Executing a comprehensive content marketing strategy isn’t an easy feat for any marketing leader. That goal becomes even more difficult to achieve when you lack c-suite buy-in to make your strategy a true success.
That’s because successful content marketing isn’t a one-person show. In reality, it’s not even a one-department show. Your marketing team needs input from the subject matter experts within the company who possess the knowledge needed to create fantastic content for your brand. But tapping into that source of knowledge to fuel your strategy is next to impossible when those subject matter experts haven’t bought into the idea in the first place.
Securing that buy-in from all departments starts with clearly demonstrating what those departments stand to gain. How will their involvement positively affect the work they do each day? What about the company as a whole?
Content has the power to benefit departments and functions throughout the company, not just marketing. To get buy-in from those departments, you have to clearly explain your strategy in terms they’ll understand — how it helps them achieve their specific goals. Consider these three company leaders and how content can benefit their departments.
Harry From Human Resources
Harry’s priority is making sure the company recruits the best potential employees to keep up with growth. He sees dozens of new résumés each day, and he’s no stranger to the eight-hour workday full of back-to-back phone interviews. Harry needs help attracting more qualified candidates and ensuring those candidates are informed for the next round of interviews once he passes them on. If he wants to hire the right employees for the company, he can use content to:
- Fuel recruitment marketing. Harry can publish content that showcases the company in a positive light to potential employees. This content could be about the company’s core values, how it approaches training, or what it looks for in employees. Whatever it’s about, the goal is to paint a picture of the company that will attract people who will succeed in the organization.
- Educate applicants. Harry knows that those on his team conducting second-round interviews want applicants to have a decent understanding of the industry and the company so they can ask more in-depth questions. To meet that goal, he can send educational articles to applicants to read between the first and second interviews to help them learn more and allow for more effective interviewing.
Arnold From Account Management
Arnold talks to clients all day, working with them to service what marketing promised and sales sold. He needs to ensure clients are informed so they can take full advantage of the company’s products and services, and he must be able to quickly answer any remaining client questions that come his way. With content, Arnold can easily:
- Answer client questions. Arnold manages more than 10 accounts at any given time, and he gets a lot of the same questions over and over again. Rather than write answers in email after email, he can create content that perfectly answers those common questions, all while offering graphics and images to illustrate his point and engage clients. This will save him a ton of time in the long run, and it will guarantee that all customers get the same information.
- Support upsell conversations. Arnold also works hard to deliver continued value to his accounts by connecting clients to other company services that can help them. When he identifies these opportunities, he can utilize educational content that discusses the benefits of new services to support his upsell conversations and help clients understand why an upsell is beneficial.
Sandra From Sales
Sandra’s biggest motivation is bringing in new business. She already benefits directly from the company’s content marketing strategy because that content generates leads from referral traffic — but lead generation is just one step. Sandra also needs help nurturing those leads and closing the deal. Content can help Sandra:
- Provide credibility to earn trust. When she’s in talks with a prospective client, Sandra aims to earn trust. But when a lead isn’t familiar with your company, that trust can be hard to earn. With guest-contributed content published in reputable publications that a lead is familiar with, Sandra can get her foot in the door, build trust, and demonstrate (with third-party validation) that the company knows what it’s talking about.
- Reengage leads. Sometimes, leads go dark, and Sandra needs a way to reach out and reengage them. High-quality published content can be a tremendous asset in starting relevant conversations. Sandra can send content about industry trends, for example, to a lead who’s gone dark, ask for his or her input on the article, and get the conversation moving again.
- Educate prospective customers throughout the sales process. Sandra receives dozens of questions from prospects throughout the sales process. Like her colleague Arnold in account management, Sandra can send a piece of published content to leads to accurately answer their questions and overcome their objections, which can be key to closing the deal. This education throughout the entire sales cycle can actually shorten it—as PR Newswire discovered when it integrated content into is process, resulting in a 30% shorter sales cycle.
For every Harry from HR and Sandra from sales, there’s a Molly from marketing and Ira from investor relations who can use content in different ways to accomplish their own goals. What’s important to remember is that content marketing isn’t just for the marketing team, and the sooner you’re able to educate other departments about how they can utilize content, the sooner you’ll lock in the support you need to grow your content marketing strategy.
Kelsey Meyer is the president and co-founder of Influence & Co.
Related Articles:
The Listening Game for Content in B2B Marketing
Using the Buyer’s Journey to Evaluate Content Marketing Success
Putting B2B Content Marketing into Context
Network
