CONTENT MARKETING THE INDISPENSABLE GUIDE FOR BUSINESS SERVICES

Revenue Marketing, which is focused on driving customer acquisition and measurable sales, has exploded in the business services industry. And it’s transforming marketing from a cost center to a revenue center.

How does this transformation work, exactly? To explain, I introduced the Revenue Marketing Journey™ in 2011 (See Graph 1). This framework has helped thousands of marketers make sense out of all the elements that go into Revenue Marketing – including content. In this introduction, I will:

Introduce Revenue Marketing

Discuss the four stages of the Revenue Marketing Journey model

Present a Content Maturity model for business service marketers

The Revenue Marketing Journey model presents four distinct stages to achieving Revenue Marketing status: traditional, lead generation, demand generation, and finally, revenue marketing, the stage in which marketing has transformed from a cost center to a revenue center.

THE REVENUE MARKETING JOURNEY™… AS A CONTENT MATURITY MODEL IN BUSINESS SERVICES

PART I: THE REVENUE MARKETING JOURNEY

THE PEDOWITZ GROUP REVENUE MARKETING JOURNEY MODEL

TRADITIONAL LEAD GENERATION DEMAND GENERATION REVENUE GENERATION

STAGE 1: TRADITIONAL MARKETINGAs a seasoned business services marketer, you probably don’t need much explanation of what traditional marketing entails. Characterized by the four Ps—product, promotion, placement, and price—traditional marketing is what is taught in undergraduate and graduate programs and what most marketers execute every day.

At this stage, marketing has little political clout in business services organizations, does not have a seat or a voice at the revenue table, and is seen as the “make it pretty” department. Senior executives in this traditional environment don’t even realize the revenue impact marketing could make on top-line revenue growth.

Reporting consists of providing a host of activity-based metrics such as number of ads, number of impressions, number of attendees to an event, and number of visits. For many companies, it is largely a blind spend, representing a huge budget and providing metrics that key executives don’t really care about.

Nearly every business services company leverages elements of traditional marketing, and we estimate that 45 percent of the market is in this stage of the revenue marketing journey.

CONTENT APPROACH AT THE TRADITIONAL STAGEFor business services organizations in the traditional stage of revenue marketing, content is product and brand- focused and is produced by various groups with no coordination of effort or strategy.

There is no holistic content strategy across the company based on the Buyer Journey and Personas. The majority of content is produced by marketing, communications, product marketing, event managers and sales. There is little to no thought leadership content. Content is not effectively managed in production (heavy use of spreadsheets) or use and there is no syndication or multiple uses of content pieces. Content performance is not tracked and a results-oriented mentality is not in existence.

Tools used in this stage to manage content are mostly missing with the exception of the website, Google Analytics, email and spreadsheets.

The first big step towards Revenue Marketing in business services is making the transition from traditional marketing to lead generation marketing.

Lead generation marketing is characterized by one major goal: providing leads to sales. At this stage of the Revenue Marketing Journey, marketing has acquired an e-mail system and is busy sending one-off e-mails to as many people as possible.

These tactical activities produce “leads” (any prospect with a pulse) that are then sent to sales. The expectation is that sales will pounce on these leads immediately and convert them to opportunities. Instead, what we typically see at this stage is a “cold war” brewing between marketing and sales. Marketing feels they are working hard to acquire leads that sales simply ignores. And sales feels the leads provided by marketing aren’t worth the effort. Just because someone opened an e-mail or downloaded a white paper does not mean they are ready to buy, or even ready to talk to sales!

Even if sales does follow up, the visibility into what happens to a lead passed from marketing is not available because an automated, closed-loop system like marketing automation plus a customer relationship management system (CRM) is not in place. The lead “leaks” out of the system and both marketing and sales have no appreciation, view, or tools to take advantage of a larger set of possibilities. After a few years of this kind of behavior, the “cold war” is in full force and neither team respects the other. Marketing is still considered a cost center, and the alignment with sales is neither productive nor collaborative.

Key metrics at this stage are activity based and generally include the number of e-mails sent, open rates, click-through rates, number of forms submitted, percentage of forms completed, number of leads sent to sales, and cost per lead. Once a lead is passed to sales, marketing’s job is complete. Marketers at this stage are moving in the right direction, but are still viewed as a cost center to the organization.

