One of the biggest issues we see in the brands who are struggling with content marketing, no – in the brands who are struggling with marketing overall – is culture.
Marketing at many B2B brands emerged out of the sales team’s need for more leads. Marketing generally started in the field, hosting events, hanging logos and grabbing business cards.
In B2C, marketers started in the traditional advertising side of the house where the game was all about reach and frequency. But again, the goal was about getting the brand message out to the target audience – with the logo attached.
The biggest mistake marketers make: they make the message all about themselves. When I started my own content marketing journey, I remember hearing the challenge almost every single day, “but how much more stuff will this help us sell.”
The simple fact is that the best way to sell more stuff is to help your target audience better than anyone else. And the worst way to try and reach your target audience in today’s digital, consumer-led world is to try and sell yourself directly. Ads are what we try to avoid.
But answer the buyers’ questions, and you may earn the right to tell her more about yourself (your brand, products, and services.) Creating a company that focuses on helping over selling? Now that is a question of marketing culture! I have covered company culture before, but here we are going to talk about the main job of the CMO: building a customer-focused culture of content.
