Whether you’re the marketing manager of a beginning startup or the VP of Sales at an enterprise firm that’s trying to generate new leads for a flagging product, content marketing is an efficient strategy to meet your business goals. From increasing your visibility to finding new leads, it’s an area to that can bring new life to your brand. But marketing professionals stressed to demonstrate the ROI on content marketing to their teams or managers can be facing a rising battle. Here’s a faster look at strategies and statistics that you can use to help demonstrate the power of content marketing to your decision-making team.
Framing the chat
Any discussion with a managerial needs to happen at two levels. First, you need to skip straight to the impact on the bottom line. What does this exercise in content marketing mean for sales, leads, and income? From there, you can back up to talk about secondary benefits such an increased appointment, brand awareness, and thought leadership in your space. Always start with the huge impact, and then be prepared to back into the deeper discussion. With this in mind, it’s absolutely critical that you have a solid foundation in the economics of content marketing.
The second part of content marketing that you must communicate is that it’s strategic. Many people outside the field don’t appreciate that there’s a whole craft to the process that ties topic selection, content placement, and promotion plans to broader business goals.
Accepting objections
As with any conversation where you’re going to sell a thought, it’s important to understand your audience’s possible objections. Here’s a quick overview of some of the most common issues that I’ve encountered in my work with executives when we’re discussing content promotion:
• The CEO doesn’t recognize what content marketing is.
• They’re ignorant of the potential value of content to sell products and services.
• They don’t see the link between content creation and their sales funnel.
• They have out-of-date notions that the hard sell is the only way to drive conversions.
• They’re not contented with indirect attributions of lead generation to revenue generation.
• They lack context that content marketing can be both strategic and scientific in the way that it’s approached.
• They’ve had bad experiences with other forms of advertising (such as SEO or email marketing, for example) and this sounds too similar.
• They’ve bought into the Madison Avenue perspective of brand marketing, and fail to see the power of direct marketing in their business.
Conducting research before your conversation
Here’s a framework that you can use to arrange your thoughts and make sure you’re going after the right information.
General background and company situation
It’s important with any marketing approach to show specifically how the loom in question is right for your company, and why it’s the best option.
ROI and efficiency
Become familiar with general ROI statistics for content marketing. Focus on metrics that are significant to your business.
Specific industry case studies
The ability to share relevant case studies can be highly influential. Another approach to case studies is to find case studies that translate to your industry, even if it’s not a direct fit. For example, if you’re developing a content marketing pitch for a tractor company, you may not find a compelling case study that focuses on tractors.
Audience overview
Show the executives that you know your audience. It’s significant here to dig beyond the typical demographic and sales data that they’re accustomed to seeing, and to build a full-fledged buyer profile. With this as a starting point, flesh out the in order that’s available about their buying habits.
Conclusion
Getting your executive team eager about trying a new form of marketing or advertising can take some work. But if you’ve evaluated the landscape and are confident that content marketing is right for your company and its most vital marketing challenges, this specific framework is likely to help you gain traction and support.
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