STAGE 2: LEAD GENERATION

We estimate that 25 percent of the market is at the Lead Generation stage of the journey. This number may sound low, but we see many companies who have an e-mail system, but are not actively generating leads for sales. Instead, they are using their e-mail systems to generate awareness and to run general communication campaigns.

STAGE 3: DEMAND GENERATIONThe move from lead generation to demand generation is strategic leap for most business services organizations.

At this, more advanced stage, marketers integrate a full-featured marketing automation system with a CRM system. This architecture promotes an automated, closed-loop reporting method, ushering in the foundation for a change in marketing’s role.

Rather than sending one-off e-mails to the masses, the demand generation stage is characterized by an on-going digital and relevant dialog with

CONTENT APPROACH AT THE LEAD GENERATION STAGEFor business services organizations in the lead generation stage of revenue marketing, content is still product and brand focused and is produced by various groups with no coordination of effort or strategy.

There is little to no thought leadership content. There is no holistic content strategy across the company based on the buyer journey or personas. At this stage, unlike the traditional marketing stage, the lead generation team is requesting content for campaigns and/or are producing it themselves and content is “one size fits all.”

Content is not effectively managed in production (heavy use of spreadsheets) and there is no syndication or multiple uses of content pieces. Content performance is not tracked, as teams in this stage are not results-oriented.

Marketers in this stage use tools like web forms, Google Analytics, email, and CRM to manage their content.

prospects and clients. This targeted and customer focused approach drives higher quality leads and more bottom of funnel conversions. And once a lead is ready for sales, marketing continues to provide relevant insights and intelligence on the digital behavior of prospects. As a result, the relationship between sales and marketing begins to improve as key processes, systems, and visibility are put into place.

The metrics tracked in this phase are also significantly different from prior stages, as they change from being activity-based metrics to revenue-based metrics.

Key metrics in the demand generation stage of the Revenue Marketing Journey include:

The number of marketing qualified leads (MQLs) sent to sales

The percentage of MQLs sent to sales that convert to opportunities

The percentage of those opportunities that convert to close

The average number of days to close

We estimate that 25 percent of the market is at the Demand Generation stage of the journey.

CONTENT APPROACH AT THE DEMAND GENERATION STAGEBusiness services marketers in the demand generation stage become more strategic with their content and start forming a holistic content strategy. They assign a senior content manager to coordinate and optimize content production and align content themes to an overall business strategy. Content is targeted and engaging, driving leads at the top of the funnel.

Content production, management and measurement processes are in place and are supported by content management software tools such as Kapost, marketing automation and CRM.

STAGE 4: REVENUE MARKETINGThe Revenue Marketing stage includes everything in the demand generation stage, with one major difference: the revenue generated and attributed to marketing is now delivered through a machine that is repeatable, predictable, and scalable (RPS).

When the CMO or VP of marketing walks into a senior management team meeting, they come with two different reports:

The first is a report shows the revenue contribution from marketing over the past month, quarter, or year.

The second, and more powerful, is a report that forecasts revenue impact from marketing for the upcoming period.

There are a lot of benefits for business services organizations that make the transition to Revenue Marketing. Revenue is now the responsibility of both marketing and sales, it promotes better collaboration between sales and marketing that results in higher quality leads and higher conversion rates. It also gives sales a partner in meeting quota. Finally, it gives marketing both a seat and a voice at the revenue table.

We estimate that only 5 percent of the market is at this advanced stage.

CONTENT APPROACH AT THE REVENUE MARKETING STAGEIn the revenue marketing stage, content is embraced at all levels of the organization as a strategic business asset that helps propel prospects toward purchase. Business services revenue marketing leaders optimize content development, use, management and measurement practices. All content is tied to direct ROI metrics and the marketing leader can forecast revenue based on content interactions. Tools are optimized and content operations are now repeatable, predictable and scalable.

In 2012, The Pedowitz Group created the RM6™ – a model for operationalizing the Revenue Marketing Journey (See Graph 2). After working with well over 1,100 clients, we saw a consistent set of elements being used to successfully transform marketing from being a cost center to a revenue center.

