Initially, most content marketers will start off as bad ones 🙂 As Nathan Collier puts it in his Content Marketing Lounge podcast, dumpster diving is the prevalent method where “…writers are just rewriting each other’s content over and over again.” So what is dumpster diving? Here’s what it looks like:

Step 1: You are given a topic to write on

Step 2: You traverse the internet for blog posts on the topic

Step 3: Take bits of pieces from different posts

Step 4: Pretend to be an expert, rewrite a brand new post with recycled content 

Most content marketers are guilty of this especially when they are starting off, because content marketers are inherently not experts on their topics. And let me admit I have been guilty of it myself back in the day.

While creating great thought leadership content always sounds like a tall order, it is doable if you are willing to do the groundwork. Here are some tips that can help you get there. 

Write About Your Customer’s Problems

Very often, corporate B2B blogs are too restricted by their SEO keyword list. Rather than writing for keywords, write about what you know. Every business knows its customer’s problems. That’s your raison d’etre. Understand your customer’s problems deeply. 

Like Sangram Vajre founder of Account Based Marketing platform, Terminus and the Flip my Funnel podcast says, be problem obsessed rather than product obsessed. Much to my disappointment, I have spoken to too many startup founders who are quite hazy about their customer’s problems but obsessed with their products. 

Here are some ideas on how to better understand your customer’s problems and translate them into great content assets:

• Conduct Customer Interviews – Find out why customers bought and why they bought your product. Uncover what benefits they have seen. 

Suggested Content Asset: Turn it into an engaging customer blog post. 

• Run Customer Win-loss Surveys – Ask customers about their previous state before they bought your product. Were they relying on manual processes? What were their pain points? 

Suggested Content Asset: Write an e-book that compares the before and after state of automation and the benefits it delivers. For instance, prior to automation reports had to be manually created. Post  automation, reporting is available out of the box. Similarly automation also typically delivers benefits around higher accuracy, opens up possibilities for integration, brings in auditability and so on. 

• Interview your sales people – Ask sales people what their most common objections are. Listen in on sales discovery calls. What are the biggest reasons customers shy away from your product? Is there a build versus buy argument? 

Suggested Content Asset: Create product whitepapers that address the top sales objections. These can serve as effective sales collateral that sales people will thank you for.

• Pour over some RFIs or Requests for Information – Study some customer RFIs. This is painful work but well worth it. It’s particularly helpful if you are new to the product helping you quickly understand the customer’s buying criteria and common requirements. 

Suggested Content Asset: Create a comprehensive buyer’s guide that your prospects turn to and trust. If it is truly unbiased and there is no product pushing, prospects may even use it as a reference to create their RFIs.  

• Attend industry trade shows – Listen to breakout sessions at industry trade shows. These will typically reflect the hottest trends and problems in your industry. Talk to your target audience in the networking hour or on the show floor. Ask them what they hope to get out of the conference, which was their favourite session, what tech products they are evaluating and how. 

Suggested Content Asset: These can give you winning ideas for your next speaking engagement.  

Always be curious. Always ask your customers questions. This will deepen your understanding of your customer’s problems. And that is worth its weight in gold. Customer research will give you a surfeit of ideas for blog posts and whitepapers. Capture all your content ideas in a spreadsheet. You can feed this into your content marketing calendar on a regular basis.  

Writing about your customer problems delivers multiple benefits such as creating awareness and improving your organic discoverability. When prospects have problems they go on the internet and search for solutions. And when they do, they will discover your site. 

Borrow Journalistic Methods

How does a journalist write a news story? They talk to people, gather information, sift through for trends and patterns. They look for data or research studies that reinforce their central idea. Through all this careful analysis, they find an angle and an interesting hook to start with. 

Now let’s adapt this method to the world of B2B thought leadership content. Do your primary research. Talk to your customers. Ask them some of the questions I listed in the previous section. That apart, you can also talk to industry experts, research analysts, and influencers on the latest trends in the industry. This will give you a more rounded perspective. Doing this primary research will help you come up with original content ideas rather than just regurgitating what’s already published on the internet. 

Run Surveys Among Your Audience

Another approach is to run surveys of your customers and prospects on some of the biggest problems in your industry. Look for unusual angles and surprising trends. Publish your findings. Do some PR around it. Position yourself as the expert on the subject. If you get some decent press coverage, you can even make it an annual activity. This can position your brand as a thought leader in your niche, significantly lift your brand visibility, and meaningfully contribute to your backlinking strategy. 

