Marketing Interactions

B2B Content Strategy Should Never Be a Wallflower

A B2B content marketing strategy should never be contained in a silo. First of all, to be literal, a silo is a dugout, cave or shelter for grain. Secondly, it denotes walls and barriers that keep its contents apart from everything else. A B2B content marketing strategy must lead somewhere. It should be based on a continuum that matches the needs of prospects and customers wherever they may be in the experience at any time.

The issue I see often, is that content marketing is an add-on to everything else that marketers have on their plates. It's viewed as a campaign, a project or a standalone initiaitve. A silo. This is in part related to the way marketers are wired. In the traditional sense, most of what marketers do has start and end dates and each effort is graded on its own merit (I'm using the word "merit" loosely).

How's our SEO strategy doing?

How many "leads" did that last campaign produce?

Did our webinar attendees increase for this topic?

How many followers did our Twitter account attract last month?

Is our web traffic growing?

Don't get me wrong, we need to measure and evaluate, but we need to quit using our metrics as boundaries that separate one initiative from another. To do this, we need to look at transitions and experiences across buying and the customer lifecycle.

An experience is a set of dynamic transitions that flow together. Until you step out of it or it ends.

When marketers focus on campaigns, they are instituting a construct that boxes in and ends the experience. Three email touches and a sales call, move on. This construct is for us, not related to anything our prospects or customers need, want or value. It was created so that we could manage and measure our efforts based on some ridiculous notion that a short-term campaign can definitively drive sales for a long-term buying process.

But I digress. The point I want to make is about the need to integrate transitions.

Channels are proliferating and marketers need to pay attention to the transitions between them. If your social media team isn't cognizant of your nurturing program, for example, how fluid will the experience be for a prospect or customer taking part in both?

If a buyer watches a video on your YouTube! channel and finds it fun and informative, then visits your website only to see a bunch of dry, product-focused content they find neither fun, nor informative, how will you overcome that disconnect? Or can you?

Often overlooked is the critical transition from marketing to sales. Marketers often plan their content strategy without ever sharing it with sales or - highly recommended - involving sales in its development. If the entire be all and end all of marketing is to help produce and grow customers, why the heck is this transition so overlooked?

It's time for marketing to stop producing more wallflowers and start creating the Belles of the Ball! You may laugh but the Belles of the Ball are sought out, followed and considered highly engaging. This will never happen if we don't integrate all of our marketing initiatives into our strategy and consider how to gain the benefits of dynamic experiences based on transitions.

I know this is difficult. If it was easy it wouldn't be near as much fun!

Take the first step by evaluating everything you're doing and discovering how to create better transitions that tell a story your audience finds engaging. Start connecting the dots. Just don't leave your content strategy sitting on the sidelines as just another project.

 

Content Marketing: Theory vs. Practice

Sometimes I think content marketing can be made so convoluted and complex that it's nearly impossible to execute. I've seen spreadsheets and diagrams and lists of things you must do that make my head hurt. And, yes, I know I do this for a living. I'm a B2B content strategist - and dang proud of the work I do.

But reality is what we have to work with and a phased approach can be a beautiful thing. After all, if you can't execute the strategy it's not delivering a service to your company—or your customers.

Here are a few things I find true in practice:

• Marketers must be able to wrap their heads around the why, what, when, where and how.


• Content theories abound and if you try to kluge it all together, you will become as immobilized as a deer in the headlights of a rapidly approaching semi.


• Theory is great, but often difficult to put into practice in a reasonable way.


• Expectations need to be appropriate based on your resources, capabilities and limitations.


• Content marketing never ends, so quit trying to get it perfect before you launch.


• Until you launch, you have no real-world feedback to judge your strategy or programs. It's not about what you think, but what your buyers think and how they respond.


• Once launched, you can tune on the fly and add layers as you gain proficiency.

What I find with most projects is that the marketers taking on content marketing already have a full plate. This means that we need to figure out how to incorporate what they're already doing within the content strategy rather than approaching it as a standalone effort - which a content strategy should never be.

First, marketers need to build buyer insights and identify personas or market segments. It is only through gaining a clear understanding of each persona's orientation, objectives and obstacles that marketers can begin to design a relevant content strategy.

Without knowing your buyers, where's your focus? On your products and company, of course. Because that's what you know. This is why there's so much crappy content floating around in the ether.

