Product managers have many responsibilities including the branding, development, marketing and sales of a particular product, more often in the technology industry. With having to jump back and forth between being a strategist to a tactician, sometimes wearing many hats can lead to confusion and inefficiency. When it comes to marketing, many product managers are probably aware that content marketing, a strategy driven by content generated for a human audience, is largely driving digital strategy. But, with content marketing being such a new, innovative concept and with the platforms in which content marketing can be generated and distributed being ever-expanding, you may need some experts to help you guide the way. Let’s explore some ways that product managers can improve content marketing strategies, specifically for B2B markets.
Long-Form Content Can Help Drive Qualified Leads
Long-form content pieces such as whitepapers and eBooks can provide many benefits for your product or organization. First, requesting potential client’s contact information in exchange for a piece of quality long-form content, such as a whitepaper, can help pre-quality and drive leads that are interested in the type of product you’re selling. They are proactively searching for information, in which you excel, and if they’re willing to take it a step further by sharing their contact information, they have exhibited a notion of trust. Since a long-form piece of content only has to be produced one time, then it turns out to be an extremely cost-effective lead generator.
Generate a Quarterly Editorial Calendar.
Creating relevant content to specific audiences, especially decision-makers within organizations, takes planning and research. Investing in content production and distribution does affect the profitability by creating overhead, so it’s important that time isn’t spent throwing together a plan without any strategy or planning. Editorial calendars are the core to any content marketing campaign, and larger brands execute this tactic in order to allow multiple departments to contribute and monitor progress.
Crowdsource Your Content.
While digital content crowdsourcing is a relatively new concept, it’s something that not enough marketers are taking advantage of. As a product manager, you must be concerned with your bottom line and how much time and money you’re investing into a marketing strategy. While it’s not typical, it would be cost-effective and compelling for you to enlist your clients to help generate content about their experience with the product, as well as other industry trends that apply to your product that they see. Since you’re working with other businesses, it’s likely that they have a marketing department hungry for digital citations, and you can generate a mutually beneficial relationship.
Keep Your Buyer’s Persona In Mind.
When generating content, it’s ALWAYS important to remember that you’re writing for a human, not for a business, despite your audience being B2B. There is still a decision-maker that needs to read the content and trust your product/brand. The easiest way to do this is to identify who in the organization will make the decision to purchase your product, and give them life. Give them a name, an age, hobbies, location, background, personality, and job description. After you’ve created your buyer persona, find a photo of an actual person that most closely fits who you’ve described. Share this person with all of the content creators within your organization so they know exactly who they are writing for. This can help keep a message consistent, as well as ensure that you’re crafting your message for the correct audience.
There’s No One Size Fits All.
While many people can provide data to support that webinars or blogs or infographics are the most effective form of content for content marketing, the answer is never that simple. As a product manager, it’s likely that you know that already. You will need to define the right type of content for your audience at the right time for the right message. Each objective and intended message will require a new strategy. This is why it’s so important to curate an Editorial Calendar on a quarterly basis. Once you define your product objectives for the quarter, you can plan what messages you want to convey, how you want to convey them, and where you want to distribute them. Each message may be a different piece of content.
While we completely understand all of the hats that product managers have to wear, On Target Digital Marketing is more than happy to help take the digital and content marketing hat from you. We have the experience and the strategic inclination to help you craft and distribute your content, as well as analyzing the effectiveness of your content marketing strategy. Contact us nationwide to obtain a quote at 866-998-6886.
Best,
Erica Weatherstone
