The 7 Steps of the Content Life-Cycle with Ardath Albee

Ardath Albee: [00:00:00] Whenever you talk about scale and content, people think that means more. When I talk about scale and content, I'm talking about depth.[00:00:10] 

John Common: Welcome to Growth Driver, brought to you by Intelligent Demand, where the best minds in B2B are [00:00:20] redefining growth. Hello everyone. John Common here. You know, as revenue leaders, we spend a bunch of our time working on You [00:00:30] know, goals and strategy and process and alignment and technology and data and metrics, and we should.

That's our job, [00:00:40] right? But, you know, when you step back and really ask yourself, how do our customers and prospects actually get to know us? [00:00:50] What do they actually interact with? They don't interact with our strategy or our tech stack, really. At the end of the day, I think it's three things. One, ultimately, our prospects and customers get to [00:01:00] know us through our products, through our people, and through our content.

Content is so important in B2B growth. It is [00:01:10] not an overstatement, I think, to say that content is the lifeblood of any effective business. Growth strategy, right? But the truth is, uh, most B2B [00:01:20] content is awful. It's generic. It's boring. It's irrelevant. It's jargony. It's timid and scared. It's [00:01:30] totally bland.

Seriously, in most B2B categories, I think you could swap the logos out of most B2B content and not even know the difference. You wouldn't even know what company you're talking about. [00:01:40] So the question is, how do you create content that doesn't suck? And that's what we're going to cover today. We're going to walk through [00:01:50] the key steps of the content process.

We're going to uncover and unpack insights, advice, mistakes to avoid so that we can create [00:02:00] content that is super engaging, super relevant. That differentiates us in the market and that drives growth. Yay. Sounds, [00:02:10] sounds, uh, relevant. Doesn't it? So to help me do this, I have a real deal content expert with me today.

Ardith Albee is a B2B marketing [00:02:20] strategist. She's a content consultant. And coincidentally, she is the author of a book called Digital Relevance, which is all about how to develop marketing content strategies that [00:02:30] drive results. Ardith, welcome to Growth Driver. I'm so glad you're here. 

Ardath Albee: Thanks so much, John.

It's a pleasure to be here and you know this is my topic. 

John Common: All right. Well, [00:02:40] I want us to walk through the major steps of the content process and, and, and I'm going to list them out and [00:02:50] then we'll go into each one. One, what is your target audience? Right? So target audience definition. Number two, Have you done your homework?

[00:03:00] What, what research have you done to uncover real insights? That's the fuel for great content. Know your audience. Step one, do your homework. Step [00:03:10] two, step three, positioning and messaging strategy. Step four, Content planning. Step five, content [00:03:20] development. Content execution is step five. You gotta go build it.

Six, content promotion. Activation. [00:03:30] Distribution. And I forgot there's actually a seventh and that is content measurement. Measurement, which then takes you all the way back to optimization, and that's the cycle. That's the circle of [00:03:40] great content. So with that process laid out, I want to talk first about the first one.

Target audience definition. How [00:03:50] do you define or help your clients, which are often large enterprise clients, Companies define their target audience. [00:04:00] 

Ardath Albee: Oh, well, it depends which company, of course, but it depends on how well they've, um, locked down their ICP and in an [00:04:10] enterprise company, since you set the context, there can be different divisions, right?

Selling different products. To different markets to whatever. So you have to get real tight on that. [00:04:20] ICP, right? Who do you want more of and then within that? Uh icp you need to look at who's on the buying team, right? And [00:04:30] buying teams. I don't know how how much of the Research you read but depending on which analyst you're talking to it can be 6 20 [00:04:40] 96 You know, whatever.

I mean, it's just 

John Common: but here's what I do know The buying team isn't one lead. It isn't a single MQL. That's what we now know. Right. [00:04:50] 

Ardath Albee: And so what you have to determine is who was in that group of people will talk to you or who, who can you talk to? So a lot of times what I'll do is I'll [00:05:00] say, okay, let's go look at your database and see who you have.

Right. Because if you don't have them, then we got to start at a whole nother place. Like, how do we get them right [00:05:10] instead of so trying to figure it out. But in the course of doing this, I think the mistake a lot of marketers make is they decide a lot of this stuff on their own and then [00:05:20] sales doesn't buy in.

Your customer success people are pissed off your, you know, product people are, you're out of alignment with them because they're quite often [00:05:30] building user personas and for the end users using the product, whatever. And so you kind of have to start internally and go through and figure out, well, who is sales talking to?

Who can they [00:05:40] engage? Because let's face it, if we go out as marketers and we're generating in quotes leads or MQLs, MQAs, however you want to define it, and sales isn't interested. 

John Common: [00:05:50] Yeah, 

Ardath Albee: well, you know one of these 

John Common: that is such a classic mistake. You're totally right Is that and we we know we believe certainly at intelligent demand [00:06:00] and growth driver.

We know that B2B growth is a team sport that another way of saying cross functionally Uh orchestrated and I think when [00:06:10] you say that I think most people think yeah Once we build everything we need to be a team once we launch But what you're saying is at the very beginning we need to be a team We need to have [00:06:20] product and marketing and sales in the room helping us define our target audience 

Ardath Albee: And i'll get i'll just give an example of something I ran into at one point was [00:06:30] The company believed it needed to engage c level and so everything they were doing was all around engaging c level Which nine times out of ten is just dumb because c [00:06:40] level didn't have time to talk to you and they're going to delegate anyway 

John Common: Right, 

Ardath Albee: but anyway going with that It was all about engage the c level and then when I met with the sales people what I figured out [00:06:50] was They couldn't hold up their end of the conversation with the c level because they didn't understand The strategic perspective of a c level etc.

And so they [00:07:00] were better off Going in at the director level and having those people champion it up, you know, and so you've got to look at the dynamics of the whole [00:07:10] thing. What are you prepared to engage with? Because, and now it's even more critical because Buyers don't want to talk to sellers, right?

