With A Straight Bat

Marketing | Content | Creativity | Influencer | Influence

>>>>>>

It was a weekend. So, I put some learning hours into my otherwise aimless (but restful) day. Running my head over 50 things, I started with a quick Google search. Not intentional, but I ended up looking at some marketing content from a bunch of B2B companies within an industry vertical.

The content marketing efforts I saw were alright but dreadfully boring. So finally, after browsing for a bit, I gave up since they all told me the same stuff—just paraphrased. So, of course, it isn’t surprising when only 29% of respondents rate their organization’s content marketing as extremely or very successful (Content Marketing Institute / Marketing Profs’ B2B Content Marketing Benchmarks, Budgets, and Trends: Insights for 2023).

I assume many companies would have hired communication professionals and entrusted them with marketing roles. Hence, their mindset revolves more around graphics, colors, tone, formats, and copywriting. And there’s nothing wrong with it! The creative process is strategic. But to spin creativity around what’s available will never create conversations with a target audience on a specific value in a way that makes them want to know more—is what I believe.  

If I were in their spot—wanting to get more out of my marketing—I would’ve exorcized this “same story, different day” approach long ago. Ultimately, marketing has a job to perform—that is, enabling the sale of a product at an optimal price to an intended customer and at the right time. 

By now, two things were clear to me:

• Without replacing “output-oriented” communications with “outcome-driven” marketing, such businesses will never stand out in a commoditized marketplace.
•  Influencers will continue outperforming such companies on digital and social media; for doing so, influencer marketing will be in demand.

What are influencers doing that B2B companies ain’t? 

At the risk of oversimplifying a complex subject, let’s draw a comparison. And limit it to content writing (keeping strategies to publish and promote content for another time). But before that, one stubborn fact of life: “People Buy People.” Everything else is fiddlestick.

So, what can you do as a B2B marketer?

Don’t sweat it—It doesn’t matter which business or organization you represent. So long as you are dealing with humans, you will need these three key types of content to curate conversations. I called it the UEI Principle grid. 

You can begin with any if you know your audience and how your content (essentially product and services) will improve their lives.  

Be mindful, linearity of thinking is a thing of the past. While traditional models of TOFU-MOFU-BOFU content strategy are good for organizing your thoughts, there is no better way to get someone’s attention than to stoke curiosity at any stage—awareness, consideration, or decision.

Photo by engin akyurt on Unsplash