Keep Your Company Out of the Content

Keep Your Company Out of the Content:
An issue I have seen with many larger companies when they begin their content marketing campaign is that they have a hard time letting go of their ego. They want the majority of their content marketing to be fueled by customer case studies, product reviews and other promotionally-driven topics. While that kind of content does have its place, promotional content should never form the core of your content marketing efforts. In fact, I would argue that only 1 out of every 10 pieces of content your company produces (blog posts, white papers, videos, articles, etc) should focus on your company and your products/services. When it comes to creating thought leadership content, keep your company out of it!
When a non-branded keyword drives a unique visitor to your site (a common goal for many established brands), you can’t assume that that person has ever heard of your company or your products before. After all, the point of increasing the amount of non-branded traffic is to attract new visitors that haven’t interacted with your brand, a good indication that your overall online brand presence is growing. Don’t expect your brand’s reputation to mean anything to someone that isn’t familiar with your brand! Even if you are the industry leader, you still have something to prove to that visitor—and your content is going to be the place where you do it.
Your content marketing campaign should focus on creating content that shares valuable information and strives to teach the reader something. Each piece of content should focus on a central nugget of information that can somehow help your target audience. Answer a question; explain industry terminology, offer best practice tips and guidelines and the like—but make sure it is all about the customer and not your company! Create content that your target audience is going to find useful and help your brand become a trusted resource. While customer case studies might be great content to help push someone further along the buying cycle when they want to know how your products/services can impact their business, someone that is still in the research phase isn’t going to care just yet. You still have to prove to them that your company is the best, most reliable and most trusted brand in your industry. Content that leans towards the promotional side, even if it is a case study, isn’t going to instill that confidence in your visitors. It’s not about you; it’s about the customer—marketing 101.
The goal of any content marketing campaign (but especially B2B) should be to create thought leadership content. That kind of content is going to attract the attention of your target audience, as well as your industry peers. From an SEO perspective, thought leadership content is much more likely to be linked and shared on social networks, which is great from a link building perspective. Creating thought leadership content is going to open a lot more doors in terms of guest blogging opportunities than focusing on promotional content will as well. In the end, creating thought leadership content is actually better from your brand in the long run!