They're [00:07:20] pushing them out. So marketing has this huge opportunity. It's so exciting that we should be actually building this across the entirety of what I call the [00:07:30] continuum of the buying process, right? We need to support it all the way through. But if we don't do that well, and our sellers aren't prepared for the right conversation, what have we [00:07:40] just done?

John Common: I mean, talk about lifeblood, a company's customers, Is the lifeblood of that company. And I understand why you would want to be a little [00:07:50] careful about letting, you know, any, just any person go talk to your most precious thing, which is a customer. And yet, and I think this is [00:08:00] your point, you skip that, you skip that at your peril, you skip it at your peril.

So I, I know you've got this concept. Um, around, I [00:08:10] love that it's MVP, but it's minimum viable persona, not product. What's an MVP? 

Ardath Albee: Well, we all know [00:08:20] AI is encroaching on everything. And so I came across a bunch of people who were thinking, well, we don't need to go build personas anymore. We'll just ask AI. As I was playing [00:08:30] with AI, I figured out how to get it to give me the information I needed, but what, what I needed was a way to validate that, 

John Common: right?

Ardath Albee: So instead of doing a full [00:08:40] blown persona where you need like 25 interviews and takes months and, you know, whatever to get all this scheduled and done, what if you could do it with, Five to seven [00:08:50] interviews, you know, and I figured out I could, I could get a baseline persona that gave me priorities, problems, challenges, obstacles, all of those [00:09:00] things get the understanding of the words they use, the phrases they use, which you always want need to be relevant, right?

Now you write your content and talk to them. [00:09:10] And then I could take that MVP and use AI with it to flesh it out. To help me develop, you know, [00:09:20] content ideas and strategies, whatever. And I had a way to back into it and validate it and say, no, our buyers wouldn't say that. At least I don't think they [00:09:30] would.

And so I could call AI on its BS and say, no, no, no, redo it this way. And so that's um, streamlining things [00:09:40] because you can get that done in less than a month. 

John Common: You're not saying. Never use a I. You're saying use a I in the right steps and places and put the right [00:09:50] expectations about what it can and can't do what it should and shouldn't do for your unique go to market strategy for your unique product and [00:10:00] brand.

And I love that. And I think also, you know, another thing I want to throw out there that I love about your MVP concept is [00:10:10] What makes this piece of content really resonate with me versus this other piece of content that is bland and boring and irrelevant [00:10:20] sometimes. And I would say frequently it is that last mile insight that you gleaned because you took the time to talk to five [00:10:30] actual weird human beings called specific people, not AI.

Like you really, because I don't know how you would put it, but there's this, the specifics. That you [00:10:40] only get when you really do unique homework or are sometimes the things that you can separate bad content from good content with. And I, and I [00:10:50] know you believe that. And I think that's what I'm hearing in your MVP concept is you, maybe you don't have the time or the money or even the need to go talk to 50, but talk to five or six or seven and [00:11:00] listen for the specific weird things.

Not the obvious things, 

Ardath Albee: but it's then also taking it and distilling it down into, you know, [00:11:10] combining what all those five people said or whatever, and distilling it down into those things you need to know in order to build a storyline from problem to solution. Right. [00:11:20] 

John Common: How are you going to 

Ardath Albee: engage these people?

What kind of information do they know? What do they wish they would have known before they bought from you? I I learned a tremendous amount of stuff from that question right there [00:11:30] You know that you'll never find you see a lot of this information stuff I don't care how much data you look at or sales calls you sit on or whatever [00:11:40] You will not learn the stuff that you can learn in a 30 minute conversation 

John Common: with 

Ardath Albee: your customers You know and what they can tell you You And the the [00:11:50] key there is also You can get a real feel for the emotional involvement they had right?

How was it impacting them professionally? [00:12:00] How was you know? What were they worried about in their in regards to their status within the company? Or who really pissed them off that they had to figure out how to convince or [00:12:10] you know, whatever And you don't learn that from data You don't learn that from a survey.

You don't learn it from you know, I mean, that's not that's not 

John Common: quant that's [00:12:20] qual 

Ardath Albee: for sure The other thing too is what i've seen in and i've been building personas for What over 20 years now [00:12:30] and so there has been one time Where a client has come to me and said, we already have personas. Can we just get right into content strategy?

And I've [00:12:40] looked at those personas and said, I can work with that one time. And here's the, here's the thing that the, you know, the big mistake that a lot of people make is they [00:12:50] do these personas and they've got, first of all, they've got all this crap that you'll never need, like married with two kids and three dogs and lives in the suburbs and drives a Volvo.

Well, who gives a crap? You know, [00:13:00] you can't use that. And so. Um, what you need is what you can use. But then when it gets into the business stuff, it says, well, their priority is to grow revenue. Really? [00:13:10] What are you going to do with that? 

John Common: Yeah. 

Ardath Albee: What does that mean? You know, we got, we got to become more efficient.

We need more efficiencies in what? Yeah. 

John Common: [00:13:20] One thing I do want to add that, that is also, uh, uh, avoid what I'm about to say at your peril. In other words, don't make this mistake. And that is [00:13:30] when you're defining your buying team and your personas. Recognize that in B2B, especially those personas often [00:13:40] shift sometimes a little, sometimes a lot when you move from acquisition into onboarding into renewal and [00:13:50] into cross sell upsell expansion.

And so the, even if you do have personas, chances are very high To your point, they're out of date and too high level, but they're also [00:14:00] probably acquisition focused. So don't forget to double check and ask the question, how does the personas and the buying team change at my company when we go [00:14:10] into the whole end to end life cycle?

So I just want to throw that out for the audience. 

Ardath Albee: You know, and just one more quick thing on that. 

John Common: Yeah. 

