Content is King… but only with an Effective Content Marketing Strategy

 Did you know Alaskan Red King Crab fishermen can earn $60,000 in 4 weeks?  

Alaskan Fisherman can earn $60,000 in one month

That’s right, they can earn an annual a salary in about one month.

Their salary reflects the risks they take - this is one of the most dangerous jobs in the world.  

And they fish in extreme conditions... along the Bering Sea... in November.

But fishermen don't simply get on a boat one day and ship out to rough waters in the winter.

On the contrary, Alaskan fishermen plan systematically. When they’re out to sea for weeks, resupply presents an issue. To succeed, they follow a tested strategy supported by a systematic plan.

Similarly, your company can earn most of its annual revenues in 4 days… at your annual trade show. To succeed, you need a content marketing strategy and systematic plan.

As you know, B2B content marketing is growing quickly. Your competitors have jumped on the content bandwagon. But most B2B marketers believe their content marketing is ineffective.

Translation: More content does not mean better content. And content without direction and focus falls short of expected results.

But… with a content strategy, you can boost effectiveness by up to 600%!

How do you achieve that?

Develop a B2B Content Marketing Strategy

Trade shows result in more revenues than any other sales event. Many companies earn most of their sales during a week.

To maximize this opportunity, you’ll need professional, persuasive and potent marketing content. But content by itself won’t earn your business its annual revenues.

But… combine your content marketing strategy with trade shows and you have a winner.

With this strategy, you can catch two fish with one worm.  

Content is King with a Content Marketing Strategy

Here’s how you do that.

• Identify the Audience (prospects and clients)

• Identify the Purpose of your content

• Identify the content types to be published

• Align your audience, purpose, and content types

Let’s look at these four steps in more detail.

Identify the Audience

Anytime you write content, the first step is to single out your audience. Which clients are you targeting? Prospects, customers, both?

Know Your Audience

You’ve heard of personas, which represent the various client profiles you’re targeting.

In planning content for trade shows you have various audiences comprised of decision makers, such as CEO, COOs, CFOs, CIOs, CTOs, etc.

However, you also have an operations audience consisting of operations managers, supply chain managers, and warehouse managers. Finally, you have a technical audience of engineers, accountants, and technology specialists.

As you can see, we’ve identified three main categories for your audience, all of which consume information differently. They have different perspectives, interests, and levels and kinds of detail.

Decision makers want high-level information focused on the “Big Picture” and maybe some level of details concerning important aspects of a product or service. Technical personnel, however, want the details. They want to go into the weeds.

Next, you need to consider the purpose of your content. Specifically, what do you hope to accomplish with your marketing content?

Identify the Purpose of Your Content

When you identify the purpose of your content, you get at the specific goals and objectives you hope to achieve.

• Lead Generation: For trade shows, you obviously want marketing content that generates leads. With about 83% of trade show attendees having influence over the buying decision, you’re operating in a target-rich environment for lead generation.
• New Products and Services: Your purpose may be to feature a product or service that reflects the industry’s latest business practices, technologies, or products your company has to offer.
• Branding: Additionally, with so many decision makers and influencers at trade shows, you’ll want to showcase your company’s brand. All your content should reflect your business's core message.

At this point, we’ve identified three key audience categories and three different purposes for your marketing content. Working with this mix, let’s see how to identify different content types.

Identify the Content Types to be Published

Print Content 

We’re halfway there in developing a content marketing strategy based on trade shows. Now it’s time to consider the types of content you should publish. You have many choices: text documents, graphics, video, audio.

• Text documents: white papers, case studies, point papers, presentations
• Graphics: company photos, infographics
• Video: company overview by CEO, featuring of special/new products
• Audio: Podcasts of individual products and services being featured by COO, CIO, etc.

Align Your Audience, Purpose, and Content Types

Align Your Audience, Purpose, and Content 

You can address this in two ways. First, consider the audience you’re targeting (decision makers or technicians), and how they prefer to consume their content.

• Do your customers get their information on the web?
• Do they want high-level or detailed data and information?

Some of this is a judgment call, but if you’re talking to your customers, you’ll have a good idea of how they prefer to consume content.

Second, in addition to providing content based on your audience’s preferences, you should consider distribution. What should you provide online and what should you provide in hard copy. And, of course, some content should be distributed both digitally and in print.

Here are a few examples:

	Blog	Social Media	Video	Audio	White Papers	Brochures	Case Studies
Digital	X	X	X	X	X	X	X
Print					X	X	X

This only represents a sampling, as you have more content types from which to choose like data sheets, spreadsheets, direct mail, press releases, web content and landing pages. In any case, you should take the time to consider your audience’s preferences and the type of data/information being conveyed.  

Assessing Your Trade Show Content Marketing Strategy

Now it’s time to review what you’ve done and assess it in terms of your overall content marketing strategy. To quickly recap, you’ve identified your audience, your purpose, your and content types, and you've aligned them.

