With 2.5 quintillion bytes of data created every day, marketers are challenged to stand out amongst the sheer volume of information confronting their target audience.

At the same time, information overload drives consumers to filter their choices to those few who are most trusted, credible and meaningful. Becoming known as “the best answer” for your domain of expertise wields incredible influence on the search and social web.

When consumers are empowered to create, consume, publish, interact and transact anytime, anywhere, how do brands break through to create meaningful connections and engagement? How does the dynamic of content and influence help fulfill consumer information discovery, consumption and engagement expectations while delivering on business outcomes for the brand?

As a vehicle for influence, content is one of the most powerful tools in a marketer’s mix to attract, engage and inspire action. Content is the currency for building relationships that can boost credibility, influence and action.

I think investing in a content and influencer marketing strategy can be one of the most impactful actions a marketing and communications organization can make.  By incorporating relevant influencers that can inspire action with your content marketing efforts, you can reach new audiences with brand messages that are credible and trusted.  

Influencer driven content marketing is one of the best examples of how digital marketing and public relations are converging. The integration of messaging, content, social media and engagement right along with performance measurement and business outcomes should be the focus of any business that wants to differentiate and grow.

Does that mean go after the people with the highest social network follower counts? Not unless you can demonstrate their ability to influence action. With influencer marketing, it’s essential to make the distinction between an egomaniac that spends all their time trying to be famous and a practitioner that connects with their communities in a meaningful way and creates real, measurable impact. Here’s a handy guide from Traackr an presentation from OpenView Venture Partners and an article from KISSmetrics to help with the process of influencer identification.

Whether your brand is engaging with influencers to provide useful information or you’re co-creating content with influencers, there’s a value exchange that benefits everyone involved. Content is the key to that value transfer between brand and consumer, brand and influencer and for the overall community involved.

What are you doing to discover and engage with influencers in your target market? Is becoming more influential as a brand part of your content marketing strategy?

Image: Shutterstock

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B2B brands might not be capturing their target audiences’ attention and convincing them to convert, even if they have developed basic internet marketing strategies.

A recent study from the Chief Marketing Officer Council reveals companies are missing the mark by failing to develop comprehensive content marketing strategies that deliver easily accessible solutions to customers’ biggest pain points.

Accessible, informative online content wins conversions

More than one-quarter of surveyed B2B buyers say online content plays a major role in their purchasing decisions, while 60 percent report it has at least a moderate impact on their choices.

But buyers aren’t going to be convinced by just any branded content, the study explains. Prospects cite burdensome download requirements as the No. 1 turnoff in web marketing, and they also dislike when brands publish materials that are uninformed, non-substantive, blatantly promotional or overly technical.

On the other hand, 58 percent of B2B buyers say web content is most likely to influence their purchases when it helps identify fresh approaches and solutions to their problems. Thirty-eight percent think articles and papers that present new thought leadership on enterprise challenges are the most impactful, while just under one-third report advice on best practices is beneficial.

Content must also be fresh, engaging

More than one-quarter of surveyed B2B buyers say online content plays a major role in their purchasing decisions, while 60 percent report it has at least a moderate impact on their choices.

“BtoB buyers are looking for content that’s original, consultative and highly pertinent to where they are in their decision-making process,” says Donovan Neale-May, Executive Director of the CMO Council. “Too many vendors are failing these buyers with overly promotional and overly technical content that doesn’t adequately address market challenges and customer needs.”

Technical information must be presented in a way that’s both informing and engaging. Online content that fails to balance those obligations will lose readers before marketers even present calls to action. To hold readers’ attention, it’s important for content writers to understand buyers’ wants and needs, so they can craft articles and blogs that meet readers’ expectations. (This subject is explored further by one of Brafton’s writers in a recent blog post on the perils of boring B2B content.)

The CMO report highlights that content marketing is a strategic and comprehensive practices that targets specific consumers – not just a means of circulating promotional materials. Because buyers are tuning into more channels, and have varying expectations for each, it’s crucial that marketers understand how to leverage their content on each channel.

In the last year or so, I’ve noticed a brilliant shift in the world of online marketing.

