasons CRM implementations fail website/social

week2 blog 8 things your CRM should tell you website/social

week3 blog How to get your sales team to buy into your CRM strategy

website/social

week4 eGuide What the best sales organizations know about CRM that other’s don’t

email/press release/website/social

week4 press release announce release of eGuide online

Feb–Marketing Automation

week1

week2

week3

week4

March–The Intersection of CRM & Marketing Automation

week1

week2

week3

week4

Partner Effectively If you are looking to truly leverage the power of content marketing and don’t have the bandwidth or desire to do it internally, it is important to work with a team that is in constant conversation with the marketplace. Those conversations will create a cache of intelligence that can be leveraged across all your sales and marketing efforts.

NuGrowth Solutions is that team. We bring a full sales and marketing engine—including CRM implementation and management, inside sales and relationship building, content creation and marketing automation. We have the infrastructure, the capability, the tools, the processes, and the reporting in place to run sales and marketing campaigns with the dedicated cadence necessary to be successful.

As one client so aptly put it, “There are good ideas, and there are good ideas that work. The ones that work require a dedicated cadence.” The NuGrowth sales and marketing teams create and sustain that dedicated cadence so our clients can concentrate on what they do best. Call 800.966.3051 to find out more.

Sources:1 “B2B Content Marketing 2014 Benchmarks, Budgets and Trends–North America.” Content Marketing Institute/Marketing Profs, http://contentmarketinginstitute.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/B2B_Re-search_2014_CMI.pdf2 Cohen, Heidi. “5 Content Marketing Strategies to Fill Your Editorial Calendar.” http://heidicohen.com/5-content-marketing-strategies-to-fill-your-editorial-calendar/.3 Liberman, Nancy. “Content Strategy: 4 Tips for Communicating at Every Customer Stage.” Content Marketing Institute. http://contentmarketinginstitute.com/2013/01/content-strategy-communicate-at-every-cus-tomer-stage/.

About NuGrowthNuGrowth Solutions helps organizations grow their businesses with pace and purpose. We build and lead results–oriented, “sales as a service” business development teams and support them with exceptional lead gen marketing—utilizing our propriety territory management methodology to generate leads, build pipelines and increase sales for our clients.

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