4. #B2BMX
Managing editor
Product marketing / product input
Marketing strategy input
Graphic and web design
Campaign execution
Sales enablement
People: Build Your Content Dream Team
#B2BMX
5. #B2BMX
Define your:
Content types
Content creation and publishing processes
Storage and sharing processes
Processes: Your New Best Friend
6. #B2BMX
Define your:
Content types
Content creation and publishing processes
1. Provide product input (Product Marketing)
2. Write copy and request images (Content Marketing Manager)
3. Lay out document (Design)
4. Review and approve (Content Marketing Manager)
5. Publish to X destination
6. Document in message map
7. Share with sales
8. Use in campaign
Storage and sharing processes
Processes: Your New Best Friend
9. #B2BMX
What’s a Message Map?
Awareness Education Consideration Purchase Post-Sale
Something
hurts, but I’m
not sure what
this malady is
called or how
to cure it.
I perform
research to
diagnose and
understand
this problem
and how it is
treated.
I narrow
potential
treatment
options to a
handful. Will
they work?
Have they?
I select my
treatment
provider and
begin
undergoing
treatment.
I receive
follow-up
instructions
and care. I
stay with this
provider for
years.
My name is Emily Reynolds and I’m the Director of Content Marketing at Phunware, a mobile software platform based in Austin, Texas. I’m responsible for our corporate marketing and demand gen, as well as inside sales. This is an unusual combo, but it actually makes a lot of sense. More on that later.
Also, this is obviously not a picture of me. I figured you are already looking at me right now, so I’d rather show a picture of my 20-lb cat, Robie, in his business attire.
I’ve been at Phunware for nearly three years. Before that, I was the Editorial Director of a company called Sales Engine Media, a marketing automation platform turned content marketing agency. I was responsible for building and overseeing the processes needed to support large content packages for B2B clients.
At my DNA level, I am an editor. I like to say that I will die with a red pen in my hand. This is a skill—and an identity—I didn’t realize had any value beyond academia. More on that later too.
I’m going to talk about how to build a content marketing operation from scratch, no fancy tools required. I’ll also talk about my current tech stack towards the end, but this session is about the (free) tools, templates, processes and people you need to do B2B content marketing.
I actually doubt anyone in this room needs to be convinced of the importance of content marketing in 2017. But we may need to be convinced of the importance of building a content marketing operation.
At a very simple level, we as marketers have a lot of projects and tasks that we repeat and produce a lot of. More today than ever before, as content supports the entire sales funnel, the customer lifecycle, sales enablement…everything.
If we don’t define what those projects and processes are and who is responsible for what, we will make our lives miserable. Your team should be operating as such a well-oiled machine that the processes fade into the background and you’re just delivering (and reporting on) outcomes.
How many people in this room have what you would consider to be a nonexistent or very early-stage content marketing operation at your company?
How many mid-stage? Maybe you have one, but it needs a lot of improvement?
And how many mature or late-stage?
At its core, every content marketing team needs these team members. Several of these may be represented by one person if you have an especially lean team.
Or you may have to get creative and “develop some new skills” in some of your teammates.
Managing editor: process maniac, wordsmith, grammar and style enforcer, message guardian
Product marketing/product input: Defines what your product does at a technical level and providing those inputs to Marketing
Marketing strategy (Director or VP of Marketing): How are we using this piece of content? What audience does it serve? Etc.
Graphic and web design: Layout, page building, etc.
Campaign execution (Demand Gen): Executes campaign through your marketing automation tool
Sales enablement: Tells Sales this piece of content exists, where to find it and how to use it
The key to doing anything successfully at scale is repeatable process.
If you can document, you can understand, which means you can optimize.
You will need to define processes around the following items:
Content types: These are the kinds of content your team will be producing most often. Things like blog posts, infographics, info sheets, landing pages, whatever. Anything you’ll repeat is worth defining a process for.
Creation and publishing processes: These are the lists of tasks that must happen, in order, with owners, to consider a piece of content complete. For example, if you’re working on a feature sheet together, the steps might be: (1) provide product input (product marketing) (2) write copy and request images (CMM), (3) lay out document (design) (4) review and approve (CMM), (5) publish to X destination, (6) document in message map, (7) share with sales, (8) use in campaign
Creation and publishing processes: These are the lists of tasks that must happen, in order, with owners, to consider a piece of content complete.
For example, if you’re working on a feature sheet together, the steps might be:
provide product input (product marketing)
write copy and request images (CMM),
lay out document (design)
review and approve (CMM)
publish to X destination
document in message map
share with sales
use in campaign
If you use a tool like Kapost (which, disclaimer: I do), these ideas are familiar to you. The power behind content marketing tools like Kapost is that they allow you to automate, scale and report on these processes…but doing things semi-manually and on a budget is still an extremely powerful way to scale.
How many people in this room use Google Apps for work?
Google Docs: Compose, edit, share, collaborate. You can comment to people, assign tasks, see revision histories, share with different permissions…I love this tool.
Google Drive: Store and share everything with easy-to-access links and easy-to-set permissions. No, I do not work for Google. Also, these apps are $10 per user per month (enterprise)
Google Sheets: You will use these to build and share your content message map (more on that later).
Google Templates: Turn any doc into a template. Use these for your content types and workflows.
A message map shows what pieces of content you have for each stage of the buyer journey, for each one of your buyer personas (if you have built those, which you hopefully have).
Awareness: Something hurts, but I’m not sure what this malady is called or how to cure it.
Education: I perform research to diagnose and understand this problem and how it is treated.
Consideration: I narrow potential treatment options to a handful. Will they work? Have they?
Purchase: I select my treatment provider and begin undergoing treatment.
Post-Sale: I receive follow-up instructions and care. I stay with this provider for years.
In addition to helping you keep track of all the content you have, message maps:
Serve as heat maps to identify areas of content need
Help Sales get a picture of your full content landscape