As you know, many of the companies that are growing at a fast clip are using content marketing. They’re communicating with their customers. They’re giving away information for free.

But even more than that, the really successful online marketers are companies with powerful, consistent brand personalities.

They know who they are and what they stand for. And it comes across in every blog post, newsletter, webpage, and communication.

It’s not enough to send a monthly email newsletter or keep a blog. It’s not enough to give away information. Even if you have the best product on the market, you still need a little something more.

Is your business the strong, beautiful type? (Photo credit: Frank Kovalchek)

For example…

Just look at Marie Forleo—a life coach whose stated mission is to make ladies rich, happy, and hot. Her primary content marketing channel is video and every single one of those videos is designed to let her personality (which is, in her case, also the personality of the business) shine through.

Her online following, her program sales, and her media coverage, understandably, seem to be exploding.

Similarly, though in a different industry and with a different cause, there’s Sevenly—a clothing retailer with a charitable twist. Their brand personality is confident, compassionate, and passionate…and it shines through every communication.

They are also spectacularly popular (and making a difference to boot).

These companies probably have great products, but it isn’t product that really makes them shine. They’re storytellers with consistent and beautiful personalities. They’re companies you want to know personally. They stand for things that we all want to stand for (do I want to be rich, happy, and hot? You betcha. And do I believe that Marie Forleo, whose every video oozes with laughter, beauty, and confidence, can get me there? You better believe it.)

And another (somewhat embarrassing) example…

Finally, I’ll add my own experience to the mix: when I first started my business, I wanted to seem bigger and more experienced. So I hid behind a bit of a corporate mask. I wrote my website a little more formally than I actually wanted to. I didn’t put together a voice and tone guide. I didn’t even think about my brand’s personality.

In other words, I held back.

Luckily, though, with time came confidence. (Not to mention the embarrassing realization that I wasn’t following the very advice I was giving my clients. Oops.)

So I overhauled my website, my content strategy, and my voice. I put a picture of myself laughing on the homepage. I stopped writing in a formal voice and started saying things like “heck yeah” and “oopsie-daisy” – because, hey, that’s more me and as an independent contractor I am my brand personality.

Within two weeks of launch, I had closed one new client and filled my inbox with queries from people who wanted to do something bold, new, and different.

In other words, identifying and owning my business personality was an immediate game changer in terms of both leads and sales.

Is your business the smart, quiet guy who could totally fix your computer? (Photo credit: Daniel Zedda)

What this doesn’t mean

Okay. So you get it. When it comes to doing business online—and especially with content marketing—personality wins business. But I should probably also offer a little clarification:

Having a personality doesn’t mean being the boldest, biggest, funniest, or most colorful character on the block. It doesn’t mean you should make light of serious topics. It doesn’t mean copying the Marie Forleos of the world.

What it does mean is identifying what you stand for and emulating that in all your brand decisions—from word choice to logo colors to which magazines you appear in. It means knowing who your business is, how it speaks, and who it is talking to.

If your business is selling medical equipment and targeting hospital decision-makers, its personality should feel very different from Sevenly’s or Marie Forleo’s or mine.

So, how do we get there?

As usual, this is where content strategy, advance planning, and putting together a useful, consistent style guide come in. In my next article, I think I’ll talk about just that.

Thoughts? Questions? Comments? Drop us a note in the comments below.

If it’s becoming a challenge to get your C-level executive to write the thought leadership content you need for your corporate storytelling efforts, remember that, while some CEOs may love to write, nearly all of them like to talk. Try capturing their insight and ideas using a more conversational format; for example, interview them using Skype and record the conversation.

Your content editors can then turn the resulting audio (or video) and transcripts into multiple content marketing pieces (e.g., blog posts, white papers, etc.). Or, if the recorded content is high quality, you can even use it in its original format as the basis of a podcast. Even if your CEO isn’t available to be interviewed and is unwilling/unable to write an article, ask if he or she would be willing to answer a few questions via an email.

In other words, don’t block the content marketing process by trying to force your executives and staff members into doing something they aren’t comfortable with — there are plenty of other ways to generate effective content marketing.

