There seems to be a belief that content marketing is a "wait and see" strategy. That we send our content out into the universe and then sit back and wait for our prospects to come calling on our salespeople. At the risk of sounding repetitive, that's why we need an eMarketing strategy.
If you're relying on passive engagement with your content to do all the heavy lifting on it's own, you could be waiting a while.
To be effective, content marketing needs to be considered an active sport. Unless your content is designed to motivate additional activity in relation to a prospect's buying process needs, then it's not working hard enough for the money, time and effort invested to produce it.
Active content can be designed to provoke a variety of responses including:
- sharing of ideas and information presented by the content
- clicks deeper into related content to learn more
- spending enough time to actually read the content
- comments on blog posts
- Tweets to larger networks beyond your reach
- opting in to receive more content on a topic of interest
- forward to friend (influencer, stakeholder)
- registration for webinars
- spending an hour attending a webinar
- participation in Q&A during a webinar
- recognition when the company calls to follow-up
- willingness to engage in conversation when they call
- replying to an email with a question the content provoked
- placing a call to the company to learn information specific to their situation
But these types of responses don't often happen on their own. It takes strategy with a well-crafted execution plan...and some patience. Content marketing designed to create pipeline momentum requires that content be designed with response goals in mind. It may take a number of touches before the prospect takes the action, but stick with it. Persistence and consistency pay off.
Every content asset you share must promote some kind of activity. Don't overlook the idea that having inside sales place a call related to a business reason with the offer of additional content that the prospect may be interested in receiving as a form of content marketing. After all, orchestrating conversations relevant to your prospects falls into the content realm, as well.
We need to broaden our thinking in relation to the purpose we assign to content. It's not just about sharing information your prospects find valuable and relevant. It's about provoking them to take steps in their buying process. The more of them they take in response to your content, the higher likelihood that you'll be on their short list.
So, what are you doing to help your content marketing programs promote active responses?