Once you know your buyers, choose a segment, step into their shoes and figure out what are all the questions they need to answer based on their specific situation. Open a document and type the problem statement at the top of the page (or get a group together and use a white board to brainstorm).

Persona problem statement: I need to do X in order to get Y.

Start tossing up questions this persona would have about solving that problem.

For example:

• What are the different ways I can do X?
• How much of Y do I need?
• How are our competitors solving X?
• What competitive advantages could we gain if we solve X?
• Who else will be impacted in the company if we solve X?
• How will I convince them that Y is worth the effort to change the status quo?

Keep going until you can't think of another question this persona would ask in order to gather all the information they need to build confidence, gain consensus and make an informed purchase decision.

Now, given what you know about your persona/segment, how would you answer each question? The answers are the premise statements for your content development. And the answers should not be all about your product, but focused on what it enables that your prospect couldn't do before. The why, what and how that will get them Y. If possible, identify several different ways to answer each question.

Assess your existing content to see what questions it answers, or if it needs to be reinvented or retired. Identify your gaps for new content development.

How do your current and planned campaigns and events, etc. fit in with your content flow for this persona? Match them up and insert them into the flow.

Consider your marketing mix and where you've determined your persona goes to find information and create a distribution program. Based on the modes you use this can include website, email, blogs, social, etc. This is when formats come in. Not before. Your focus should be on the information first. Make sure you have the resources to execute and know what the timing looks like to get it done.

Don't forget to consider calls to action. What do you want them to do after engaging with the content? Be reasonable about what makes sense as a next step given the information they just viewed. It's not generally "have sales contact me." And, based on the technology you have, determine the best ways to measure and monitor outcomes.

Get it out the door and tune on the fly as you go. Even if you only start with one persona, just get it going. Evolve and add layers as you learn what works and what doesn't.

Content marketing in practice can be as easy or difficult as you make it. Focus on learning what your buyers need to know to reach objectives and give it to them in digestible ways they will value. That's really what's at the crux of content marketing.

Theory is great. All marketers should understand it. But practice is about execution.

Does Your B2B Marketing Content Address Cause?

How deep does your marketing content dive into the problems and priorities your B2B prospects are facing? In B2B marketing, we talk a lot about addressing problems, but quite often we don't talk about what that really means or how to truly help our prospects solve the systemic issues that cause the problems in the first place.

This post is inspired by the following point in a list of reasons about why managers struggle on Leadership Now blog. This is reason #9:

They Fix Problems, Not Causes. Unless the manager fixes the cause of the problems they encounter, valuable time will be spent fixing the same problem over and over again.

How often do you think about why a problem exists for your prospects? As marketers we need to look beyond the obvious and get to the root of the issue to elevate the value our content provides. That's when we start to become interesting to our prospects — when we invite them to think.

I love blog posts about people who are representative of my client's prospects. Posts about managers and leadership are really good sources of information to help you help them by gaining a bit of insight to things they may be struggling with or how they view opportunities.

This particular insight can help us begin to consider the potential causes behind the problems that prospects say they want to fix.

Here's an example:

If your prospect says he wants to improve team productivity and collaboration, why might that be an issue? Some possible causes may include:

• Did the company grow too fast without the infrastructure in place to support it?
• Did the company expand via mergers or acquisitions and is trying to mesh cultures?
• Is the company's culture old school but the manager is trying to force the adoption of new trends?
• Was there insufficient onboarding to drive adoption of the last solution he tried?
• Is IT not responsive to resolving issues with the system reported by users?

Given whatever you determine might be the cause of the issue your prospect is trying to resolve, can you see opportunities to create content that helps them get to the root cause rather than just buying another bandaid?

I can see you reading this and thinking "Hey, how would I know which cause to focus on because I don't market to one prospect at a time!"

The trick to this is to figure out which are the most likely scenarios and create content that addresses those. Theoretically, in the scenario above, each of those causes may exist for some percentage of your prospects. Think about it this way, if you can validate that customers have addressed specific root causes and salespeople tell you similar stories, you know that content designed around the cause will be on target for some prospects.

Monitor who spends time with which "cause" content and continue nurturing them appropriately with extension pieces. There's always more than one angle to any story. Use as many as you think are relevant. It also makes sense to have salespeople ask what's behind the issue in their follow-up and share those insights with marketing as part of the validation process.