For example, when you’re at industry events, be sure to capture photos and video. Then, you can splice and dice the footage with other pieces of content you have created (or curated).

Another option is to just sit down with the person and have an informal conversation. If, say, you have a product manager who is camera shy, or doesn’t feel like she can write 500 words on a particular topic, take her to lunch, ask her to answer a few questions, and then record or take notes on her responses. Again, the resulting content can be leveraged in various formats.

Help them tell stories

When talking with executives about writing and creating content, you have to begin by simply teaching them what the act of “writing” fundamentally is: a process for translating the ideas in your head into words that can be shared with others. As the famed sportswriter Red Smith used to delicately put it, all you have to do is “sit down at a typewriter and open a vein.”

Of course the real magic of turning ideas into stories (or anything worth reading) happens in the editing process. Relieve your team of their worries by assuring them that the copy will be “polished up” during editing. Then get them rolling by offering these two tips:

• Write it out: Just write blind — get all of your ideas out. Writers are usually surprised by how much structure and genuine goodness comes out by just opening up and not letting their mental “editor” get in the way. Tell your prospective contributors to just spend half an hour typing out their thoughts without restricting them in any way.
• Storyboard it out: If they’re having trouble opening up or getting the ideas to flow, ask them to visualize what they want to say, and then write some key words, phrases, or concepts onto sticky notes. They can even draw some of their thoughts, if that’s helpful for them. This is a particularly useful technique for organizing ideas for use in longer-form content, like white papers or live presentations (mind mapping may help as well).

Using free writing to solve writer’s block

I had an outstanding conversation a few years back with Mark Levy (who, among other things, is author of ”Accidental Genius“).

Mark gave me a crash course in something called free writing. Free writing, also called stream-of-consciousness writing, is a technique where you write for a set period of time without regard for spelling, or even topic. Mark uses this technique with his clients to unearth the raw content at the heart of a creator.

From my quick conversation with Mark and some of my own research, I learned that free writing is a staple of creative writing programs around the world. According to Natalie Goldberg, author of the “True Secret of Writing,” the rules of free writing include:

• Give yourself a time limit. Write for a set period and then stop.
• Keep your hand moving until the time is up. Do not pause to stare into space or to read what you’ve written. Write quickly, but you don’t need to hurry.
• Pay no attention to grammar, spelling, punctuation, neatness, or style. Nobody else needs to read what you produce.
• If you get off the topic, or run out of ideas, keep writing anyway. If necessary, write nonsense or whatever comes into your head, or simply scribble; just do anything that will keep your hand moving.
• If you feel bored or uncomfortable as you’re writing, ask yourself what’s bothering you, and write about that.
• When the time is up, look over what you’ve written, and mark passages that contain ideas or phrases that might be worth keeping or elaborating on in a subsequent free-writing session.

I recently took my first stab at free writing, giving myself a five-minute period to think about the idea of integrating content into the marketing process. Here is (a cleaned-up version of) what I came up with:

• Problems with integrating content into marketing plan
• How to measure content marketing as part of the overall marketing plan?
• How do I integrate social media as part of the marketing plan?
• What tactics work the best, depending on the buying cycle?
• What internal resources are needed for content marketing effectiveness?
• How do I tie in listening through social media with new content topics?
• What department should oversee the content process?
• How do I get the sales team to help develop content?
• How much freedom should employees have as content spokespeople for our brands?
• When should I outsource vs. insource content marketing? Is there an assessment?
• What’s the difference between outsourcing $25 articles and $3,000 articles? Is there a difference?
• How do I educate my CMO on the benefits of content marketing?
• What if our CMO wants to sell too much in our content?
• Should we start a blog?
• How actively do we need to participate on other sites?
• Do we participate on our competitors’ content sites?
• What about content curation?
• When do we decide whether to develop content ourselves or curate it?
• How do I communicate what we are doing with our content across the enterprise?
• Is there a worksheet that will help me construct my content marketing plan?
• Is print still relevant in content marketing?
• What’s the minimum amount I need to segment my customers regarding content?
• Do I need buyer personas? For all my buyers?

What I gained as a result of this exercise is more than 20 possible topics for future blog articles. I’m sure I didn’t do it perfectly, but it was a great start.

