The B2B Content Curation and Distribution Workbook

Transcription

1 The B2B Content Curation and Distribution Workbook A GUIDE TO THE ORGANIZATION, CURATION AND DISTRIBUTION OF CONTENT TO SALES TEAMS AND CHANNELS USING MOBILE Presented by

2 Introduction There has been a vast amount of justified buzz around content marketing over the past few years. Marketing teams are rushing to create content to steer information-led buyers towards their tools and services. Those teams have been vastly successful as the production and distribution of content has become increasingly simple and commoditized, thanks to the web and marketing automation. the final mile of content distribution for the enterprise -- arming the field sales team with an easily available and refined set of content as they work to close opportunities. This guide is provided as an introduction for marketers trying to deal with a volume of marketing assets though curation - and how to target and distribute that information across field sales (be they internal sales teams or channel partners) using mobile devices. We ll cover the following topics: 1. The Content Effect 2. Why Curation Counts 3. The Audit You Want 4. Getting Meta 5. Better (Mobile) Distribution Let s get started. Teams have been measured by production and lead generation but have left a void in

3 The Content Effect We have reached a watershed moment in content marketing. Marketing organizations have reorganized around content production over the last few years and with that have unprecedented access to tools and publishing mechanisms. This has made marketing efficient and organized in terms of content production. Key Content Marketing Stats* But with this success, there is a new set of challenges. How can marketers make it easy for sales channels to find the right content to help the sales cycle? How can the content gap be better bridged as an opportunity is converted from a qualified lead? How can marketing provide this in a concise and accessible way, reducing the effort and overhead for sales? Typically sales team members lean on known content and have little time to search through multiple repositories, for the latest and greatest information. It s overwhelming. Forrester recently reported data from Cisco Systems. With over twenty million pieces of content (3 million new assets in 3 months) and 165 case studies for one product alone, it highlights the issue facing the management and discovery of all of these assets. As the IMN research (right) suggests, marketers believe their goal through content marketing is lead generation. Yet for enterprise, marketing needs to evolve and steer opportunities through the pipeline using these resources. And the way to do that, is to arm sales with a rich set of targeted and up-to-date assets. This means marketers are facing the task of managing their library so that it can be categorized, filtered and pushed based on sales opportunities. Through this effort they can further enable personalization and predictive consumption across all access methods. This results in additional value being driven from each content asset, on an ongoing basis, so it has a continued influence on conversion and closed sales.. Primary Goal of Content Marketers ^ * Source: MarketingProfs - marketingprofs.com/charts/2013/11759/2014-b2b-content-marketing-benchmarks-budgets-and-trends ^ Source IMN Research Content Marketing Survey Report

4 Why Curation Counts You need to be a Content Jockey -- a front-line aggregator of the vast array of available content for your team. cu rate [n. kyoor-it; v. kyoo-reyt, kyoor-eyt] to select, organize, and present (suitable content, typically for online or computational use) It is estimated that up to 90 percent of marketing teams are creating content that is not being discovered by sales teams or customers*. That s your effort going to waste. This is because most content marketing assets are dispersed across many places within an organization (file servers, intranets, cloud storage) and promoted via bulging inboxes. A curation process (in terms of selection, organization and distribution) enables marketers to help sales teams discover appropriate and targeted material that may be useful to their needs in a much more proactive and relevant way. To do this, content needs to be organized and structured to drive relevance. There are few systems that have been built that can offer the granular support needed to do this well. Any system must offer marketers the ability to: 1. Add an asset 2. Apply meta-data to an asset 3. Retire an asset These key actions improve relevance through a publishing cycle that includes categorization and descriptive information, which can be applied in various ways to aid discovery. In addition, not all content assets are static like PDF documents, white papers, ebooks or info-graphics. We live in a world of real time information, and as such, it is also essential to curate and centralize access to those sources of content too. These may include: 1. Company news and information published via your web-cms or blog 2. Intranet and cloud-based information such as corporate presentations 3. Event information 4. Training materials 5. Social posts that provide up-to-theminute news and information Curating all of this information from the same convenient location can offer a manageable way to extend relevance for your audiences. This will not only help promote research and discovery, but it will also allow teams to better manage content as its library grows. Understanding the benefits of a centralized curation strategy and its impact on distribution and discovery will become even more evident after you perform a content audit. * Source: Corporate Visions, Inc.