We’ve already defined the four stages of the Revenue Marketing Journey and the high level role of content in each. Now, let’s explore content in more depth by reviewing how content relates to each element of the RM6 - strategy, people, process, technology, and results

PART II: THE RM6 AND THE CONTENT MATRIX

THE PEDOWITZ GROUP RM6 MODEL

STRATEGY PEOPLE PROCESS TECHNOLOGY CONTENT RESULTS

MATURITY LEVEL IS TRADITIONAL

• Siloed content functions in marketing and across the organization

• No holistic content strategy

• Product and brand focused vs customer focused

• No Buyer Journey or institutionalized Personas

• Product and brand content production skills

• Content created by Product Marketing, Marcom, Sales & Event Managers – not coordinated

• Content production is product/brand focused

• Siloed and independent content processes across the company

• Lengthy, inefficient approval processes

• No content operations

• Little use of technology

• Simple deployment tools – email, website

• No tracking tools

• Heavy use of spreadsheets

• Content is prod-uct/brand focused

• Produced for events, website and sales

• Lack of thought leadership

• “One size fits all.”

• Flat content formats

• Focused on activities: # of registrants. # of attendees. # of badges scanned

• No results oriented goals

• No “metric” mentality

MATURITY LEVEL IS LEAD GENERATION

• No holistic content strategy

• Product and brand focused vs customer focused

• No Buyer Journey or institutionalized Personas

• Product and brand content

• Have content created for campaigns

• Content production skills for campaigns

• Use product focused content in campaigns

• No proactive management of content– lucky to get enough produced for campaigns

• No content operations

• Content not used as part of a digital dialog

• Web forms & Google Analytics

• Email platform

CRM

• Syndicate (like TechTarget for lead generation)

• Product focused

• Used in campaigns

• Not syndicated or used in multiple channels

• Not re-purposed

Lack of thought leadership

• No interactive formats

• “One size fits all”

• No measurement of content

• No “metric” mentality

• Count number of leads given to sales but no tie to content

MATURITY LEVEL IS DEMAND GENERATION

• Beginning to create a holistic customer focus

• Marketing is a publishing organization

• Content is strategic

• Content mapped to Buyer Journey & Personas

• Content fuels the digital conversation

• Content serves as “bait” to encourage Digital Body Language

• Role of Content Czar (Publisher) that coordinates all content development and delivery to Personas and Buyer Journey across all functions

• Content is mapped to Buyer Journey & Personas

• Content production and management process

• Syndication/multi-channel/repurposing strategies & processes

• Right Time, Right Content, to Right Persona

• Content operations

• Marketing Automation

• CRM

• Kapost – Content Operations

• Tied to Buyer Journey & Personas

• Publishing model – syndication, multi-channel, re-purposing

• Strategic & integrated

• Right Time, Right Content, to Right Persona

• Interactive

• Content performance in terms of ROI, efficiency and effectiveness

• “Metrics” mentality

MATURITY LEVEL IS REVENUE MARKETING

• All of the above – optimized

• Firm wide customer orientation – sense and respond

• Firm wide capability as publishers

• All of the above – optimized

• All of the above – optimized

• Full integration and optimization of content strategy for syndication, across all channels

• All of the above – optimized

• Content stack is fully integrated and optimized

• All of the above – optimized

• Content operations are repeatable, predictable and scalable

CONTENT MATURITY MATRIXIn The Revenue Marketing Framework and Across Six Dimensions of RM6

DEBBIE QAQISH

A nationally recognized thought leader, she has 30+ years of sales and marketing experience and is a leader in helping organizations connect marketing to revenue. Debbie is a pioneer in marketing automation – first as a beneficiary of the technology and now as an advocate and expert. She was named one of the Most Influential People in Sales Lead Management for the last three years, as well as one of the Top 20 Women to Watch. She coined the term “Revenue Marketer” in 2010. Debbie is working on her Ph.D. Her first book, Rise of the Revenue Marketer®: An Executive Playbook, was a gold medal winner in the 2013 Top Sales World Awards contest. In 2014, the editorial staff at FierceCMO Magazine named Debbie one of the Top 10 Women CMOs to Watch.

