Campaign Versus Content Marketing Mindset

One of the hardest challenges to good Content Marketing is changing mindsets.

Many B2B marketing groups are trying to add Content Marketing to their mix. Habit and culture can sometimes make the addition difficult. This is because Campaigning—whether via advertising or email marketing—naturally involves content. So it's easy for some to think, "content marketing, yes, we do that."

It's not so much that the outbound, interrupt driven channels can't be used for Content Marketing. Rather, it's the mindset around how the content is developed. Campaign content is naturally driven by "internal" factors—there's a product launch or media event that requires or generates content. Or maybe you just have the need to "do an email blast."

In the end, this content is created to meet a market or product need rather than a information need of users. you end up as a living example of Myth #3.

Without editorial driven content that is designed to fit the engagement cycle, you may still end up with very good content. But it is usually not optimized for inbound marketing. What you end up with is content that reflects the messages you want to promote and not the useful content that prospects are seeking.

I find walking through the following table helpful in generating the "ah-ha" moment where outbound marketers see the difference.

		Campaign Marketing		Content Marketing
Driver		Market		Editorial
Duration		Perishable		Durable
Distribution		Advertising/Promotion		Organic**
Discovery		Interrupt		Pull
Structure		Products & Messages		Content Funnel
Mind Set		“Think like a Marketer"		“Think like a Publisher"

** It might still be paid; Organic in the sense that the user drove it by seeking content

The Web Content Assessment

There can be many drivers behind a content assessment. Maybe a new person or team is taking over the management of a website. Perhaps you need to check for compliance with a regulation or two. Or the site is going to be ported to a new CMS. Sometimes, the driver is the need to update the content itself to make it more effective.

Depending on the drivers and your goals, you may be doing only an inventory or audit (I say "only" but it's still a major undertaking!). In that case you just need to know what you have, what types of content, how many of each, and so on.

If your goals are to improve performance or effectiveness of your content, you need to do an assessment--not just an audit of what is there, but what is it trying to do, are there errors, and is the content effective? So, an assessment is going to include an audit and then some diagnoses, recommendations, and a treatment plan.

Start with your goals and targets

This step starts with the goals of the driving project--the initiative that raised the need for an assessment. There are cases where you are doing a content assessment simply as discovery--the assessment itself will catalog and potentially identify improvements you may not have thought you needed.

The reason you need to articulate the driving goals is to know what you will be collecting and analyzing during the audit. You'll also determine the scope of your assessment--do you need to analyze all the content or a subset? What information and parameters will you collect per asset?
The goals also keep the auditors on track--audits and assessments can take a long time, so you don't want to waste any time on unnecessary tasks.

Targets are particular metrics or rules you will asses--for example looking for blank Title tags or editorial usage violations.

Scope the audit or assessment

With the goals enumerated, you can scope your project. What content has to be audited and what not? What information do you need to collect for the analysis? Do you need analytics and SEO data for each page or asset?

At the end of the scoping, you should have a database or worksheet defined to collect the data set for each asset--a content matrix.

Inventory the content

Now you have to do the work. There are usually no shortcuts--unless you are doing a simple inventory and can use your CMS or other scripting & crawling tools to automate the tasks.

Even if you are doing a complex assessment, you can often start building your content matrix with the basic inventory of content with automation.  Then auditors can use the matrix to divide and conquer the rest of the data collection process.

Analyze the content

Now comes the fun part: start reading, viewing and analyzing your inventory. What you actually do depends on the driving goals behind the assessment. Maybe you are reviewing each page or piece for adherence to new company messages. Or looking for pages and content that are not getting traffic, then diagnosing why and what course of action to take.

Report and Recommend

The results of the assessment are turned into action plans to feed the driving project. This could have been happening on an ongoing basis during each stage of the assessment. That is, often you can parts of content from inventory to analysis to reporting while inventory continues on other content.

The Case for Content Marketing

At work, we have some problems with content.

Like many organizations, we cannot create enough of it. The business is very profitable, but very lean. That means the subject matter experts in the company are too busy to help create content. So, we struggle to update everything from collateral to the web page to the social media and blogging.

But that's not the problem I'm thinking of now.

And to be honest, it's not a "content problem" per se. It's a marketing problem. And content is the answer. Content Marketing, that is.

Content Marketing

You see, our approach to marketing is a bit out of date. Sure, we use all the latest tools--social media, webinars, videos.  But it's done in a very "old school" way.  One-way, broadcast, pitching of company and product: "We are Great!" "We're the Experts!" "We're the Leaders!"

I'm making the case for Content Marketing. I believe we need to use a publishing model to create content that fits a "Content Funnel."

That is, first decide on the conversations we want to have and profile the audience for each conversation.

Produce content in layers, starting with topic overviews that are completly void of brand pitches.  When a user responds to one of these--watches a video or downloads a white paper--we know they are at least interested in the topic. They may not be a buyer or an influencer. But we can find out by linking one layer to the next. That link is in the assets themselves. And in the campaign we drop users into.

The next layer is content that discusses the problems and challenges in the domain (in our case, data networking). As the top layer links to this layer, those that take the leap are that much more qualified.

Next, we introduce solution options for the challenges; here we can start our positioning.  "Below" that, we produce content to address the solution selection process. This is where we can finally talk about our solutions--or at least frame the conversation to favor our offerings.

Finaly, at the lowest layer we have tips and techniques--here we are fully showcasing our features and strengths. These impart credibility to prospects and validation to existing customers.

As readers move through the layers, they self-qualify. Many will fall out. Tha'ts okay, we can put them in campaigns to nurture them.

Magnetic Content

But the Funnel is only one dimension. The content also has to be good. This is where the concept of magnet content comes in.

The content has to be good. That means it is: unique, useful, interesting, tuned to the channel, and fun. Yes fun. Fun is relative. Maybe "engaging" is a better term. The point is, people have to want to sit through it!

Infrastructure

Next is the infrastructure. Can you deliver the conent? Track performance? Score the leads? Route them when qualified? Follow up on conversion to sales?

The last step may be the hardest. Most of it can be done through technology alone. But once a lead is passed to sales, all bets are off. You have to make sure they work the lead and record what they do to properly account for success and failure.

The Request

Some of you have been there before. Others are at the start like me. Please share your comment on what works and what doesn't. I'm particularly interested in the change management  part. How do you get the marketing organization to change to this "publisher" mindset? How do you get even broader buy-in to support the content creation and sales engagement?

And how do we build the case to support the funding and organization changes needed to get started?
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