So, the next time you, or your key content providers, get writer’s block, try this free-writing exercise. It could be helpful for customer service, sales, engineering, or any other customer-facing staff member.

Help employees become aware of content opportunities

At one of the technology companies CMI has worked with, much of the customer service process took place through email. When we did an initial content analysis, we realized that many of the conversations taking place through direct customer email could easily be turned into blog and article content. It took only one customer service rep to take notice of this before the entire organization started to look for content opportunities as part of their everyday business interactions. Now, their customer service reps and sales reps are more routinely prepared to develop their emails into a FAQ for their website or to expand upon them to create blog posts.

In my experience, sometimes getting an outside perspective on this process can really help the marketing department get pointed in the right direction… or sometimes it takes someone from the outside to back up an employee’s efforts to get C-level execs to open their eyes to the power of content marketing.

In summary

According to our latest content marketing research, B2B marketers list “producing enough content” as the greatest of their content marketing challenges. At CMI, we have consulted with well over 50 of the leading brands from around the world. At each one, the perception was that they had a lack of content material. That was never the case — they always had plenty of fodder for content, it just wasn’t always in story form.

The key is to capture raw content wherever stories are happening in your organization, in whatever ways you can. Then work with editors, outside freelancers, or content marketing agencies to align it with your content marketing strategy and shape it into something truly compelling.

Joe Pulizzi’s latest book, “Epic Content Marketing,” will be released in September 2013. You can preorder it now on Amazon.com.

Cover image via Bigstock

Brands engaged in content marketing and SEO are getting more than search visibility – they are generating conversions that benefit their bottom lines. A recent eMarketer interview with Google’s Director of Business and Industrial Markets, Mike Miller, noted that more B2B companies are using search to guide their purchasing decisions. Therefore, marketers must create branded content that both engages site visitors and provides information to push them through the sales funnel.

In 2011, approximately 71 percent of B2B companies used the ‘net to research products and services before buying, Miller told the source. By 2012, that figure rose to 88 percent. B2B marketers rely even more heavily on web content to guide their decisions – 90 percent said they go online to research future purchases.

Miller also says brands should assume their site visitors already have a certain level of familiarity with the products they want.

“By the time a B2B purchaser actually engages with a company or with a sales rep from that company, they’re 57 percent of the way through their decision process,” he said.

90 percent of B2B marketers go online to inform their purchasing decisions.

Therefore, marketers must deliver online content that pushes buyers the rest of the way. Miller advises companies to design collateral for each of their target audiences. While video content is particularly effective for C-level purchasers, it might not convince buyers from small businesses.

Most companies have already tackled this challenge. Brafton previously reported that 90 percent of marketers personalize their websites to improve user experience. However, just under half cite technology challenges as issues that affect their sites’ optimization. That doesn’t mean marketers who run into I.T. problems should provide prospects with one-size-fits-all content. Social media monitoring yields deep insights into customers’ opinions, wants and pain points that can fuel smarter content marketing campaigns.

B2B audiences are online and making purchases. Marketers who generate effective branded content with SEO value can get qualified traffic to their companies’ websites and increase conversions.

Even though the idea of content marketing has been around for more than 100 years, content marketing is perhaps one of the most misused terms in present day marketing vernacular. If you’re an online newspaper publishing reams of content every day, are you a content marketer? If you’re blogging on your website three times a week, are you doing content marketing? If you’ve religiously published one new whitepaper, eBook or webinar a month for the past year, are you a content marketer? Because you use Google Analytics, Hubspot or one of the other marketing software platforms, does that make you a content marketer? I don’t think so; at least we can’t know without a little more investigation. In spite of the casual and indiscriminant way marketers talk about content marketing, there are very well defined actions and results that will tell you whether or not you’re really doing content marketing. So what is content marketing?

