{"id":7858,"date":"2011-05-24T14:06:49","date_gmt":"2011-05-24T14:06:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.matthew-j-smith.com\/?p=7858"},"modified":"2023-09-05T02:05:04","modified_gmt":"2023-09-05T02:05:04","slug":"five-steps-to-sales-success-with-content-marketing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.matthew-j-smith.com\/?p=7858","title":{"rendered":"Five Steps to Sales Success With Content Marketing"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In a case study on their blog <a href=\"http:\/\/www.marketingsherpa.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Marketing Sherpa<\/a>\u00a0shared the incredible value of a real company\u2019s\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/3forward.com\/sales-consulting\/lead-management-consulting\/\">B2B content marketing<\/a> program.\u00a0\u00a0 Since this company took their program full speed in early 2010, here are the enviable results they have achieved.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>25% to 40% <em>increase<\/em> in revenue each quarter<\/li>\n<li>Nearly <em>double<\/em> their average annual revenue per account<\/li>\n<li>70% <em>increase<\/em> in inbound leads<\/li>\n<li>20% <em>increase<\/em> in website traffic<\/li>\n<li>3-4x <em>more site traffic<\/em> on the blog than their website<\/li>\n<li><em>Improving<\/em> SEO Rankings for major keywords<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The featured company was generous enough to share the outline of their program with Marketing Sherpa.\u00a0 It\u2019s a formula any company can follow, or at the very least use as a benchmark for their own efforts.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Five Steps to Sales Success with Content Marketing <\/strong>(via a Marketing Sherpa <a href=\"http:\/\/www.marketingsherpa.com\/article.php?ident=31911\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">case study<\/a>, May 12, 2011) (Apologies if the link no longer works, not all their content is evergreen).<\/p>\n<p><strong>Step #1. Create guidelines for messaging<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Apply across every channel.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Step #2. Setup and monitor architecture<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The client in the case study designed their program around the following channels:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Blog<\/li>\n<li>Social media\n<ul>\n<li>Facebook<\/li>\n<li>Twitter<\/li>\n<li>LinkedIn<\/li>\n<li>A local social network (unique to their geography)<\/li>\n<li>PR<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Step #3. Add more high-value content to the website<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Premium content behind an opt-in form to grow database of new leads.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Step #4. Leverage automated marketing and respond quickly<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Do not annoy or overwhelm.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Step #5. Measure, adjust and prioritize<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The case study company monitors every source individually and tracks:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Number of leads captured<\/li>\n<li>Ratio of leads to sales<\/li>\n<li>Average value of sales<\/li>\n<li>Average return-on-investment<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Here\u2019s the kicker.<\/strong> Marketing Sherpa claims, <em>\u201cContent marketing can increase the volume and quality of your site traffic, and doesn\u2019t require a huge budget. \u00a0As this company shows, you can build a strategy from the ground up using mostly free tools and resources on hand.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<p>We wholeheartedly agree with the first assertion!\u00a0 Content marketing can absolutely increase site volume and lead quality.\u00a0 It\u2019s the second part of that statement that we have to challenge.<\/p>\n<p>Across all the companies we talk to and help launch their content marketing programs we continue seeing two big <em>gotchas<\/em> consistent with every program.\u00a0\u00a0 Yes, these challenges are surmountable, but don\u2019t go in with blinders on!<\/p>\n<p><strong>Knowledge and Cost \u2013 Two Big Gotchas to Successful Content Marketing<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>First, there is a steep learning curve to launching content marketing and running these new types of lead generation programs.<\/strong> The marketing leader in Sherpa\u2019s case study brought with them experience in designing and running in-bound \/ content marketing lead creation.\u00a0 That\u2019s a huge advantage over companies that have not done it before and lack the internal expertise of someone who has.<\/p>\n<p>Talk to peers who have done this before and they will ALL tell you the same thing \u2013 it takes time and experience to get it working right.\u00a0\u00a0 Hire it, outsource it or engage consultants who have done it before.\u00a0\u00a0 You will save months of time vs. trying to learn it all on your own.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Look at our Lead ReadyTM offerings as an example of engaging short-term expertise to help you launch your program.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Second, a well running B2B content marketing program has costs, whether hard or soft, that companies need to anticipate.<\/strong> Don\u2019t take Marketing Sherpa\u2019s suggestion that <em>\u201cContent marketing\u2026 doesn\u2019t require a huge budget,\u201d <\/em>or<em> \u201cyou can build a strategy from the ground up using mostly free tools and resources on hand\u201d<\/em> to mean you won\u2019t need to allocate budget and resource one way or another.\u00a0\u00a0 Here\u2019s our quick summary of program expenses you need to anticipate.<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>The cost of your marketing automation platform itself including software licensing, acquiring lists, and modifying your website to support the new platform.<\/li>\n<li>The cost of administering the program, creating the campaigns, messages and landing pages, mining the data, maintaining the databases and analyzing results.<\/li>\n<li>Engaging and managing the accompanying social media programs.\u00a0 After all, social media is a big part of what makes these programs \u201cin-bound\u201d.\u00a0 Getting your links, content, messages and ambassadors into all the relevant social media takes time and resources.\u00a0 Those resources are either on your payroll or you will need to outsource the responsibility.<\/li>\n<li>Lastly, the content.\u00a0 This company relied heavily on a company blog they launched as part of this initiative.\u00a0\u00a0 They also made the commitment to post at least five days a week, sometimes multiple times daily.\u00a0 Later they added white papers, how-to articles and other \u2018premium\u2019 content.\u00a0 They had members of their executive team (CEO included) writing posts and several members of the marketing team also became company \u2018bloggers\u2019.\u00a0\u00a0 None of these resources are free, nor cheap!<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>Does this mean you don\u2019t make the commitment to Content Marketing?\u00a0 Absolutely not!\u00a0 It\u2019s an imperative, a best practice and as these results show, a proven way to grow sales.\u00a0 Go into it with your eyes open, but do it well and your ROI will make it all worth your while.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In a case study on their blog Marketing Sherpa\u00a0shared the incredible value of a real company\u2019s\u00a0B2B content marketing program.\u00a0\u00a0 Since [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[63],"tags":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.matthew-j-smith.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7858"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.matthew-j-smith.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.matthew-j-smith.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.matthew-j-smith.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.matthew-j-smith.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7858"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.matthew-j-smith.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7858\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8960,"href":"https:\/\/www.matthew-j-smith.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7858\/revisions\/8960"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.matthew-j-smith.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7858"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.matthew-j-smith.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7858"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.matthew-j-smith.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7858"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}