Three Content Marketing Tips for IT Services Companies
This year, 62 percent of B2B marketers plan to use a mix of insourced and outsourced content, according to the B2B Content Marketing Report.
Large corporations like American Express, General Electric and IBM are pushing out news stories, infographics and informative videos like there’s no tomorrow. An entire generation of journalists left their news desks to work at corporations as brand journalists.
“Forget press releases and ads. What matters is straightforward, practical, even non-promotional information that plays well on social networks” Matt Creamer, writer at Ad Age said in an article on the topic.
To become a thought leader in the IT services industry, it’s time to think like one of your clients. Many companies in this sector offer staffing and consulting services. However, they struggle to differentiate themselves in a competitive marketplace. Instead of communicating their brand narrative, we find consultants claiming to specialize in all areas of IT, including business process outsourcing (BPO), project management, enterprise resource planning (ERP) and staffing.
Imagine a potential client visits your website. Just for kicks we’ll pretend that client is the CTO of marketing and enterprise services company. He or she is looking to implement enterprise architecture approach to improve project implementation and cut costs. If your website doesn’t communicate your company’s expertise in this area, then the CTO will look elsewhere.
Consider challenges your clients encounter on a daily basis, and provide them with content that communicates your business processes succinctly. Blogging is an effective communication tool that gives potential leads a bird’s eye view of your philosophy behind IT staffing. Before launching a blog, or social media presence of any kind, you must have a solid content strategy in place.
Follow these three content marketing tips to curate content for business leaders:
1. Formulate Content Publishing Schedules
A content publishing schedule is similar to an editorial calendar. It’s a strategy document that outlines what and where (social networking sites, company blog, industry site) content will be published. Typically, marketers create this document in an Excel spreadsheet.
2. Plan for Each Content Series
Creating a content series for your blog catering to your target audience is an excellent way to develop a loyal following that’s hungry for more content.
Once you’ve chosen the topic for your content series, it’s time to select a title, outline business benefits and the target audience. Once you’ve established the groundwork for the campaign, identify content types that will be utilized such as surveys, email blasts, blog articles, infographics, Twitter chats etc… Now that you have the content bugs worked out, determine the timing and schedule for the campaign.
Articulate several major campaign goals to meet at the conclusion of the campaign. A goal might be something like this: “generate at least five quality leads throughout the campaign.” Consider the required preparation for the content series and what challenges you may encounter along the way.
3. Stay True to Your Content Messaging Platform
So you’ve identified your target market, key messages and unique value proposition (UVP). Now it’s time to start publishing content on social channels such as Twitter and LinkedIn that are tightly aligned with your company’s key messages. All of your branded content should tie into the cored messaging platform and that may include blog posts, whitepapers and infographics. Remember, if a majority of your clients hire your company for IT staffing solutions, then share this key information on your website. If a lead comes to you, knowing your expertise in this area, there’s a better chance for the deal to close. Not only that, but you and the client will probably maintain a more stable relationship going forward.
If you’re looking to develop and implement a content strategy for your company, but aren’t quite sure how to get started, feel free to contact us any time.
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