“I don’t know what to write about…”

“why would anyone be interested in what I’ve got to say…”

“I start to write content but then delete it…

”

These are common things we hear when running our transformation programmes and we come to the ‘creating content’ element. But all of these are easily overcome…

These days content is king, it’s the only real and measurable method we have of communicating our specialism, our personality and our intent with prospects.

The old-fashioned methods of grabbing the attention of your buyers, known as 'Interruption Marketing', no longer have the desired effect…We are smarter and our buyers are smarter, we have all moved with the times. 

Your buyers can easily evade your cold calling, screen your email campaigns straight to junk, and block your ads – just like we do at home. We don't like being interrupted, they don’t want to be interrupted.

And therein lies the problem with interruption marketing, there is so much of it that your precious message is lost in the noise…Problem 1 – Inundation!

The average person is exposed to 10,000 flash messages per day – Is yours so special that it stands out?

Problem 2 – Fragmentation

. With all the access the average person has to day to accounts, platforms and media sources…. who on earth can you get your message to them and others?

So, people are inundated with information and there are many places they exist…why bother wasting time and energy and money trying to grab their attention…

The numbers back this up…

Digital Advertising

Engagement rates for digital advertising are falling – we are switching off...

1.61% Facebook

1.91% Google

0.35% Programmatic

(this is where ads follow you around when you browse)

That means that digital advertising has a 98.81% failure rate and based on the amount of money that is spent on digital advertising, that means that $265 Billion is wasted on advertising every year.  

Hopefully none of your cash is in this pile..(?)

 Email Marketing

According to Hubspot the response rate to emails fell to a record low of 2.1% in April 2020. Said differently, 98% of our efforts to reach new prospects failed.

Hubspot say in the report "Sales teams are sending about 50% more email to prospects than they were pre-COVID, but responses continue to drop. Last week, sales response rates hit an all-time low for 2020 at 2.1%, a lower response rate than Christmas week 2019."

Hubspot also said "These trends tell an important story. Email prospecting, to put it bluntly, is out of control. It's easy to send thousands of emails with just a few clicks, and in a chaotic time, we understand why sales teams are sending so many. But volume and quality are trade-offs — the time a team saves by sending out email blasts is wasted if that outreach is not personalized, relevant, and helpful. These gaps are clear in the data."

This is worth thinking about with your teams….

The answer to all of this is training your team in Social Media and allowing them to build influence in your chosen sectors online. They do this by creating content in their own voices, engaging in conversation, and making new connections.

Your Social content is your marketing in the 2020s and it needs to work. Imagine 10,20,30 people in your organisation were producing regular and interesting content on Social Media, getting closer to prospects and having new conversations…this is what happens when it’s done correctly.

But the content has to be good, not good as in polished, but good as in how well it engages your audience.

Good content draws people in. If a person is on LinkedIn, they expect people to post content. If you create good content, people allow it into their space and are willing to interact with it….its all done with permission - not interruption. 

We produced a hierarchy of content for our clients, it’s the result of years of testing and it works.

Below the line is the lowest engaged content, the highest above.

Consistently, media that is paid for such as advertising is least engaged, closely followed by owned media where the message is owned and sanitised by corporate tones.

Hands down, every time, the most engaged content is written in a human voice - your voice. This is earned media, we didn't buy our way into your life, you time and your attention, we earned it...

People get wrapped what type of content the algorithm favours this month of the next, trying to keep up with this is a job in itself. The key is to always be creating a broad range of rich and engaging content media, not to get stuck in one groove, but covering all the bases – blogs, articles, text, video, sketches…whatever you can create which grabs the attention of your audience.

Your content works best when it is part of an overall plan for Social Media. 

Optimising your profile is the starting point, growing your network, being found, building influence are all key elements that combine with the creation of content to move you to becoming Strategic with Social Media…

When you do this well you see:

·        Increased visibility

·        You are being positioned by your audience as the trusted advisor

·        Your organisation owning the share of digital voice

·        Your pipeline increases

·        Inbound increases

·        People want to work with you

·        A combined sense of purpose in the team

Your content is precious to you, its your prospecting lifeline in the 2020’s. Some of it will be successful, some not so much. It’s about experimenting, measuring and resetting to what your audience appreciates. 

The most important element of this is being present and being consistent – we don’t start and stop, we keep going and we build influence.

Go into your profile today and have a look at your last 10-20 posts. Do they really represent you and your thoughts on the world or are they something else? Do you audience interact or not? 

So the next time you go to post a picture of the thing you are trying to sell or a link to your newsletter - think 'I am interrupting...'. Is this what you really want to be doing to your clients and prospects?

Instead put together a piece of content about something cool that happened at work, or write about a challenge you had and how you got round it...anything that will catch our eye, resonate with us and cause us to walk towards you...I'll help you with it.

Lets talk about how to get the most from with you and your teams with effective Social Media content - you can get me here.

Eric Doyle

Crux / DLA Ignite