Every marketer has produced at least one piece of content in their lives that they’ve been extremely proud of.
It could be the podcast that addressed your users’ #1 pain point, or an elaborate step-by-step blog that detailed exactly how your prospects can overcome their challenges.
All this, only for it to be put out, appreciated (if you were lucky), and forgotten.
Most marketing teams make the mistake of creating content that is only explanatory and static. But in 2023, you need content that is interactive. Content that pulls your prospects in, makes them think, and lets them walk away with something incredibly valuable.
And it’s all the better if you can do that while asking them qualifying questions.
This discussion isn’t about something as simple as repurposing content. It’s about reinventing and repositioning content. It’s about changing the mindset about how content is produced & consumed.
Thinking of content as assets
Assets bring you returns and last you a long, long time. Content, on the other hand, gets produced, consumed, and forgotten. Assets essentially follow the principle’ “produce once, and reap benefits forever.”
What are some examples of these “assets”?
- Tools
- Calculators
- Assessments
No, we’re not talking about the one Buzzfeed quiz you took back in 2017 that told you what type of cat you were. We’re talking about assessments that can identify your prospect’s pain points and suggest solutions, ones that make them feel understood by you.
Not only that, you can use this opportunity to prospect your users and ask them questions that you might only have been able to ask them on the first sales call. Armed with this knowledge, your sales team could close the deal a lot faster.
Very few B2B businesses make use of these “assets” solely because the assumption is that they are resource heavy and that they’re primarily for the B2C audience. Not only is this assumption misplaced, but no other fragmented piece of content is ever going to match up to an asset.
Guiding principles to help transform marketing content into assets
In order to shift from a content-focused approach to an asset-focused one, there are a few principles you would have to remember.
- Experience design: Your prospects don’t want to experience your brand in pieces, so map your assets in a way that they cater to the buyer journey
- Asset system:
- Buyer journeys: Understand where your buyer hangs out and draw up a plan. It’s important to know of the touchpoints they have with you and how you can enhance them.
- Relationships: “People buy from people”, so think of the relationships you’d be building with the users while building up an asset system
- Channels: All marketers have preferences for channels. In B2B, that usually is LinkedIn + one other generic B2B channel. But, 2023 is the year when you cannot afford to build your brand on 2-3 channels alone. Your buyers hang out in multiple channels, and their preferences may not always match yours. Meet them where they are.
- Assets: Once you’ve gotten your buyer journeys, relationships and channels in order, that’s when you think of building the actual assets.
3. Awesomeness score: Your “awesomeness” score depends on how much your user can relate to your content and how bingeworthy it is. There’s 2 parts to this:
- Story: The story doesn’t place you as the hero, it places your user as the hero, with you simply being the guide.
- 3i framework: the magic lies in the 3i framework. Each one of your content pieces should individually contain the 3 i’s: arouse interest (to buy), give insight (to do better) and make them feel inspired (to take action)
Ultimately, all it takes is a mindset shift to turn your content into assets. Ones that can give you evergreen results. Understanding the buyer journey, mapping out your assets to follow that path, and meeting your buyers where they are is the key to B2B marketing & selling.
