The hero in the story that we are telling is the Modern Day Marketer. This individual is the catalyst for change in B2B and obsessed with providing value to the audience she serves.
The only thing holding back the emergence of more Modern Day Marketers is archaic systems and expiring tactics that present obstacles to progress. Last week we decided to pick a fight with content syndication because we believe that it’s one of several things that we “just do because we’ve always done it” tactics in marketing. .
I believe there is a better way and if we want to go 12 rounds with the status quo in B2B marketing then we understand we need to be serious about the training. It’s my job as the marketer to make sure I am not only shining a light on the enemy, but also educating on the right way or the modern day marketing way.
I’ll never forget some direct feedback that I heard from a CMO at a successful company. He remarked:
“Don’t just come to me with your problems. I don’t have time to deal with them. If you are going to take time out of my day to talk about an issue make sure you present the solution.”
These are words that I’ll never forget and have tried to be mindful of this approach in everything that I do since hearing his feedback. It’s really easy to get caught up in the vanity metrics that content syndication can offer.
If you are a long time user you might hear yourself saying things like:
It always feels like I’m just lighting a bunch of my marketing budget on fire, but we do it for the leads.
My sales team tells me how bad the leads suck from content syndication, but I’ve got my KPI’s, too!
My boss wants to make sure our reporting looks good for the board in Q2 and content syndication checks the box on hitting “number of leads per quarter”.
Many of us are measured by the amount of leads that we deliver to our brand. I think it’s safe to say that we all want our lists to grow, the dashboard arrow to point up and to the right, and our sales rep’s calendar to be full of the right kind of conversations.
The problem is the way we’ve gone about getting leads has expired.
We invest in expiring tactics like low quality content syndication programs because uploading more leads into CRM makes us feel good. I’ll disagree with 80’s pop rock sensation REO Speedwagon on this one. We CAN fight this feeling and it starts with a better way or a solution to the problem.
The best way to fight the status quo of content syndication is to turn to an alternative. It needs to deliver a better experience for the audience that you are trying to reach. It shouldn’t require your sales team to waste their time calling down a list of bad fit leads. It needs to feel modern.
That’s why we recommend getting busy with modern day distribution.
What is Modern Day Distribution? 🧃
Recently, SiriusDecisions (acquired by Forrester) did a study where they found that 60-70% of content produced by B2B marketing departments goes unused. More than half and then some!
Let’s think about that for a minute.
We invest all of this time, money, and energy into building content, but don’t have any sort of plan to make sure that we are getting it in front of the right people. Let’s even take it a step further if you don’t mind humoring me.
Not only is the content we’ve poured our blood, sweat, and tears into building sitting in your CMS collecting dust, but if we get to the point where we start thinking about investing in distribution the first thing we do is turn to content syndication…the tactic that’s been around longer than I’ve been in B2B marketing (I’ve got the gray hair to prove it).. I’ve got a problem with that!
Modern content distribution is important because of the mindfulness it puts on the consumer. It’s not a batch and blast strategy. It’s a culture shift with how you promote your content. It takes thought, research, and great copywriting to execute. It’s anti-content syndication. It forces the creator to think critically about the channel and customize messaging around that piece for the specific audience member they are trying to reach. Being great at modern content distribution takes time. Also, it’s about earning trust which builds connections. It’s not about generating a bunch of leads that you can upload into your CRM.
Content distribution is an opportunity to be on offense with your content. It helps modern day marketers avoid that feeling of being stuck as the lead operator in a content factory. Content distribution is NOT a batch and blast strategy. Moreover, modern content distribution seeks to drive affinity. You can’t force your way to winning the hearts and minds of your audience. You must earn trust first.
That’s why we believe in the opt-in or ability for our members of marketing and sales professionals to follow brands, creators, and communities on The Juice that create content that match their needs.
We want to be in the modern day distribution game for a number of reasons, but here are few important reasons to us:
- The audience on The Juice is curated. It’s sales and marketing professionals who want to learn.
- Modern content distribution through The Juice presents an opportunity to help brands, creators, and communities get their content in front of this group of learners at the right time
- The Juice aligns member interests with content design from our modern content distributing stakeholders
- We believe aligning around mutual interest can help start better relationships because of great content
Generating more, low quality leads for your brand isn’t marketing’s Northstar.
Our future customers want to build a relationship with you before your brand.
Creating human to human connections that breeds affinity is the modern way.
It’s time to step into the business of creating quality connections through your work.
The best way to start is to drop your low quality syndication program.
Invest that energy into thinking about modern day distribution.
It will feel modern and your audience will love you for it. 🧃
If you are interested in learning more about how you can use your content syndication budget to invest in modern content distribution at The Juice then book a demo today. 🧃