PRINCIPAL PARTNER AND CHIEF STRATEGY OFFICER FOR THE PEDOWITZ GROUP

CONTENTS01 WHAT’S CONTENT MARKETING ALL ABOUT?01 The New Path to Conversion01 The Age of Product-Centered Messaging Is Over

02 WHY DOES CONTENT MATTER FOR BUSINESS SERVICES?

05 PLAN06 Conduct a Content Audit07 Form an Editorial Board08 Identify Roles and Responsibilities 10 Create Personas12 Identify Content Themes

15 PRODUCE15 Editorial Calendar17 Repurposing Content17 Voice and Tone

19 PUBLISH & PROMOTE20 Channels for Educating20 Channels for Engaging20 Channels for Convincing21 Channels for Retaining

22 CONCLUSION

23 GLOSSARY

24 MORE RESOURCES

The Internet has fundamentally changed the path to conversion. Buyers used to rely on vendors to make a purchase decision. Now, they complete 70% of that decision before ever coming into contact with a vendor.1

The influencing factor these days? Useful, engaging content.

To succeed, marketers must figure out who their buyers are, what they need, and then deliver the right content in the right place. This is why you’re reading an eBook about content marketing.

WHAT’S CONTENT MARKETING ALL ABOUT?

1. Matt Foulger. Social Selling in B2B Sales, Part 3: The New Buying Process. Hootsuite, February 2013

THE NEW PATH TO CONVERSION

CONTENT MARKETING IS THE PROCESS OF DEVELOPING, PUBLISHING, AND DISTRIBUTING USEFUL, RELEVANT CONTENT THAT ENGAGES PROSPECTIVE CUSTOMERS AND PROPELS THEM TOWARD PURCHASE.

THE AGE OF PRODUCT-CENTERED MESSAGING IS OVER.

01

WHY DOES CONTENT MATTER FOR BUSINESS SERVICES?

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Why? Because B2B purchases entail a lot of professional risk. B2B buyers fear losing time and effort if a purchase decision goes poorly, losing credibility if they make a recommendation for an unsuccessful purchase, and even losing their job if a big purchase goes wrong.

If you provide a service to other businesses, you need content that is empathetic, clear, and engaging. Appeal not only to the business value, but also to the personal value.

There’s a dangerous assumption that B2B content is expected - even allowed - to be “corporate” (read: boring). Somehow, we’ve come to believe that focusing entirely on value propositions, competitive differentiators, and product specs is okay.

But in today’s business environment, where a buyer can download a brochure, read an article, and watch a cat video on a single lunch break, collateral just doesn’t cut it.

2. CEB and Google, From Promotion to Emotion: Connecting B2B Customers to Brands. February 2013

EMOTIONS MATTER

71% 22.6% of buyers who see personal value will

purchase a B2B productwho don’t see

personal value.2

And a greater proportion of B2B customers are

emotionally attached to the brand they purchased than B2C customers are.

VS

03

Business Value vs Personal Value

Only 31% of prospective customers

think B2B brands provide a personal value

48% of B2B customers say they have wanted to buy

a new solution but haven’t spoken up for fear of risks

2x Personal value has 2X as much impact as business

value does

68% of buyers who see a personal value will pay a higher price for a service

Only 8.5% of buyers who see NO personal value will

pay a higher price for a product

71% of buyers who see personal value will

purchase a product

DATA SOURCE: http://www.executiveboard.com/exbd-resources/content/b2b-emotion/pdf/promotion-emotion-whitepaper-full.pdf

But just 14% of B2B buyers perceive a real difference in

B2B supplier offerings

74% of B2B buyers see a business value

But developing a well-oiled content marking machine isn’t easy. Siloed teams, mismanaged editorial calendars, lack of time and resources, and stale content ideas are stumbling blocks that plague many business services organizations. The solution lies in updating your content processes. In this eBook, we’ll cover how B2B marketing teams can implement structured, scalable systems for planning, producing, and publishing content that converts.

In B2B buying, emotions matter even more than logic and reason.