When marketers consider how they set up the problem-to-solution stories they share to build a buyer experience, they must also consider the longevity of customer lifecycles. After all, if the cause of the issue is addressed during the implementation of your solution, it's less likely to happen again. And that means higher customer satisfaction and adds to the value derived from each customer for your company.

Are you thinking beyond the surface of the problem when you design your content marketing programs?

Why Marketing Content Needs a Point of View

B2B marketing content is most useful when it serves as proof that you understand your target markets and actually know how to do what your company promises via it's products and services. Essentially, marketing content — and the experiences it creates — serves as a test drive of what it could be like to be your customer.

Point of view is the perspective through which readers will experience your content (or story). For B2B content, the best way to explain this is that if your content is company focused, the perspective they experience will be you talking about yourself. And that's boring.

If your content is focused on their roles and the issues they deal with, they'll experience it much more personally. But they'll also experience your brand's orientation in regards to the issue the content addresses.

Marketers must always consider how the content they publish reflects upon the brand. Great marketing content will consistently provide a perspective prospects want to spend their attention on and be truly representative of the brand behind it.

The following checklist can help marketers determine whether or not the point of view of their content is hitting the mark every time.

Is your content generous?

Evaluate your content and identify what takeaway(s) it's giving to the reader. Giving should be more heavily weighted than getting.

Is your content helpful?

Is the content providing clarity about something that will be useful to your reader in how they address the issue they're dealing with?

Is your expertise showing?

Do you share information that's representative of the knowledge, methodologies and experience your company has in dealing with the issue? You need to do this. And, no, it will not keep people from buying your services. If it did, I'd be on the corner with a cup and a sign.

Does your content demonstrate flexibility?

There's one thing to be said about sharing expertise. It's another thing if your content comes off as so authoritative that there's no room for compromise. Every customer is different — or likes to think they are. You can be firm, but not dictatorial. It is never your way or the highway. Face it — business evolves too fast to take a hard and fast position you may have to swallow later.

Does your content provide attention to detail?

Make sure your content delivers on its promise. There's nothing worse than seeing a title and first few sentences that focus on just what you want to know only to read it and wonder why you bothered because there was no substance. If you read content that has no follow-through in the delivery, how confident will you bet that the vendor will treat you any better as a customer?

Is your content responsive?

Based on what is being said on the web (social media, forums, industry portals), is your content in tune? Or is it based on some internal agenda that has no evident and timely resonance with your target markets? This is why you always want to leave room for shifts in topics during the rollout of your content strategy. Interests can shift quickly. Priorities can change in response to regulations or in response to quarterly results, for example.

Is your content definitive?

Contagious marketing content defines its topic in context with prospect needs. It's never wishy washy or repetitive of what other content says. It showcases your brand's unique perspective as aligned with your audience. If this is true, your content will never reflect anyone else's content — unless, of course, they used yours as a template.

Does your content minimize effort?

There's a tendency to want demonstrative payback for sharing content, most often represented by putting it behind a form. But, in addition to thinking hard about how much effort you want to require from prospects for access to your content, think about how hard it will be for them to ingest and understand. Simplicity trumps convoluted complexity every time. Getting your content found by your prospects is only the first step. Getting them to stay and engage with it can be much more difficult.

If you evaluate your marketing content for point of view in relation to these points, you'll find that response to it will begin to increase and engagement will become more consistent resulting in an increase in momentum toward purchase.

Finally, remember that everything included in your content should have a purpose. This point gains importance when you consider the limited attention spans of today's buyer. Get rid of the fluff. Get rid of the jargon and buzzwords. Eliminate the extraneous stuff that serves as filler. Do not pussyfoot around in getting to the point.

Choosing the right point of view for your content can transform the results gained from content marketing programs. The reason is that it helps prospects feel like they "know" you well enough to want to get to know you better — which means they'll take the next step to engage in conversation.

What techniques are you using to develop the point of view for your marketing content?

6 Tips for B2B Vendors Becoming Publishers

Judging by the amount of online noise being generated, the idea of publishing content is no longer considered to be an "edgy" proposition for many vendors. But noise isn't going to help you meet your goals.

The thing about noise is that we've all become adept at tuning it out. There's just so much of it that we've had to develop the survival skill of discernment. We've become very swift judges of what's useful and what's wasting our time. Time we have precious little of with all the social media interaction, email, meetings and job responsibilities. Our lists are long and our patience is waning.

