Joe Pulizzi
When I interviewed three top content marketing experts for Marketing Made Simple TV (Joe Pulizzi, Content Marketing Institute; Jim Burns, Avitage, and Doug Kessler, Velocity Partners UK), one of them, Joe, told me about a big problem he sees, even in large firms.
There’s no common agreement on content
As he said, Social media does one thing. Webinars another. And PR something else. It’s as if the church choir was singing from different hymnbooks.
To get everyone singing together, all three experts agreed on the need to stop and get answers to basic questions, such as:
- Who are our target buyers?
- What’s important to them?
- Where do they turn for information?
- What processes do they use to search for, select and buy solutions to problems?
- What’s the value they get from our products and services?
Without a strong underlying foundation, no strong marketing programs can be built. As we’ve said before, buyer personas are the foundation of B2B marketing today. Joe said the way he does this is by getting the prospect’s internal champion to set a meeting for all stakeholders. Only a frank and honest conversation with senior executives gets the buy-in needed.
Take the advice of our experts and really dig. Question everything. One of the topics discussed in Extreme Trust (co-author Don Peppers is a guest on Marketing Made Simple TV too.) was the tendency to make a decision first, then look for information to support that decision. But that approach is dangerous. Ask “Why (make that decision?) What if we didn’t?”
What do you think? We love comments and those who share on social media.
Pingback: Who, What, and Why Matter in Content Marketing