Content marketing for b2b. Professional Tips
Recently, a regional conference Gorod.It was held in Tomsk, at which Anatoly Denisov, editor-in-chief of CMS Magazine, a well-known RuNet portal, spoke.
I did an interview with him for a local publication, at the same time talking about more narrow-profile things that, for obvious reasons, concern us about the same. I think that they will be useful to many market representatives, or at least curious. Further everywhere - the direct speech of my counterpart.
Anatoly Denisov, CMS Magazine, Runet Rating:
- We have been talking about content marketing for three years now, they started in the West even earlier - translated books on this topic appeared a couple of years ago. But what is the problem of b2b content marketing in Russia now: it is perceived, like any other technology, like a “silver bullet”. It is assumed that if we begin to write a lot now, everything will be fine. This is not the case at all.
What is your bullet from
? Content marketing is not a “silver bullet”, but a very good litmus test of what the company is all about.
When a company simply advertises, it can invest in it, do very well, brightly and very much distort the opinion of itself for the better. And content marketing, especially aimed at a professional audience (first of all, I'm talking about it, because consumer content marketing is another topic, now we are talking about b2b), it very quickly makes it clear what a company is. I will explain why.
Good content marketing can only be with a good company. What is a good company - is a company that does something different than others in the market, does it very interesting, unusual, smart, and is ready to talk about it.
The vast majority of participants in any market, including ours, are not like that. They do what everyone does, about the same or a little better. And when they try to talk about it, they are forced to retell common words.
Active content marketing allows you to very clearly understand: the company really is something interesting or is it an office that does not really know anything. The only thing she did was to find somewhere a PR man who had studied all the recommendations: in the heading of the figure, in the article there should be lists and so on.
In my opinion, many companies only harm themselves with such content marketing. In our market, on the Internet, it is very simple to create an illusion. There is a wrong side and there is a cover - drawing a cover is easier. But content marketing, especially active marketing, very quickly shifts focus from cover to content. And since the content of most people, to put it mildly, is very different from the cover, this becomes a problem.
Concrete examples can be considered.
For example, Sibiriks. Why do they have the best content marketing of this kind on the market right now? Because the owner is internally very dissatisfied with any result, he always wants to try something new, change something, improve, is always dissatisfied with what he has, he wants better. And when he gets better, he still wants even better, as it seems to me.
And second, and most importantly: he understood - if he talks about it, he will not lose anything, he will only gain. Many people have such a fear: we have now learned that this works (or certainly does not work), but we will keep silent about this in order to be ahead. Not a damn thing like that! When you talk about this, you actually keep a certain distance all the time, stay ahead, because you have already gone further.
Another example. There is a Smolensk studio Webkanape. They are really building a site development pipeline. They are also constantly dissatisfied with the process and want to make this process the most accurate and mathematically calculated. And they also openly talk about it.
Moreover, the most interesting thing is, in principle, unites a lot of participants in our market. Most often, they do not invent some kind of complex physics. They take something that has been applied in other large markets and transfer it to the Internet, in our small market. But at the same time, those companies that transfer and tell, they are very different from others. Apparently, because they really do it.
And the one who does, does the interesting and not the same as the others, that is, the one who is ahead, can have good content marketing. Everyone else is behind, and content marketing is behind them.
Do I need to cut and water
It would seem that consistency is one of the precepts of content marketing. Yes, you need to publish regularly. The trouble is that in the professional market this practically does not work: in order to publish something regularly, you need to be a huge company.
Almost everyone, even objective leaders, is exhausted. I notice that when they try to start writing regularly, their quality begins to suffer. Interestingly, they can talk about a limited number of things.
Companies that could tell something interesting every week (I'm not saying that they do it, but they have such a hypothetical opportunity) are Apple, Google, Microsoft, all those where thousands of people work and many different things are done. .
Most studios do cool and interesting only a few things, and some of them can tell.
Good content is very rarely regular.
If you take the 50 most popular materials, then 20-30% of them will not be about how to do it, but, for example, about some unpleasant situations, so to speak. Information about how bad and why bad is one of the most popular. She is believed much more.
There is a theory - one modern journalist once said - that if there are no problems in the interview, then it will be perceived as advertising, no matter how advertising it is written. Same thing with articles. One of the most interesting and sought-after materials is an open, frank description of problems and their solutions.
But a company that has constant problems is a strange company. And it is unlikely that she should engage in any kind of marketing.
It turns out that interesting, just because of their size, the average companies do a little. Therefore, I practically do not believe in regular b2b content marketing on professional sites.
Repackaging content
But I believe in repackaging content. For example, an article can become a presentation.
