{"id":131767,"date":"2024-08-16T10:07:00","date_gmt":"2024-08-16T08:07:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/spotler.com\/?post_type=blog&p=131767"},"modified":"2024-09-19T23:22:06","modified_gmt":"2024-09-19T21:22:06","slug":"how-can-you-create-art-with-content-marketing-part-1","status":"publish","type":"blog","link":"https:\/\/spotler.com\/en-gb\/blog\/how-can-you-create-art-with-content-marketing-part-1","title":{"rendered":"How can you create ART with Content Marketing? Part 1"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cThe emergence of content marketing as a separate<\/em> <\/em>discipline has distracted marketers from their real job of<\/em> <\/em>communicating with customers and selling stuff.\u201d \u2013 Mark Ritson, Marketing Week<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/em>It\u2019s a bold person indeed who argues with Professor Ritson! Happily, we found two; Spotler Group CMO Ian Truscott, and VP of Customer Success at emailexpert UK Adeola Sole.<\/p>\n

 In an online session, Ian and Adeola laid out their own viewpoint; that content marketing doesn\u2019t have to be \u201ca separate discipline\u201d, but can be deployed strategically to help businesses of all kinds attract, convert and retain customers.<\/p>\n

 Watch the full session here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Awareness, Revenue, Trust<\/h3>\n

\u201cThese are things that the C suite and managers, the CFO, and all those guys with the money care about\u201d \u2013 Ian Truscott<\/em><\/p>\n

The quickest way to kill your chances of success is to speak solely about metrics that no-one outside marketing cares about. By thinking about what your CEO or CFO will want to hear, you can design your activities with the right metrics in mind and earn their support.<\/p>\n

Building for the long term<\/h3>\n

\u201cContent marketing is similar to the argument for why we should invest in brand, right, we need to invest in brand for the long term.\u201d \u2013 Ian<\/em><\/p>\n

Famously, in the B2B world, only 5% of your audience is at or near the point of purchase at any given time. B2C is a little easier, at 20%. An effective content marketing strategy makes sure that you are still in the minds of the rest (\u201csalience\u201d if you like your marketing jargon). Then when they are looking to buy, you\u2019re already established as a credible authority.<\/p>\n

Ideas, not Products, Spread<\/h3>\n

\u201cPeople aren\u2019t necessarily going to talk about your products, people aren\u2019t going to share about your products on social media unless they\u2019re really, really real advocates and fans.\u201d \u2013 Ian<\/em><\/p>\n

If a potential customer isn\u2019t in a buying mode, it\u2019s a waste of time talking too much about your product. In the case of Spotler, we focus on content which has value regardless of what platform you are using. Our Subject Line testing tool is a prime example; we help marketers think about a critical component of their emails, without forcing them to sign up to anything. If they test their subject line, make some changes, and notice an improvement, they\u2019ll come back.<\/p>\n

All along the funnel<\/h3>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s loads of stats about how many pieces of content somebody actually touches. You\u2019ll find people, even once they\u2019re in the buying journey with you and you\u2019re on their shortlist, are going to touch a lot of content.\u201d \u2013 Ian<\/em><\/p>\n

It\u2019s a huge mistake to see content as purely a way to capture initial interest. With the right strategy in place, you can build trust by supplying useful content at every stage of the journey. Case studies perform particularly well here, as you can talk in detail about the specific problem the specific customer is facing. You can also start getting into more technical issues \u201cHow<\/em> do I use [product] to achieve [result]\u201d.<\/p>\n

The real B2b vs. B2c difference\u2026<\/h3>\n

\u201cAt the stage that a customer is ready to buy in b2b. It\u2019s been a journey, and you need to use that content to help with that decision purchase. With b2c, we\u2019re finding that our customers as much as there is loyalty. There\u2019s a little bit of fickleness in there. So being too pushy, too soon, can be a detriment to your sales.\u201d \u2013 Adeola Sole<\/em><\/p>\n

If B2b is characterised by the need to build up slowly to a sale, B2c\u2019s challenge is retention in a marketplace crammed with alternatives.<\/p>\n

Due to the costs and timelines associated with them, B2b purchases are often \u201cstickier\u201d; once made they are rarely unmade. With B2c purchases being quicker, switching to another \u201dsupplier\u201d is easier to do.<\/p>\n

And the surprising similarity<\/h3>\n

\u201cWhat is the same [between B2b and B2c] is that discovery phase, that awareness and consideration stage. So they will do their research, they will go off and look at your different social channels or look at reviews, all of those different parts of content will help. It\u2019s just that the application will be slightly softer with b2c simply because the consideration stage is a lot shorter.\u201d -Adeola<\/em><\/p>\n

While the B2b\/B2c divide does exist for a reason, the key thing to think about is that both are selling to humans. The human, emotional considerations may be less visible in B2b, but it\u2019s still there.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t overthink it<\/h3>\n

\u201cContent doesn\u2019t have to be difficult. It doesn\u2019t have to be ground-breaking, you can be so simple and start with just alleviating customer pain points, but also showing your knowledge within the industry or within your space.\u201d \u2013 Adeola<\/em><\/p>\n

Talk of an over-arching content strategy can lead you to think that you have to go big and bold and expensive with the content you create. But this doesn\u2019t have to be the case! If you\u2019ve identified the things your customers care about, short blogs or social media posts are perfectly good vehicles for delivery.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Content marketing doesn\u2019t have to be \u201ca separate discipline\u201d, but can be deployed strategically to attract, convert and retain customers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":78,"featured_media":115532,"template":"","cat_industry":[],"cat_topic":[1256],"class_list":["post-131767","blog","type-blog","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","cat_topic-lead-generation-en-int"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/spotler.com\/en-gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/blog\/131767","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/spotler.com\/en-gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/blog"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/spotler.com\/en-gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/blog"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spotler.com\/en-gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/78"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/spotler.com\/en-gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/blog\/131767\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":137387,"href":"https:\/\/spotler.com\/en-gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/blog\/131767\/revisions\/137387"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spotler.com\/en-gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/115532"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/spotler.com\/en-gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=131767"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"cat_industry","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spotler.com\/en-gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cat_industry?post=131767"},{"taxonomy":"cat_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spotler.com\/en-gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cat_topic?post=131767"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}