We like writing here at IBA. It’s a big part of what we do for our clients – producing quality content to support their marketing efforts. Unfortunately, it’s not just as easy as having a good idea, opening Word, grabbing a coffee and hitting the keyboard.
Putting together a content marketing campaign that helps a business grow involves having a strategy that covers content and delivery. As with every other business activity, it needs to be regularly measured, assessed and where necessary, improved.
A lot of work goes into creating a truly effective campaign, so it’s important to follow the right steps. We see a lot of content created for B2B companies which, when looked at with a critical eye, falls short of reaching its full potential. That’s why we created a free and simple guide to get B2B marketeers up and running as quickly as possible.
In it we have distilled some essential knowledge in an easy to consume way so that when lined up against your marketing objectives, will give good insight into how to get the most from your efforts.
We built the guide around four elements, which help set out what you want to say – your top line messaging, who you want to say it to – different messages and different communications media for different persona, how to make sure you get heard – the content cascade – and how to know you have been.
One of the first steps is to establish your core messages and make sure your sales and marketing messaging across inbound and outbound content aligns. This will give you the consistency required to effectively deliver these key ideas – and help you to stay on message! A full content audit will let you know where you stand and highlight content that is fit for an uplift, ready to be repurposed, or ready for the bin – a great time saver.
Next, set out a content pipeline. This is where you can work out how far your content can stretch – and it’s further than you think.
Then it’s time to think third-party endorsement. Not paid for placements in magazines, that’s advertising, I mean building brand trust through earned editorial coverage in top tier, relevant industry publications.
Now you’ve got your content loaded up on to your blog, you hosted a whitepaper or two, you’ve even seen a bit of coverage for a recent new release. So, it’s time to sit back, right? Not quite. Most platforms spit out some form of analytics reports, don’t ignore them. Even the most basic reports might uncover areas to improve or unlock new insights to help keep driving your content marketing forward.
Find out how you can make your content work harder for you and check out our quick guide to B2B content marketing success!
Jamie Kightley is Head of Client Services at IBA International.
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