by Fronetics | Feb 7, 2018 | Blog, Content Marketing, Marketing, Strategy
To be effective, your content marketing strategy should align with your sales goals. Here are three simple questions to ask yourself to make sure your documented strategy is on target.
I recently read an article on the Harvard Business Review that discussed pairing your sales goals with your marketing goals. This strikes at the heart of what we do at Fronetics: build a client’s content marketing strategy that will help advance their short- and long-term business goals. It sounds simple, but you have no idea how many organizations’ marketing goals are misaligned with what the larger organization is trying to accomplish
We need to make sure that — while we’re continuing to increase content production — we have a fundamental understanding of what we’re trying to create.
According to the Content Marketing Institute, 88% of marketers use content marketing. But a mere 30% of B2B marketers say their organization is effective at it. What that says to me is that a lot of companies are dumping their resources into content marketing, but, without a strategy that advances their business goals, they’re throwing away their time and money.
A content marketing strategy outlines the methods by which you will target, reach, and engage your audience. Research and execution of these tasks can be quite complex. Writing out a plan and assigning appropriate resources can offer clarity and guidance to your organization throughout the course of your program.
Here are three questions to ask yourself to make sure that your content marketing strategy is complementing your sales goals.
3 questions to align your sales goals and content marketing strategy
1. Why: Why am I doing this?
This question should be fairly easy to answer. The reason you’re documenting a content marketing strategy is for your business. You’re looking to align your marketing efforts with your business objectives. For a lot of companies, this ultimately means increased revenue from sales growth.
When done correctly, content marketing can support sales goals, making it easier to generate leads and helping the sales team close business. But you need to continually ask yourself, why?
The constant demand for more and more content can have a great impact on quality. More isn’t always better. Make sure you’re checking in with your strategy to make sure the content you’re producing is in alignment with your business goals.
2. Who: Who am I trying to attract?
In order to get the ball rolling in content marketing, you have to understand who you are trying to reach. Your company’s sales goals will help guide this target audience. It’s important to think holistically when considering who you are trying to reach at a potential prospect’s company. Typically, your target audience falls into two categories: Primary (decision-makers) and Secondary (influencers of the decision-maker).
Going one step further, you need to identify your target audience’s needs and pain points so that you can direct your content marketing strategy at creating awareness around those needs.
Once you have a thorough understanding of who your target audience is, you can begin to identify the different social media platforms they use. Using analytics tools within social networks can help you identify trends in social media use.
3. What: What content is going to work the best?
You’ve discovered your why and who, but now you need to finalize what kinds of content you’re going to create. Create the kinds of content your target audience seeks, and distribute it through the platforms on which they seek it. How-to videos on YouTube? Thought leadership on LinkedIn? Optimize the material you distribute for each channel. Use the social channels that best suit your brand message, type of content, and target audience.
Valuable and relevant content is not a sales pitch, but can help the sales process. Create content that communicates valuable information to customers and prospects so that they have the knowledge to make more informed decisions. Moreover, concentrate on content that establishes your business as a reliable source of knowledge — as a thought leader within the industry. Be thoughtful when you create content.
Even though 39% of marketers expect their content marketing budgets to increase this year, that doesn’t mean you should continue throwing money at your content marketing efforts until you have a clear plan that will advance your business. To be effective, marketers should document a content marketing strategy that aligns with their business and sales goals. It doesn’t have to be complicated. But it should reflect the “why, who, and what” of your sales strategy.
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by Fronetics | Feb 22, 2017 | Blog, Content Marketing, Marketing, Strategy
Follow these 4 steps to learn how to build a successful DIY content marketing strategy that will help grow your business.
Are you trying to create a content marketing strategy, but don’t know where to begin? Even the language around content marketing can seem foreign to newcomers. That’s why Fronetics created its guide, How to Grow Your Business with Content (download below) — to make creating a content marketing strategy possible for the DIYer in your company.
Setting your content marketing strategy is a crucial first step in trying to reach your target audience. Before you begin writing blogs and posting tweets, you need to set goals. A content marketing strategy outlines the methods by which you will target, reach, and engage your audience. Here are four steps, outlined in the guide, to creating a successful foundation to your content marketing strategy.
Steps to building a content marketing strategy
1. Identify your target audience and buyer persona(s)
Knowing who your ideal customer is allows you to create content that is informative, educational, and entertaining to that specific person. Trying to write compelling content for an unidentified audience is like taking a shot in the dark. The more detailed you can be with your buyer persona(s), the more specific and effective your content can become.
2. Define goals and objectives
Your content goals should be a direct reflection of your business goals. What do you want your content marketing efforts to accomplish for your company? The top marketing goals for content marketers in 2016 included converting contacts/leads to customers, growing website traffic, and increasing revenue derived from existing customers. Make sure you include short-term and long-term goals and that you frequently refer back to these goals to make sure your strategy is on track.