Have Content Marketing Roll up Into Product Marketing

Where does Content Marketing roll up into today at your organization? If they are not reporting into Product Marketing here are some things you need to look at:

• Is the content team writing about topics relevant to your prospects? 
• Is your blog subscriber base growing?
• What’s your conversion rate from your corporate blog?

If these questions give you less than optimum answers, it might be a good time to make a case to change the reporting structure in your marketing department. 

Here are some benefits of having content marketing report into product marketing:

1. Product marketing can actively shape content direction and contribute to the content calendar
2. Have content created around customer problems and sales objections that reduces sales cycles
3. Ensure all content is in sync with your product positioning

Every Asset Needs to Have a Target Audience and an Objective

This is something I picked up from the good people at Pragmatic Marketing from a workshop I attended in San Francisco. Before you create any content asset, you should know and articulate the following:

• Your target audience
• Your objective
• Your Click to Action or CTA 

Once these are defined you can write more effectively for your audience. As a thumb rule, avoid writing for multiple personas as this is unlikely to resonate with anyone. 

Let’s take an example. Say you sell a sales enablement platform to the head of sales operations at mid to large enterprises. You are about to write a build versus buy whitepaper. Right up front, define the basics:

Your Audience: Head of Sales Operations (who is feeling the pain) in mid to large enterprises. These companies have already built their own sales enablement platform using legacy technologies but are unsatisfied with poor integration and reporting capabilities.

Objective: Consider your product

Call to action: Watch a 2 min demo video of your product.

Don’t Overlook the Power of Great Design 

 

When you obsess over high-value content, it is easy to hurry over design. Don’t underestimate the power of great design. Attractive and unusual images along with valuable content can often grab attention when people are scrolling on social media. Good design is essential to not just pique your prospect’s interest, but also to make your content readable, attractive and create a good first impression. If you are selling to the enterprise, make sure you spend time and resources on creating professionally designed whitepapers, ebooks, and infographics.

Write Simple and Real Stories 

Like Einstein said, “If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough.” If your writing is muddled, do some more research or discuss it with a teammate to simplify things. Here are some actionable tips to make your writing more readable:

• Use short sentences, sub-headings and bulleted lists
• Simplify concepts, avoid mumbo-jumbo 
• Use tables to compare and contrast things 
• Give relatable examples to make your point
• Use quotes from real people. Avoid making it up. People can tell when you do
• Use images that support your writing

Have a Promotion Plan for Your Content

Don’t just create a great whitepaper and bury it in your resources section. You are making it hard for your prospects to find. For all your long-form content, work out a promotion plan with your demand generation manager at least a few weeks before your piece is ready for publishing. Here are some promotional tactics I have seen work:

• A promotional blog   
• Social media posts and social ads
• Short videos
• An email to prospects 
• Promote it on various parts of your website such as your home page/product page with a promotional banner and a prominent CTA button
• Promote it at your next webinar or speaking engagement
• Syndicate your content on content syndication networks
• Publish it on reputed industry websites and/or publications to reach a bigger audience

Experiment with these different tactics for each of your pieces. Once you do a few, you will be able to figure out what’s working and what’s not for your target audience. Readjust the promotional plan accordingly. 

Conclusion

Creating thought leadership content that resonates with your target audience is a tall order, but it is achievable if you are ready to put in the effort. To come up with exciting content pieces, do real-world research like a journalist. Talk to your customers about their problems, ask sales people what their most common objections are, attend trade shows, talk to experts and analysts about the latest trends in the industry. All this primary research should leave your head buzzing with content ideas around what your customers really care about. 

Before you create any content asset, identify your target audience, your objective and the CTA. This is bound to make your content asset more focused and effective with your targeted audience. Simplify concepts with tables, real-life examples, and supporting images. To elevate  Content Marketing from fluff to effective content that shortens the sales cycle, have the content team roll up into Product Marketing. While thought leadership content is great, it also needs to look professionally designed with attractive images, illustrations, and plenty of white space to make the piece enjoyable to consume. And lastly, don’t just create content and expect your audience to find it. Promote it where your audience hangs out.