Courageous Content Creators Court Controversy

A little controversy can be good for your brand. One Huddler shared that they’ve released a consistent cadence of webcasts that bring together experts with opposing points of view on a topic and then let them hash it out. They shared: “We’re trying to promote ourselves, but it seems to work better when we let the outside experts provide points and counterpoints.” If you add a live poll to these sessions, you can also find out where your audience stands on the controversy.

Running a series is another pro tip here—it helps build anticipation and familiarity with your audience.

With attention spans becoming shorter, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to get prospects to read lengthy content. One CMO shared, “We make sure that our content—including ebooks—are really scannable. That’s an art form in itself: Thinking through how to pull readers in when you have lots of info to share.” To make your content scannable, consider breaking up the text into shorter paragraphs, using headings and subheadings, and incorporating visual aids such as charts, graphs, and images to enhance readability.

This author hates gates. They are annoying in the moment and down the road when a rep reaches out. They come between you and your prospective customer who will contact you when they are ready. They also can limit the search value of your content. That said, if you insist on putting up gates, please consider also creating an ungated page that has the same headline and content. Google will index this page and savvy visitors know to search the title of gated docs. One Huddler added, “This is not a heavy lift for your web team.” Another CMO suggested creating short, ungated blog posts of your larger gated pieces to provide a taste of the content and entice readers to fill out the form.

More B2B marketers are recognizing the need to have more videos in more places. One Huddler noted, “I’m impressed by the number of businesses putting business videos and clips from B2B podcasts on TikTok.” They added, “The reason to look at other social channels for content distribution is that LinkedIn is one of the most expensive ways to distribute content – based on LinkedIn’s own research!” Don’t be afraid to experiment and see what works for your brand. The Intuit TurboTax #TikTokTailgate videos generated over 900 million views before the Super Bowl, thanks in part to a paid influencer program.

Creating content can be resource-intensive, and not all businesses have the budget or resources to make all the content they’d like. One Huddler suggested, “We’re creating more general content that applies to 2 or 3 personas.” Another option is to focus on “decision-criteria” content that answers the question, “Why us versus our competitors?” While this type of content can be harder to get from external resources, others are looking at generative AI tools like ChatGPT to create more content at a lower cost and at scale.

Measuring the impact of your content can be a tough one, especially when it comes to attribution. One CMO measures “Global Active Awareness,” which tracks cumulative touchpoints per quarter, such as emails opened, blog posts read, leads created, website visits, and video watches. “We looking for trends – the specific number doesn’t matter – what matters is the direction the cumulative data is headed,” they noted.

This approach helps to hold content creators accountable and drive awareness, which ultimately impacts sales velocity and addresses the common salesperson lament, “I just wish anybody had ever heard of us.”