Ardath Albee: It's a huge problem and here's the reason why. [00:14:20] When you look at your persona or acquisition, They're trying to solve a problem when you're looking at a persona for retention, expansion, they already solved that [00:14:30] problem, right?

With you renewing, right? So they already solved that problem. So now what? What's the new value? What's the new whatever. So [00:14:40] it's a whole different thing, even if it's the same person, right? They're in a different context now. 

John Common: That's a really great point. Even if it's the same person, it's a different persona [00:14:50] because we're at a different stage of the customer life cycle.

That's awesome. Art of all right. All right. So we've defined our target audience and we have already been going into step two. You've been giving us some good [00:15:00] flavor and ideas around how to do the second step, which is research and insights. But I want to ask you, what are two or three questions? Because you've been doing this for [00:15:10] a long time.

What are two or three questions when you're interviewing a persona? Developing your target audience. What are some questions where you're like, man, these two or three [00:15:20] questions always yield really useful information? 

Ardath Albee: Oh, um, well, the first one is, talk to me about the situation that had you decided to [00:15:30] solve the problem or buy the thing or whatever, right?

What did that look like? And why did you care? Why was it, why was it urgent enough you had to solve it now? Like, [00:15:40] couldn't you have just put it off and done the work around and, you know, whatever. And so you get all kinds of insight about that kind of stuff. And [00:15:50] the, the other one is who else was involved?

Who gave you problems? Where'd you get pushback? You know, what obstacles did you have to overcome? Stuff like that. [00:16:00] And, um, because you may think, you know, your buying committee, there's a lot of people that never show up on your website or anywhere else. But they're in the scenes, right? You [00:16:10] cut. I mean according to One, I think it was path after 96 people, you know That somehow touched this buying process or whatever you are not going to know [00:16:20] all of them But the other thing too is if you have a buying committee of 12 You probably don't have the resource to create content from more than two or three of [00:16:30] those.

So how are you going to enable those two or three, right? And who's in your database that you can reach also. But how are you going to enable [00:16:40] those two or three to Share content with the others that they need. So you still need to understand. What is that? Maybe you're only [00:16:50] creating a couple of pieces for them that are pass along, right?

But you've got to help the people that you can engage with build that consensus With that wider group of [00:17:00] people or you are going to fail, right? and now given that buyers are pushing vendors out until they've already pretty much chosen their short list and [00:17:10] Decided who they think they're going to go with before they even talk to sales It is now incumbent upon marketing to make sure that all of that is covered with contact.[00:17:20] 

So you've got to be really specific about, okay, we've got these two or three personas in our database so we can reach out to them. Each one of these is [00:17:30] connected to these other people. So what in our plan is also going to, you know, Engage them. What's relevant to them? What's the spin on [00:17:40] it? 

John Common: Gartner has been teaching and preaching our industry correctly, I think, which is, we're not talking about sales enablement.

We're talking about [00:17:50] buyer enablement. The act of B2B buying is difficult and complex. And And they buy in teams and it's a journey. It's a process and and it's a difficult [00:18:00] process. And I love what you're saying. You're reminding us that look for let's just stay with acquisition as an example, the acquisition motion.

Um, there are probably two [00:18:10] or three really important personas for your category, for your product, for acquisition that you want to Prioritize your content and messaging for, but don't, what I hear you saying is [00:18:20] don't forget that those three people are probably only three people on a potentially 10 plus person buying team that includes grumpy [00:18:30] procurement, grumpy, it grumpy.

They're not always grumpy CFO, some, you know, influencers, maybe even other partners or consultants. And so you want to put. [00:18:40] In those three target personas, you want to put in their hand, in their minds, uh, tools, thinking, talking [00:18:50] points, value points that they can deliver to the wider buying team, because chances are very high that not only will your salesperson not be in the room with [00:19:00] them, your content might not even be in the room with them.

So I think there's something around buyer enablement for the whole team that is really a great call out, uh, here. [00:19:10] 

Ardath Albee: So I've been seeing lately this big discussion across LinkedIn and everywhere where it's like brand versus demand. Well, excuse me. No, it's not one versus the other. They [00:19:20] work together. But the whole point being, that C level executive that you can't reach personally with your marketing, but you could have somebody else pass [00:19:30] along something to them.

That's part of building brand awareness recognition. So when they present up and say, this is the solution we want to buy that that [00:19:40] sea level is going, Oh, yeah, I'm familiar with this company. 

John Common: That's right. Right, right. 

Ardath Albee: So it doesn't just a brand is not just, you know, advertising, awareness, [00:19:50] whatever, I would argue that if marketers are telling the story, From problem to solution, and even pre problem, like, why should you know you have this problem, or even care, all the [00:20:00] way through, how do you solve it?

We are merging brand and demand as we build this story. And that's what builds momentum, right? Is that transition [00:20:10] across because if you think about it, demand content is your, I would argue, bottom of the funnel stuff, all your product stuff and you know, ROI calculators, etc, blah, [00:20:20] blah, blah. And brand content is your thought leadership, your point of view, which is a lot of times why you even get the consideration set in the first place.

Yeah. But it's also what [00:20:30] helps establish, um, people's thinking about, oh, maybe I need to solve this problem. Yes. Why should I really think about this? Right. That's right. And once you get them engaged in that, then you can [00:20:40] start talking about, you know, once you're past the why, then you can start talking about the what does that mean and the how do you do it?

And the. You know the rest of it, but I would argue that the most [00:20:50] effective content that we can put out There is not product focused. 

John Common: Amen 

Ardath Albee: buyer focused 

John Common: That's right. That's right. Ardith. Plus one. [00:21:00] Okay. All right. We've defined our target audience. Step one. Step two. We've done our research and homework.

We've developed real actionable insights. Step three [00:21:10] now is not go create some content. It's positioning and messaging strategy. It's the, it's the overarching point of view [00:21:20] and strategy. What advice do you have for us around? How do either dock up into, uh, that existing positioning and messaging [00:21:30] strategy before you go running down and do content planning and execution?

