Content marketing – how to come up with ideas for new content
Though the principles of content marketing have been around for some time, only in recent years has its popularity has skyrocketed in the B2B sphere. Rather than being new-fangled and complex marketing technique, it’s just another bit of jargon that can easily be translated and owes as much to human nature as to textbook strategies.
Fact 1: Unless you are in the final stages of the buying cycle, nobody likes being actively ‘sold’ to. It feels intrusive and no B2B marketing professional wants to end up feeling like a foot-in-the-door double glazing salesman.
Fact 2: B2B marketeers have to earn their right to sell later on by sharing useful, objective, credible, relevant, expert advice now – when prospects are in the early stages of research. Don’t tell them about your products, tell them about how the general technology can help them to solve a problem, make them look good in front of their boss, support their staff better, make their working day easier so they can leave work on time etc.
So far, straightforward. But the internet is awash with anodyne advice from the school of the obvious. So how do you come up with high quality, engaging, fresh content to fuel your marketing campaign?
Aside from the obvious point about subscribing to relevant e-newsletters, LinkedIn groups, Google Alerts and RSS feeds so that you are amongst the first to know about industry developments, you want to be gauging what your current clients what they want to hear about.
You should then create a schedule, so the inspiration doesn’t dry up, and incorporate enough flexibility into it so that you are able to be reactive and respond to new developments as they happen.
At Cameron Wells, we’ve been doing this for clients for 15 years – here’s a case study and a list of ideas which might help:
- Buyer guides – e.g. 10 things to look for when specifying… or a 3-step guide to buying…
- 10 questions to ask…
- 5 must-haves, 5 mistakes to avoid
- Trends – creating threats/opportunities for your clients
- Warning signs – 7 signs of impending cashflow problems
- Strategies – 12 ways to reduce your health insurance costs
- Definitions – 10 SEO terms explained – demystify buzzwords
- Resources – 10 best guides, best websites, best online calculators
- Aggregated content – e.g. 10 best infographics (where you should always credit and link to the source)
- Enhancements – 10 ways to make the most of your telematics system, are you getting the most out of your dictation technology?
- Best practice – 10 keys to sustainable growth/case studies
- Metrics – are your e-newsletters working? 6 metrics to track
- Capture content from events and then drip feed info in different formats: e.g. from a presentation: video – topics by topic, podcast, slides, article, white paper, webinar and a news release
