Ricardo Molina presents a short YouTube talk outlining core "truths" about content marketing. He argues that successful content marketing requires: a clear strategy/framework that targets buyer personas; a single internal owner to drive the project; a repeatable methodology to coordinate writers/designers/website owners; substantial upfront effort (no shortcuts); persistence (content marketing is a "muscle" that gets easier with practice); and, when appropriate, temporary expert help to kick-start the program. He frames content marketing as the key B2B differentiator and closes with a call for comments.
Chapters
Very quickly, I wanted to share with you what are the truths about content marketing that you need to take into account when you are working on one or if you're about to embark on one. First of all, if you have no strategy or framework that dictates that, or the solid foundation that is going to tell you, your business and the people that you're working with, what exactly is going to be done? How is that content going to target the specific buyer Persona, the specific audience that you are intending to reach, that you're intending to attract, then that's not going to work. If you've got no framework, if you don't know where you're going, how can you, if you don't have a specific destination, you cannot reach there, you cannot achieve your goals, and you might end up wasting a lot of time, effort and money. The second thing is you need ownership, internal ownership. Regardless of whether you are working with an agency or with an external party, you need an internal stakeholder that is going to own that project. That is going to be the central point, making sure that everything is done according to the plan. Most people think that going into a content marketing strategy, especially organizations within events, they think that the workload can be split among team members. More often than not that does not work. I'm not saying it can't work, but more often than not that does not work simply because everyone else has more important things to do. And content marketing, writing that blog, contributing on social media, etc, etc is not as important as their primary role. So this is why an internal individual within the organization has to take the lead and ensure that this happens. And most of the times this internal person or this owner, it's going to have to get the hamsters to get all that going. The third aspect, content marketing and inbound marketing, is not complicated, is not rocket science. However, it's not easy because content marketing, once you kick off a project of this magnitude, it is made out of a certain number of actions and things that you and members of your team need to do, as well as other stakeholders. You're going to have writers involved, you're going to have designers, you're going to have people involved within your website, within marketing that are going to construct your landing pages, etc. So if you do not follow a certain methodology, the certain step by step process, there's going to be a breakdown in the result that you're going to get. Fourth is that you really have to put the effort in. There's no real, I can't say it in any other way, yes, you're going to have to put in 140%, 160, 200% effort to get this going, whether it's done internally or with a partner. Of course, if you're working with a partner, you're going to have a lot of the burden sitting on the partner's responsibility. But the reality is the effort is going to have to be put in and everyone needs to go the extra mile, at least at the very beginning. The fifth one is there's no shortcuts. Absolutely not. And if you are embarking on this strategy, and most of the times when it happens is organizations get these strategies, get the blueprints as to how they're going to get there. When they have this piece of information in front of them, when it's being presented to the rest of the team, everyone starts scratching their heads, okay, how are we going to make that happen? Is there a way, and people ask, is there a way of kick starting this on a shoestring or is there a way of kickstarting this in a way that it doesn't require so much effort at the very beginning? And the answer is no. In content marketing, no shortcuts. I'm afraid it's only the long cuts, but it's when you put in the effort. And again, as I said in the previous, in the previous item is if you put the effort in, if you go for the long cut, that's when you start getting your results right. And that's when we're going to see the real impact of what you're going to do. And the last one is that content marketing is a muscle and with practice it gets easier. The first three months are difficult, I'm not going to lie. And it takes a lot of, it takes a lot of time. The same as you do when you go to the gym after not being for a long time. It can be painful. Sometimes you have all your little niggles and then you have the little things that stand in your way. But if you are persistent, if you're consistent, then it's when you start seeing the real results in that front. So using that analogy in content marketing, there are thousands of case studies where organizations have been successful at it, but the reality is that they have followed a certain procedure. So there's no doubt that content marketing works in my world and in my view, it is the only way in which organizations right now within B2B are going to differentiate themselves among their competitors. And I think the last one, if you really need, if you really need some help. If you realize that this is really going to take a lot of your time, then get expert help if required. And I'm not saying get expert help for the longevity of the project, but just get people that are able to get you going, that give you that quick start, people that have done this again and again so that can give you that quick start. So by the time that you are able to jump back and take ownership of the whole content project, you have already something going. And again, what I mean with expert help is it doesn't mean that instead of you writing the content or members of the internal team, is it better for you to hire or to contract on a per article basis, someone with expertise to write those articles for you? Is it better to get some extra hours from Dart Designer so that I can sit with you to build those premium content, those ebooks or those presentation slides for you? Is it better than to hire an agency that you're going to be able to put all the responsibility on them and mitigate that risk? So something to think about it, but the reality is content marketing takes time and it's not going to be an easy journey. However, it will be a very rewarding journey if you follow the steps, if you, if you follow the process. And everyone else is enjoying and reopening the rewards of content marketing. So just take that into account before you, before you press the go ahead button. Thank you. Leave me some comments underneath and if you need some extra questions or if you want me to cover anything in particular, please do let me know. Take care.