Many now love infographics, but I’ll say frankly, I am very negatively inclined towards it, very often these are just beautiful pictures, which are now carried away and in the production of which a lot of time is invested. I understand why it is being done, people like funny pictures. But more often than not, everything that is represented in the infographic could be packed into a very short article, which can be printed out or saved for reading. And infographics are such specific content.
But I, for example, also have a specific attitude to the video format, because its production is very expensive, even amateur video. The second is very demanding content. You need a stable internet connection to watch videos in your workplace or at home. It takes several minutes if the video is long, not looking up to look at the screen. Now it is rarely when you can afford it.
I’m not talking, of course, about any viral videos that are for “just having fun,” I’m talking about professional content.
For example, now they are very actively doing all sorts of video interviews and other large formats. Probably, they have something interesting, but 30 minutes to sit and listen in anticipation of interesting is simply impossible. If this interview was translated into text, it could be read in a few minutes. And spend 30 minutes on it, even if they recommend me ... Therefore, packaging, you also need to clearly understand for what purpose and how much this packaging will be in demand.
How to publish
We are sent to the editorial office a lot of materials, on the day I reject 10 out of 9. Most often in the one that remains, I feel the potential and can direct the author’s thought in the right direction.
I see my editorial task in helping to understand how to cover a particular topic. Because most often there is an understanding of an idea or a problem, there is a description of it, but there is no understanding of how to present it. I try to help the authors in this situation, if I see from the experience of previous materials how to direct, in which direction and (not always, but sometimes!) It turns out really very well.
As for the “take-not-take” material. We have a certain idea of our audience: who reads us, subscribes to us and so on. And our goal is to make every material that comes out interesting to at least half of this audience.
Because if we will consistently have materials that are interesting to only 10-15-20 percent of readers, then we will begin to lose our level very much, because the competition for attention is now very big. And if there is a source of information in which there is understandable, expected and predictable content, then they will subscribe to it. Rather, they will not unsubscribe from him.
And if he begins to be diluted with all sorts of different things, then he will lose his value. After all, you can now unsubscribe from just one click.
That is, it turns out that every time I decide to “publish” or “not to publish”, I understand that if I don’t guess and an article is published that will be uninteresting, rejected (conditionally rejected - not spread, not commented out) by half or more than our readers, it will be bad. Therefore, I will refuse the material, which can be very interesting - but only to 5 percent of readers, because it is more important to match the interests of the majority of the audience.
I did an interview with him for a local publication, at the same time talking about more narrow-profile things that, for obvious reasons, concern us about the same. I think that they will be useful to many market representatives, or at least curious. Further everywhere - the direct speech of my counterpart.
Anatoly Denisov, CMS Magazine, Runet Rating:
- We have been talking about content marketing for three years now, they started in the West even earlier - translated books on this topic appeared a couple of years ago. But what is the problem of b2b content marketing in Russia now: it is perceived, like any other technology, like a “silver bullet”. It is assumed that if we begin to write a lot now, everything will be fine. This is not the case at all.
What is your bullet from
? Content marketing is not a “silver bullet”, but a very good litmus test of what the company is all about.
When a company simply advertises, it can invest in it, do very well, brightly and very much distort the opinion of itself for the better. And content marketing, especially aimed at a professional audience (first of all, I'm talking about it, because consumer content marketing is another topic, now we are talking about b2b), it very quickly makes it clear what a company is. I will explain why.
Good content marketing can only be with a good company. What is a good company - is a company that does something different than others in the market, does it very interesting, unusual, smart, and is ready to talk about it.
The vast majority of participants in any market, including ours, are not like that. They do what everyone does, about the same or a little better. And when they try to talk about it, they are forced to retell common words.
Active content marketing allows you to very clearly understand: the company really is something interesting or is it an office that does not really know anything. The only thing she did was to find somewhere a PR man who had studied all the recommendations: in the heading of the figure, in the article there should be lists and so on.
In my opinion, many companies only harm themselves with such content marketing. In our market, on the Internet, it is very simple to create an illusion. There is a wrong side and there is a cover - drawing a cover is easier. But content marketing, especially active marketing, very quickly shifts focus from cover to content. And since the content of most people, to put it mildly, is very different from the cover, this becomes a problem.
Concrete examples can be considered.
For example, Sibiriks. Why do they have the best content marketing of this kind on the market right now? Because the owner is internally very dissatisfied with any result, he always wants to try something new, change something, improve, is always dissatisfied with what he has, he wants better. And when he gets better, he still wants even better, as it seems to me.
