Category Archives: Social Media

Is storytelling dead?

Posted on by
Reply
storytelling for B2B marketers

Storytelling is still an important part of the marketing mix

I came across a post recently on the Explore B2B blog urging marketers to stop storytelling. On seeing the headline I thought I would disagree with the idea but after reading the article in full I could see where the author was coming from.

The article by Carlos Hidalgo highlighted that storytelling implies a focus on us as the storyteller rather than our customers. It was making the point that in the social media age we should be engaging in conversations (2 way communication) with our potential customers rather than simply telling them our story (one way communication).

While I agree with this principle it’s premature to signal the end of storytelling as a marketing tool of value.

And here’s why:

Before people will fully engage in conversations with us they want to know who they are talking to.

Do we understand their problems and offer a solution?

Do our values match with their own?

Do we have any evidence to support the claims that we are making about how we can help them?

online and offline conversations with customers

Conversations are given context by the story you tell

A well crafted story will help to answer these questions and provide the context which will give the subsequent conversations some meaning.

Of course the story we tell needs to be carefully considered. Too many of these focus on what we would like to talk about rather than what our potential and existing customers want to know.

If we have a good story to tell its most likely down to our understanding of customer requirements and capability to design a solution to these problems. So make this the story.

For me it’s not a case of storytelling versus conversations. Both are vital parts of the marketing mix.

One of the most significant impacts of social media has been to facilitate conversations between us and our customers – but the reports of the demise of storytelling have been greatly exaggerated.

If you would like some help creating your compelling story that will make your target customers engage with you first, and buy from you second then get in touch.

Go back

Your message has been sent

Consistency is far better than rare moments of greatness

Posted on by
1
Chess board represents marketing strategy

Random moves lead to defeat – strategy is what is required to win

I love this line – the title of a book by Scott Ginsberg from 2012.

For me it sums up what marketing is all about. While others may judge us on the impact of an individual event, video etc we should be judged on consistently delivering results that will allow our businesses to achieve their goals.

It is far too often the case that marketing is judged on the tactics employed rather than the overall results – and this is because of a disconnect between the overall business strategy and the marketing activities that we are engaged in.

Rare moments of greatness happen by accident rather than design. They happen because we’re just trying to do a lot of different stuff with the digital channels available to us without proper consideration for what we’re trying to achieve or what success looks like. It’s inevitable that the more we do of this stuff, the more we learn about what works and the better we get at spotting content that is likely to get a good reaction online.

And this is part of the problem – an endless pursuit of Facebook likes does not constitute a strategy. It is merely a tactic to help you deliver something valuable. So what is it that you’re trying to deliver? The problem is that a lot of people just don’t know.

To move from rare moments of greatness to the consistency that will deliver real business value you need to take a step back – ignore all the tools you have available to you and focus on what it is you are trying to achieve.

The first step is to understand what your goals are – this is derived from your overall business strategy. This could be to win a certain amount of new sales / donations within a new sector or market or increase market share to give some examples.

From this we are then able to define what the goals of our marketing efforts are:

Are we trying to drive traffic to our website or blog because we know this generates more leads?

Are we trying to provide resources and information to assist our customers with their buying decision?

Are we trying to build a social following to build our reputation in the industry?

Once you know what it is that you’re trying to achieve you then need to know how you’re going to measure success.

If we’re trying to drive traffic to the website to generate more leads – how much traffic do we need and how many leads should this convert to?

If we’re trying to provide resources and information to assist customers with their buying decision – how many downloads of the whitepapers, brochures and case studies are we looking for?

If we’re trying to build a social following – how many new likes or followers are we trying to win? Or maybe focus on the engagement metrics instead – the conversations that begin because we started them, the number of times our content was shared?

When you have these things in place you can then start thinking about the tactics that you’re going to employ to help you achieve your goals. It’s only now that the channels come into the equation – where do your target audience hang out, what is the best way to connect with them when they are there and what content will they find either useful or interesting? This should include both online and offline channels to deliver the best results.

A well considered digital strategy will yield results for your business – simply because you now know what you are trying to achieve.

This will allow you to quickly and easily report on progress internally and demonstrate to the cynics in your organisation the value you are adding through your digital content marketing activity. This focus on performance is what is all too often missing from the marketing function.

Too many KPI documents for the marketing department are littered full of tactics that shift and change depending on the latest requests from the board or the sales team. All this does is measure activity – and just because you’re busy doesn’t mean you’re adding any value.

By stepping back and considering what it is that we are trying to deliver we can shift the focus from the activity to the value that we are adding and this is when we will achieve consistency.

Because consistency is far better than rare moments of greatness.

If you would like some help either developing your digital marketing strategy or deploying the tactics to ensure success then get in touch.

Go back

Your message has been sent

Content Marketing – still to be convinced? Read this.

Posted on by
Reply
content marketing as a magnet for new customers

Use content marketing as a magnet for new customers

There are some compelling stats out there supporting the rise of content marketing over the last few years – the number of web searches for ‘content marketing’ has increased by 400% since 2010 (stats from Google Trends) and there are now 27 million pieces of content shared online every day (according to AOL).

These 2 stats are taken from a great blog post by @captora last week called ‘20 tweetable content marketing stats that every marketer should know’.

I published a post last week in response to this attempting to delve a little deeper. While the figures are undoubtedly useful for reinforcing the importance of content marketing to any modern marketing strategy I feel that there is a need to look at what questions they provoke.

The 2 most important questions for me are:

  1. What does this mean for your company?
  2. What can you do about it?

My previous post dealt with the 2 stats mentioned earlier about the 400% increase in searches for ‘content marketing’ and the 27 million pieces of content shared online every day. You can read my thoughts on this by visiting the post – Need convinced about content marketing? Read this.

