The Casefor ContentMarketing.Ideas and tips for delivering

consistent, ongoing and

valuable information to buyers

and have them reward you with

their business and loyalty.

Attract more B2B prospectsand convert more leads withcompelling, contagious content.

Content marketing is communicating with

your customers and prospects without selling.

It is non-interruption marketing.

The strategy is to deliver consistent, ongoing

and valuable information to buyers and

have them reward you with their business

and loyalty.

The best part of developing relevant content

is that it has no shelf life. It works forever,

generating organic search results that lead

prospects to your content and conversion to

becoming customers of your business.

We hope you enjoy this collection of ideas

and tips from our team and some of the

best content marketing minds in the business.

Mark Schaeferfrom {grow} Blog

What’s the difference betweena social media strategyand a content marketing strategy?

At the core, there isn’t much difference .

Both are about connecting to relevant online customers,

serving them with helpful content, and encouraging

engagement in a way that ultimately leads to some interaction

and business benefit (like a sale).

But there is one big difference.

You might be able to fake a social media strategy by checking a box.

You can’t fake a content marketing strategy because there has

to be some thought and effort behind the content for anybody

to pay attention. You have to consistently create something

meaningful for any initiative to work.

Tell your story, naturally.

When you’re able to brush off the instinct to sell,

and just engage on a topic, it becomes much

more natural to tell your story in terms that resonate

with ideal customers.

Soon, industry expertise will become the fabric of your story.

Dave Morrisfrom MLT Ideas@Work Blog

Doug Kesslerfrom Guest Post on Marketing profs Blog

Co-founder and Creative Director for London-based Velocity

It's time for content marketersto cut the ink-stained umbilical cord.

The Internet as we know it has been with us since the mid-nineties—

more than twenty years. Broadband has been with us for more than a decade.

The first iPhone is five years old, and the first iPad is three.

And yet...

Well, for content marketers, the new medium is the Internet, and though

we don't yet know what that really means... we can be pretty sure that

it's more than one big, distributed pile of text.

Gutenberg has left the building.

We're still producing dense

white papers that people

are supposed to download,

print out, and read.

The blog is the core of every

content marketing strategy

and the e-book eats up most

of our budgets.

Most infographics are really

just magazine-style editorial

graphics that are best

consumed on paper.

SlideShare is still full of

documents instead

of stories designed

for the screen.

Create content your prospectsneed, want and use.

Contagious content is designed to gain the attention of

prospects you know about as well as helping to spread

your ideas to others who have yet to raise their hands

to identify themselves.

It's contagious because it's clearly focused on your

prospect's priorities and perspectives to quickly

promote recognition of value.

Marketers will capture prospect

interest—and keep it—because

their content is discussing

solutions to prospect problems

and offering insights and

knowledge they need.

Ardath Albeefrom Marketing Interactions Blog

Billy Mitchellfrom MLT Ideas@Work Blog

Customize the most helpful informationyou can provide each buyer segmentfor better B2B marketing content.

Forget all the things you want to say about your company.

What do the people you sell to need to know? Are you listening?

The more specific you can be with this information, the better.

You sell to a tough audience: business decision makers. So stop selling

them and start telling them.

Tell them the truth — that’s all they want to hear.

And never stop improving your customer relationship management —

the more you know about your customers, the more you can help them.

The formula forcontent marketing success.

The very best way to get started with content marketing is to build

the ultimate FAQ, using customer questions. But which questions,

and how many? Use this three-component formula:

Jay Baerfrom Convince & Convert Blog

1. What are your personas?

How many distinct buyers do

you have for your products

and services? Remember, to

be a persona, they need to be

distinctly different from one

another, with unique needs

and use cases.

2. What are your buying stages?

How many stages of the awareness,

consideration, interest, nurturing,

sales funnel/buyers’ journey do you

have in your company? Again, this is

often more complex in B2B.

3. What questions need to be

answered to move to the next stage?

To progress along the buyers’ journey,

prospective customers must have

distinct questions answered, either

overtly or tangentially. The number

and type of questions that need to

be answered will vary at each step

of the journey, but as a general rule

the questions are much more broad

at the beginning, and much more

specific near the end.

Essentially, your initial list of questions

can be generated using this formula:

Number of Personas

X Number of Buying Stages

X Number of Questions in Each Stage

= Number of Questions You Need to Answer

Ellen Sheftelfrom MLT Ideas@Work Blog

Defining engagement inB2B content marketing.

In terms of B2B marketing, engagement should be viewed as a

marathon instead of sprint. For instance, engagement in B2B marketing

is not becoming an overnight social media sensation. Instead, it is

becoming an established thought-leader in the industry by commenting

on current conversations in order to slowly grow a following of quality.

We should also understand engagement to be a two-way street.