HOW EMOTION INFLUENCES B2B BUYING

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Too many teams produce content without knowing why, who it’s for, who owns it, and how it aligns with their overall marketing strategy.

Or rather, don’t put the content before the process.

PLANDON’T PUT THE CART BEFORE THE HORSE.

WITHOUT A PLAN CONTENT IS DOOMED.

05

CONTENT ID TYPE URLTITLE DATE CREATED

ACTION REQUIRED

ID number

0.0

1.0

Content type

Whitepaper

Blog Post

Insert URL

www.URL.com

www.URL.com

Title of content

Is Content Marketing

Right For My Company?

Top Ten Content Tips

Insert date

4/1/14

2/3/12

Insert action required

Current, ready for use

Update with latest

Hummingbird changes

There are several ways to get started. The simplest is to create a spreadsheet that identifies the name, type, source, and required action of each piece of content.

SO HOW DOES A TEAM CREATE AN EFFECTIVE PLAN?

CONDUCT A CONTENT AUDITBefore deciding what content to develop, first identify what content you really need. Expose the gaps in your content with an audit. Tedious as it may seem, a content audit will grant a bird’s-eye view of what content you already have, where it lives, and the topics or themes it tackles.

06

When the audit is complete, analyze it from both a customer and a business perspective. Pose some tough questions like: “Is the content easy to understand?” “Is it outdated and/or irrelevant?” “Is it entertaining?” “Is it useful or too confusing?” “Is it driving web traffic, leads and/or engagement?” Figuring out where all your content lives and what purpose it serves will reveal current gaps, avoid redundancies, address key needs, and determine what can be retired.

FORM AN EDITORIAL BOARDSiloed decision-making is a clear and present danger to a streamlined content operation. The head of one department might green-light a campaign, while another raises serious objections, swooping in at the last minute to bottleneck the campaign launch. Avoid these scenarios by bringing the right people into the content decision process. Gather stakeholders from every department at least once a quarter to map out the campaign calendar, plan the production of major content assets, and coordinate distribution efforts across teams.

07

IDENTIFY ROLES AND RESPONSIBILITIESA business services content marketing campaign is only as strong as the employees responsible for planning the content. Identifying the right people for the job can make all the difference.

Collaborators are the people creating content. Marketing managers, strategists, copywriters, designers, and community managers all fall under this category. This group is responsible for the creation and packaging of content, and has the project management skills to coordinate workflows, approvals and distribution of that content. These management tasks could include assigning writers or editors, managing timelines, and tracking budgets for campaigns.

ALIGNING DECISION-MAKERS EARLY ON WILL PREVENT DISORGANIZED CAMPAIGNS AND MAKE SCALING CONTENT INITIATIVES ACROSS TEAMS — AND MARKETS — VERY EASY.

CONTENT ROLES FALL INTO TWO GROUPS: COLLABORATORS AND EDITORS.

08

Editors are on the hook for making sure all content is aligned with the company’s yearly or quarterly themes, maintains a consistent brand voice, and that the tone, topic, and distribution model is customized to reach the intended audience.

Collaborators keep the trains running on time while the editors ensure your content meets the company’s lead generation, thought leadership, and sales goals.

AMY HIGGINS

Sometimes it’s hard to get the C-Suite on board with investing the time, money and manpower in creating effective content strategies. In fact, while 91% of B2B marketers say they “use content marketing,” only 44% have a documented content strategy3. How do you convince executives to invest in an ongoing strategy? Content guru Amy Higgins of Concur, a business expense, travel and invoice

management company, says it’s easy if you pitch it the right way. “People don’t buy products for the products alone,” she says. “They don’t invest in our product; they invest in our experience. Our content needs to tell the story of that experience.” Concur has been doing that for over 20 years. Amy attributes their success to the collaboration of the executive team, the advisors, the partners, the editors, the sales team, the managers, and the dedicated customers. An avid cook, Amy likes to think of that collaboration as a kind of soup. “The higher level quality ingredients you add, the better the broth. That’s how Concur is. We have so many great ingredients that together the soup might be just the product, but it’s all those flavors that really make it resonate for our clients.”