To break through the noise and gain the attention of B2B prospects, our content must be better than good. It needs to be exceptional. And that's hard to do when you need so much of it to maintain a dialogue with your prospects until they're ready to talk to your salespeople.

Due to this shift in buying, vendors have had to become publishers or risk obscurity.

Consider how the following tips can help your company adapt more easily to publishing content that becomes sought out and a preference for your prospects.

Tip 1: Dump the Damn Style Guides!
Or at least slim them down to make them more appropriate for today's audience. Examples include:

• Spelling out the word "percent" when the "%" symbol is easier to pick out during a quick scan for relevance just makes more sense.


• Stop using trademarks, service marks and registered marks every time you mention your product, brand and services. Is it really necessary to put your company name before your product name throughout an entire article? In fact, if you have so many mentions of your product in an article that they stick out, your focus needs to shift.


• If your brand is only allowed to capitalize the first word in a headline, rethink that practice. You've got 3 seconds to get attention. Sometimes emphasizing a word or phrase can help with that.


• Use contractions. They won't bite, and reading becomes so much easier. Less effort is a good thing when trying to build engagement.

Tip 2: Quit Talking About Yourself!

• Nobody cares. Seriously, they don't. They care about themselves, not you.


• If you're sending an email with your company in the sig line, publishing a blog post or an article on your website - your company is already obvious. There's no need to mention it repeatedly like we can't see the branding it's wrapped in.


• If you think of putting "the leading provider of..." in anything, step away from the keyboard. No one believes that, yet it's surprising how many companies still think if they say it, it will matter. Well, it doesn't. It's what others say about you that matters.


• Try putting out a press release that focuses first on how your customers will benefit rather than talking about your company and products and see what happens. 

Tip 3: Sharing Valuable Expertise Will Actually Make You Money

• Some companies think that sharing expertise will cost them in services. The exact opposite is true. Prospects now require proof that you bring value they don't have or they won't escalate you to their short lists.


• Exposing expertise actually shows people how difficult it can be to do what you do, encouraging them to hire you and get that task off their list. Not to mention getting the job done right the first time.


• Helping them understand the expertise it takes to do what you do allows them to understand the value they're paying for and diminishes the "haggling over price" issue.


• If your content is valuable, more people will be drawn to it, link to it and share it, thereby increasing your reach, market awareness and credibility. Sharing useless, surface stuff without any meat won't do that.

Tip 4: Become a Resource by Sharing the Spotlight

• Showcasing others who have great content reflects back on you. Plus, you don't have all the answers. Help people connect the dots.


• Your ability to look beyond yourself and recognize greatness in others draws your audience in and may just generate conversations you wouldn't otherwise have.


• Those you promote will promote you in return. Choose wisely and build a network of experts with complimentary expertise and business will follow in the form of referrals, which are truly one of the best ways into new customer relationships. Don't forget to return the favor.

Tip 5: Get Your Staff the Appropriate Tools & Tech

• The day of putting content in a queue and waiting for IT to publish it are over.


• From blogs to websites to video and just about anything else now has easy-to-use software that business people can learn to use. Today's world moves fast. Get the tools to keep up.


• Publishing must deliver business value, so make sure you also have the tools to measure what it's doing for you. From web analytics to social monitoring to SEO, marketers need to be accountable for the outcomes of what they publish. Just putting content out there doesn't cut it.

Tip 6: Only Copycat if You Can Improve Upon The Concept

• Infographics are a great example of this tip. When they first came out, they were fascinating. Then everyone jumped on the bandwagon and started producing them because they were "cool." Many I see today don't have any story to tell.


• If you see a great concept executed, use it as inspiration, not a cookie cutter. Find some unique way of showcasing your material that has you stand out, not just show up as more of the same.


• Are you a leader or a follower?

These are only a few tips, but should get you thinking about how to adapt the old world of orchestrated corporate content to the new world of authentic expression. Posturing is out, expertise is in. You've got it, so you may as well flaunt it. Just remember that it's not about your products.

B2B Content Marketing as Trojan Horse

I sat in on the Content Marketing for Real Marketers webinar, with Joe Chernov and Rebecca Lieb, hosted by #CMI and Joe Pulizzi.