Or how often do you go to do content and find out that they really don't have an up to date fit for [00:21:40] purpose positioning and messaging strategy? Talk to us about that stuff. 

Ardath Albee: Yeah, well, generally, when you get your persona research done and all of that, you're looking at it and you [00:21:50] go look at the messaging on your website, let's say, or whatever.

And you say, okay. This persona lands on our homepage and you go, Oh, right. [00:22:00] And so a lot of it. And the thing is, I work, I work most of the time for enterprise companies. I am not going to get them to change their overall company [00:22:10] positioning. So then I have to look at it and say, Okay, how do we interpret?

This message around what the persona needs to hear and hopefully that [00:22:20] we're going to get set stand up a new section or influence You know, whatever but the other thing about the Lot of the programs I develop is that we put the content on [00:22:30] blind pages and I know i'm jumping ahead to distribution here But the reason for it Is because we don't want everybody and their brother going there.

The [00:22:40] messaging isn't for them. We want this set of people to engage with this content and it does a lot of different things which we can talk about. We get to measurement or [00:22:50] whatever and being able to refine your programs or what have you. But you've got to think about, I think before you can even, I mean, you think about the messaging and everything else, but then it's like, [00:23:00] Okay, we're going to get a ton of pushback.

From corporate comms and whatever, if we put something up that goes against this core message, they have, it's got to roll [00:23:10] underneath. How do we do that seamlessly in a way that works, but how do we also protect our buyers from getting confused, you know, [00:23:20] or conflicted. And so we kind of have to think about how it all rolls together.

And sometimes that does mean we have to go fight the battle and get some of the, you know, [00:23:30] umbrella messaging changed. To work. And in fact, recently I got in a knockdown drag out with a subject matter expert at one of my clients because he said, we don't want [00:23:40] to say this. And I said, it's on the homepage of the website.

They're going to go there. They're going to see it. What do you want me to do with it? 

John Common: Yeah. 

Ardath Albee: He says, Oh crap, we can't change it. And I said, no, I [00:23:50] tried. And so we have to use it. And he says, okay, you know, because I said, there's nothing you can't tell him one thing in the content. And then they go to the website to check you out.[00:24:00] 

And it's a totally different, you know what I'm saying? 

John Common: Yeah, I do. I do. I see it all the time. My two cents here on this step around this step. [00:24:10] Remember, we're in the content. Process. So it's content that we're ultimately creating and sharing and measuring. That's what's coming up. And this step says, Hey, before you do that, [00:24:20] you have to check in with your company's positioning and messaging.

That's what this step is saying. And you're looking. Lines of coherence or to your point lines of like where [00:24:30] that's broken. And what I will tell the audience is be prepared to be disappointed. When you get to [00:24:40] this step, there's a lot of companies that are using, uh, there's several mistakes I see when it comes to positioning and messaging is, uh, it's out of date or it's what I [00:24:50] call corporate narcissism.

It assumes that the world really cares about. Me, the company, the brand versus their own problems and pain. So with corporate narcissism, I see that a lot. [00:25:00] So out of date, narcissistic. Another one is, um, is it's, uh, investor [00:25:10] messaging. It's not really buyer messaging. It's like, it literally looks like it came out of a private equity pitch deck, you know, and so I don't have a total, so [00:25:20] that's not what the purpose of this episode is about, but I think what the advice I would give our audience is if you.

Rightly go in the middle of a content cycle, go to [00:25:30] check in on positioning and messaging if it is, if it's a little off, you can work with that. And that's the stuff that art of the, you were talking about. You can, you can, there's lots of ways to make sure that you [00:25:40] dock in, that you create coherent buyer experience that you, you know, don't sit them, sit them to the wrong page or the wrong message.

There's a lot of, Yeah. Scrappy, pragmatic, [00:25:50] pragmatic ways to get around that. But if it's really off, I think you have to say something. I think you have to raise your hand and say, Whoa, because if you [00:26:00] don't, you're at risk of doing the thing that I teed this whole episode up with, which is making content that won't work.

Ardath Albee: Well, and I'll, and I'll tell you what, I have a benefit and you do [00:26:10] too, of being a consultant or an agency, what have you, of being that outside voice. Thanks. Right. Reason, hopefully, right? It comes in and says, Hey guys, this [00:26:20] is a problem. Here's why it's a problem. Here's what we suggest you do. Whereas if you are on the team internally, you're going to get your head chopped off by somebody who owns that [00:26:30] messaging is, you know, and it's not, it's, it, the website is a political.

Oh, it's fine. Field. B2B 

John Common: RevTech used to be pretty simple, a [00:26:40] website, an email platform, some data. Those days are long gone. You know it, I know it. If you need an expert B2B RevOps partner, [00:26:50] go to intelligentdemand. com and schedule a free consult with one of their RevOps strategists. They can help. Okay. So step one, we've defined our target [00:27:00] audience.

Step two, we went and did some, our homework got some actionable insights. Step three, we double checked within with positioning and messaging, looking for those [00:27:10] coherent lines of, uh, lines of continuity that we can dock into. Now we are ready to do some content planning. How do you think through and choose?

I mean, [00:27:20] content is enormous. You've got lengths, you got formats, you got content for different use cases, content for different channels, content for different stages of the revenue process or the [00:27:30] buying journey. And, uh, this step says you need to think through that, prioritize, um, what you're have the time, the money, [00:27:40] the bandwidth to do and create a thing called a content plan that will guide the next step, which is building and executing that content.

So when you think about content planning. Especially for these [00:27:50] larger, complex brands that we work for. What advice do you have? 