3. Developing and distributing content
Once you have identified your audience and defined your content goals, you can begin to educate yourself about the distribution platforms that will work best for your business. Let’s face it: Social media is not a one-size-fits-all solution. It’s imperative you know not only what to post but where to post it.
There are lots of great resources to help you optimize your content marketing presence. You can individualize your outreach so your blog posts are reaching one target audience, while your tweets are capturing another.
4. Put your knowledge to work
Once you have worked through the initial steps of planning a successful content marketing strategy, the real fun begins. It’s time to start pushing valuable, effective content out to consumers. If you’ve spent the time and effort up front to really thing through your strategy, you’ll reap the rewards in good time. Just remember that your strategy should be fluid, and you should be able to adjust your plans as you move forward and find what is working and what isn’t.
Pulling together a content marketing strategy for your B2B business can seem overwhelming. But having the right tools to support you can make all the difference. Download Fronetics’ easy-to-follow, step-by-step guide How to Grow Your Business with Content below to take the leap to a successful DIY content marketing strategy today.
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by Fronetics | Sep 15, 2016 | Blog, Content Marketing, Marketing, Strategy, Talent
Content marketing is significantly more effective when a designated leader is driving your strategy.
Who is leading your content marketing strategy? If you don’t have an immediate answer, your content marketing program probably will not be as effective as it could be.
Research shows that companies who designate someone to drive the execution of their content marketing strategy have greater success than those that do not. So your strategy should account for leadership, specifically naming a person or position that will be in charge of implementation, problem-solving, and measuring results.
Who could take on this role for your business? Here are a few ideas.
An executive
Curata reports that, by 2017, 51% of companies will have an executive in their organization who is directly responsible for an overall content marketing strategy. That’s how important it is to have someone leading your strategy: More than half of organizations will create or designate positions like chief content officer, VP of content, or director of content. If your company is large enough to support this human resource, you’ll likely reap great benefit from your content marketing efforts.
A marketing director
Is there a senior person on your marketing team with experience using content as a marketing tool? Having a marketing director lead your content strategy is a great option for companies who can afford to delegate some of that person’s responsibilities elsewhere to make room for this work. Marketing directors are generally organized and capable of leading a diverse team, and they are used to reporting on KPIs as they relate to marketing efforts.
Whoever produces most of your content
Many smaller or mid-sized companies don’t have large marketing teams, and instead rely on several people to take on content-production responsibilities in addition to their everyday tasks. These are the people who will be most familiar with your company’s content and strategy, and how they align with your business goals. Do any of these people have leadership abilities or experience running a cross-functional team? It could be worth outsourcing some content writing or production in order to allow that person to drive your content marketing strategy.
An advisory firm
Sometimes you don’t have the internal resources or expertise to execute your business’ content marketing on your own. Hiring a firm or professional to create and/or execute your strategy can take enormous pressure off of your employees. They are left to do their jobs, while an experienced team shoulders the burden of planning, producing, and reporting on the progress of your content marketing program. Such a partnership can be very beneficial to companies of all shapes and sizes.
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by Fronetics | Sep 6, 2016 | Blog, Content Marketing, Logistics, Marketing, Strategy, Supply Chain
Your customers use vendor content in their purchasing decisions, and you need a strategy to reach them — or your competitors will.
Content marketing can be a game-changer, in terms of new business and sales revenue, for organizations of all sizes and industries and levels of marketing savvy. But you can’t just set up a blog and a few social media accounts and expect sales numbers to start shooting through the roof.
The truth is, your potential customers consider vendor content in the purchasing process. If you don’t have a data-driven content marketing strategy to attract their business, you’ll lose them to your competitors.
Sometimes, the numbers say it best. Here are 12 content marketing strategy statistics that underscore the importance of developing a clear content marketing strategy to advance your business goals.
12 content marketing strategy statistics
Your customers want content.
95% of B2B buyers are willing to consider vendor-related content as trustworthy. (DemandGen Report – 2016 Content Preferences Survey)
47% of B2B buyers consume 3-5 pieces of content prior to engaging with a salesperson. (DemandGen Report – 2016 Content Preferences Survey)
51% of B2B buyers rely more on content to research and make B2B purchasing decisions than they did a year ago. (DemandGen Report – 2016 Content Preferences Survey)
Type of content buyers have used in the past 12 months to make B2B purchasing decisions:
- White Papers (82%)
- Webinars (78%)
- Case studies (73%)
- eBooks (67%)
- Blog posts (66%)
- Infographics (66%)
- Third-party/Analyst reports (62%)
- Video/Motion graphics (47%)
- Interactive presentations (36%)
(DemandGen Report – 2016 Content Preferences Survey)
It’s important to clearly define your strategy and goals.