CONTENT & SOCIAL MARKETING MANAGER AT CONCUR

3. Joe Pulizzi and Ann Handley, B2B Content Marketing 2014 Benchmarks, Budgets and Trends - North America. Content Marketing Institute, October 2013.

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CREATE PERSONASCustomer personas give marketers an idea of the real people who buy, or might buy, their services. And these personas should inform every piece of content.

Too often, personas are painstakingly developed, only to go unused. Or worse - they’re never developed at all.

The first step to creating effective personas is to pull data. How you pull that data depends on several factors. Time, budget, and resources all can determine the strength and thoroughness of your personas.

But there are three general approaches to follow:Qualitative: Qualitative research generally means you’re trying to draw conclusions from a small sample size. User interviews, usability testing, and buyer interviews all fall under this category.Quantitative: Quantitative research means you’re drawing conclusions from a larger sample size. Website analytics data, social listening, and survey results are included in this category.A mix of both: Conduct both qualitative and quantitative user studies to craft your personas.

OBLIVIOUS CONTENT IS INEFFECTIVE CONTENT. WRITERS AND DESIGNERS NEED TO UNDERSTAND WHO THEY’RE TALKING TO AND WHY.

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Q U A L I T A T I V ER E S E A R C H

Q U A N T I T A T I V ER E S E A R C H

QUANTITATIVE RESEARCH HELPS MARKETERS UNDERSTAND WHAT IS HAPPENING (IT TRACKS THE ACTIVITY OF YOUR USERS). QUALITATIVE RESEARCH, ON THE OTHER HAND, IS GREAT AT TELLING MARKETERS WHY IT’S HAPPENING (USERS CAN EXPLAIN THEMSELVES).

Here’s the tricky part: what people say isn’t necessarily what they do. That’s why “a mix of both” approach to customer research is best. You’ll not only understand your users’ motivations for acting, but also what those actions actually are. Once you’ve pulled your data, it’s time to start assessing it. B2B customers fall into several categories. Identify those categories and feed their attributes into a representative persona. When you’re done, you’ll end up with several personas that give you a comprehensive view of your customer base. These personas will help guide content and inform the marketing team about how to promote that content.

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IDENTIFY CONTENT THEMESFiguring out what topics to develop content about is one of the biggest struggles for marketers in the business services industry. Making sectors like shipping, logistics, software, and printing exciting isn’t easy. And the challenge stops many marketing teams in their tracks.

The solution? Shift your perspective. In business services, success is marked in engagement and leads, not buzz. Instead of reaching for the next shiny toy, and focusing on creating content that will make a splash, focus on creating content is going to entertain, educate, and help your readers get something done.

JONATHAN WICHMANN

Maersk Line is one of the biggest shipping companies around. Their ships, containers, and bulk carriers can be spotted in ports all over the world. But the shipping industry isn’t, on the surface, a very engaging topic.

That didn’t stop Jonathan Wichmann, former Head of Social Media at Maersk, from breaking conventions and building Maersk’s social media following from virtually nothing in November 2011 to more than 1,000,000 followers on Facebook alone in August 2012.

How did he do it? By listening to the conversations people were already having about Maersk online to “understand problems and needs” and by becoming a storyteller. “The stories are there,” he says. “It always comes down to the stories.”

FORMER HEAD OF SOCIAL MEDIA AT MAERSK

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While their success on social media is impressive, Wichmann says Maersk’s most successful content campaign was a small, sales-oriented one. The campaign story pivoted around the harsh, icy conditions of the Baltic sea. Every year, around the same time of year, a large part of the Baltic Sea freezes over. “It’s very difficult to get to the port on time, so the whole supply chain is affected by this,” says Wichmann. “It turned out that Maersk is very good at navigating those icy conditions.”

So, the team thought, why not feature it? Wichmann sent a photographer up to St. Petersburg to photograph the Baltic’s bitter conditions: the ice-capped ocean, the frozen-over containers, the frost-bitten ships. The photographs they got back were staggering. Maersk’s marketing team coupled the photos with an article about the Baltic sea and how the Maersk Line operates in such conditions, and put that article behind a gate.