It’s a Process… That’s Important

Content marketing is the process of creating and presenting information in a specific way designed to attract visitors, engage prospects and qualify leads. First and most importantly, content marketing is a process. It’s a set of actions, executed in a specific sequence, designed to create a singular, repeatable result. Because content marketing is a process, it can be tracked and measured. …And what can be measured can be improved. So simply banging out blogs a few times a week on whatever topic happens to catch your fancy – even if those topics happen to be relevant to your business, school or non-profit, isn’t content marketing. When a company like HubSpot publishes a statistic that demonstrates a positive correlation between blogging frequency and the number of leads generated on a website, there’s an important piece of information missing. The blogging that generates more leads has to be created and published in a specific way to achieve that positive correlation. Simply producing more content, which might be the conclusion you draw from published statistics, does not make you a content marketer and does not help you generate more qualified leads.

Roles Matter

Another important part of the definition of content marketing is the different roles that content plays. Some content is designed to attract visitors, some to engage prospects and some to qualify leads. The more focused a piece of content is on one of these jobs, the more useful the information that you gather about how people interact with it will be. One-size-fits-all content is a no, no.

If you’re constantly creating content that only performs one of these functions, you’re not doing content marketing. For example, if you only write content about general topics in your industry or cause and never create content about your specific branded solution you may be attracting visitors but you’re probably not doing much to generate leads… and you’re not doing content marketing. A classic case of this kind of content myopia is the content creator whose content only speaks to their branded solution.  You can spot these content marketing posers easily. Their content always talks about how great their solution is, how it beats the competition hands down etc. This type of content reads like an advertisement… the problem is that no one reads advertisements… and this type of content, as a result, is largely ineffective.

Another common way that marketers falsely convince themselves that they are doing content marketing is by simply creating different types of content because someone told them they should or that video was better than blogging etc. Just because you have blogs, a few webinars, an eBook and a video on your website does not mean you’re doing content marketing. If you’re doing content marketing right, you’re creating the appropriate types of content to attract visitors, engage prospects and qualify leads and offering it to the people learning about your company, school or non-profit at the appropriate time. Whether you use a video, white paper, blog or webinar is mostly dictated by the audience you’re trying to reach.

Don’t Jump The Gun

At the appropriate time… anyone who’s done content marketing knows that’s a loaded statement. When practicing content marketing, the appropriate time is defined both by the process and by the person consuming your content. Their needs and interests, not yours. In content marketing we use the concept of a funnel to visualize how people move from a more casual, less engaged relationship with our value proposition to a fully qualified, engaged relationship, ready for sales follow-up. While the concept of a sales funnel has been around for generations in content marketing there are some new twists that help the marketer identify the level of engagement and know what types of content to offer. I like to split the funnel into two halves. The top and the bottom. Simple.

Let Your Funnel Be Your Guide

In the top half of the funnel, visitors are consuming content on general topics related to the industry you’re in. Prospects in the top half of the funnel are learning about alternative answers to the questions they have. For example if you are marketing running shoes for Acme company, in the top of your content marketing funnel, you’re attracting visitors with content that speaks to the general topics that people in the running community are concerned about. For example, how different shoe soles impact pronation… something of interest to runners. You’re not talking about your brand of solution for people with pronation issues… not yet. The people in the top half of your funnel are simply gathering information and if you’re providing it, you are becoming their go-to source. That’s important… you’re building your reputation.

 Content At The Middle Of The Funnel

Continuing our example… At the middle of the funnel, you make a content offer that is specifically about your brand of pronation solution. How you make the offer might be in a webinar, video, white paper… some sort of premium content that requires a person to identify themselves… on a form. When a person consumes this middle of the funnel offer, you immediately know that they have converted from being casually interested in issues related to running to being specifically interested in your brand of pronation solution. Very important! (you learned this using very specific content!) I call this content marketing stratification of the funnel a Brand Segmented Sales Funnel™ and the specific middle of the funnel offer that discriminates on brand, a Brand Filter Offer™.

Once someone has consumed the Brand Filter Offer, they’ve migrated into the bottom of the funnel. Here we’re no longer producing content targeting general industry topics. The reader has told us they are specifically interested in my brand of pronation solution for runners. Now it’s time to qualify that interest with content designed to address potential objections to my solution… objections like, you’re too expensive or you take too long to deliver or your packaging doesn’t offer this particular combination of features. How a prospect consumes this qualifying bottom half of the funnel content ultimately tells your sales person what she or he should focus on in a sales call, which is typically the offer at the very bottom of your funnel where you have a fully engaged, qualified lead. And that’s what content marketing is all about, right?