For today, I’d like to focus on another stat from the @captora post and answer the 2 questions posed above:

Stat #1
78% of consumers think organisations that create content are interested in building relationships.

What does this mean for your company?

This one stat alone sums up one of the major opportunities that exists with content marketing. For decades marketing departments were engaged in the game of producing content and hoping that the relationships you had developed with your target print publications would mean that your news release, project case study or company announcement would get featured.

In most cases the only way to really ensure this happened was to part with some of your hard earned budget and invest in advertising.

Of course the best print publications maintain a level of editorial integrity (and that is how they have survived) but content marketing represents a huge shift in the balance of power. We’re all publishers now and the technologies that facilitate the content marketing revolution have added a level of democracy to our communications that didn’t previously exist.

For the first time it’s genuinely not about how much advertising spend you want to commit to a specific publication in order to ensure the required level of editorial coverage.

You produce your own content and publish it. If it’s good enough it will gain traction online with your customers, increase your profile and ultimately help you achieve your goals whatever they may be.

Another benefit of this development is that your brand can have a voice and the opportunity to communicate directly with your target audience rather than being run through the editorial controls of your target print publications.

This helps to better portray the personality of your organisation which allows your potential customers to establish whether it is an organisation that they would like to do business with.

What can you do about it?

In order to maximise the chances of success from your content marketing strategy there is an old saying that was a particular favourite of the sales director of a company I used to work for:

“You have 2 ears and one mouth – use them in that proportion.”

Your first job in trying to take advantage of the content marketing opportunity involves listening and observing what is going on in the virtual world around us.

  1. What online channels are your customers currently using?
  2. What are the current issues within your industry that your products or services help to address?
  3. What have you got to say about these issues?
  4. What are your competitors currently saying about these issues and how can you differentiate your message?

Once you’ve got the answers to these questions you’ll be in a much better position to understand the kind of content you can produce in order to help you achieve your goals of more leads, more sales, more donations, more applications for the job you’re promoting (or whatever else is relevant for your business).

In summary, content marketing represents a huge opportunity for any business for whom their customer base is online. While the headline stats from the @captora post confirm this you need to understand what it means for your business and what you should be doing about it. Once you’ve nailed these two questions then the opportunity will begin to open up in front of you.

And you’ll enjoy the benefits offline as well – after all. you’re producing great content tackling the main issues facing your industry. What print publications aren’t going to be interested in that story?

If you’d like some help developing your content marketing strategy or producing the content you need to build your profile then get in touch.

Go back

Your message has been sent

Need convinced about content marketing? Read this.

Posted on by
3

I came across a great blog post today from @captora with some really powerful stats on the rise of content marketing in recent years.

There is no doubt that the stats are convincing – content marketing is here to stay and I don’t think you’ll get much of an argument from any modern marketers.

So here’s my problem – if my hypothesis is correct and there is an acceptance that content marketing needs to be central to any marketing strategy there must be something else that is stopping people from getting involved.

I think there is a general fear of content marketing – largely driven by the fact that it is often accompanied by the word ‘strategy’. This immediately conjures up visions of 100 page documents and puts people right off.

So, to try and dispel this fear I’ve taken two of the key stats from the @captora post and asked 2 important questions:

  1. What does this mean for your company?
  2. What can you do about it?

Here we go:

Stat #1:
There are 27 million pieces of content shared each day online

What does this mean for your company?

This is one hell of a big number – you need to understand how much of this content relates to your industry, to the products you are selling. This will vary hugely depending on whether you’re involved in a mass market consumer product or a niche engineering application for example.

What can you do about it?

  1. Understand what your goal is – what does success look like? Sales, website visitors, video views, increased followers, more enquiries?
  2. Two ears, one mouth – use them in that proportion.
  3. Search online for content relating to your industry (Google Alerts are a great way to do this).
  4. Search Twitter to see who in your industry is doing this stuff well – and understand why.
  5. Once you’ve done this initial research you will better understand what content you can produce that is suitable for sharing, likely to get a response and will ultimately lead to more sales leads (or whatever your overall goal is).
  6. Start recording these ideas in an editorial calendar and hey presto – your content marketing strategy is underway.

Stat #2:
The number of web searches for ‘content marketing’ is up 400% since January 2011

What does this mean for your company?

Take comfort in the fact that this suggests to me that there are a lot of people out there who don’t understand how to make the most of this opportunity.

The opening line of the @captora post says “Content marketing has become a buzzword in modern marketing”.

Content Marketing is simply the latest way to describe what marketers have always done – produce good content. It’s nothing particularly revolutionary. Your tone might have to change and adapt to the social media channels that you are using in order to get the best results but otherwise – keep on keeping on.

What can you do about it?

Once you’ve developed the first run at your editorial calendar then select the channels that are right for you and just get started.

I’m reminded of a quote from Thomas Edison that is relevant to this discussion:

“I have not failed. I have just found 10,000 ways that don’t work.”

Hopefully you’ll get the hang of it well before the 10,000 mark – but the only way you’ll really find out what works and what doesn’t is to get started. Set yourself some small objectives at the start that you think will help you achieve your overall goal – increased sales, donations to your charitable cause, views of your Youtube videos.

There are a number of other interesting stats in the @captora post and I’ll return to these at a later date.

Hope you found this post useful – if you did please remember to share with your network.

You can follow me on twitter @petracmarketing

And if you want some help developing your content marketing strategy then get in touch.

Go back

Your message has been sent