Casual Maersk fans just saw the photos and never clicked through to read more. Curious potential customers converted to read that article. The result? 150 leads. From one piece of content. In the shipping business, Wichmann said even one lead from content is a potentially big customer, so 150 is astounding.

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HOW TO COME UP WITH CONTENT TOPICSComing up with your own content topics doesn’t have to be hard. Consider this scenario: A software company providing payroll services and employee benefits administration is brainstorming content themes for the quarter. They could start by making a persona-focused content matrix like this:

Persona Jessica, HR manager Buying Stage Consideration

Business Pain Points n Difficulty guiding employees through the current payroll and benefits system n Constant pressure to improve employee onboarding

Personal Prioritiesn Job securityn Job performance and credibilityn Time management

Messagesn Best practices for HR communication n Fluid user experiencen Improving the onboarding process

Topics/Content Piecesn eBook - The HR Professional’s Guide to Communicationn eBook - What to Look for in Employee Payroll Software n Article series - Payroll and Benefits: How HR Professionals Can Help

Erase Headaches and Foster Employee Satisfaction n Video series - product-focused video series offering how-to guides

14

28

1922 25 26

29 30

18171615141312

5114

109876321

21 272423

20

5

The editorial calendar is the single most important part of the production process. Without it, you’re bound to get lost.

There should be one editorial calendar per organization. This is especially important for larger B2B companies that have multiple teams in several regions and markets.

At a minimum, the editorial calendar should include the publish deadlines for every asset and who is responsible for getting each specific task done. Make the calendar available to the entire team, and keep it regularly updated. Ideally, your calendar would include personas and buying stages, so collaborators remain on the same page.

There are plenty of editorial calendar templates, but creating one that represents the specific needs of a marketing team isn’t always easy. Before scouring the web for any workable template, keep in mind what you’re trying to accomplish.

PRODUCEEDITORIAL CALENDAR

15

Prioritizing calendar attributes ensures you’ll make the right choice when it comes to choosing a format. Some common priorities include:

While you’re identifying major themes for your editorial calendar, you should also consider:

Manage all content creation/publishing activities

Align content with

business goals and campaigns

Align content

with buyer personas

Improve content

relevance

Who is going to use the

calendar?

Why will

those people use it?

Who will be

maintaining it?

How will the calendar be used and

shared?

16

Repurposing your content is a vital aspect of an enduring strategy. Each content theme assigned by the editorial board can, and should, be broken up into many different content types to support the main asset. Want an example? If you’re building a major content piece to tackle the theme of “Improving HR Communication” -- this is what’s called a “content pillar” -- here’s how that pillar could be turned into many supporting assets:

Voice and tone sound like those “soft” features that are really hard to define. But they’re vital to your content marketing. Why? Because before creating anything, marketers need to think about the readers.

A TEAM THAT PRIORITIZES VOICE AND TONE IS A TEAM THAT PRIORITIZES USER FEELINGS. Voice is your company’s brand personality. Tone adjusts that voice based on the audience and situation. Voice remains consistent across all your content, while tone can shift based on the scenario.

Social Media

Social Media

Social Media

Social Media

Social Media

Blog Post

Video

Blog Post

Infographic

Blog Post

Blog Post

Ebook

Webinar

Whitepaper

Survey

REPURPOSING CONTENT

VOICE AND TONE

17

18

Think of your organization not as a “business services company,” but as a person. If your company were a person, what kind of personality would it have? What would your relationship with customers be like?

The content collaborators and editors are responsible for considering the reader’s state of mind and adjusting the tone of their content accordingly. They should consistently be asking themselves questions like: Is the reader frustrated by a specific problem? Is the reader curious about the latest best practices?Is the reader trying to accomplish a specific task?

MAILCHIMPhas done an excellent job of defining their company voice in their style guide, which they share publicly online. Company stakeholders have identified MailChimp as: n Fun but not childishn Clever but not sillyn Confident but not cockyn Smart but not stodgyn Cool but not alienatingn Informal but not sloppyn Helpful but not overbearingn Expert but not bossyn Weird but not inappropriate

FOR B2B MARKETERS, WHERE YOU PUBLISH IS JUST AS IMPORTANT AS WHAT YOU PUBLISH.You can’t stick any piece of content into any stage of the sales cycle, and you can’t push all of your content to every channel.