So you’re probably starting to get the picture that there are many, many ways to do content marketing wrong (and be convinced that you’re doing content marketing) and only one way to do content marketing right. I’m not saying there is only one combination of blogs, webinars, social media etc. that is right for every company, school or non-profit, but what I have learned is that when we are talking about doing content marketing, there is only one process that defines what content marketing is when it’s done right. It’s very specific and if done correctly, it’s very, very effective.

The Content Marketer’s Blueprint

At my agency, Innovative Marketing Resources, we create The Content Marketer’s Blueprint™, a customer specific, 90 day content marketing plan that describes the precise steps someone wishing to do content marketing on a marketing platform like HubSpot should take in order to attract, engage, qualify and convert the greatest number of leads. Whether you’re an inbound marketing agency, a frustrated marketer who needs structure around the content creation effort or someone aspiring to do content marketing, The Content Marketer’s Blueprint will help you achieve your goals and Innovative Marketing Resources can create one just for you. (I never said this was top of the funnel content, so I’m not breaking my own rule by mentioning my brand. ;-)

In our increasingly voted-on and curated world of social networking and online sharing, quality content is key. As such, more and more brands, marketers and agencies are focusing their efforts (and their budgets) on engaging, informative, and ongoing content marketing. This infographic from Inklyo, investigates how marketers and brands are making the most of their money in order maximize their content ROI.

Key Decision Makers are Embracing Content

According to HubSpot’s 2012 State of Inbound Marketing Report, 9 out of 10 Chief Marketing Officers believe that custom content has a positive effect on audience attitudes, strengthening the bond with customers. What’s more, 8 out of 10 CMOs are receptive towards using custom content in their marketing campaigns.

Decision makers are also willing to invest in custom content. The Content Marketing Institute has found that B2B marketers are spending roughly 26% of their total budgets on content marketing. This is expected to increase to nearly 60% in the next 12 months.

The CMI has also found that both customers and CMO’s appreciate custom content. According to their B2B marketing report, 61% of people feel better about a company that delivers custom content and are more likely to buy from that company. Upwards of 84% of CMOs agree that custom content represents the future of marketing, while 59% report having shifted marketing funds away from traditional advertising in the last year in order to bolster their content offerings.

Content is Social, Social is Key

Content sharing takes place on every medium. According to a presentation from AOL, email (93%), social networks (89%), blogs (82%), message boards (81%), and instant messages (80%) are where the greatest amount of content is being shared and consumed.

Content marketing tactics are most often executed through the use of articles (79%), blogs (65%), enewsletters (63%), case studies (58%), and whitepapers (51%), this according to HubSpot.

All in all, half of industry-specific social media messages contain content sharing according to the AOL presentation; the Content Marketing Institute has found that 81% of businesses rate their company blog as either ‘useful’, ‘important’ or ‘critical’.

Quality Content Speaks to Consumers

When it comes to connecting with consumers, quality content can really make a difference. According to HubSpot’s report, 73% of people prefer to get information about an organization through a series of articles rather than in a traditional advertisement. What’s more, 90% of consumers admit that they find custom content useful, and 77% of people believe that organizations providing custom content are interested in building solid relationships.

Outsource to Improve Your Content

Don’t have time to create your own content? You’re not alone. According to the 2012 B2B Content Marketing Report, close to 55% of companies outsourced their content marketing in 2011. This number rose to 62% in 2012.

According to the Content Council, marketers are investing 12.5 billion in online content.

How big is your content budget?

Tweetables

Share these rad content marketing stats with your followers. And don’t worry, you can change the tweet text before it goes out.

• 9 out of 10 CMOs believe that custom content strengthens the bond with customers.
  
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• 62% of companies outsourced their content marketing in 2012
  
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• 90% of consumers admit that they find custom content useful
  
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• 84% of CMO’s agree that custom content represents the future of marketing
  
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• 60% of B2B marketers plan to spend more on content marketing in the next 12 months
  
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– Chantielle MacFarlane