Content Marketing Strategy: Two Unspoken Requirements of Success

Understand them both to ensure inbound marketing results.

Whether you refer to it as content marketing strategy or inbound marketing strategy, and there is some debate over whether or not those terms mean different things, the practice that has evolved over the past five years or so of generating content that is relevant to your marketplace as a marketing strategy has certainly picked up tremendous momentum. Newer companies like unbounce and Hubspot as well as slightly more mature organizations such as Eloqua, provide automated tools that help drive and automate inbound marketing. Hubspot in particular has had great success, garnered significant investment, and was recently named number 31 on Inc. magazines top 500 fastest growing software companies. The category is at this point credible and fully defined. This in turn creates a demand for those who have the skills necessary to execute sound inbound marketing and content marketing strategy.

Fortunately there are many resources available to gain mastery over how to use content in a way that generates credibility and ultimately well qualified leads. I would point mostly to Hubspot (disclosure I’m a customer) as they invest a great deal in creating content that is all about creating content. If you are interested in tapping into what they develop simply visit their site and sign up for one of their offers. This will put you on their opt-in list and you’ll begin to receive a steady flow of ideas. You can also check out the Hubspot blog which also offers up some excellent ideas and examples of great content marketing strategy and inbound marketing strategy and tactics. If you are looking for something not as aligned with a tool Junta42 is a good site to check out. The point is there are tons of resources to be found to answer the question ‘what is content marketing strategy‘ and how to go about doing inbound marketing.

One area, however, that I don’t see covered as much is an unspoken secret about these strategies. Well several actually. The first I’ve written about in one way or another, and that is the importance of investing the right amount of effort in truly understanding your buyer in order to develop a disciplined marketing narrative. Another is the level of effort that is required. And lastly inbound marketing strategies work best if the qualification process is well defined and the lead to sales transition well developed.

Level of effort for content or inbound marketing

The effort is big. There is no way around it. The strategies work if you have literally hundreds of web pages to pump up SEO on long tail keywords and a treasure trove of fresh content of varying types. Content needs to be developed, edited, and re-imagined continuously. Words need to appear on the digital page, and intelligently linked around your site. Not to mention the aesthetics that are required to ensure a professional presentation to the marketplace. More importantly commitment must be made to the effort. Ultimately content generation can be sorted out and even outsourced to a certain degree, but it must have the voice of the solution that you are offering to the buyer that needs it. The time commitment has to be understood and a conscious decision must be made that the development of content marketing strategy and inbound marketing will be not only a priority but someone’s responsibility. Ideally that responsibility is full time. Not to say the individual cannot handle other tasks, but the content plan and inbound marketing must be their top priority.

Qualification and transitioning leads to sales

Content marketing strategy and inbound marketing ultimately are structured to meet potential buyers right where they are in the sales cycle no matter where they might be within that cycle. In fact these strategies typically seek to capture potential prospects at the ‘top of the funnel’ and then use intelligent content with perspective to guide them along. While this has significant impact in many areas of the organization, potentially decreasing necessary number of sales reps or a decrease in spend of traditional marketing and advertising dollars to name two, one area that if affected most dramatically is the qualification process.

Top of the funnel strategies mean more leads, but they are initially less qualified. Sales teams will not invest a great deal of time in a poorly qualified lead. Therefore content marketing and inbound marketing strategies demand two things. First that the content plan includes steps not only to guide a buyer through the sales cycle, but that it also offers up the criteria that will allow buyers to self-qualify. Secondly sales must be completely bought in to the criteria and a formal process must be developed to hand off well qualified leads to the sales team.

There is much in these two secrets of content marketing strategy and inbound marketing. There are many methods for handling the effort that they require and to ensure that the qualification process accelerates sales. If considering the use of content to drive inbound leads then both must be considered in order to increases the likelihood that one will maximize the value of committing to content creation.

photo credit: Windell Oskay