If you're developing content to cover each stage of the buying process, you can be facing a big investment that will take time to create and publish. And, there are additional upfront costs to develop your strategy, personas, processes, skills and workflows, not to mention implementing the technology to support your efforts. In line with my recent Shiny Object post , I thought I'd explore another argument in favor of B2B content marketing; namely improving the cost effectiveness of marketing. Obviously, I've got a counter for that. But it will. " Seriously! MORE >>

Let's say that your company's unique value is to: Simplify project planning and portfolio management with process automation designed to create the highest ROI from human resources and equipment assets. Larry won't care as much about that as he will about how your solution can match the best-suited workers to each machine for each shift, removing hours of effort from his planning process. Brand positioning is becoming critical as more B2B marketers turn to content marketing across a range of channels to cultivate standoffish, self-service buyers. Probably not many. MORE >>

And, if you involve them in the process, they'll have an investment in helping to apply them to the business in ways that count. Or are they front and center driving your content strategy and customer-facing business processes? Many of the projects I do for companies start with buyer personas. After all, it's a logical place to start as it's next to impossible to develop a content strategy without a keen understanding of the people involved in buying complex B2B product offerings. But I'm noticing a trend I hadn't foreseen. Yep, it's true. At all. kids)? MORE >>

Whether that's discussing your ideas with a colleague, or spurring them on to do more research about the ideas or try to apply them to the improvement of their current business processes, something must happen. Many B2B marketers cite a goal of their content marketing programs as establishing their company as thought leaders in their marketplace. This is an admirable goal, as prospects are looking for experts, not just products or solutions. However, becoming a thought leader takes a bit more effort than you may think. those ideas as actionable distilled insights. Be specific. MORE >>

But, this is not helpful during much of the marketing process. During my keynote at the B2B Content 2 Conversion conference on Tuesday, one of the questions the audience asked was about a slide I used when discussing how to create a content flow. To sum it up, I suggested that each "touch" should be based on three components: The question your content will answer for a persona. The answer to the question that becomes the content asset. call to action (CTA). was asked to elaborate on what I meant by a call to action. Showcase your company's expertise in solving the problem. MORE >>