Of course there were many great points made, but two of them stood out and prompted this blog post:

• Content draws 10X more media attention than product launches.
• Diminishing the brand representation in favor of the story enables it to spread.

If you look at the first point, it offers proof that no one cares about products, but rather what they enable — which is what great content marketing is all about.

The second points out that it's not about your company, but about the story you're sharing.

I get asked a lot how to increase engagement with content. In fact, I know many marketers pining for the ability to get their content to go viral. In my experience you can't "make" something go viral. But you can certainly up the odds with the way your content is designed. (As an aside, viral means nothing in B2B if it isn't caused by the market you're trying to engage.)

The issues I run into when it comes time to actually execute a program by publishing content include (but are not limited to):

• Corporate editors bound and determined to get every trademark, service mark, product name and company name mentioned as often as possible when just talking about the product by an agnostic or industry label makes it easier for people to engage with the material.


• Corporate editors who insist that the grammar be perfect, thereby making the content a chore to read by removing contractions, inserting "that" everywhere possible and inserting jargon because it's part of the brand style guide. (e.g. use vs. leverage)


• Companies that insist their logo, tagline and template are prominently displayed on every content asset - even though the corporate brand mafia have already done all of the above.


• Companies that insist that the calls to action must be oriented around selling something.


• The inability to respond quickly because EVERYTHING must be approved before it's published.

The title of this post was also mentioned during the webinar and I love it. The concept is a perfect representation of content marketing done to best effect.

It's really that simple. If your content provides ideas that inspire people to visualize themselves solving their problems or the path to a better tomorrow, then you're on the right track. What you really want is for them to become so engaged that they take your ideas into conversations within their companies.

Such a simple concept, but one often overlooked because of the intense focus to insert the salesperson into the dialogue. Yes, of course that must happen in a B2B sale, but consider this:

If your content is designed to help people think about, visualize and discuss the ideas you share in relation to the problems your company solves, it serves as a Trojan Horse, getting salespeople invited into conversations faster than marketers can accomplish by trying to force the issue.

During the webinar, Joe mentioned that Eloqua's logo is getting smaller by design on the content they share. Do you actually think that no one recognizes that Eloqua is providing the content? By making themselves the secondary focus, Eloqua is actually helping their brand gain prominence, as counterintuitive as that may seem. Because they are not screaming "LOOK AT ME", the company is perceived as being more helpful by placing the emphasis on the content, not its brand representation.

Think about how you read content. Do you look for something interesting before you commit to spending time with it? I bet you do. Then, after you get that light bulb moment, you want to know who provided it. How much better of an impression has been made? How much more likely are you to remember the brand favorably?

It's about using the story as stealth marketing, not clubbing people over the head with your product. Once the story is "in," your company is "in" by association.

Great webinar! If you get a chance to listen to the archive, I suggest you do. There were many other great ideas shared during the session.

Why I Use Mind Maps for Content Marketing Projects

I'm often asked how I manage all the details of complex content marketing projects. My favorite tool for this is Mind Maps. Specifically, I use MindJet.

I whipped up a simple example to show you:

If I was doing this for real, I'd have the persona where it says Content Map Example.

I build my content flows based on questions the buyer persona asks at each stage of the buying process.

Next to each of them I input topics for content development and any links to documents or notes to provide the overall reasoning behind the question and answers (that's the content). Additionallly I can link to any resources I want to keep track of that may inform the content development. This keeps things tidy and condensed in one spot where it's relevant to me, as well as to others working on the project.

From there, I note which types of content I'm going to develop for each topic. I can link to the working drafts of the content as well as link to the final published content, once it's live.

What I like most about Mind Maps is that I can open up as many layers as I want at one time to get the big picture view of the flow, or condense it down to just focus on one area.

When I work with project teams, we'll often use Mindjet Catalyst - the online version - to work on drafts together and for meetings. It's much simpler than shuffling versions of documents back and forth via email.

When managing content marketing programs, finding tools that work for you is half the battle. I highly recommend that you try out Mind Maps and see if they'll help you turn some of the content marketing chaos into a calm and orderly process.

Blogs Provide Versatility for B2B Content Marketing

According to the B2B Content Marketing: 2012 Benchmarks, Budgets and Trends report produced by CMI and Marketing Profs, the use of blogs has increased to 65% from 51% in 2010. From an effectiveness perspective, the use of blogs as a marketing tactic increased by a whopping 45% during the last year. This is terrific news!

