If you’re asking how to write blogs that convert for your business, there is lots of work to be done.
Today’s consumers can’t get enough content. Yet B2B technology businesses are struggling to add content marketing and syndication to their acquisition strategy.
Why? Because, amazing content - the type that doesn’t scale - is what it takes to be heard in today’s noisy digital marketplace. And that is channel agnostic.
Content is especially relevant for B2B businesses, as they come with longer lead times, more complex conversations and deeper funnels.
Today's Hyperconnected Consumer
Today brands can reach out to influencers, co-create content and get it in front of a targeted segments across multiple channels. This means the bar to entry in the attention game is set much higher. There have been many names for marketing strategy built to cater to today’s hyperconnected consumer - micro moments, so-lo-mo, and so forth.
Each of these is built on a simple framework: meeting customers where they are, answering questions when needed, and developing an engaged relationship - through content.
Content is an intersection of multiple disciplines
MULTIMEDIA - FOR THE BROKEN ATTENTION SPAN
Content needs to meet users where they are looking, be platform specific, targeted and engaging. That’s a whole lot of asks. A varied content strategy means taking a multi-media approach that combines design and copy to offer editorial experiences.
It doesn’t stop there. Video owns a large share of the content pie. Video requires specialised skills, and takes more time. As such, it is important to be strategic as to when you choose video as your medium.
SEARCH - SEO ISN'T DEAD, HE'S JUST OLD NEWS
Content begins with keyword research. But it doesn't end there. With several aggregation platforms such as answerthepublic, buzzsumo, and pinterest it’s plain irresponsible to start content creation without an understanding, not of just the keywords but the existing body of knowledge, and how the internet is reacting to it. The whole point of content is to add value to the conversation.
UX IS KEY TO YOUR CONTENT JOURNEY
User experience is pertinent. Especially so for technology brands. Content defines how your users navigate through your funnel and this is an experience that can and should be clearly defined and continually optimised.
Your content journey should be designed to guide your prospect to their next step in the funnel. Have them reading about how retail is struggling? Make sure you’re pointing them in the direction of an article that details how retailers can manage their cash flow better and oh-so-conveniently mentions your product.
Repeat after me - we won’t create content without clear calls to action. Thought leadership and branding are perfectly noble pursuits. Content marketing achieves these notes but is also part of your acquisition arsenal.
Always be closing too - when your reader gets to the end of your article, offer value in exchange for contact details. This is a common transaction that happens in the digital sphere. Cornerstone content is one of the many ways you can exchange value for customer details.
How do you define a clear content journey?
Let’s abstract this for a second. Say you wish to communicate a new feature set for your product. There will be pillar content, focused on doing exactly this, clusters that cover key themes that align with your pillar, and posts to syndicate both your clusters and pillars.
PILLAR: CORNERSTONE CONTENT
Some shoppers are ready to buy. They’re going to hit “contact us” or give you a call. How do you get the contact details of someone not quite ready to make a purchasing decision? With cornerstone content.
Cornerstone content can take multiple forms and created to that make your customers' lives easier and educate. A holistic strategy involves a mix of gated and ungated cornerstone content.
What is ungated content?
Ungated content builds your brand authority and does wonders for search traffic on long tailed keywords. Ungated content (i.e. your longer, more in depth blog posts or even a digital tool) help with keeps users on your digital property longer, thereby reducing bounce rate and helping with ranking. Goes to show that delivering value works for both humans and search engine bots.
What is gated content?
Gated content, on the other hand, is great for building your email database. Prospects give your their email address (or in the case of Salesforce, go through a rigorous digital interrogation), in exchange for valuable content.
This is where the non-scalability kicks in. Valuable content tells a good story, teaches, and surfaces perspectives that have not existed before. This means taking the time to understand the existing content, carving out key opportunities and then delivering.
What’s delivered is medium agnostic and can take the form of videos,e-books,Slideshares or Pinterest posts - but one thing holds true across all mediums, the content itself adds value to the category.
All that and your work isn’t done after hitting publish.
CLUSTERS: BLOG AND COMMENT MARKETING
Your Blog Is Key To Your Content Strategy
Blogs are a great way to seed your cornerstone content. They allow you to focus on specific themes relevant to key segments and drive prospects deeper down the funnel.
Organically ranking at the top of a SERP for a competitive keyword is the promise land. But what’s the road that gets us there? Each ranking strategy is different. Comment marketing pairs well with a blog strategy in that it begins to create a content funnel back to more acquisition focused pages on your website. Investing time in relevant questions in different forums (yes forums!) can show long term payoff.
Look on quora, whirlpool and reddit for questions that are key to your target prospect and direct them towards your content that helps them.
POST: SOCIAL MEDIA
How are you syndicating your content?
Building your profile on social channels open up new ways in which your customers can communicate with you. Syndicate your content on your Facebook and/or LinkedIn channels. Do consumer research to understand where your core audience is spending their time and experiment with new platforms.
Do all this, but remember that your port to call is to capture their email address. Why? Because then you control the conversation.
Whoever said that email was dead, lied.
Email is central to your lead nurturing strategy. Marketing automation tools such as Marketo, Pardot and Hubspot exist to help nurture your prospects into leads. Stay tuned for a blog post about how you can implement email marketing in your business.
How are you using content to capture email addresses?