Ardath Albee: Well, mostly I think about it in line of, um, a storyline, 

John Common: right? [00:28:00] 

Ardath Albee: What do we need to educate this persona about from beginning to end problem to solution, right? And the thing for me, set all the format stuff [00:28:10] aside, what you have, everything else, and think about that story.

Now, the way you get to story in my world anyway, is what are all the questions that your persona needs to have answered? [00:28:20] What are those? And if you look at those questions, you're like, why should I care? And what will happen if I don't fix it and blah blah blah [00:28:30] and then you get to what what are my options and You know, and then what if users won't adopt it and you know, whatever all those questions and they almost self organize Right, you're not going to ask [00:28:40] why should I care?

Or or what are my options before you answer? Why should I care right? And so you can almost self organize them and so that creates your [00:28:50] storyline The answers to those questions are what are the premise for your content? You Right. How are you going to answer those questions? And it may be that you know, one [00:29:00] question is answered by a social post a blog post a webinar, uh, You know, whatever but the thing is those questions And then you look at them and i'll say okay [00:29:10] What's the main theme in the answer for each of these questions?

Is it innovation? Is it you know, what what main theme goes in there? [00:29:20] And then you go and look at what do we already have? Do we have stuff that speaks to this that speaks to the persona that we could repurpose or update or whatever? Do [00:29:30] we need to create new you know, what what does that require? And then it's looking at okay Can we, you know, do this show?

[00:29:40] It's focused on this. No, we don't have that kind of money for an in person event. Let's do a webinar or whatever. But then you look at it and you say, okay, what's going to be more [00:29:50] effective? Where, how are we going to engage these people? Given the storyline, what channels are they on? What you find out when you build your personas, right?

[00:30:00] And, um, you know, how are we going to create this? And here's one of the things that I absolutely love. Everybody is wild about video. Love video. We got to create tons of [00:30:10] video. Nine times out of ten when I talk to buyers, we don't have time for video, they say. We want content we can scan and go, okay, yes, that's the important point we need to know.

With video, we're held [00:30:20] hostage. It's hard for us to share it because we have to tell somebody, go to minute 3. 47 or whatever, and you know, so it's, I'll tell you what, the best campaigns [00:30:30] I've ever run have been text based. And, you know, the other thing that drives me crazy is when that stupid goldfish thing came out.

Oh, you have eight seconds, you know, [00:30:40] and then they're gone, you know. Well, I'll tell you what in the campaign I just ran, uh, average engagement time was four minutes and 45 seconds on [00:30:50] the content that we had in that program. Excuse me, no goldfish here. So, you know, you've got to figure out that's part of why you talk to these people instead of [00:31:00] looking at your stats, right?

Is what will they engage with? Because let me tell you something, a two minute explainer video when somebody spending a million bucks to solve a problem [00:31:10] is not going to do the trick. Nobody's going to spend a million bucks because they watch your two minute explainer video and it blew their socks off.

John Common: We're at this part where it's content planning. And I [00:31:20] think I want to, I want to go back to, I think you're a hundred percent right. Content planning. Let's call it what it is. When you get to this step, you can get [00:31:30] very lost in the forest of detail. Okay. And let's write, Oh, what stages, how many personas, what formats, what links, what, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

You can [00:31:40] quickly get lost. Um, I love your advice. And you're saying, what are the storylines that match customer journeys? Not [00:31:50] I'm here to talk about my product. So what are, and what questions do they have along their journey? Not your, I want to sell you something journey, [00:32:00] their buying journey. Then you drop those questions and you have to, and I used, I think, I know you agree with this.

What I, what I've learned, um, with our work [00:32:10] is when you're doing content planning, it is critical. That you be sort of borderline, brutally honest. Don't be a corporate Homer. [00:32:20] You've got to not, you have to almost mentally get out of your company and fall in love with with the buyer mindset. And if you do that, [00:32:30] that's how you find those questions that you talked about.

And then you look at those value themes that drop. You talked about themes that drop out. That is a great. [00:32:40] Spine for your content plan. And then your second piece of advice is you might already have a either content or content that's good enough, or maybe it's good enough, or maybe [00:32:50] it can just be judged a little bit.

So you go do a content audit against that plan, that spine, and then you get real about budget timeline and [00:33:00] can stay and stay focused on the persona and the story. And so I think that is a really good set of advice, frankly, on this step. Okay. So. [00:33:10] We've defined our target audience. We've done our homework and created insights.

We have checked in with our position and messaging strategy at the company or division level. We now have then, uh, followed [00:33:20] artists really good advice around storylines as the spine of a great content plan. We have finally earned the right to go create some content, create the [00:33:30] content called for step C above in our content plan.

How do you, what advice, what tips, what mistakes that you've seen? Uh, how do you build [00:33:40] Content efficiently effectively. How do you not biff it at this stage of content execution? 

Ardath Albee: Well, I'm backing up to the storyline. When I create [00:33:50] storylines, I am also creating the content brief for each touch. So the answer to that question, the outline of what it's going to achieve, because what I need to get to is [00:34:00] what's the takeaway at the end?

What does your buyer walk away with from that, which needs to feed into the next piece? You have to create a story from start to end to [00:34:10] understand where the gaps are, right? Make sure you've got it all covered. Yeah, how you present it could be a whole different story, but you have to have all the pieces right so [00:34:20] This is where we get all these random acts of mediocre garbage content is because people are like Well, they need to know about this and they throw it out there.

Oh, they need this other it's like [00:34:30] shiny objects squirrel You know and yes No, what's the story line? And then how you share that and how people engage with it may be different, but you've got to hook it all [00:34:40] together. So when you, when you, uh, as part of your story line, you need to outline what that content is going to be, um, or at least what [00:34:50] needs to be covered, right?

And then you can decide things like format or content. Yeah. Are we going to do a video and a blog post? Are we going to do, you know, whatever right? Yeah inside all of that when you get [00:35:00] to the development part of it, but it also depends on resource Right and how you point what is it for is the content for social is it for your [00:35:10] website?