5 The Audit You Want When putting a curation system in place, stepping back and performing an audit will help you with content organization. This section is provided to offer some tools to start your audit process. It is intended to ensure that all of the content you produce is under your control, and meets a basic criteria to be useful to your organization and your audience. It is split up into four key areas of information that need to be understood for each piece of content, as part of any content marketing audit. 1. Core Content Information a. Where is your content stored? b. What is its title? c. What is the intended call to action? d. What channels used for distribution? e. Who is the buyer role(s)? f. What is the expiration of the content? 2. Content Organization and Process a. Is this content mapped against a buyer journey? b. How is this content aligned to buyer personas you use? c. Who owns this content, from an editorial point of view? d. Does this content map to an existing library of keywords and tags? 3. Messaging a. Has the content piece expressed a unique vision for a target persona? b. Is the message clearly articulated? c. Does the message align to other content pieces? d. Is one target-role or audience clearly being addressed? e. Can the content piece be used in more than one buyer journey stage? f. Is there a call to action for the reader? 4. Effectiveness a. Is the content piece being used by your audience(s)? b. Is the content piece being recommended/distributed by Sales? c. Is the content piece improving revenue velocity or conversion rates? d. Do you know how the content piece performs by content channel? By refining your content based on testing against an organized process of business and marketing needs, you will improve the quality and relevance of content so it has a better impact on your business. It will also enable you hone your content marketing process to ensure that every new piece of content matches this criteria and can be measured more effectively.

6 Getting Meta Managing and organizing information about each piece of content will improve its discoverability and effectiveness. While 49 percent of B2B marketers have a documented content marketing strategy, almost all marketers have an issue with the organization and management of that content. With so much content available, the best way to drive use, search, and discovery for each piece of content is to create meta-data for it. This means that for each piece of content you produce, there should be a supporting piece of content that describes it and how it should be used. While it may be dry to implement, this is critical for its success during its lifespan. Meta-data may include: Descriptive Name Short Name Description Author Tags Categories Asset Type (PDF, PPT, GIF,...) Publish Date Retire Date Asset Thumbnail Link to Asset (short link to asset) In addition, all content should have the following fields applied for internal use: Intended Audience Intended Buyer Stage Intended Next Step / Call To Action A sophisticated management system that allows for the creation of structured metadata for each content asset should act as a structured way to discover, query, and promote content. This may be as simple as offering content based on a category of interest or vertical market, or as complex as allowing the metadata to be used with predictive analytics to promote other content. At a minimum, a standard document should be created that can be stored alongside each asset which contains defined fields outlining how to use that piece of content. Even if this is only used for internal organization and access, it will provide a better process for teams to ensure the correct asset is being used at the correct time. Source: CMI -

7 Better (Mobile) Distribution With your content organized and structured with descriptive meta-data, you need to push it out to sales channels and promote its use more effectively. engage with your team to facilitate the use of content to bring marketing and sales closer together. For many companies that means turning to mobile devices. It s an ideal environment for the publishing of information to a mobile and geographically dispersed team. Presentation Mode Offline Availability Integrated into existing systems, like CRM But the mobile experience should not stop there. Once in a face-to-face meeting, a sales person should be able to follow up with buyers in real time too. If you want to drive the use of content by your organization, you have to take one thing away from this ebook: you have to take the promotion of your material out of the inbox. Most companies either rely on an to all:sales to drive people to assets, or to updates to internal sites. They hope that individuals will be proactive enough to read and action that and to manually check the many sources of information available to them. This is ineffective. You need a new channel to The very nature of a mobile interface forces a simpler way to convey curated content to enable users to take action immediately. Rather than seeing an then forgetting to come back to it later (via a VPN connection), individuals can be altered (by or a push notification) and be able to review and use material instantly. There are some things that a mobile sales app must provide to be successful: A Branded Experience Secure Access Push Notification Support Multi-format Support That means that an application should allow many pieces of content to be bundled and shared from device straight to the buyer. Upon receipt, they should be able to open the link, view it however they access it. This means, whatever drives your app needs to offer: Tracking Packaging Sharing Multi-Channel Access This may all seem like a brave new world, but tools are currently on the market place that will enable you to offer this kind of functionality.

8 Summary So what are you waiting for? How you address curation and distribution to your sales channels is an important step in a closed loop sales and marketing strategy. Blatant pitch... Genwi has been in the thick of mobile content distribution for years. For help with a strategy to put your information in the hands of those who need it, talk to us: Following these key elements will ensure a more effective process for your marketing team and will result in better selling, engaged buyers, and more revenue for your business