Content Marketing That Delivers

There’s been an avalanche of reports and articles about the power of content, yet research late last year by the CMO Council revealed some ongoing and glaring challenges. Even with good content, just 12% reported they felt they had the appropriate content marketing engines to target their publics. More than half admitted to not utilizing multiple syndication and distribution channels to exploit their reach.

While there’s been some progress, only 21% said there’s any collaboration between marketing, sales and other business counterparts in the development, execution, and measurement of a strategy. Sadly, most marketers still see content marketing residing in just their shop.

The CMO Council findings should sound an alarm for marketers not yet prepared to maximize their content and/or are still not collaborating with critical partners within the company. A good content marketing program is the basis for brands to convert leads.

Converting Leads

Establishing and building rapport and trust among consumers has become more critical since the pandemic. One tactic which helps speed this along is partnering with trusted sources who already have credibility.

Generating pertinent and persuasive awareness that’s strategic along with the brand’s point of view will differentiate the company from others. Speak to themes or topics on people’s minds. Even as restrictions are lifted, many consumers will be wary of certain venues and observing how and what brands and companies are doing to protect them.

As this is being done, brands must continually strive to build efficient networks that leverage their reach with target audiences. Real-time and social interaction, as well as polling perceptions and conducting online surveys can also add value and credibility.

Increased IME or Intelligent Market Engagement is important, too. Encouraging and maintaining ongoing engagement with customers about their problems, issues, challenges, and risks will help brands keep their ears to the ground and be alerted earlier to possible changes in the market. Filling pipelines with trustworthy content enables companies to upsell and cross-sell their customers.

Identify, partner with, and support groups that share the same interests as the brand. By cultivating, engaging, and interviewing them, valuable information can be gleaned and analyzed. A perfect outcome that could also arise is unsolicited recommendations and endorsements from an independent audience.

With so many digital platforms available and being used by consumers, marketers must not only embrace them. They must also be sure that content is designed and delivered in a variety of these formats to amplify utilization, recall, sharing, and calls to action.

B2B brands received a recent bonus with the gift of Audience Explorer from NetLine. It gives marketers a glimpse of content consumption and engagement behavior past the confines of their own sites. By targeting customers and applying filters, the app also delivers instant content insights and results.

To ensure consumer confidence and trust, brands should make lead compliance an integral part of their brand policy. This would meet or exceed industry standards for transparency, brand safety, and registration intent. Having such a policy in place not only holds the marketing department accountable, but also informs and makes responsible the other departments that support them.