Is it for a nurture program, which I talked about before I run those on blind pages, because the only statistics I want to see on that are from these [00:35:20] people, these personas, that I want to engage with that content. And I want to know, is it engaging them? If I put my content out on a public webpage, how do I [00:35:30] know?

Which engagement would came from somebody in the persona and which engagement was just a random drive by viewer, right? And so I want to know that out of [00:35:40] you know, the people in this persona group They are engaging with this piece of content for four and a half minutes, you know, or whatever it is [00:35:50] And then they're clicking on the see also content and then they're, but I want to know it's them that's doing it.

Otherwise I don't care about the statistics. 

John Common: When you look at your content plan, what will, [00:36:00] if you do it right, well, if you do it wrong, you know what you'll do? You'll do single use, episodic, very [00:36:10] expensive. Like I need a, this piece of content and I needed that piece of content and I needed this piece of content and you end up doing siloed content, [00:36:20] which I'm just going to tell you is extremely expensive.

Most B2B companies and growth programs and campaigns and plays need a lot of good content. You need a lot of it. So the [00:36:30] real question at this stage is how the hell do I get all this content done and all of the various versions of it? You know, and, and the answer is not, [00:36:40] in my opinion, by creating a list of 953 separate pieces of content and then going and building it.

I think the answer is to do this [00:36:50] concept pillars, topical pillars that match to the storyline and then you atomize. Content [00:37:00] bundles off of those pillars and the metaphor I use with my team, they probably hate it. But because I say it so often, but it's like when you go to create content, it's like [00:37:10] you're like you're heating up a pizza oven.

It's very expensive. It takes a long time to heat up a pizza oven. So don't heat up the pizza oven and pay for all [00:37:20] that cost to get it hot and make one pizza. That's how you make an efficient content. I think the way to do it is you heat that pizza oven up for a content pillar, and then you run [00:37:30] lots of different pizzas through that sucker by atomizing it for channel for persona, for, um, for, uh, specific use case for industry, [00:37:40] you know, it, I think that's a really key thing that I would want to offer our audience is to think about pillars and atomizing to get your cost [00:37:50] per.

Piece of content down. 

Ardath Albee: Well, I would agree. And here's something else I would add. Whenever you talk about scale and content, [00:38:00] people think that means more. When I talk about scale and content, I'm talking about depth. So, and it feeds into what you were just talking [00:38:10] about, about atomizing off a pillar or whatever, but let's say you have two personas.

We both need the same information. However, [00:38:20] their context is different. Yes. So in one project I did, in fact, I did a presentation with my client at [00:38:30] Uh, the demand gen conference in Arizona a few years back, but what we did because we had limited budget was we said, okay, the [00:38:40] body of the content, that information, they both need that minimal edits, right?

To just change the title we were talking to or whatever. The intro and the [00:38:50] conclusion set the context for each persona, but we could reuse that module of the body of the content because they both needed that information, but they needed [00:39:00] it set up for them in different ways. 

John Common: Yeah. Right. So 

Ardath Albee: you've now got two pieces of content, but you really wrote one, you know, and then you've got an info and conclusion for each one, right?

So you've got to think [00:39:10] about ways to repurpose because A lot of the information your personas need is the same information, but their [00:39:20] perspective is different, the reason they need it is different, right? And how it will affect them or their team is different than how it will affect somebody else's team.

So you've [00:39:30] got to think about that context, that's key. But you can turn that same piece of content into many different applications. If you know [00:39:40] how it needs to shift for each different perspective or persona you are engaging with, right? And that saves you a lot of time. So when you think scale, don't just think [00:39:50] volume.

Think depth. 

John Common: We've got two more steps. So, we've created the content. Step six, we now need to promote, to activate, to distribute that content. [00:40:00] And my question For you is how can companies avoid the build it and they will come fallacy of content. Like we work [00:40:10] so hard to create the content. And what I want to tell you world is nobody cares if you don't share it.

So what advice do you have for us? 

Ardath Albee: Well, in most of the [00:40:20] campaigns I put together, we're using display ads, you know, we're, we're going after segments on linkedin or, you know, what have you, we're using our database, you know, [00:40:30] for the people in that persona, um, those kinds of things. And the whole point of it is you talked about pillars and building around them.

You need a pillar [00:40:40] piece of content to attract people into a nurture program, right? Because you need them in your database. Do not let sales see any of those. Do not give them to them. It is [00:40:50] not a lead. It is not an MQL. It is not anything. It's somebody interested in the subject matter. And so, if we just stop making [00:41:00] buyers hate us because if they fill out a form, they know they're gonna get, you know, bombarded by ridiculousness.

I mean, for crying out loud, Salesforce even [00:41:10] does that. Yeah. I can't get them out of my inbox, but you know, and all I did was download, uh, their latest customer report or whatever, you know, I mean, it's like [00:41:20] phone calls, emails, whatever. It's ridiculous, but the thing about it is you've got to because I was talking about running these programs on blind pages and whatever which means [00:41:30] we have to be able to email them so they get that link so they can go.

So you have to facilitate that, but you have got to be respectful about it. You've got to understand that when they are [00:41:40] downloading problems, Our content about, you know, a big pillar piece about solving this big gnarly problem in the industry or whatever, they are not lining up to buy it, [00:41:50] you know, and so follow the research.

Download, 

John Common: it's not an opportunity. 

Ardath Albee: Right, but it's like 6 cents says what, 83 percent of them will [00:42:00] reach out to you. Don't call us, we'll call you. We need to respect that what we need to do is create content that builds that interest momentum engagement and then intent [00:42:10] To get them to reach out, right?

We've got to be there But you know, so most of the time it's those kinds of things because we're trying to get them into that Protected area, if you [00:42:20] will, where we can just evaluate what is that persona really engaging with without the distraction of any public, anybody who comes by and drops in, you're also going to [00:42:30] publish it on your website, you know, with calls to action to get that pillar piece.

