4 Ways to Improve Your Content Marketing

Frank V. Cespedes; Russ  Heddleston

Article | Harvard Business Review (website) | April 19, 2018

4 Ways to Improve Your Content Marketing

by Frank V. Cespedes and Russ Heddleston

Abstract

In the past decade, content marketing has become a widely established practice. Companies have hired writers and chief content officers to run departments as well as create blogs and other materials—in the process, some have assured sales people that content marketing can mean the end of cold calling. The authors examined 34 million interactions between customers and content on DocSend’s platform, which is used daily by organizations across a variety of sales contexts. The result is empirical data and a good starting point for examining core aspects of any content marketing initiative. The authors found that prospects spend less than three minutes on content, mobile is less important than advertised, one day of the week isn’t better than others, and case studies are most preferred.

Keywords: Marketing; Marketing Communications; Sales; Performance Improvement;

Format: Electronic

Citation:

Cespedes, Frank V., and Russ Heddleston. "4 Ways to Improve Your Content Marketing." Harvard Business Review (website) (April 19, 2018).

Common advice in sales is to provide insights to customers during sales calls. But this advice generally stays at the level of “tell people something they don’t already know” and results in sales conversations littered with many irrelevant factoids. This article provides examples of how salespeople develop and deliver resonant insights in customer conversations and why the framing of insights depends upon to whom they are talking and when in the sales cycle.

Most research and training in sales focus on acquiring new customers. But winning back previous customers is increasingly important: mergers, choice in supply chains, and uncertainty about trade wars mean that B2B customers are constantly re-evaluating relationships with suppliers and making changes. Meanwhile, large buyers account, on average, for over 25% of revenues at publicly traded firms, up from 10% in the 1980s. This article discusses how and why the process for reacquiring lost customers requires a different approach than acquiring new ones and illustrates the process and its implications via a case example.

Fred Shilmover and Sam Clemens prepared for their fourth quarter board meeting. They were excited to have scaled their software startup, InsightSquared, to $2 million in revenue and secured an $8 million round of venture capital. However, they disagreed on the path ahead, specifically on the sales and marketing plan. Shilmover preferred a sales-centric approach to growth while Clemens preferred a marketing-centric one. Which strategy was optimal for their venture’s next phase of growth?

Faculty & Research

4 Ways to Improve Your Content Marketing

Abstract

Citation:

About the Author

More from the Author