As we move from a world of information scarcity to that of information abundance, we have seen a shift in the B2B decision-making process.
B2B buyers, nowadays, are more empowered than ever before. They review, on average, 10.4 sources before interacting with your salesperson. This means they have already completed 2/3rd of their buying journey.
Hence, you need to start building your digital marketing presence to woo your prospects across all stages of their buying journey.
The best way to do that is by start posting relevant and high-quality content on the web.
This can enable you to attract new leads and develop a relationship with them before they are ready to buy from you.
So this poses your next challenge. How to create that content regularly?
It turns out that you have people in your organization who have in-depth knowledge about the industry and your solutions. You can tap into that knowledge by inspiring them to contribute to this vision.
Hence, creating a culture of content within your organization is important. Here are 6 best practices you need to follow to do exactly that:
Get executive buy-in
Executives are the ones who are responsible for driving cultural change within the organization.
Executives are key organizational leaders, and their participation is essential to drive any cultural change. While the executives will rarely run the operational part, they must realize the importance of content marketing.
With their influence and budget, it would be possible to champion this idea of building a culture of content.
Smart tip: Get your executive to send an introductory mail to all your employees. Additionally, you can also ask them to write a small content piece for others to follow suit.
Identify a content leader
The content leader would be the successful owner of this initiative. He would be wearing multiple hats at once:
- Implement this initiative
- Evangelizing this initiative across departments
- Guiding the employees to create high-quality content
- Translating content creation into business goals and metrics
The content leader would be the go-to person for any challenges during this change period.
Explain the benefits of being a thought leader
For the employees to participate in this initiative and contribute content, they need to be convinced about its benefits.
These benefits shouldn’t be restricted to organizational gains but also to individual outcomes. Here are some of the benefits you can tell them to look forward to:
- Being a published thought leader can help them move upward in the company
- If they are in a sales role, it helps them build trust and credibility with their prospects
- Content might lead to future opportunities to build their credibility, like speaking opportunities
Provide training and consultation
You might have the best salespeople or technical experts in your organization.
Yet, when it comes to content, they might not turn out to be the best writers.
Hence, the content leader needs to do the following:
- Provide them with regular training and consultation on how to write for the web.
- Create guidelines that they can follow to make their content fill the publishing standards
- Edit the content before publishing and provide adequate feedback for continuous improvement
Additionally, not everyone would be comfortable with writing. Hence, you can encourage sharing content in different formats like videos, infographics, presentations, blogs, etc.
Yes, there is a place for everything on the web.
Here is a great Internet Marketing Style Guide by Hubspot that you can use.
Incentivize content creation
Incentives are a great way to get the attention of all employees.
They help you get through the most challenging part of the initiative, i.. to get it started.
Smart tip: Your incentives do not have to be something extravagant like an iPad or an airline ticket. It could be as small as movie tickets or a family dinner voucher.
Finally, you have to decide, basis your goals, how you will reward content contribution. Will it be basis the number of articles, or will it be basis the number of views?
Evaluate outcomes and adjust
As with any other initiative, you need to evaluate the success of this one too.
You can use metrics such as views, likes, comments, shares, etc. You can finally tie all of them to your business and revenue goals.
This will help you to constantly refine your strategy and optimize your digital presence for maximum conversions.
Finally, it is important to look at, not only the short-term benefits but also the long-term outcomes of such an initiative.
Conclusion
In light of the changes in the buying process, it is important to tap into the existing organizational knowledge to kick-start the digital marketing journey. You can do this by building a culture of content in the organization and incentivizing everyone to contribute towards this initiative.
What are the challenges that you are facing to drive cultural change within your organization? Please comment below
Ready to cultivate a culture of content within your organization? Explore the 6 best practices you need to follow. Need help implementing these practices? Contact us at HSV Digital to create a thriving culture of content!
