How can content marketing be kept efficient and effective? Doug Marshall, Managing Director of the information and learning services marketing agency Achieve B2B Marketing, explains how a simple acronym can help.
Consider the position of a B2B buyer. They need to make a significant purchasing decision that will affect their company's success and their own career. Before speaking to a salesperson, they are likely to conduct a considerable amount of research and share that research with a wide group of stakeholders. As they go through this process, one thing will be at the forefront of their mind: trust. Relevant, informative, and educational content plays an important role in building that trust.
When done well, great content marketing can be transformational for brand reputation and lead conversions. The SOUP acronym has been devised to help marketers remember four key rules for planning great content marketing.
S — Shareable
Content should be so useful and insightful that the audience will want to share it on social media. Using relevant hashtags and handles, and ensuring content is part of an ongoing social media programme, keeps it visible and active within a marketing calendar.
Keeping customer-facing colleagues informed of what is being published means they know when to share relevant content with their audiences. Audiences are more likely to engage with real people than with a corporate social media account. Video generally gets better traction in social media posts than text.
Content is much more likely to be shared by salespeople when it answers their customers' questions. Involving sales colleagues when choosing subjects and maintaining open communication about the marketing calendar makes this more likely to happen.
O — Optimised
Content should not only appear highly in Google searches but should also have a positive impact on the website's overall SEO. Creating content using targeted keywords to attract visitors to a website is important, though care should be taken not to overuse them as this can deter readers.
Gaining valuable inbound links from trusted external websites is also worth pursuing. One way to do this is to research and identify relevant websites that would feature your content, and in doing so provide a hyperlink to your website.
For content appearing on your own website, completing all fields for meta tags in the content management system helps search engines understand what the content covers. Writing a meta description for each piece of content does not affect Google's algorithms directly but will appear in many search results, encouraging readers to click through.
U — Useful
Content should genuinely help the prospect. Asking customers directly what content would really help them in their job is a valuable exercise. There is no need to restrict content to the usual types — the most useful content can simply be a checklist. Building a glossary can be extremely helpful to people new to an industry and is also beneficial for SEO.
It is also worth considering customers' customers. What would your customers like to know about their own customers? What invaluable insights could be shared? Survey results of customers' customers are likely to be highly useful for a target market. Content about future trends is often particularly useful for C-suite audiences.
P — Purposeful
When planning content, being clear about the purpose of each piece is essential. What is the end result? To determine this, consider the business conversations your company needs to have with prospects in order to win specific work. This helps to decide the subject, media, channel, and the audience that are most likely to have the desired impact.
Plan content for specific stages of the funnel so that each piece is purposeful. Planning content is like playing chess — always thinking of the next move. Infographics and short videos are going to be more relevant for top-of-funnel activity. Webinars and thought leadership documents are likely to be more relevant further down the funnel, when prospects may be more aware of your brand and will trust you with their contact details. Whatever the content, always be clear on the next move and the call to action.
From writing a blog to editing a video, organising a webinar to creating a guide, content marketing takes time and resources. Each stage — ideation, creation, distribution, and measurement — also takes time. Doing content marketing well to get a good return on investment in time, money, and resources means keeping it shareable, optimised, useful, and purposeful. Your sales and marketing colleagues will be grateful, and so will that B2B buyer.
More articles by Doug Marshall can be found at Achieve B2B Marketing, and he can be followed on X.
How Professional Academy Supports Your Journey
Understanding how to create effective, purposeful content is a core skill for any marketing professional. Professional Academy offers a range of accredited qualifications that cover copywriting, social media, SEO, content strategy, and digital marketing in depth.
Programmes available include the CIM Level 3 Foundation Certificate in Professional Marketing, the CIM Level 4 Certificate in Professional Marketing, and the CIM Level 6 Diploma in Professional Marketing. For those with a specific interest in content strategy, the CIM Content Strategy short course is also available.
To find out more about which qualification is right for you, get in touch with the team or book an advice call at a time to suit you.
