Seth Godin said, “Content marketing is the only marketing that works for B2B.” I absolutely agree. I see proof of it all the time. One can conclude then that content is important. How content is developed, organized and disseminated is also important.

Years ago your Sales department controlled every step of a prospect’s movement through the sales cycle – from initial interest to closing the deal. Your salespeople managed the prospect’s access to information about your products and services. Marketing’s job largely consisted of renting assets owned by other entities (advertising sales departments, PR firms with access to journalists, tradeshow organizers).

The internet has changed that forever. Fragmentation of media has created an information source explosion:

• happy and disgruntled customers freely comment about vendors and services,
• self-proclaimed industry experts blog about everything from features to pricing to future product releases,
• competitors engage prospects online via the clever use of social media.

The days of controlling the conversation with customers and prospects are gone. Marketing must move from renting assets to building them. Marketers must become publishers.

Content in Context

The internet has disintermediated the middlemen. Used to be that Marketing ‘rented’ access to prospects via print advertising in trade publications. We all know that ads don’t work anymore. People have become inured. They ignore the ‘noise’.

Or Marketing rented access to prospects via articles placed in those same trade pubs. This can still work, but is prohibitively expensive for SMB companies. Compared with 10 years ago, the prices are higher and the readership is lower.

Trade shows can still work, but they too are expensive, and they’re time-consuming. Most SMB IT providers are selective about exhibiting at trade shows, and only do one or two a year.

The internet has given us direct access to prospects. We don’t have to go through those middlemen anymore. But there’s a downside. Those middlemen gave us context.

When buying a print ad, Marketing made sure that the readers of that trade pub were people in a position to buy what they were selling; and made sure that the ‘content’ of that ad spoke in terms that made sense to that target audience.

When a PR agency placed an article, the agency made sure that the placement was appropriate and that the content was relevant. Then a professional journalist wrote the article in a way that was (usually) interesting to the target audience.

In the trade show scenario, organizers demand that exhibitors meet certain criteria… that they’re focused on a niche that’s congruent with the target audience. Then they book speakers and seminars designed to attract that target audience. And they promote the show to ensure the targets attend.

Content Strategy Supplies Context

Content strategy plans for the creation, publication, and governance of relevant and useful content across a number of different vehicles (blogs, case studies, email campaigns, LinkedIn, online PR, podcasts, syndicated articles, videos, webinars, websites, white papers, etc.).

Gaining the interest of customers and prospects online is all about being willing to put your own agenda aside. Put yourself in their shoes and work hard to produce information that prospects find relevant and useful. If you can make it entertaining too – so much the better. Companies need not only the will, talent and skill to produce great content; they need the tools, processes and infrastructure. Those went away when we lost the middlemen.

The people who develop online content discuss user experience, information architecture, content management systems, metadata, visual design, user research and other disciplines that facilitate users’ abilities to find and consume content. What’s been largely ignored is the content development process.

Content Development Process

Content strategy is important. It provides the context for the content that forms the heart and soul of every successful B2B marketing effort. Content strategy deserves the focus of either someone internal to the organization, or by an external agency. A content strategist executes:

• Channel Distribution Strategy – defining how and where content will be made available to prospects. (e.g. blogs, email marketing, LinkedIn, online article publishing, podcasts, posted videos, Twitter, website).

• Content Management Strategy – defining the technologies needed to capture, store, deliver, and preserve an organization’s content. Publishing infrastructures, content management systems and workflows are key considerations.

• Editorial Strategy – defining the guidelines by which all online content is governed: values, voice, tone, legal and regulatory concerns, user-generated content, and so on.

• Keyword Research – using search term suggestion tools (on an ongoing basis) to determine which keywords and phrases people are using to find what you’re selling, and embedding those keywords in your content.

• Link Building – an important component for superior search engine ranking. Google bestows high ranking on those websites that have been linked to from sites it considers to be “of high quality and relevance”.

• Search Engine Optimization - editing and organizing the content on a page or across a website to increase its relevance and search engine ranking for specific keyphrases.

• Stewardship of Company Positioning - ensuring all messages are congruent with the established brand, value propositions, etc. and adapting them as markets or competitive conditions change.

Businesses must commit to treating their marketing content as a valuable asset worthy of strategic planning. Otherwise content marketing efforts are haphazard and less effective than they could be. Anything worth doing is worth doing well. Content strategy is worth doing well.