The recently-released Content Preferences Survey found that 75 percent of the respondents - who were business executives across a variety of industries - want the sales messaging curbed. They want value from content, which is the first touchpoint for many B2B customers.

What kind of content are you offering your prospects? If it's just brochures and sales materials, it's probably not what the executives want. They want meaty pieces, like white papers and case studies, that explain the value of your product or service offering and apply it to their problems.

Some other takeaways from the survey:
  • 75% of respondents encourage solution providers creating content to "curb the sales messaging."
  • 55% of respondents advise solution providers to "focus less on product specs and more on value."
  • 88% of respondents cited white papers as the top choice of content type to research a business topic or solution.

If you don't use white papers as a part of your marketing mix, or you've gotten behind on white paper writing, it's time to step up your efforts. And if your team is too busy to write, consider contracting with a freelance white paper writer who can craft engaging pieces using the techniques of renowed white paper writer Mike Stelzner.
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You'll have to forgive me for another comparison to something kid-related (the first one being What Cake Pops Can Teach You About Content Marketing). 
Content marketing may not seem like a piece of cake. After all, it requires patience, thoroughness, and time management skills. But like a children's birthday party, it's possible to really enjoy your company's content marketing efforts, if you know what to do.   
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Identify your audience. A party full of little girls may gravitate toward a fairytale theme; little boys will most likely prefer something with dinosaurs. Unisex parties need activities that both genders will enjoy that's also age-appropriate. It's the same with content marketing - identify who the ideal reader is of your white paper or case study and what the biggest problems are that he or she is facing. Go beyond simple demographics, like job title and industry, and dig deeper. Is the reader male or female? What is her temperament like? Create a persona, name the persona, and have your content written to address her problems.
Focus your efforts. Ever tried to herd a group of four- and five-year-olds into party activities? They're excited to be at the party and want to get to the good stuff: cake and ice cream. Your prospects want to get to the good stuff, too - how to solve their problems. Focus on those problems, and make sure that the description of your solutions aligns with them.

Be prepared for the next part of the process. At a kid's party, you need to have the next activity or piece of entertainment ready to go, whether it's pizza after half an hour of free play at the venue or the clown making balloons after lunch. Same thing with your case studies and white papers: have the next logical item available as soon as possible. For a case study, that means having another case study waiting in the wings for release. For a white paper, that means being ready to field calls from interested prospects or making calls to warm leads who have downloaded the white paper.

Know that there will be dawdling. No matter how great the party or content is, there will always be someone reluctant to join in the fun (or act on your solution). Be ready to show your prospect over the phone or with a demonstration how you can solve their very specific problem.

For more information on how I can help you with your case studies, visit my Case Studies page. If you want to learn more about content marketing in general, download The Content Marketing Cookbook today. Or you can just sent me an email at christine[at]christineparizo[dot]com.
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According to the latest study by the Content Marketing Institute, 60 percent of business-to-business (B2B) companies are ramping up their content marketing spending for 2012. The study also found that:

  • 90 percent of B2B companies are using some form of content marketing
  • B2B companies will invest 26 percent of their total budgets on content marketing
The changes to Google Panda have made content marketing a necessity, particularly for B2B companies who need real content to get found in search results. Content marketing includes white papers and case studies, two things that are specialties of mine. If your B2B company is looking for a writer who can also research and interview, contact me. Your competition is already spending money on content marketing, so don't get left behind - or at the bottom of search results.
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Alien Cake Pops
Recently, I made Toy Story alien cake pops for my son's school friends. The recipe is far from easy, but the idea of taking a shortcut and using a cake pop mold for regular cake mix didn't appeal to me as much as making the pops the old-fashioned way.  In the process, I learned that making cake pops isn't so different from content marketing:
  • They require careful planning. Cake pops are not something that can be made all in one sitting. I spread out my cake pop-making efforts over several days to make sure I'd have time to complete each step correctly. Content marketing also can't be completed in one sitting; it's an ongoing effort that requires budgeting time and resources.  
  • You'll get your hands dirty. Despite owning one of those neat cookie-ballers (a device that looks like an ice cream scoop and creates perfectly round balls of cookie dough for baking purposes), I still had to use my (carefully washed) hands to mold the pops. Content marketing can't be done in a hands-off manner; to make sure your content is broadcasting the right message, sometimes you have to roll the content balls yourself. 
  • You're going to need patience. Cake pops don't form overnight. Neither does compelling content. Both need nurturing, molding, and planning to come out just right.
  • Shortcuts won't do the trick. Believe me, I researched cake pop molds and was not impressed with the pictures of lumpy, overflowing cake pans. That's why I started from scratch. With content marketing, it's tempting to try to repurpose something else or cut corners, but 
  • The result is completely worth it. The cake pops were super-cute and apparently a big hit at my son's school. (And tasty, too.) When content marketing is done properly, it becomes a big hit by driving traffic and assisting with sales and credibility.
 
 
"May you live in interesting times" is considered to be an old Chinese curse. After all, "interesting," according to the American Heritage Dictionary, means "arousing or holding the attention; absorbing." Nothing in there says that "interesting" translates to "positive." Think of the last car accident you saw; most people slowed down and looked because it was interesting. 

Right now, we live in interesting marketing times. With the advent of social media, marketing seems to get squeezed down to 140-character Tweets and short Facebook updates. But B2B marketers know better. We know that B2B marketing can only use a little bit of this strategy, because our products are complex and require more explanation than a Tweet allows. Content marketing has surfaced as the answer to this conundrum: case studies, white papers, and blog entries are all ways that B2B marketers can cut through the clutter of short information bursts and provide a substantial amount of information to prospects and customers.

The key, then, is to leverage content to appeal to our prospects. We need to do the research on them, find out what their pain points are, and how we can solve them with our products and services. We need to look closely at their organizations to find out what is already working as well as what isn't working at all, and then we need to communicate our solutions clearly.

These are definitely interesting times for B2B marketers as we further split from B2C marketing tactics to appeal to our customers, some of whom still see Tweets and Facebook pages as frivolous and expect more from us. We'll rise to that challenge and provide content that answers their questions.
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