A Blueprint for Content Marketing Success by Ivaylo Tsvetkov

A Blueprint for Content Marketing Success Content can play an undeniably valuable role in buyer–supplier relationships—establishing early trust, driving action, and guiding the purchase— but the precise benefits can be unclear, and many organizations are not making full use of their capabilities.

White Paper CEB Marketing Leadership Council™

Content Marketing Investment High, but Confidence Low Content marketing has come to dominate organizations’ attention and budgets. Forty-five percent of marketers’ budgets are devoted to some aspect of content marketing. In addition, 84% of marketers plan to shift more money into content marketing in the next five years. Despite the growing investment and focus on content marketing, only 45% of marketers are confident those investments are paying off. Most organizations continue to struggle with building an effective content marketing strategy and have questions about planning, execution, technology, and measurement.

We Are Confident Our Content Marketing Investments Are Paying Off

We Are Confident in the Connection Between Content and Business Metricsa

100% 33% Agree

50%

30%

23%

8% Strongly Agree

Agree

Neither

Disagree

3% Strongly Disagree

67% Disagree/ Neutral

37%

n = 93.

n = 49.

Source: CEB 2016 Content Strategy Diagnostic.

Note: Total does not equal 100% due to rounding.

Content metrics include clicks and shares; business metrics include revenue, profit, and ROI.

A New Buying Environment With more options to evaluate in the buying process, greater involvement of diverse stakeholders, and increased access to information, selling to customers today is more challenging than ever: ■■

■■

Overwhelmed Buyers—The amount of information, people, and options has reached a tipping point, placing a significant burden on customers’ ability to make purchase decisions. Too much information paralyzes decision making, too many stakeholders cause the buying group to settle for a “good enough” solution, and too many options raise the opportunity cost of solutions. The result is extended buying cycles and an overwhelming purchase experience for customers, which dramatically increases the likelihood of purchase regret. Diverse Groups—Suppliers are selling to increasingly large and diverse buying teams. Today’s typical B2B buying group includes an average of 5.4 stakeholders. As deals become more complex, new stakeholders from different parts of the customer organization are weighing in on purchase decisions, bringing diverse perspectives and business needs to stakeholder groups. The problem is consensus—buyers report that reaching team-wide agreement on a decision is 81% harder than making up their own mind. Empowered Learners—Customers are more informed than ever as online information and use of third-party consultants increase. This greater access to information encourages customers to defer supplier outreach until they are 57% of the way through their purchase process, on average. During this time, customers forge opinions and believe they understand supplier solutions.

CONTENT MARKETING BLUEPRINT

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The Sweet Spot An effective strategy must be built from organizational goals. But our research shows that good content marketing frameworks span two worlds, accounting equally for organizational goals and target customers’ buying reality. Overall content efforts must carefully and consistently target a few specific, high-priority organizational goals. At the same time, to ensure you’re producing content that not only is consumed but also drives needed customer buying behavior, you have to align your content approach to emerging customer buying patterns. The sweet spot of content marketing sits at the overlap of organizational goals and buying patterns (the green shaded region in the diagram below). Anything outside that area is likely to underperform. That doesn’t mean all content marketing strategies will look the same, as organizations will prioritize differently based on their particular market realities. But at a high level, if you can’t clearly link content back to both specific organizational goals and new customer buying patterns, you should reconsider your strategy.

Qualities of Commercially Viable Content Marketing

Organizational Goals ■■

■■

Buying Patterns

Generate quality leads. Progress and close deals. Launch new initiatives.

■■

Commercially Viable Content Marketing

■■

Overwhelmed Buyers Diverse Groups Empowered Learners

Adapt to changing competitive climate.

Source: CEB analysis.

So what does this high-performing content look like? Given changes in customer buying behavior, content will have to serve four critical functions:

Prescribe | Connect | Motivate | Disrupt

CONTENT MARKETING BLUEPRINT

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Content Types Prescribe Prescriptive content addresses overwhelmed buyers who easily become bogged down in a complex purchase, give up and settle for a smaller solution, or even abandon the purchase altogether. To prescribe the best path through a purchase process, think more broadly about what the purchase journey looks like beyond the challenges customers face when buying from your organization.

Prescriptive Content A credible and influential set of “do this”/“don’t do that” recommendations provided to customers throughout the purchase process to ease customers’ movement toward purchase

Overwhelmed Buyers

Prescriptive Content

Prescriptive Content Shows the most efficient path through a complex purchase Identifies and addresses common buying obstacles Guides customers to the most important buying criteria Leads back to the supplier’s unique differentiators

Connect Connecting content helps solve the challenge of increased diversity of large buying groups, which can lead to lowest common denominator decisions such as “save money” and “change little.” Connecting content aims to achieve group agreement on a broader vision. To do that, shift your focus from connecting stakeholders to you (the supplier) to connecting stakeholders to each other.

Connecting Content A type of supplier guidance designed to increase buying group agreement to a broader course of action favoring the supplier

Diverse Groups

Connecting Content

Connecting Content Identifies top concerns and priorities of stakeholders in the buying group Includes objection-handling points customized by stakeholder Provides tools to facilitate stakeholder understanding Suggests ways to increase agreement among diverse members of the buying group

CONTENT MARKETING BLUEPRINT

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Motivate The other problem in connecting diverse buying groups is motivating someone to mobilize and play the role of connector. People fear losing credibility and even their job as they advocate for a particular solution in a large group of buyers. So, beyond equipping MobilizerTM stakeholders with tools to build consensus (using connecting content), you must first create Mobilizer buyers. This task requires a unique type of content. Motivating content isn’t solving for a skill problem (like connecting content) but for a will problem.

Motivating Content Positions the supplier’s value proposition in a way that boosts a stakeholder’s willingness to mobilize for a supplier’s solution by connecting the solution to the stakeholder’s selfperception

Diverse Groups

Motivating Content

Motivating Content Triggers a positive emotion from a critical stakeholder Conveys an understanding of self-image benefits the key stakeholder gets from using the product or engaging with the brand Provides personal motivation for a critical member of the buying group to advocate for the supplier’s solution

Disrupt Disruptive content addresses customers who are empowered with information and can independently set buying criteria, driving suppliers into a commodity trap. Your biggest challenge isn’t your direct competitors but rather your customers’ ability to learn on their own. The only way to compete against this commoditization is through content that disrupts that kind of learning. Demonstrate to customers that despite their independent research, they’ve missed something important to their business that will require them to reset their priorities. These reset priorities should lead them to favor your unique strengths.

Disruptive Content Built on a credible, relevant, and surprising insight that reframes how customers think about their business in a way that increases their willingness to pay a premium for a supplier’s unique strengths

Empowered Learners

Disruptive Content

Disruptive Content Challenges a widely held belief about the best way for a customer to approach an important business problem or outcome Presents a credible solution to the problem Leads to the supplier’s unique strengths

CONTENT MARKETING BLUEPRINT

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Focus Efforts Most organizations will likely have to create different content types to address their organizational and market needs. CEB offers tools to help you identify what buying pattern hurts you the most and determine organizational importance. Once you prioritize the right content types, assess whether your content works. Visit cebglobal.com/content-marketing to learn more.

About CEB CEB is a best practice insight and technology company. In partnership with leading organizations around the globe, we develop innovative solutions to drive corporate performance. CEB equips leaders at more than 10,000 companies with the intelligence to effectively manage talent, customers, and operations. CEB is a trusted partner to nearly 90% of the Fortune 500 and FTSE 100, and more than 70% of the Dow Jones Asian Titans. More at cebglobal.com.

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