Hey! How’s it going? Matt here, from MessageUp.
Hopefully the first full week of January (for most of us) is treating you well.
The business world is divided into three groups of people: those with a strategy and a plan that they’re executing, those without a strategy who are winging it, and those in the middle who have a plan but aren’t following it so diligently.
Which is your crowd?
In the writing world, those who prefer to operate in a rigorous, organized fashion are known as planners. Those who feel more comfortable winging it are known as “pantsers”—flying by the seat of their pants. I’m not sure what the correct term is for someone who switches between the two, but I’m definitely in the planner category.
Whichever approach to life you prefer, content marketing is an area of the business that demonstrably benefits from a strategic approach. Research shows that companies with a documented and consistently implemented content strategy perform measurably better than those without. The same is true for marketing as a whole, I suspect.
So, why do so many leaders persist with random acts of marketing when the evidence for not doing so is clear and compelling?
As I explain in this week’s post on The Framework blog, a random act of marketing is any tactic that’s chosen without rhyme or reason. Perhaps it just seemed like a good idea at the time or it’s a popular tactic that others are finding successful. They are remarkably common, generally a waste of time and money, and particularly insidious in a B2B setting.
Read Use a B2B Content Marketing Framework to Avoid Random Acts of Marketing to learn more about the problem and how to convert random acts into valuable, productive experiments.
For other insightful articles, scroll down to What We’ve Been Reading to find links and summaries for pieces covering the perils of B2B sales calls, the use of memories to create category entry points, predictions about AI, LinkedIn, and micro-communities, and smart ways to use video in your email campaigns.
Last but not least, this week’s One Step actionable tip turns the tables by applying instinct before strategic thinking to help you challenge and improve your tactical choices.
Next week, I’ll spotlight another aspect of content marketing where a dose of strategy can help turn average content into something great: branding.
Until then, have a safe and productive week.
Cheers!
~ Matt
o/b/o Team MessageUp
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Our Latest Posts on The Framework Blog
Jan 11, 2023 - Use a B2B Content Marketing Framework to Avoid Random Acts of Marketing
Jan 04, 2023 - Commit to a Year of Authenticity in Your B2B Content Marketing
What We’ve Been Reading
Here are some articles we’ve been reading this week that you might enjoy and find helpful:
Beware of Sales Calls, Young B2B Buyers Say
We beat this drum loud and often: With Millennials and Gen-Z becoming increasingly common among the B2B buyer population, appetite for traditional sales and marketing calls is rapidly waning. Jason Smith at Digital Commerce 360 highlights the statistics behind the headline and what type of content buyers are preferring to consume instead.
The Cash Flow Funnel: A New B2B Marketing Funnel that is Customer- and Finance-Centric
While we don't agree with author Benjamin Broomfield's rejection of the awareness-consideration-purchase stages in a buyer's journey, there's a lot we do like about this piece, written for ClickZ. Pay attention to his focus on the 95% of potential customers who are not currently in-market, and the use of memories to create category entry points.
2023 Will See the Rise of LinkedIn, AI, and Online Communities
You probably already think of LinkedIn as the leading channel for B2B content marketing but Alessandro Bogliari of the Influencer Marketing Factory expects even more leaders and creators will turn to the platform in 2023. He also has interesting things to say about AI and offering a micro-community experience on platforms like Slack and Discord.
10 Smart Ways to Use Videos in Your Email Marketing Campaigns
There's nothing earth-shattering in this piece by Karam Virdi at ITmunch, but it rightly emphasizes the outsized ROI that video content can deliver and provides a handy listicle of video content ideas to get your creative wheels turning.
One Step…
Having just spent most of this newsletter and my weekly blog post calling for a strategic approach to content marketing, this week’s actionable step encourages you to do the opposite!
It can be difficult to challenge, let alone stop, tactics that have already been approved and implemented. But that doesn’t mean they are de facto the right things to do or that they’re being delivered in an optimum manner.
It’s perilously easy for an influential leader’s favorite idea or tactic to sneak into the mix, irrespective of its actual efficacy, and for tactics that have been deployed for months or years to persist without question.
For example, a software provider I worked with had run banner ads on a third party website for years without generating any meaningful ROI. While there’s an argument to be made for brand awareness (which wouldn’t show up in a standard ROI analysis), continuing to spend on the same channel “because otherwise we’ll lose the top banner spot that we’ve owned for years” isn’t good enough.
To help surface opportunities like this for discussion and improvement, turn off your analytical brain for 5 minutes and try this:
If I offered you $237,000 to cancel one of your content marketing tactics, campaigns, or channels, which would it be?
Doesn’t have to be $237k—make it a million, if you must—but take sunk cost and wasted time out of the equation. I want to know which of your tactics you feel least attached to—and in which you have least confidence.
If more than one tactic or channel springs to mind, so much the better. Subject each of them to the same strategic evaluation.
Why are they part of your marketing mix? What justifies them ahead of other options? What return on investment—including value generated through brand awareness, customer retention, and recruitment—are they expected to generate?
Importantly, ask yourself what you might do instead with the time and resources that would be liberated if they were nixed.
This approach might seem counter-intuitive, since we’re more accustomed to justifying starts than stops, but it will help you sniff out opportunities for fine-tuning and high-grading your content marketing efforts.
Until Next Time
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