We want prospects to be viewing our website, downloading our content

and following us on social media. In order to keep prospects connected,

we must be actively providing them with a dynamic website,

compelling content and a fresh social media presence. By ultimately

doing these things, in time, our prospects have the potential to turn

into customers.

Miniskirt philosophy for content.

I get asked all the time what is the

right length for content?

Is there a magical length that a video

should be to go viral?

Can a blog post be too long or too short?

My answer is always the same and that is the

Miniskirt Philosophy as I like to call it.

Long enough to cover the essentials,

but short enough to keep it interesting.

Yes, it is that simple. You are welcome.

CC Chapmanfrom CC-Chapman Blog

Vann Morrisfrom MLT Ideas@Work Blog

The buying cycle and buyer personasin B2B content marketing.

In developing buyer personas, remember their connection to the buying cycle,

as different stages lead to different content. Demographic information is helpful

in tailoring your message (e.g. a millennial vs. a baby boomer), but a buyer

persona doesn’t do its job if it isn’t helping develop content related to buying.

With someone early in the buying cycle, their issues are going to be more

top level than someone who is more knowledgeable. Develop content that

can educate them on the topic – and have it in multiple areas on your website

so they can find it. A chief factor in conversion optimization is not making

your prospect look for information – it has to be obvious.

Later in the buying cycle, they will need information that would come from

an initial sales meeting. How does your business work? What is your process?

What data (e.g. testimonials, case studies, award recognition, etc.) speaks to

your capabilities? What is your pricing? All of these things are important, and

the informed consumer can learn about it through your content. And if you

don’t have this information, they will find someone who does.

So when you build out your B2B buyer personas, be sure and remember

the point of them – delivering relevant content.

Break through the barriersto enterprise content creation.

If it’s becoming a challenge to get your C-level executive to write the

thought leadership content you need for your corporate storytelling efforts,

remember that, while some CEOs may love to write, nearly all of them

like to talk. Try capturing their insight and ideas using a more conversational

format; for example, interview them using Skype and record the conversation.

Your content editors can then turn the resulting audio (or video) and

transcripts into multiple content marketing pieces (e.g., blog posts,

white papers, etc.). Or, if the recorded content is high quality, you can even

use it in its original format as the basis of a podcast. Even if your CEO isn’t

available to be interviewed and is unwilling/unable to write an article,

ask if he or she would be willing to answer a few questions via an email.

In other words, don’t block the content marketing process by trying to

force your executives and staff members into doing something they aren’t

comfortable with — there are plenty of other ways to generate effective

content marketing.

Joe Pulizzifrom Content Marketing Institute Blog

Glenn Taylorfrom MLT Ideas@Work Blog

Knowing your clients creates compellingB2B content marketing.

When was the last time you did a deep dive on your clients’ needs, wants

and expectations? Are they receiving your content and coming away with

the correct impression? Are you making assumptions in your content based

on out-of-date research? If any of these questions strike a chord, here are

some simple steps you can take to “true up” your knowledge base:

Get a dialogue started – get the opinion that matters most: your client’s.

Do some quick in-person or phone interviews with a handful of customers.

You’ll be surprised at how much you can learn.

Jump the wall – don’t forget to check out what your competitors are doing

and, even better, what your customers think about what they’re doing. You are

being compared to them every day.

Investigate your sales cycle – do some research with your best sales people

and hear what they hear every day from potential and existing customers.

Define the hot spots within these interviews, and develop content to address

them. Your sales team is the final link in the sales cycle; make them an ally

and you’ll see your content marketing strategies soar.

Make your customer the hero of your story.

The best content has a human element to it.

Why?

Because your readers are people, which means they will relate

better to your story if you relate it to them on their level. Even if

you sell something inherently boring like technology or toasters,

focus on how your products or services touch people's lives.

By the way, when you are talking about people,

a good rule of thumb is this:

Be specific enough to be believable and

universal enough to be relevant.

Which is a good rule for content, and for life.

Ann Handleyfrom MarketingProfs Blog

Need an inbound lift?

If you’re looking for an

agency that can get your

B2B content marketing ideas

off the ground, look no further.

Give Billy Mitchell a call at

800-265-1244, ext. 227, or reach him online at

bmitchell@mltcreative.com.

Hurry up, though. We can’t wait to get started.

MLT Creative brings decades of B2B marketing experience to building your brand and business. We craft winning programs with results that matter.

MLT Creative is a B2B marketing agency, based in Atlanta.

Founded by partners Billy Mitchell and Glenn Taylor, we are known as the

Idea Launch Pad for B2B marketers.

4020 East Ponce de Leon Avenue

Clarkston, GA 30021

www.mltcreative.com

Phone: (404) 292-4502

Fax: (404) 292-4480