B2B firms are wasting thousands, if not millions, of dollars developing content that they never use — or don’t use the right way. In fact, SiriusDecisions spotlighted ineffectiveness and waste as the most prevalent content marketing pitfalls among B2B firms. To help CMOs and content leaders get more value out of their content marketing investments, SiriusDecisions developed “Content Strategy And Operations Planning Assumptions 2016,” a new brief that homes in on five key areas
- Sales and marketing alignment: In order to improve the effectiveness of marketing-generated, content-fueled sales enablement, sales and marketing teams need to collaborate. In doing so, they can ensure all enablement content aligns with the needs of the sales team, and ensure all content can be found, used and measured based on their overall use by sales reps.
- Measurement: According to SiriusDecisions, between 53% and 80% of all B2B content is created internally. Because internal players do the heavy lifting, some firms often see this as unlimited time and resources at their disposal. But the reality is that creating content for content’s sake is not effective. All assets need to align with business goals and need to be used strategically in campaigns and other engagement initiatives. To ensure their time and money is spent effectively, B2B organizations need to better track their internal and external creation costs and utilization.
- Organization/structure: Develop a centralized content strategy and an operations team to create a single source of truth for all things content related. Whether a team member is focused on field marketing, product marketing or demand creation, this centralized team can be a go-to source for best practices, and can centrally coordinate all processes and reporting.
- Productivity: Businesses need to break down the silos between content insights, planning, creation and activation, and acquire a holistic view of all content and campaigns. SiriusDecisions advises that B2B firms develop a unified content marketing calendar or blueprint so everyone is on the same page. (Side note: You also can fight content waste by conducting a content audit, which can help you identify messaging gaps and even hidden opportunities for new, refreshed or repurposed content.)
- Technology: As B2B organizations implement new digital marketing, content marketing and social media tools, some integration issues may crop up. This can create a lack of visibility into content performance, according to SiriusDecisions. To address this issue, the firm recommends that companies “re-evaluate marketing technology based on how they support content processes, workflow and reporting capabilities.”
If you’re a SiriusDecisions subscriber, you can grab a complete copy of the brief here. But if you’re not, this blog should be a great starting point for you to have more valuable planning discussions with your colleagues. By following these SiriusActions, you can ensure the time and money you put towards content marketing and campaigns are no longer wasted.