When you've completed this process, whether you realize it or not, you’ve just built a solid foundation for your overall content marketing strategy.  

Why?

Some companies realize up to 80% of annual sales at trade shows. So, if you plan and prepare a content marketing strategy focused on your annual trade show, you’re also developing your overall content marketing strategy.

Conclusion

This blog post lays out a different approach to developing a content marketing strategy based on your annual trade show. It maximizes time and effort spent on what’s important. It represents a disciplined approach that easy to implement if you plan.

You’ll be surprised at the difference this approach makes compared to leads generated last year. Your ROI will improve as well as your sales and revenues.

Try it and let me know how it worked out for you.

Alex Milo, CSCP, CPL

B2B Copywriter

Phone: 256-886-4684
Email: amilo@b2bcopywriting-alexmilo.com

http://www.linkedin.com/in/alexandermilo

http://www.b2bcopywriting-alexmilo.com

P.S. Here's a link to a presentation on this using trade shows as a content marketing strategy: Perfect Your B2B Content Marketing Strategy with Trade Shows

How to Create Engaging B2B Marketing Content

If you read last week's blog post, you learned how to develop an editorial calendar. That post focused on organizing your publication schedule. Getting organized is important, since we’re all busy and have no time to waste.

Following a well-thought out editorial calendar to implement your strategy ensures you focus your time on the right content at the right time.

Engaging Marketing Content

But that’s only a piece of the content marketing puzzle.

An equally important piece is creating marketing content that engages your audience. 

In today’s world information overload, you must create the right content.

You must write content that ENGAGES. 

What exactly is that?

Without going in to buying personas and the buying cycle, this post explains how to write engaging content for any situation. The diagram above lays out how to create engaging content.

Engage Your Audience with B2B Marketing Content that Adds Value

Effective content marketing breaks through the daily noise when it adds value. That means you have to create content that benefits your customers.

Content that’s helpful grabs your customer’s attention. Your customers come to you for solutions to their problems.  Your products and services fill their needs. Now it’s up to you to tell your customer how your products and services will help them.

New offers also help to engage your prospects. In today’s fast-paced world, customers are always looking for an edge. They follow trends and want to be on the right side of those trends. 

To add value, publish new offers stressing key features and benefits important to your future customers.

In B2B marketing, people make buying decisions. That’s why you have to cover both personal and professional aspects of your audience. 

Your content adds value when it includes how to address the related risks the purchase of your products and services may entail. Some of those include training, time to implement, and cost.

Finally, marketing content adds values when it discusses relevant and significant issues. Namely, it contains content that’s meaningful and essential to your customer. Marketing content engages when it addresses “What’s in it for me?” (WIIFM).

Tell a Story to Engage Your Audience with B2B Marketing Content 

You can engage an audience in many ways. But one of the most effective ways is to tell a story. Before written history, we passed on significant events by word-of-mouth. We’re wired for stories because they help make a connection.

Today, we've taken story telling online and engage in communities. Telling stories with social media engages all the senses as we interact with our audience. This reinforces the point about touching on personal and professional concerns.

Compelling and engaging stories entertain as well as inform.

Engage Your Customers with Different Types of B2B Content

A content marketing strategy works best when content revolves around your customers. Because all customers are not alike, you must create content your audience prefers.

Not everyone consumes information in the same way.  Some like to read, others like audio, while others prefer visual content. Still others like detail and crunching numbers. And some only want the big picture.

Fortunately, you can meet these needs with little effort. Popular marketing content comes in a variety of formats like articles, blog posts, presentations, white papers and video, to name a few.                

     

Your challenge is to provide content in the way your audience prefers. You can accommodate your prospects, by re-purposing content from, say, a white paper into an audio or a series of blog posts. You’ll learn their preferences by listening to them on social sites.

Engage with Social Media Content to Build Long-Term Loyalty 

Much has been written about the value of social media in B2B. As you may gather by now, social media reinforces engagement.  It does that in two ways.

First, it distributes your content quickly and widely. It clearly maximizes dissemination.

Second, the mere use of social media helps foster long-term relationships. You can deepen customer relationships through webinars, chat sessions using circles on Google + or with exchanges on LinkedIn.

Intimate social contact strengthens bonds between you and your customer. You’ll gain useful insights into your customers’ thinking.

Align the use of social media with your customers’ needs and concerns and you’ll engage them. Using social media strategically, allows you to generate and nurture leads and build loyalty.

If you have any questions about how to create engaging content, please let me know.

Or if you'd like to share a story about how your business creates  engaging content, please feel free to share it. 

Have a great week!

Alex Milo

B2B Copywriter and Consultant

“Helping Transportation and Logistics Companies Generate Leads with Compelling Content”

Phone: 256-886-4684
Email: amilo@b2bcopywriting-alexmilo.com

LinkedIn

Google+

www.b2bcopywriting-alexmilo.com