Either Feed the Content Beast or Don’t Create One
Distracted by all the social media buzz, it’s easy for a company to lose sight of the fact that their website remains the mother ship of brand expression and commerce. The standard marketing approach – particularly among B2B firms – is to create a brochureware-esque “Who We Are / What We Do / Why You Should Select Us” web presence, which forever serves as a handy repository for press releases, case studies, white papers and other expressions of thought leadership. For many firms, “build it once & fill it with stuff” is considered effective website management.
What often happens – soon after LAUNCH COMPANY WEBSITE is crossed off the corporate to-do list – is that companies don’t apply the same standards of excellence or levels of scrutiny to the content generated post-launch that were applied during development of the website’s original core content.
For a host of political and practical reasons, inappropriate and ineffective web content gets posted; sorely outdated content is granted lifetime tenure; and assorted layers of information…in WORD documents, PDFs, YouTube videos, podcasts, webinars…all obscure the company’s core messages and brand positioning. When it comes to website content, less is absolutely more.
If the brand police were to issue citations for website content-related abuse, some of the most common violations might include:
Vagrancy – If your most recent press release, example of news pickup, or last blog posting is more than two months old…website visitors will wonder “Are these guys still is business?” or “Is this how they will keep up with my needs as a client?” If a company can’t produce and maintain a fresh inventory of content, then from a brand perspective it’s better off without having any content at all. Dump the dated material and put a bullet in the blog with few posts. If you’re unable to trash the old content, at least bury it in an archive tab so it’s not as visible.
Prostitution – If your white papers, case studies, newsletters, webinars and other tools are nothing more than re-labeled sales pitches…website visitors will classify you a self-promoter and discount the credibility of all the information on your website. Admittedly, it’s often a battle for marketers to convince a CEO or Sales VP that their company needs to produce content that empowers prospects to draw their own conclusions…but pursuit of that cause is well worth the effort, if only in terms of professional self-respect.
Hoarding – If your company believes its content is so proprietary that visitors must be registered and approved to gain access to it, then you’re a prisoner of Web World 1.0, and here’s a news flash from 2014: Online content that requires registration is no longer an effective carrot to generate leads. Your company’s intellectual capital – showcased in website content – is its most valuable asset. If you restrict access, potential customers are more likely to move on to a competitor than they are to request permission to see it.
B2B companies will increasingly be tasked with having to feed new, relevant content to the online beasts that now rule our world. But rather than approach this as an endless, thankless chore, they need to embrace the opportunity to promote their expertise. A company that’s unwilling or unable to invest the resources necessary to keep their website current and vibrant needs to re-think how it presents its brand online.
[Previously published at http://prbreakfastclub.com/2011/04/08/content-marketing-liability/]
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