How to Build a High-Impact Content Marketing Strategy: Insights from Autodesk’s Dusty DiMercurio

A Content Disrupted podcast with Dusty DiMercurio, Senior Director of Industry and Portfolio Marketing at Autodesk.

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At Autodesk, content marketing started as a program to drive demand within a new audience segment. Today, it's crucial to the enterprise's overall growth strategy. In this episode, we talk to the marketing leader behind that evolution, Dusty DiMercurio, about how to ensure content marketing plays a high-impact role in the business, from the content activation strategies that work to the kinds of wins that get Sales and the C-suite to lean in.

Dusty DiMercurio is the Senior Director of Industry and Portfolio Marketing at Autodesk. Including over 12 years at Autodesk, his experience spans business strategy and marketing, with an emphasis on product marketing, go-to-market strategy, campaign development, and breakthrough content. Dusty has led multiple successful content programs that have earned multiple industry awards including the 2021 Webby Award for Best Business Blog / Website.

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Episode Highlights:

[02:48] Foundations of an Effective Content Marketing Practice – Acknowledged as a cornerstone of marketing and business strategy, Dusty explains that content's value is often presumed, yet the nature and evidence of its impact varies notably across the sales funnel. Especially when it comes to managing thought leadership and more top of the funnel content, Dusty shares the methods he learned work when educating organizational leaders on the significance, role, and complexities of content in driving the health and success of the business.

[08:57] Proving Content's Business Impact – Dusty explains how his team engages in both qualitative and quantitative internal storytelling to draw a direct line from content to business outcomes—from data attribution, to internal case studies proving how content opened the door to higher-level sales discussions within accounts. He goes on to describe the role of "content business partners'' throughout the organization who are focused on working directly with Customer Success and Sales departments, aligned by geos and industries. The structure of these relationships helps to drive more effective content creation and usage, and ensure stakeholders are bought into the value of content across the organization.

[14:58] Crafting Content for Account-Based Marketing –
Account-Based Marketing (ABM) and content creation are crucial for addressing the unique needs of complex organizations with diverse buyer committees. Autodesk's ABM approach employs one-to-one, one-to-few, and one-to-many strategies, tailoring content accordingly. For one-to-many scenarios, a programmatic content development approach is utilized, emphasizing both inbound and outbound marketing. One-to-one and one-to-few engagements demand more personalized and modular content approaches. The goal is to enable meaningful customization with minimal effort. Dusty explains the importance of clustering accounts in meaningful ways is essential for guiding more impactful, adaptable, and scalable one-to-few content strategies.

[22:42] Creative Storytelling in B2B Marketing - Dusty emphasizes the importance of creative storytelling in B2B marketing, advocating for a customer-centric approach rather than a traditional, company-focused one. He suggests starting with understanding customer needs and reverse-engineering content to deliver value. Dusty points out that by the time customers reach a website, they're already far into the decision-making process, underscoring the need for SEO and targeted content to engage potential clients earlier. In his experience, particularly in B2B, where purchases require more consideration, it's pivotal for content to play a role in helping customers identify and describe the problems they're trying to solve. Dusty highlights the significance of thought leadership in painting a vision of the future and establishing credibility. He describes how Autodesk has built a primary research platform to further their positioning as a credible, forward-thinking solution provider.

[37:03] Balancing Efficiency and Originality in Content Creation - Balancing efficiency and originality in content creation, as discussed by Dusty, involves a nuanced understanding of the role of generative AI tools like ChatGPT. Dusty acknowledges their growing presence in the industry and recognizes their efficiency and speed in specific tasks, such as research gathering and iterative processes. However, he emphasizes that these tools should not completely replace content creators. The unique role of content creators lies in their ability to validate the accuracy of AI-generated content and infuse it with a unique brand voice, maintaining the originality and creativity that distinguishes their work. Despite the potential for an influx of mediocre, derivative content due to the nature of how large language models learn from existing data, Dusty sees an opportunity for content creators to leverage these AI tools for mundane tasks, freeing them to focus on creative and original thought. This approach is crucial for differentiation in a content-saturated market. Dusty highlights the increasing importance of content in business strategy, particularly for customer engagement and data gathering in a changing digital marketing landscape where traditional methods like cookies are becoming obsolete. He encourages content creators to continuously innovate and experiment with AI tools, finding the most effective ways to integrate them into their workflows while preserving the unique voice and original ideas that drive business forward.

Follow and subscribe to Content Disrupted on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or Google Podcasts. Every other week, we host candid conversations with pioneering CMOs, and researchers on the topics most relevant to enterprise marketers, from the psychology behind today's digital buying behaviors and how to craft more relevant creative to maximizing internal trust in the marketing team.