For those of you who haven't yet jumped on the Blogging bandwagon, it's one of the easiest formats for content marketing. Here are a few reasons why:

• Ease of execution - the tools offer simplicity that even the most technically challenged marketer can use to publish content.
• No waiting in the IT queue line. This means your content can be live when you need it to be, without worry, teeth grinding or trauma.
• Short blog posts can be effective at engaging readers, lessening your effort to create the content, as well as your busy audience's effort to read them.

Blogs also provide a versatility that other content formats don't make as easy.

10 Ways to Use Blog Posts:

1. Launchpads: It's easy to use a blog post to announce or share summaries and ideas and link to additional content located on your other web properties to direct traffic where you want it to go.


2. Newsletters: Pick 3 - 5 blog posts from the month and use them to create a newsletter for customer nurturing.


3. Lead Nurturing: Use a blog post as a "touch" in a nurturing program. Actually, if you think about it, you're already nurturing your RSS feed subscribers. Are you attracting the right people?


4. Embed stuff: From SlideShare to videos to graphics, embedding content is easy and served to make your blog more interactive and varied.


5. Float Ideas: Want to know if a topic resonates with your audience? Write a blog post about it and measure the response. This way you'll have an idea about whether it's worth it to invest time and energy into writing that white paper, hosting a webinar or producing a video.


6. Add Depth with Related Content: Link blog posts together to create topical pathways or insert hyperlinks to blog posts on product or website pages where the topics aligns.


7. Fuel Social Media: This one goes without saying, but blog posts are fuel for social media posts. In fact, without a blog, I'm not quite sure how marketers are going to use social media to pull traffic that has the potential to become leads.


8. Expose Thought Leadership: Interview your company thought leaders and post the results on the blog to demonstrate the value your company brings. Reach out to industry experts and invite them to guest post.


9. Search result improvement: Are you using the right keywords and phrases in your titles and first paragraph?


10. Start conversations: Comments are a huge benefit of blogging. Invite people to participate. Make sure to provide a bit of direction as I do below by asking for additions to this list. I see a lot of blog posts that end with something vague, such as "Share your thoughts - we'd love to hear them." I can never think of a thing to say when I hit that wall.

These are only a few ideas to help you get more value from your blog moving forward. What else would you add to the list?

What Questions Will You Answer for Prospects in 2012?

I love this time of year. The New Year is stretching out infront of us, an open book ready for a story. That story will be fleshed out by the content you create and share over the next 52 weeks. Seems like a long time, but it will go by in the blink of an eye - just like this year.

One of the reasons that questions are so important is because they drive the curiosity to find answers. In a best case scenario, the answers to your prospects' questions will be found in your content.

So how do you find the questions?

Some resources include:

• Trend and prediction reports for the industries you serve. The analysts are out in force right now and many reports based on surveys of the types of target markets you serve are being published with an eye to what's coming.


• Customer interviews. Not necessarily formal surveys, but one-to-one conversations that help you hear the phrasing, concerns and opportunities voiced in your customer's words. If you can't do this, ask your salespeople to help out. Outline some goals for what you're interested in learning and let them run the conversations. If you can sit in, all the better.


• Social Media listening posts can also help to pinpoint interests. If you've created a list of prospects on Twitter, for example, what are they sharing with their networks? Which prediction posts do they find worthy enough to forward on? What are the trending topics you can identify and how do they line up with what the analysts or top industry bloggers are saying? (You are following them, right?)


• LinkedIn Discussion Groups are also a good source of industry-related topics that are gaining traction. With many of the groups now sporting open membership, you can often gain access where you might not have been been able to gain entry before. You'd be amazed at what you can learn.

You may also take a look at the end goals your customers have stated and then back into the questions they needed to answer to arrive at the decision to buy. LinkedIn profiles and job descriptions for roles your prospects fill can also provide insight to goals people in their positions are responsible for achieving.

Questions can also be indicative of which buying stage your prospects are in.

For example, a question that's equivalent to "Why should I care?" indicates that a prospect is in status quo. They are not actively pursuing solving the problem your products address or they wouldn't respond to that type of question. They would already care. These people are at the very early stages of the buying process and your content's job is to answer that question well enough to get them to assign their attention to learning more.

