The Content Marketing Bootcamp

By: Marie Wiese

Your buyer’s behavior has changed…

What are you doing about it?

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Today you will learn..

1. The elements of a good content marketing plan

2. How to rally people around the power of content marketing

3. The right tools to execute your plan

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B2B selling in the “old” days

• Sales person as company “about us”

• Cold calling

• Tradeshows

• Trade publication advertising

• Networking

• Lunching

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1898

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The sales funnel today

60% of the sales funnel is taking place

in the digital space…

How good is your online content?

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Has your sales team ever said…

• We don’t hear from customers until after they have made a decision to buy something else

• We are struggling to add value

• We have become order takers

• We are caught in the bottom of the sales funnel

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Content marketing…

Is not intrusive

Adds value

Invites you to engage

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The

Content

Marketing

Success

Loop

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Your Content Marketing Strategy must

address…

• Why are we doing this?

• Who buys from us and why?

• Who is going to do the work?

• What content are we offering at each stage of the buyer journey?

• Where does our target audience want to consume content?

• How do we know if it’s working?

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7-Steps to your Content Marketing

Plan

1. Agree on why you need content marketing

2. Define your audience

3. Articulate your differentiation

4. Execute your plan

5. Publish your content

6. Help your audience find your content

7. Define success

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1. Agree on why you need content

marketing

• As a business you need to understand the importance of content marketing in the sales process

• 99% of people searching for a product or service start their search online

• Decide if your companies current content is facilitating your buyer’s decision to choose you

Remember: Good content = Sales

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Exercise

1. List all of the places you publish content about your company.

2. List ways you determine today if customers are using that content to choose you.

3. List one thing you could do to improve your content for customers and if it might change your sales results.

2. Define your audience

• Most companies do not have a description of an ideal customer

• If you don’t know who your customer is, how are you going to determine if your content will help them in the buyer journey?

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Exercise

1. Pick one specific person that defines a perfect customer and think about what content you would develop for them.

3. Articulate your differentiation

• What is your value proposition?

• What do you offer that is different from your competitor/alternative in every way?

• Can you articulate in one sentence why your customers buy from you?

Get your Value Proposition Workbook at marketingcopilot.com/resources

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Exercise

1. In one sentence, what do your customers say about you?

2. Make a list of the problems you solve for your customers.

3. How do you solve those problems differently then the any one or anything else?

4. Execute your plan

• Creating a plan is great, but without the support from your executive team it will be difficult to execute

• Be realistic about timelines and who will roll up their sleeves and write

• Editorial calendars keep people on track and focused

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Editorial Plan

• Where

• When

• What

• Who

• Why

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Exercise

1. List the people in your organization who could help you develop content because they interact with customers or prospects.

5. Content publishing

• Topics versus format

• Editorial mission statement

• Generating content ideas

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Exercise

1. List the top 5 questions that get asked in the sales process.

2. List the problems with your product or service.

3. List ideas for a “Best of” article in your local area.

6. Help your audience find your

content

• Where do your customers consume content?

• What are your customers searching online to find solutions their problems?

• Creating content is meaningless without repetitive distribution on channels where your customers will engage with it

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Exercise

1. What are the first three things your customers do when they think about solving the problem your product/service solves?

– “How do I know I have a problem?”

– “Is my problem worth fixing?”

– “Is my problem worth fixing now?”

– “What are my choices for fixing it?”

7. Define success

• How do you know if your content marketing is working?

• After you publish your content, go back and see how it worked

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Exercise

1. For everything you produce you need to able to explain:

How conversion rate = Moving the buyer towards a closed sale

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/content-marketing-workbook