And then they can go in the program that way or, or attend a webinar on the subject and they'll go in [00:42:40] that way. Um, so you need to figure out how to get them in the nurture so that you can then follow along and say, you know what? Touch three bombed man. [00:42:50] Let's get rid of that replace it with something else, you know, but touches one and two and four doing great You know, so that's good.

So let's but you need a way to reevaluate and because [00:43:00] Let me tell you perfection is an elusive target, right? And so you're going to do your best shot you're going to get it out there And then they're going to tell you whether it [00:43:10] engages them or not And then you have to do something about it if it's engaging them great wonderful But you know, are they engaging with whatever you're pointing them to next?

Are they opening all [00:43:20] your emails? Are they coming out? You know, are they spending enough time on that content to actually read it or are they reading a paragraph and bouncing? You know, you need to be able to tell and you can [00:43:30] only do that if you can isolate them, you know So that you know that what you're seeing is the persona's response to what you put there 

John Common: If no one hears the [00:43:40] tree fall in the forest, did it fall?

I mean, we have to have people receive and absorb and engage with that content. And so what I wanted to say is, is that [00:43:50] there I've got some pragmatic advice as well that I want to share. So one is, um, remember step one, we defined our target audience. Remember step two, we did [00:44:00] research and insights, and then we did content planning in that content planning.

And when you're up above asking questions and doing interviews for your defined target audience, you have [00:44:10] got. To remember step six, which is that you have to define and bake in the various channels of engagement. Your, [00:44:20] your, your target audience has preferred channels. It's not just their preferred channels, it's the preferred channels.

And what does that tell me about the content links, the formats that are [00:44:30] appropriate for that channel? What I'm trying to say is the way that you don't biff step six, which is, uh, forgetting to promote or promote effectively your content. [00:44:40] Is by putting it up above in your planning. That's number one. So really think through, not just that I need some content on this topic.

You need to say, Oh, wait a [00:44:50] minute. Yes, I need content on this topic, but I'm going to be. Doing a blog. I'm going to be doing display ads. Those display ads will need to be refreshed no less than once per month for six [00:45:00] months. And all of a sudden you go, Oh yeah, I need content on this, this pillar topic, but I need it specifically in these formats for [00:45:10] these channels, for these reasons, that's number one piece of advice.

Number two is you need budget for this. So, you know, a 10 page [00:45:20] PDF guide. Is not probably gonna cut it, right? So it's gonna so you have to circle back to the reality of budget and timing. So those are two piece of advice that I would [00:45:30] offer around this step around content promotion. Um, but I know we want I want to stay tight on time here.

Anything else for step six that you would add [00:45:40] 

Ardath Albee: the other thing I would I would going to what you just said, I would think about how are you stacking your content? So for example, if you are putting [00:45:50] something out on X Twitter, if people still use it or LinkedIn or whatever, and it's shorter, does it then link to something that dives [00:46:00] into the topic in more depth and then like a blog post?

And then does the blog post link to? Registration for a webinar, download of an, uh, ebook or [00:46:10] so stack it like, you know, give them that little bite and then they're like, Oh, I'm interested. Oh, there's a blog. Okay. Oh, there's even more. Okay. Now I'm interested. And when you [00:46:20] stack content like that, you can almost see intent happen, even if you don't have six cents, right?

Cause anybody who's not interested is going to stop at that [00:46:30] first little. One minute video before they got to the blog post before they got to the, you know, white paper, and they aren't going to register for the webinar. You know what I'm saying to you? So [00:46:40] if you think about expanding attention, right?

And so take it a step at a time and keep giving them more value as you expand the [00:46:50] content you're giving them. Then you can actually see momentum growing and building. Right. 

John Common: I like that. I like that idea of, uh, stacking [00:47:00] content and building and expanding engagement. That's great. That's great. Okay. We've made it to step seven and that is measurement.

And I [00:47:10] just to jump off on, on this topic with you, what are the metrics you like for content? 

Ardath Albee: My favorite [00:47:20] metric is dwell time. I want to know, did they spend enough time? Read, but what was there [00:47:30] or watch it or whatever, right? If they attended a webinar, did they stay till the end or did they, you know, sign off after five minutes?

You know, I want to know [00:47:40] how engaged are they in the content we're sharing. But the other thing I want to look at too, Because I'm building this storyline and one of the things I'm trying to do is [00:47:50] link things together, right? To take care of that spaghetti non linear funnel thing, right? How do we get them to the different parts of the story and let them do so [00:48:00] if they want to do it now, great.

If not, they're going to get that in a nurture email next week or whatever, right? So how do you get all that done? I want to know, are people clicking on those links? Are they [00:48:10] clicking from one part of the story to another part of the story? And are they going? Here's the key forward or backward, [00:48:20] right? If they land on your content, because when you attract people, it could be.

All of a sudden, they're interested in this piece of content, but this is like touch four of your storyline. [00:48:30] And all of a sudden, instead of going to touch five, you see them going back to, why should I care content? Okay, you caught them, and now they know they need to find out what [00:48:40] they don't know, right?

So they've gone backwards. Well, that's important to know. And here's where lead scoring falls down, right? Because it's like, if they come in at touch four, and then they [00:48:50] go back and read touch one and touch two, they've now got points for three different interactions. Without taking into account that they went backwards, not forwards.

[00:49:00] So they still have to make the rest of the journey, right? They still need these other questions answered. So if your lead scoring program is kicking them to sales, [00:49:10] when they went backwards to start up, you know, at the beginning, then oops, [00:49:20] here's the thing. When you do the storyline with the questions and answers, you know where they are in the buying process.

So when they engage with that content, it should tell [00:49:30] you, we think they're here now based on what they do next. Are they moving backwards because oops, they just came in and they need to circle back or are they [00:49:40] moving forwards? Okay. They're on point with you. They're going to continue going. They've got what they need to move forward.

