For Content Marketing Success, Meet More Often

by Fronetics | Aug 8, 2016 | Blog, Content Marketing, Marketing, Strategy

B2B marketers who meet more often to discuss and evaluate their content marketing strategy report success at much higher rates than those that meet less frequently.

Do you feel your content marketing is producing results? Only 30% of B2B marketers say they feel effective, and a shocking 55% admit they do not actually know what content marketing success looks like.

If this sounds familiar, take a note from the most effective B2B marketers: Meeting more often can improve content marketing performance.

Another meeting? Say yes for success

We all have been guilty of thinking, “Great. Another meeting to squeeze into my schedule.” But the B2B Content Marketing 2016: Benchmarks, Budgets, and Trends – North America found some interesting correlations between content marketing effectiveness and frequency of meeting. For instance:

Meeting daily or even weekly improves content marketing results.

61% of the most effective B2B marketers meet daily or weekly with their content marketing team, either virtually or in person.

Meeting more often is time well spent.

Teams that meet daily or weekly find the meetings to be more valuable (70% of respondents) than those who meet less often — like biweekly or monthly (49%). But, only 36% of the content marketing professionals surveyed met once per week, and only 8% met daily. And you guessed it: Those were the teams that reported having the most success with their content marketing.

Meeting strategies

There is more to success than simply holding a meeting, of course. Time spent around the conference table is not going to bring results unless you are asking the right questions with keeping eyes on your content strategy.

What are the new challenges the team is facing? What is happening in the news or industry that might affect or interest your audience? How is your audience responding to recent content? There must be more to regular meetings than coffee and bagels.

Equally important is ensuring the team has a clear vision of your goals and benchmarks. The greater the team’s understanding of what success looks like — clearly defined objectives, expectations, and your content marketing goals — the more effective they can be at their job.

Things to discuss about your content strategy:

Purpose: What is the goal or objective the team is striving for from content marketing efforts? More leads and increased brand recognition are common examples.
Audience: Who is your target audience, and what are their needs, interests, and concerns? Where do they consume content (e.g., LinkedIn, blogs)? When do they visit those channels?
Tactics: What platforms are you using for distribution, and how do they work together? Is there an email campaign as well as daily Facebook, Twitter and Instagram posts, for example? Are images important for results?

General discussions to include:

Open-topic communication: Tap into knowledge from all members of the team to generate ideas, information, and data for content creation. Open discussion can bring insight and fresh angles of approach.
Ways to improve and reach objectives: Fresh ideas are as important to the team as fresh content. What could you be doing better? Should you be measuring something that you’re not? Are there new technologies or tools that you should try? Every team member should have a voice in how to best execute or improve your content strategy.

Related posts:

Is requiring failure the key to success?

by Elizabeth Hines | Sep 17, 2013 | Blog, Leadership, Strategy, Talent

Last week Jason Seiken wrote a post for the HBR Blog Network on the necessity of failure for success. The post, How I Got My Team To Fail More, described his efforts at PBS to create an entrepreneurial culture by requiring members of the digital team to fail. Seiken wrote:

“Soon after arriving at PBS, I called the digital team into a conference room and announced we were ripping up everyone’s annual performance goals and adding a new metric.

Failure.

With a twist: ‘If you don’t fail enough times during the coming year,’ I told every staffer, ‘you’ll be downgraded.’

Because if you’re not failing enough, you’re playing it safe.

The idea was to deliver a clear message: Move fast. Iterate fast. Be entrepreneurial. Don’t be afraid that if you stretch and sprint you might break things. Executive leadership has your back.”

It has been five years since Seiken first introduced the failure metric to PBS. During that period unique visitors to PBS.org have doubled, and in each of the first seven months of 2013 PBS.org has been the most-visited network TV site (beating out ABC, CBS, NBC, and Fox). Additionally, video views on PBS.org and PBS.org’s mobile platforms have risen 11,200 percent.

Was requiring failure the key to success? Not all those who read the post believed that requiring failure was the secret to success. Rather, many readers suggested that the creation of a culture of innovation, one supported by executive leadership, which was the inflection point for success.

The idea that innovation in business or an entrepreneurial culture is brought about by leadership is one put forth by many including Robert J. Herbold. In his book What’s Holding You Back: 10 Bold Steps that Define Gutsy Leaders, Herbold submits that it is the responsibility of a leader to establish a culture of innovation. That is, a leader must communicate a goal of innovation to his/her employees; encourage employees to aspire to innovation; reward innovation; and instill a sense of urgency.

I see innovation and entrepreneurism as the goal and not failure. For this reason I believe the focus should not be on failure, but instead should be establishing a culture which supports innovation. Yes risk-taking and failure are likely components of innovation, but they are just that – components. “Requiring failure” may be sexy, but I believe supporting innovation is more likely to be the game changer.

What do you think? Is failure a requirement for success? Should leadership focus on encouraging failure?