You and your team must know the channels you plan to use throughout your content campaign — from the idea stage through production. There are appropriate channels for each stage of the sales funnel: channels that educate, channels that engage, channels that convince and convert prospects, and channels that enable customer success.

PUBLISH & PROMOTE

C H A N N E L S T H AT E D U C AT E

C H A N N E L S T H AT E N G A G E

C H A N N E L S T H AT C O N V I N C E A N D C O N V E RT P RO S P E C T S

C H A N N E L S T H AT E N A B L E C U S T O M E R S U C C E S S

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CHANNELS FOR EDUCATINGTop of funnel content is designed to educate and entertain. Usually this kind of content is distributed through owned and earned media channels like social media profiles, the website, and the blog. These channels cast a wide net. The goal here is high-level conversions (signing up for your newsletter, future emails, etc.) that allow for deeper engagement further down the funnel.

CHANNELS FOR ENGAGINGLeads in the middle of the funnel require more personal treatment. Content becomes more targeted at this stage. Collect the right blog posts, infographics, eBooks, and whitepapers and distribute them to segmented leads through email marketing campaigns or other targeted, even paid, channels. Content editors and collaborators should work with your demand generation or marketing operations team to ensure the messages and content are right for the intended audience.

CHANNELS FOR CONVINCINGContent at this stage is primarily designed to help solidify the decision-making process and deepen engagement with the sales team. Prospects enter the bottom of the funnel when they have indicated an interest in your service. This could happen through high engagement with your content or explicit behaviors like filling out a contact form.

WORK WITH SALES TO IDENTIFY WHICH CONTENT BEST SUITS THEIR NEEDS.Sales can offer insights into an opportunity’s strengths, weaknesses, and knowledge gaps. Your team can suggest content that specifically addresses those needs.

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CHANNELS FOR RETAININGThe deal closed! The work is over, right? WRONG.

If a lead becomes a customer of your service, it’s up to your organization to ensure success. Your team supports this mission by supplying relevant content that facilitates user experience and solves problems. This content largely gets distributed by the account management or customer success teams, often through personal or automated emails, customer blogs and online customer communities. Assets often include exclusive content like product user guides, FAQs, workshops, screencasts, videos, etc. Publishing content without knowing the intended target, channel and desired outcome is a dangerous practice. Every content asset a business services organization publishes -- from a tweet to an eBook to a video tutorial -- should have a proper place in the sales and marketing funnel.

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CONCLUSIONIn business services, purchases are made as much with emotion as reason. If you’re charged with marketing a service, it’s your job to appeal to both the left and right side of the brain. Timely, relevant, and emphatic content is your best means to accomplish this big goal.

But you can’t pull that off without a strategy in which your content is assigned specific goals, stages, personas and channels.

Subscribe to the Kapost blog to learn more key content marketing tips.

TO SUCCEED, BUSINESS SERVICES COMPAINES NEED CONTENT THAT

STARTS AND ENDS WITH THE CUSTOMER, THAT ADDRESSES REAL

NEEDS, THAT QUELLS COMMON FEARS, AND THAT SOLVES TOUGH

PROBLEMS.

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GLOSSARYCollaborators: The team members involved in creating content. Content Audit: The process of identifying and evaluating an organization’s published content and information assets. Content Personas: User profiles that give marketers an idea of the real people who buy, or might buy their services. Content Marketing: The process of developing, publishing and distributing useful, relevant content that engages prospective customers and propels them toward purchase. Editors: The team members responsible for making sure all the content is aligned with business objectives, overarching themes and the brand voice and tone. Editorial Board: A group of stakeholders responsible for determining the major content themes for the quarter based on business objectives. Tone: The tone of voice is an adaptive reflection of feelings.Tone changes based on the situation and the audience.

Voice: The personality or voice of the brand. All content produced should be in the same voice.

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The Blueprint of a Modern Marketing Campaign

The Content Marketing Hiring Handbook

Make It Count: Content Marketing Analytics

An Introduction to Content Marketing Software

Connecting with Content: A Salesperson’s Guide to Content Marketing

MORE RESOURCES

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