What are they doing? And so when you build your storylines [00:49:50] properly, you can tell by what they're engaging with. Where they're at 

John Common: and 

Ardath Albee: that's really important. 

John Common: It's really interesting[00:50:00] 

We're talking about measurements. It's step seven measurement and and I think there's something really Worth [00:50:10] mentioning out loud, which is that we know when you're doing measurement some things that you need to not forget You need to remember when you're doing measurement that b2b companies don't [00:50:20] buy with a one person buying team Usually so that there's still a buying team.

So if you're going to measure it and you're using single You Lead metrics, I [00:50:30] would say that's a mistake. So remember, remember what you learned in step one and step two, right? When you're down in step seven, measuring is that they buy. [00:50:40] Also, remember what we've, you and I both, I think have mentioned a couple of times in this episode already, which is that by the time they go reach out to you directly, they [00:50:50] probably know their business requirements.

They have probably educated themselves. They probably have a buying team and they're probably leaning toward you. So. [00:51:00] That tells me that any levels of significant engagement, especially if it's from more than one contact at a company or [00:51:10] a division, that's meaningful. And right. And so I think our metrics need to need to be aware of buying teams and they need to [00:51:20] not just be metrics, but also generate the right kinds of alerts to your point about where are they in the journey?

Because We need to respond [00:51:30] appropriately and that response needs to be, uh, tailored to what we can intuit. Where they are in the journey, what degree of intent, are they just [00:51:40] educating themselves or are they really kind of ready to buy? And that may be ready to buy us. I think that's where you have to match metrics and alerts to the right [00:51:50] appropriate next step response.

What, what do you think? 

Ardath Albee: I agree. But the other thing I'd say too, is remember when we talked about [00:52:00] how many people are on the buying team, right? You're going to build two or three personas and engage. The other thing I'm looking for is I always love it when I see in [00:52:10] Marketo or HubSpot or whatever, that this particular contact at this company has clicked the link in the email 27 times.[00:52:20] 

It's not them clicking it 27 times they forwarded to they Right. That's 

John Common: right. That's right. So that 

Ardath Albee: means, alright, we're getting more of the buyer team now, if I'm lucky [00:52:30] enough that the client I'm working with also has six sense. I'm going right out there and saying, okay, what anonymous, anonymous people are engaging with my website from this account right now?

[00:52:40] Let's see how many are there, right? I'm going to go look, but if I don't have success, I can still say, this is important enough. It's being shared. Plus I can look at how long [00:52:50] the guy spent reading it or gal, whoever, right? So that's important. But here's the other thing that I think is just really critical.

Given the fact [00:53:00] that Um, buyers are pushing sellers out and whatever, is the other thing that you want to do if you create the content is create sales enablement [00:53:10] insights, right? Or buyer enablement insights, whatever. So that your sales team can engage with buyers based on what [00:53:20] they've read. Now, I'm going to tell you straight up, your sellers are not going to read your content, they don't care.

They're not going to read it. So you've got to give them cliff notes, [00:53:30] right? So here's the three important things that got covered in this piece of content. And here's the question and answer for the persona. And it was written for the director of IT. And it was, you know, here's [00:53:40] a couple of lead ins you can, you know, ask them about since they engage with this content.

Here's a snip of email copy you could use if you want to reach out and talk to them about they [00:53:50] engage with this content or whatever. Right? And so that needs to be part of everything as well. And if your sales team is not doing pushy, [00:54:00] pitchy outreach, they're doing helpful outreach. That becomes a form of measurement as well before engaging the account.

Right? We need to enable that because [00:54:10] otherwise they're going to go do what they always do, which is, hey, can I have 15 minutes for a demo or a call or whatever, 

John Common: you know? Well, Arda, thank you for, thank you so much for [00:54:20] giving us your time and your, your experience and your expertise and your wisdom today on this.

It's such a. The content has always been important in B2B. I think it's [00:54:30] only more important for all the reasons we've been talking about today. 

Ardath Albee: And 

John Common: I'm also glad you came on growth driver to share all this with us. Thank you for being on growth driver. 

Ardath Albee: Well, thanks for having me. [00:54:40] And thank you very much for what you said.

It's very kind. And, uh, you know, I just love the industry and quite frankly right now, what a great time to be a marketer. [00:54:50] Please use a buyer MVP to work with AI, please. 

John Common: That's a great, it's a great final note. All right. Well, thank you [00:55:00] again, Ardith. And we will see you soon, everybody. Thank you so much. It was so great to talk to Ardith about the whole content cycle, you know, from [00:55:10] insights.

to, to planning, to execution, to measurement. Um, I knew she would be a great person to talk to. And she was, uh, be sure to [00:55:20] share this episode with your friends on your team who are responsible for creating content that really engages and drives awareness and preference and demand. Um, [00:55:30] I bet they will like it too.

I just want to say thank you for spending time with us here on Growth Driver. Uh, and if you like what you're hearing and you like what we're doing, do us a favor, [00:55:40] follow us, subscribe on YouTube or your favorite podcast app. Uh, and when you see us out there in various content channels, uh, give it a, give it a like and a comment.[00:55:50] 

And also, um, feel free to reach out to me. Uh, I'd love to hear your ideas for Uh, content, uh, topics, uh, thorny problems, or even amazing guests [00:56:00] who you think should be on Growth Driver. Growth Driver is brought to you by the talented and kind people at Intelligent Demand. And if you work at a B2B company [00:56:10] that needs to grow, but grow smarter, that is literally what Intelligent Demand stands for.

Smarter growth. So go to intelligentdemand. com, uh, request a free [00:56:20] consult. They'll help you align, go to market, to the right integrated growth play, and empower that with the right expertise. See you soon on Growth [00:56:30] Travel.