A recent article on Entrepreneur.com, Content Marketing Strategies You Can Steal, explored some interesting findings from a study of top content marketers. MarketingProfs and the Content Marketing Institute’s fifth annual study, “B2B Content Marketing: 2015 Benchmarks, Budgets and Trends—North America,” looked at more than 5,000 marketers in 109 countries. It revealed six key points.
Successful content marketers have a Documented Strategy. The key word here is “documented.” While most professionals had a general plan the most successful ones had documented their plan. This can be as simple as writing it in a notebook (does anyone USE real paper anymore?), a Word document or going all out with a story board. Just get it out there in black and white.
They also use a Dedicated Content Team (or at least delegate one person to manage the plan). I’ve talked before about how much time entrepreneurs spend on social media, blogging, article writing and other content tasks. Not only do you need to create the content but disseminate it to all the right channels. Any entrepreneur would have a difficult time keeping up with this and their primary business. I hear you, “When do I get time to actually coach my clients?!” This is where a quality virtual assistant with internet marketing skills will be invaluable.
Use multiple tactics and SM platforms. According to the report, the average marketer uses 14 tactics & 7 Social Media platforms. Kind of makes sense they would need a documented plan and a team to be successful. Tactics refer to tasks as in person networking, webinars, videos, blogs, ebooks, white papers etc. I think everyone is familiar with the definition of a social media platform. The most effective channels for B2B marketers are (in order): LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and Slideshare.
Publish regularly. One of the most important tactics for blogging is consistency and regularity. People are bombarded with so much information these days if you aren’t in their face on a regular basis they will forget about you.
Spend more on content. Okay, pull out next year’s budget you’ve been working on. Find the line for content marketing, erase the paltry figure and right in a new number – double or even triple. Remember content marketing is how you establish your credibility and position yourself as the “go to” expert for your field. It certainly deserves to be a major line in your budget.
Refine and experiment. I don’t think marketing can be an exact science and it is definitely not one size fits all. Joe the awesome motivational speaker will have a different audience than Susan the incredible life coach. So who, where and what in their content marketing plan will be different. Add to that the ever changing rules of the internet. It will take some trial and error to see what works for you. Test a technique or approach and then refine it for your market.
What techniques have worked for you? What hasn’t and what have you modified to fit your own needs? Let me know in the comments!
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