5 Content Marketing Tips from CMI’s Robert Rose

If you don’t think your content is reaching its full potential – or you’re wondering how to build a sustainable B2B content market strategy that regularly brings in qualified leads – then you’re going to enjoy these tips from Robert Rose, the Chief Strategy Advisor at Content Marketing Institute.  Not only is Robert with CMI,…

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If you don’t think your content is reaching its full potential – or you’re wondering how to build a sustainable B2B content market strategy that regularly brings in qualified leads – then you’re going to enjoy these tips from Robert Rose, the Chief Strategy Advisor at Content Marketing Institute. 

Not only is Robert with CMI, he’s also the Founder and Chief Troublemaker for The Content Advisory and a 3-time best-selling author.

Needless to say, he had some compelling ideas on building a content marketing strategy for B2B lead generation.

Which leads us right to the question:

What is a content marketing strategy?

A content marketing strategy is defined as a plan to build a committed audience through consistent content that educates and inspires. Sounds simple enough. 

But not all content marketing strategies are created equal. In fact, each one needs to be tailored to your unique business model. 

Robert’s 5 content marketing tips for startups and B2B businesses

1. Start with problems, not products

Many brands engineer a product and hand it off to marketing, hoping they can sell it.

That puts the solution before the problem.

You will be more successful if you reverse engineer your products based on a proven customer need. 

First, get to know your customers’ problems inside-out before making your next offering. Sometimes, they may not even know what their true problem is. 

But getting to the true core of what they need will make you much more successful in the long run. 

2. Focus on building an audience 

If you are creating scatter shot content marketing assets like blog posts or infographics that aren’t cohesively connected to a broader topic, you won’t attract anyone. 

It would be like publishing a magazine that covers a completely different topic every issue.

The best content marketing strategies are not necessarily campaign-focused, but they do have to be category-focused to connect with a target buyer over time. 

3. Be willing to change 

You wouldn’t take a race car driver seriously if he said, “I don’t want to change race cars, I just want to win the race.” It’s the same with your website content. You can’t think, “I don’t want to change my site, I just want to show up first.” 

Change. Test new things. Think of your website as something that is constantly evolving. 

4. Value quality over quantity

“Why won’t one amazing white paper suffice for the entire year?,” asked Robert.

Is it because it didn’t work? Are we tired of our own content? Do we think we need a different piece for every marketing effort? 

Firstly, each resource should not be limited to one-time use for a campaign. You should be creating in such a way that each individual piece makes the overall collection of content on your site more valuable.

Second, if you keep making more, more, MORE, you run the risk of sacrificing quality. The best content marketing tip I can give is to focus on quality – even if that means cutting back on quantity.

5. Sell solutions

Most of your B2B customers have already decided they need a change. It’s your job to sell them on the fact that your digital content marketing framework is the best one.  

Write a white paper with step-by-step, practical information that’s easy to apply. Tell customer success stories. Explain what they will have to change in their business, what the implications will be, and what your solution is. 

Make yourself invaluable. 

Put these content marketing tips to action 

Use Robert’s five tips to spend more time on thought leadership rather than “thought repeatership” and your content marketing efforts will successfully deepen your connection to your customers. To truly build an audience, you must view them as relationships and not metrics. 

And don’t forget to subscribe to my B2B Lead Gen Podcast for more marketing tips.

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