If the question is the equivalent of "Who can best help me solve this problem?" then it's likely that your prospect is in the options stage where they are in the process of selecting their short list. If this is your first entree to the party, you'd better come in fast and strong with information that will make them stop and consider learning enough about your company to consider adding you to their list.

The beauty of structuring your content to answer your prospects' questions is that you've designed the content to help you learn more about which stage of the buying process they're in. Once you've got an idea about that, you can increase the relevance, and thereby the level of engagement you can establish with them, through subsequent interactions.

To begin generating a list of questions for your prospects:

• Start with the problem they are trying to solve. 
• Narrow your focus to one persona or profile.
• Based on what's involved in solving the problem, what do they need to know?
   - what are their concerns about risk?
   - who else will be impacted and at what perceived level of cost or effort?
   - who do they have to convince to gain consensus for the purchase decision?
   - what could derail the deal?
   - what impact could their decision have on their career?
   - why should they trust your company and solution to deliver?
   - what do they need from a vendor that they don't already have? (beyond product)

Those are just a sampling of questions to ask yourself to get to questions your prospects will have. But hopefully enough to get the juices flowing.

Once you have your list of questions, how will you answer them? The answers will define the content you'll develop.

As you go through this process, you will start to see the order or flow that makes sense for publishing. (You can find more indepth instructions on this process in my book - excuse the self promo)

When it's all said and done, how well you can anticipate your prospects' questions and answer them in a helpful and relevant way will serve to determine your success with content marketing in 2012.

You ready?

Why B2B Content Marketing Themes Fail

Themes for B2B marketing programs are not a new concept. They're used to "organize" marketing programs and create a rallying cry around a market trend that will (hopefully) drive business momentum.

The problem with themes in marketing, as I see it, is that they're used as temporary marketing constructs — generally for the term of a campaign or perhaps a quarter. Themes generally do not originate based on a context that resonates with buyers.

Themes should be used as umbrellas that tie together the brand story with unifying and dominant ideas or motifs. A theme should weave through all of your marketing programs in relation to the brand's promise to customers.

What happens when themes are used as marketing constructs is that they:

• Change — sometimes wildly, confusing our target markets' perception about the company's promise.


• Lack Consistency — once your theme changes, those interested in your past theme may not follow along in your new one.


• Become Repetitious — when themes are used as marketing constructs, they are often too narrow and the content and messaging becomes boring and repetitive because there's no space for new ideas. Or not enough creativity to develop them.


• Lack Relevance — because they're focused on what the company wants to say rather than what the buyer wants to know.


• Become Anti-Social — With the rise in social media, if you're talking about your theme and then suddenly you're not, you appear a bit schizo (technical term) to those who followed you and now can't quite figure out who you are.

Here's an example using common themes for Technology Companies:

Q1: Do More With Less

Q2: Green IT

Q3: Align IT with Business

Q4: Mobility

There's nothing wrong with any of these. In fact the themes here can relate to many IT product offerings on the market today. The issue is the construct of sandboxing the ideas based on time periods.

Themes like this assume that prospects will only be interested in the theme during its assigned quarter. Well, unless you've got telepathic powers, this isn't likely to be true. But, yes, it's much easier to group your marketing efforts and programs based on ideas in a box than to think more holistically about building a storyline that engages prospects continuously and consistently.

Unfortunately, easy isn't the goal. Progressive engagement is.

I hear a lot of reasons for using theme constructs:

• It's the only way to coordinate marketing and sales messaging.
• We need something to present at the budget planning meeting.
• Our CEO wants to know what the themes are for next year.
• These themes match our product-launch roadmap.

I could go on, but you get the gist.

Here's the question that must be answered:

Are any of the reasons for using themes based on what's known about our target markets and what they care about?

I'm not saying to toss out the themes. What I'm challenging you to do is to weave them together into a story that builds a comprehensive business case to help your prospects solve their high-priority problems. It's not whether or not you use them, but in how you do so.

Instead of thinking, "I need another content asset based on Theme 1" - you should be thinking, "Based on the content our prospects expressed interest in, what will they want to know next?" Think "pieces of the big jumbo puzzle" not "4 different puzzles."

A story told over time focused on your prospects highest priorities will drive more pipeline velocity than the stop and start of themes based on what your company wants to say, when.