Editorial
The Gist
- Buyers are elusive. 95% of your potential market is invisible, navigating their journey before you even know they exist.
- Content beyond leads: Shift from sales-driven content to a publisher mindset to build brand and trust over time.
- Think like a publisher: To thrive in today’s digital landscape, create content that informs, entertains, and engages beyond the sales funnel.
There is a profound change happening in B2B marketing, our route to our buyers' attention and how we measure our effectiveness in doing that.
Table of Contents
- A Changing Landscape for Digital Marketing
- Why B2B Marketing Must Evolve
- Building a Content Marketing Strategy for the 95%
- Content Marketing vs. Sales-Driven Content
- Why Content Marketing Matters Now More Than Ever
A Changing Landscape for Digital Marketing
Changes in social media algorithms, zero-click search results, Apple email privacy changes, voice search and buyers using ChatGPT for research, are just a few examples of the changes in technology and behavior that are all chipping away at the nirvana we have been chasing of 1:1 engagement, attribution and insight that digital marketing promised.
While I would contest that a buyer's journey has always been a bit more zig-zaggy than a simple funnel model might suggest, with all this information to hand, there is also plenty of research (like this from 6Sense) that supports the idea that actually the buyer is deep into making a decision about a solution to their problem way, way, way before we as marketers feel the little tremble of them flying into our marketing web.
Why B2B Marketing Must Evolve
Yes, when we become aware of this interest there is plenty of marketing and sales to be done, to apply our finest technology and best practices to. But, when this is only 5% of our addressable market (according to data from LinkedIn), should that be capturing the lion's share of our marketing budget?
It does because once those folks from that 5% are in our web, it’s easy to measure, track and that nirvana of attribution is somewhat possible and we can show the closest thing that marketing can come to a financial ROI model as we can hook our value to the thing of most importance to a business: revenue.
And not only will we be pouring budget into this, but time, as we define how to report on all this stuff. We also grab our torches and try and peer into this dark funnel rabbit hole of stuff that is happening before we know about it.
Related Article: 11 Content Marketing Trends That Will Transform CX in 2024
Building a Content Marketing Strategy for the 95%
In any case, let's assume that, in many B2B categories, we are in the dark about the majority of people that we can help with our product or service and big tech isn’t helping.
Plus, as all these trends I mentioned earlier — zero-click, social media algorithms, voice search, etc. etc. etc. — also work against the buyer, they may also be in the dark about us, too. They can’t see the very thing that could solve their problem, meet their need, cure their pain and gain them respect and maybe a promotion.
Either ironically or coincidently, part of the inspiration for this article was one of those community collaborative articles that LinkedIn are pushing. The AI Bot *begged* me to make a contribution in return for a badge and probably contribute to the problem I mentioned above, as LinkedIn looks to build the walls higher on its walled garden and probably train its AI to replace all of us.
Anyway — the discussion was about measuring content marketing.
A lot of replies were in the vein of connecting content to revenue, like how many SQLs it creates and all of that.
I say no.
There is plenty of your marketing motions that should be measured in this way, once folks are known to us, open to being woo’d and nurtured, in the matchmaking dance of their need to our solution. And yes, that will require content that will coherently hook into our general campaign and content strategy.
But…
Content Marketing vs. Sales-Driven Content
To me content for marketing is not content marketing, which gives us a wonderful opportunity to get into the lives of the 95% of our audience who are not in the market right now.
Content marketing means thinking like publishers, which let me make clear is not a new idea. I’ve been talking about it for ages, standing on the shoulders of giants who are hoarse from preaching this gospel.
But it was clear from how my fellow conspirators to LinkedIn’s master plan of the demise of humankind (sorry, contributors to this collaborative article) is that there are marketers missing this opportunity.
And what I mean by that is for a publisher it’s all about eyeballs and reach, which sounds scarily like brand building. (I’m joking about it being scary; it’s just branding got itself a bad name).
The goal of content marketing, like building a brand, is not jam today with a form fill on a gated salesy ebook, but jam tomorrow in sowing a seed in the mind of the buyer that we might be the right people to call, come by our website and fill in a form when they do enter the market with their problem.
Which, yes, seeds in the minds of buyers, which might do something is tricky to measure.
And I mention gates there. If we shape our content marketing strategy goals and metrics around leads, we will naturally create salesy content, presented in a way that enables us to capture that lead, and the content is shackled to that process.
If we set content marketing objectives like a publisher, we set goals for eyeballs, reach and sharing. We create content that is relevant, interesting, useful or has a utility.
We are also free to explore topics that are more generally relevant to the buyer and market, building trust by demonstrating our knowledge and empathy, rather than being tied to justifying our features and functions. Salesy content has to quickly cut to a call to action of getting in touch so we can sell you something, rather than lean in and learn more.
Yes, this has an implication on return on your marketing budget, and approach for content creation, as you hop off the sales-driven hamster wheel, and that’s an article for another day, but it’s an opportunity your competitors are probably missing.
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Why Content Marketing Matters Now More Than Ever
So, why is this especially relevant now?
Well back to the trends, the direction that the rented land of social media, search with its zero-click or new ways buyers are getting informed, like voice or ChatGPT, is heading means that not only is seeking us out ***by name*** going to be critical when the buyer searches for a solution, but also we are influencing in darkness of the 95% of potential buyers in what you could call pre-funnel, as they decide their shortlist.
The landscape of digital marketing is changing, creating new problems, but maybe it’s worth looking at an old solution. Cut through by thinking like publishers.
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