And second, and most importantly: he understood - if he talks about it, he will not lose anything, he will only gain. Many people have such a fear: we have now learned that this works (or certainly does not work), but we will keep silent about this in order to be ahead. Not a damn thing like that! When you talk about this, you actually keep a certain distance all the time, stay ahead, because you have already gone further.
Another example. There is a Smolensk studio Webkanape. They are really building a site development pipeline. They are also constantly dissatisfied with the process and want to make this process the most accurate and mathematically calculated. And they also openly talk about it.
Moreover, the most interesting thing is, in principle, unites a lot of participants in our market. Most often, they do not invent some kind of complex physics. They take something that has been applied in other large markets and transfer it to the Internet, in our small market. But at the same time, those companies that transfer and tell, they are very different from others. Apparently, because they really do it.
And the one who does, does the interesting and not the same as the others, that is, the one who is ahead, can have good content marketing. Everyone else is behind, and content marketing is behind them.
Do I need to cut and water
It would seem that consistency is one of the precepts of content marketing. Yes, you need to publish regularly. The trouble is that in the professional market this practically does not work: in order to publish something regularly, you need to be a huge company.
Almost everyone, even objective leaders, is exhausted. I notice that when they try to start writing regularly, their quality begins to suffer. Interestingly, they can talk about a limited number of things.
Companies that could tell something interesting every week (I'm not saying that they do it, but they have such a hypothetical opportunity) are Apple, Google, Microsoft, all those where thousands of people work and many different things are done. .
Most studios do cool and interesting only a few things, and some of them can tell.
Good content is very rarely regular.
If you take the 50 most popular materials, then 20-30% of them will not be about how to do it, but, for example, about some unpleasant situations, so to speak. Information about how bad and why bad is one of the most popular. She is believed much more.
There is a theory - one modern journalist once said - that if there are no problems in the interview, then it will be perceived as advertising, no matter how advertising it is written. Same thing with articles. One of the most interesting and sought-after materials is an open, frank description of problems and their solutions.
But a company that has constant problems is a strange company. And it is unlikely that she should engage in any kind of marketing.
It turns out that interesting, just because of their size, the average companies do a little. Therefore, I practically do not believe in regular b2b content marketing on professional sites.
Repackaging content
But I believe in repackaging content. For example, an article can become a presentation.
Many now love infographics, but I’ll say frankly, I am very negatively inclined towards it, very often these are just beautiful pictures, which are now carried away and in the production of which a lot of time is invested. I understand why it is being done, people like funny pictures. But more often than not, everything that is represented in the infographic could be packed into a very short article, which can be printed out or saved for reading. And infographics are such specific content.
But I, for example, also have a specific attitude to the video format, because its production is very expensive, even amateur video. The second is very demanding content. You need a stable internet connection to watch videos in your workplace or at home. It takes several minutes if the video is long, not looking up to look at the screen. Now it is rarely when you can afford it.
I’m not talking, of course, about any viral videos that are for “just having fun,” I’m talking about professional content.
For example, now they are very actively doing all sorts of video interviews and other large formats. Probably, they have something interesting, but 30 minutes to sit and listen in anticipation of interesting is simply impossible. If this interview was translated into text, it could be read in a few minutes. And spend 30 minutes on it, even if they recommend me ... Therefore, packaging, you also need to clearly understand for what purpose and how much this packaging will be in demand.
How to publish
We are sent to the editorial office a lot of materials, on the day I reject 10 out of 9. Most often in the one that remains, I feel the potential and can direct the author’s thought in the right direction.
I see my editorial task in helping to understand how to cover a particular topic. Because most often there is an understanding of an idea or a problem, there is a description of it, but there is no understanding of how to present it. I try to help the authors in this situation, if I see from the experience of previous materials how to direct, in which direction and (not always, but sometimes!) It turns out really very well.
As for the “take-not-take” material. We have a certain idea of our audience: who reads us, subscribes to us and so on. And our goal is to make every material that comes out interesting to at least half of this audience.
Because if we will consistently have materials that are interesting to only 10-15-20 percent of readers, then we will begin to lose our level very much, because the competition for attention is now very big. And if there is a source of information in which there is understandable, expected and predictable content, then they will subscribe to it. Rather, they will not unsubscribe from him.
And if he begins to be diluted with all sorts of different things, then he will lose his value. After all, you can now unsubscribe from just one click.
That is, it turns out that every time I decide to “publish” or “not to publish”, I understand that if I don’t guess and an article is published that will be uninteresting, rejected (conditionally rejected - not spread, not commented out) by half or more than our readers, it will be bad. Therefore, I will refuse the material, which can be very interesting - but only to 5 percent of readers, because it is more important to match the interests of the majority of the audience.