5 Steps to Building a Solid Content Marketing Foundation

Launching a full blown content marketing program without a strong content development strategy is like trying to eat an elephant with a spork…while it’s charging straight at you. It’s too big, too fast, and your little piece of plastic won’t make a dent.

Too much focus is often initially put into how we’ll reach our audience, the fun stuff like Twitter and Like buttons, without first having an abundance of relevant content to publish. Facebook pages, Youtube channels and SlideShare accounts do little good if all they push out is generic, self-serving company “news” and sales pitches disguised as articles.

Think of your content foundation as your primary tool for taking down that elephant. By starting with the following basic model and rolling it out in manageable steps, your wimpy plastic spoon/fork can quickly morph into a bulldozer.

Step 1: Your Content Strategy

At the beginning, it’s best to keep all the moving parts as simple as possible. Creating pages of diagrams and complicated buying cycle charts will only lead to overwhelm and inaction. Instead, focus first on what B2B marketer Eric Wittlake calls Stage Zero Content.

“Stage zero content is intended to establish your brand, your expertise or your perspective in the mind of your target market, when they are not researching or considering solutions. This content is valuable to a far broader audience than even early stage buying cycle content.”

Stage Zero Content deals with the same problems as your products and services, targeting the very people who are most likely to also be your best prospects. A solid core strategy is made up of answers to the following five questions:

• What are all of the problems our products and services solve? Think high level problems, low level problems and everything in between.
• Who specifically do we solve them for? How sophisticated and experienced is your target market with the solutions available? A CRM software company may serve both enterprise-level sales departments as well as small business owners. Content that’s valuable to one, however, may be useless for another.
• What’s our content’s style and personality? The fatal flaw of most B2B marketing is the incorrect assumption that all business purchasing decisions are made purely by logic. This often leads to some pretty boring, bloated stuff. The best B2B content is written for human consumption and connects with us both emotionally and logically.
• Who will create our content? Everyone in your company is a potential contributor of ideas and articles. Your sales, customer service and account management teams have the most day-to-day contact with your customers as well as intimate knowledge of the challenges they face. Your executive team understands big picture trends, opportunities and insights. By incorporating a broad range of perspectives, you’ll have a deeper understanding of the problems your readers face and the type of content they’ll find most useful.
• What topics should we write about? Close your eyes and pretend that you’re a fly on the wall, inside the offices of your ideal customer. What do you see and hear? How do they define the problems you solve? What type of information are they looking for?

Step 2: Your Blog

Your blog is the primary hub through which to share your content and begin attracting readers. Start by committing to at least one post every week, increasing that output as your editorial process evolves. The more quality content you publish, the sooner you’ll build an audience.

Your blog should be easy to find from every page on your site, preferably with a dedicated link on the main menu. Don’t make visitors search for your content. Most won’t.

Step 3: Your First Level Follow-Up Offer

Picture a B2B content marketing campaign as an ultra high-end retail store. If the internet is the idewalk traffic, your blog is the window display that gets people to stop and look, and your first level follow-up offer entices them to walk into your store.

End each blog post with a soft offer for more detailed content like a white paper, guide or e-book. There are two basic strategies for this step, and both have the same goal of creating opportunities for further engagement. You can offer additional resources in exchange for joining your email list or as an instant download with no sign up requirement, instead ending each piece with another strong call-to-action (Step 4).

Step 4: Your Second Level Follow-Up Offer

Now that you’ve engaged readers and earned some trust, your next call-to-action (through emails or at the end of your first offer) delivers even more value but in a more personalized, interactive way. By moving from highly convenient but static information to interactive, real-time content like webinars and seminars, you’ll begin conversations that help you learn more about each potential customer’s needs and how to best serve them.

Step 5: Add More Channels

Once you’ve set up your foundation of blog content and follow-up offers, you can begin to expand your reach by linking posts and offers to your company’s LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter pages.

Different readers have their own preferences for how they consume content. Some may like blogs, others Tweet or stick with Facebook. Many like a little of each.

Each type of social media has its own quirks, processes and best practices and require consistent daily attention. While blog post comments make it possible to begin interacting with your audience, other social media platforms take it a step further and are best used as a conversational medium, not just a one-way syndication portal.

Photo Credit:Some rights reserved by Mister-E

Author: Marcus Schaller | Website | Twitter

Marcus Schaller is a B2B content marketing strategist and author of Disconnect: 4 Reasons Why B2B Content Marketing Fails and How To Fix It, available at B2BforHumans.com.