Equilibrium: 10 Tips to Balance Creativity and Process in B2B Content Marketing
By Joshua Nite
Marketers have to continually earn and reward people’s attention. If we fail at that task, there are plenty of other content options out there. People — yes, even B2B buyers — want engaging, entertaining and valuable content.
That’s great news for those of us on the content side! It means we should be regularly exercising our creative muscles, breaking free of boring B2B, and coming up with new ways to delight our readers. How cool is it, for example, to make Ghostbusters references… for your job?
But as fun and creative as the work can be, there’s a cerebral and analytical side to marketing that we can’t neglect. If you came into marketing through creative writing, not the other way around, you may need to develop the left-brain part of the job:
- Writing for a specific audience
- Meeting audience demand for information
- Prompting the audience to take action
- Staying organized
- Improving results over time
Here are 10 tips that I use to make sure I stay grounded and organized, even while working on wildly creative content. (Speaking of which, our client Dell Technologies just published this spy-movie-themed eBook which is just lovely).
1 — Embrace Keyword Research
For too long, content creators treated SEO like an add-on — something you sprinkled in after the content was done. It wasn’t part of the creative process. It was just a thing you had to do to make sure the bots recommended your content.
But now we know better. Keyword research should be part of the content planning process. And not because it makes bots like your content better, either. A high-volume keyword means it’s a keyword that real actual people are searching for, because they have a need that must be met.
Every keyword is a statement of desire. For a creative content marketer, it’s the next best thing to a telepathic bond with our target audience.
And speaking of which…
2 — Learn Your Audience
If you’re a creative writer, you probably have an audience you’re used to addressing. When I was writing for my online comedy game, it was nerds like me — people who lived and breathed Star Trek, Star Wars, Doctor Who, et al.
At TopRank Marketing, however, I’ve written for CFOs, CEOs, cybersecurity experts, small business owners, millennials in the job market… in other words, a lot of people who aren’t a lot like my default audience. So I had to learn what each of these groups wanted, loved, hated, …read more
Source:: Top Rank Blog
