Image Credit: David Blaine
If you’ve been reading along, you already know that we’re big fans of SiriusDecisions’ latest research report on content marketing, which offers a brief look at some shocking statistics (up to 70% of B2B content goes unused!) and their suggested content marketing process—from strategy to execution.
Last week, we talked about the research report’s suggestion to get strategic before you start creating and publishing content.
Today, we’d like to talk about the second phase of their process—a phase they call Activation.
Activation is all about, well, action. It’s about taking those strategic plans and making them a reality. It’s about taking an idea and making it a goal-meeting, sales-generating masterpiece.
How do we do that?
Well…
1. We prioritize quality. Because anyone can publish a blog post, send an email, or post to Facebook…what we want is to publish, send, and post things that drive real engagement, leads, and, ultimately, sales.
2. We make our process audience-centric–not just focused on business goals, but also on user needs.
3. We use our content marketing strategy to drive everything we do. Because content without strategy is just noise. And brand loyalty doesn’t happen just because we hit the publish button.
Because it’s not enough to create content. If we want our customers to come, stay, and fall in love with our brands, we’re going to have to build something worth falling in love with.
As Erin Estep said in her Content Marketing Bootcamp talk about the SiriusDecisions research and process:
“The key takeaways here are these: Let’s start the conversation, let’s focus on quality over quantity, let’s not worry so much about white papers and webinars, and let’s talk more about the information that’s required by our buyers to support their journey.”
In other words, we need to change the way we think about and create content. We need to stop talking about ourselves and instead focus on our customers.
Want to dive deeper into the SiriusDecisions’ research and process? You can watch the video, download the slides, and view the full SiriusDecisions research report here.