“Quality is much better than quantity. One home run is better than two doubles.” – Steve Jobs
By: Stacey Danheiser
It’s the time of the year when many of us tend to over-indulge. Whether it’s saying yes to one more party. One more cookie. One more glass of wine. We get tricked into thinking that more is always better.
There’s a similar deception happening in the marketing world related to content production. Companies think they need to create more and more content - brochures, videos, webinars, white papers, infographics to keep up with the never-ending demands of the internet. But organizations that adopt this “more is better” mentality often get stuck, frustrated and eventually fail to produce any meaningful results.
Is it any surprise then, according to CMI’s 2017 Benchmark study that only 22% of content marketers consider their content marketing approach successful? Many marketers are rushing to create “content” without a well-thought out strategy. In fact, only 37% of organizations even have a documented content marketing strategy, and yet 70% of organizations state that they expect to create MORE content in 2017 compared with 2016.
Before you rush to create more, more, more, consider how you can make a difference in the lives of your buyers, versus contributing to the noise.
Adopt a habit of quality.
Developing high quality content starts with having a strategy and a commitment to producing excellent and useful materials for your buyers. Like all commitments, it becomes easier and more natural once we start practicing.
The natural question that needs to be addressed is “what does quality look like for our organization?” If you work in an organization where multiple people or departments are responsible for creating content, it is essential to gain agreement on what excellent vs. sub-par content looks like and how it will help accomplish your goals. That way, everyone can help reinforce the standards amongst all content creators and prevent “crap” from being published.
5 ways to ensure quality content production:
Focus. Do you find yourself seeking more customers instead of focusing on seeking the right customers? It all starts with having a solid understanding of who you are targeting. Buyer Personas are a great tool to help you achieve this clarity.
Be Purposeful. Your marketing team may be small, but don’t make the mistake of trying to use the same piece of content to talk to a variety of audiences. A generic approach doesn’t work. If you are not talking to one specific audience, then you are talking to nobody. Instead, think about how your content may help your buyer get educated and move them along their journey with your organization.
Prepare. Stop rushing to create something just because you have a deadline. Keep an inspiration file. Talk to your customers to understand what their challenges and motivations are. Do your research ahead of time so that you always have ideas related to what your audience cares about. Here’s a quick source of inspiration from around the web for when you feel stuck.
Plan. You’ve heard the quote by Benjamin Franklin “If you fail to plan, you are planning to fail.” Without a content strategy in place, you surely won’t produce high quality content. Your strategy and plan should be documented and outline exactly to whom you are trying to reach, what you hope to achieve, and how you will get there.
Measure. Start measuring the success of your program based on engagement, customer conversations, and how it contributes to advancing the buying process. Of course, you should also seek informal feedback from customers and your sales team. What’s most helpful? What’s least helpful? You’d be surprised what you can learn if you just ask the right questions.
In summary, more content does not automatically equal more followers. More followers do not equal more sales. More sales do not equal more profit. So, before you think about producing more noise, remember the words of Zig Ziglar – “Don’t count the things you do, do the things that count.”
My Definition of a Boombastic Jazz Style Value Proposition
By: Simon Kelly
After 2 years of sporadic blogging, I've decided that bouncing off of other folks articles and blogs is the way I roll. For rousing me from my latest slumber, I’d like to thank Jonathan Earle (Commercial Marketing Director at Dixons Carphone) for his recent post A product is not a proposition. So why do people mix the two up?
I like Jonathan's pint of Guinness model, not least because it puts an image of my favourite Dublin bar in my mind. The model adds products, service, communications, participation, distribution and price onto product to draw out how a proposition differs from a product.
Of course if the elements you add onto a product are things that the customer values and you offer them together then the sum of the parts should outweigh the individual elements. If this is the case then mutual value is delivered, customers are happy and revenue and profits grow. A Flexible working solution that includes all the piece parts a busy traveling executive needs to do her job, including the service wrap, should provide much more value than the individual product elements bought separately. Jonathan cites his time at O2 as a time where 'every commercial metric was smashed' through this type of approach.
I can identify strongly with this view as I have seen this uptick of results in organisations I have worked for or with by developing a more customer value based approach, which I’ve written about here. This kind of success dates back 15 years to my time at BT where we experienced stellar performance by focusing on developing propositions, akin to Jonathan's pints of Guinness, that solved customer problems.
Although Jonathan's blog was about the confusion between products and propositions what it brought home to me most was about the loose meaning of words commonly used in business parlance today. Way back in 1997 McKinsey consultants Ralf Leszinski and Mike Marn said that: ‘Value may be one of the most overused and misused terms in marketing and pricing’. The other two terms I would add to this are Marketing and Value Proposition.
The discussion about Marketing I will leave for another time. In our upcoming book Value-ology: Aligning sales and marketing to shape and deliver profitable customer value propositions, my co-authors Dr Paul Johnston, Stacey Danheiser and I spend the first two chapters emphasizing that organisations have got to try and get to a base level definition of what a value and value propositions means for them.
You've only got to have worked in a firm that's merged or acquired another company to observe lots of people talking past each other (there are some great anecdotes in "Value-ology") using the same words but meaning completely different things. If you take the 'typical' attrition rate in B2b sales forces to be around 20% as Aberdeen Group surveys suggest, you are hiring in 1 in 5 guys who might well have a completely different perspective to you - and communicate this to your customers!
If you're interested in more depth on definitions of value then take a look at Paul Johnston's blog 10 essentials for creating effective value propositions.
In 'value-ology' we provide our own view on what a value proposition is, and what it should include. We take the view that a strong value propositions should be MUSICAL.
From our perspective a value proposition is a promise of expected future value illustrating future relevant and distinct benefits will outweigh total cost of ownership
Note the word future; a value proposition can only be a promise of value which will be experienced in the future. Too many organisations don't follow up with the customer to review if the value promised was actually delivered. The gap between what was originally promised versus what was experienced is often at the root of why customers ditch services and move to more user friendly alternatives, as was the case with CRM systems.
To hit all the right notes and resonate with your customer a value proposition should be MUSICAL:
Monetary calculation - of financial benefits minus costs
Unique - things that sets you apart from competitors
Spend (costs) - how much the customer is prepared to pay
Impact - how it will positively impact the customer organisation
Capability - what it is that you can do for the customer to make this impact
ALigned - to the key needs of the customer
For what it's worth an individual product can deliver a value proposition and so can a more all-encompassing solution (proposition). Accepting that if you've crafted a solution you know customers want then it's more likely to be unique and will deliver more mutual value that a single product.
So, next time you use words like value, value proposition, solution, proposition blah, blah….. check that there is a shared understanding in the room. It happened to me just yesterday when I was talking to an accountant about sustainability (he started it!). Better still, make it clear what your organisation means by value proposition so that when the C-level folk say it they are on the same page as the sales guys when they develop value propositions for customers.
Feel free to drink a Guinness and go create some MUSICAL value propositions!
Read more in our upcoming book Value-ology
For specific help on value propositions you can download our free ebook at http://www.shakemktg.com/resources.html