Content marketing effectiveness increases with:
- Experience (64% of experienced marketers say they are effective)
- A documented content marketing strategy (48%)
- A documented editorial mission statement (49%)
- Organizational clarity on what content marketing success looks like (55%)
- Daily or weekly content marketing meetings (41%)
(Content Marketing Institute/MarketingProfs)
Only 13% of those who do not document their strategy feel their content marketing is effective. (Content Marketing Institute/MarketingProfs)
Your strategy should clearly define your target audience and their needs.
96% of B2B buyers say content that speaks directly to their company is the single-most influential aspect of a vendor’s website. (Demand Gen 2016 B2B Buyer’s Survey Report)
What makes content most effective?
- Audience relevance (58%)
- Engaging and compelling storytelling (57%)
- Triggers a response/Action (54%)
(LinkedIn Technology Marketing Community)
Your competitors are using content to win over potential customers.
88% of B2B organizations in North America use content marketing. (Content Marketing Institute/MarketingProfs)
75% of marketers are increasing investment in content marketing. (Curata)
79% of logistics and supply chain companies consider content as an effective tool for their business. (Fronetics)
The marketing software market is expected to grow to more than $32.3 billion in 2018. (IDC)
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by Fronetics | Jun 16, 2016 | Blog, Content Marketing, Manufacturing & Distribution, Marketing, Strategy, Supply Chain
A recent report produced by the Content Marketing Institute and MarketingProfs, and sponsored by Brightcove, found that 81% percent of B2B manufacturers in the United States use content marketing. The same report found that the majority of manufacturers do not believe their organization is effective at content marketing.
What are organizations who are not effective missing out on? A lot.
An effective content marketing strategy can:
- Build brand awareness
- Position your company as a thought leader within the industry
- Increase engagement with customers, partners, and stakeholders
- Educate and inform customers, partners, and stakeholders
- Build trust
- Allow you to manage your reputation
- Generate leads
How can your organization realize these benefits?
The first step is documenting your strategy. The report found that organizations with a documented strategy in place were 3x more likely to report that their content marketing strategy was effective than organizations without a documented strategy.
Define your goals
Why does your company want to create content? Do you want to shorten your sales cycle? Increase leads? Build brand awareness? You don’t want your content to be just stuff. You don’t want content to be ineffective. Therefore it is important to define what it is you want your content to do for your company.
Define your audience
Who is your target audience? What are their needs? What are their goals? What are their pain points? What do they value most? Where do they go for information? Take your time. Be honest. If you identify and define your audience correctly you will be more likely to reach your target audience and engage them than if you get this step wrong.
Define your metrics
Determine how you are going to track and measure success. Define the metrics that you will track on a daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly basis.
Identify the right distribution channels
When it comes to content, distribution is essential – your content will not reach your target audience and will not be read unless it is distributed. Take the time to identify the distribution channels that are right fit for your company, your content, and your goals.
Create a publishing calendar
A publishing or editorial calendar provides you with a framework to create and distribute content. It helps you create content that is consistent, that is quality, and is tailored to your company’s goals. It is also helpful in terms of managing workflows, meeting deadlines, and managing writer’s block.
Create content
Valuable and relevant content is not a sales pitch. It is not content that pushes your products and services. Rather, it is content that communicates valuable information to customers and prospects so that they have the knowledge to make better informed decisions. Moreover, it is content that establishes your business as a reliable source of knowledge – as the thought-leader within the industry. Be thoughtful when you create content.
Curate content
Content will help you grow your business; by creating and distributing valuable and relevant content in a strategic and consistent manner you can drive profitable customer action. But, it’s not all about you. It’s not all about the content you and/or your business creates. Here’s why content curation is an essential component of a successful content strategy. The internet is a fire hose stream of content. Being able to navigate the deluge of content and identify the content that is valuable to your customers and to your business is essential. The process of identifying and sharing this content is content curation. By consistently being able to identify, make sense of, and share content that is important and relevant to your customers and to your industry you will establish your business as a thought leader and a trusted resource.
Distribute content
Distribute your content via your target distribution channels. Distribute the content consistently over time and at the right time.
Engage with customers and prospects
Once your content has been distributed, engage with your audience. Respond to comments, respond to questions, and provide clarification. Make your content more than words – make it a relationship.
Track and analyze metrics
Track and analyze your metrics on a daily, weekly, monthly, and annual basis. Take a look at what is working and what is not. By tracking and analyzing your metrics you can see, for example, what type of content is most effective and which distribution channels are helping you achieve your goals.
Make adjustments as needed
Your strategy should not be set in stone. Your strategy should be flexible. Look at your metrics, look at the feedback you are getting through your engagement with customers and prospects – make adjustments to your strategy as needed. Remember that when it comes to content it is important to think marathon not sprint. An effective content strategy requires patience and determination. Many companies make the mistake of giving up on a content strategy too early; make a long-term commitment to your strategy.
This post originally appeared on Electronics Purchasing Strategies.
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