I would love to have your company.

While they’ve each been different in many ways, the same issue tends to come up with all of them: How do we create enough quality content with the resources we have?

In some ways it’s not surprising, in pretty much all the surveys I’ve seen, creating sufficient content comes up either at the top or within the top three challenges for today’s marketers. But despite what some may fear, it’s not an insurmountable problem either (I’ve covered the core approach to this in an earlier post: The two biggest challenges content marketers face – and how to overcome them.

Recently, there have been a rash of books focused on the whole notion of the lean start-up. In this view of the world, you keep things simple and then iterate based on feedback (build-measure-learn as Eric Ries puts it). Within lean principles are a couple of concepts that I think can help you structure your approach to content marketing:

Minimum viable content

Lean start-ups are advised to focus on delivering a minimum viable product (MVP) – essentially, a product that you can ship that will test your thinking in the open market. It will have just enough functionality to deliver value for customers without over-promising. Importantly, it means you can ship something rather than spending months trying for perfection only to miss the opportunity.

It’s an idea that can be easily ported across to content marketing. You do not need to replicate Wikipedia to get going. Start small. Produce a concise, well written ebook that answers a real need among your customers (plug in to your salespeople and your support team to help source key topics). Then spin out a couple of how-to cheat sheets. Curate some third-party content together with your own view. And ask for feedback – what was useful? What wasn’t? What else would customers like to know?

After this, you can begin thinking about additional content. For example, if you’re running an event, take the opportunity to video some of it and grab some backstage interview time with speakers and attendees. Then, all of a sudden you have a series of short videos.

Two things though:

1. It is important to deliver content consistently over time (offering something at least once per month is good).
2. You do need somewhere to put all your content (or link back to it from). This can be a blog, a microsite or a resources page off your own site, but it needs to be easy to update as you add more content over time.

Of course, what happens if you get it wrong?

Pivoting

If you start small, listen for feedback and keep a close eye on your analytics, you’ll be able to see what’s working and what’s not. While it’s important to give your programme enough time to become established, there is no reason to continue with elements that patently aren’t delivering.

Of course, you shouldn’t simply make a blanket assumption that the whole approach is wrong (there are too many other B2B marketers seeing outstanding success for that). It could be that you’re targeting the wrong people. Or that you’re focusing on the strategic when you should be talking tactics (or vice versa). Or that you’re relying on social media when you need an outbound push to get things rolling. The lesson here is to needle away at the issue, creating testable hypotheses about the root cause of the issue.

This brings us to the idea of pivoting. Pivoting involves learning from the past, retaining what’s working and reorienting your focus around this. In a content marketing framework, for example, you might find that your ebook bombed but your video interviews with customers and partners are delivering standout results. So, you drop ebooks and focus in on video – both creating more video content and learning what it is about what you’re doing that’s working. It might be the quick-hit format, your choice of interviewees, the topics they cover, the lessons they share – or any other element.

Importantly, don’t simply assume that every piece of content now needs to be video for ever more. It is important to have a well-rounded approach that caters for customers differing preferences. That way you avoid content cul-de-sacs that can be costly to back out of later.

Ultimately, content marketing doesn’t need to be as complex and scary as many marketers think. With an iterative approach, a solid feedback loop and the willingness and ability to change and evolve, pretty much any B2B company can make it a success.

Personally, I would add in Salesforce.com who I still think has one of the most disruptive platforms in B2B (disclosure: I've worked with Salesforce.com on their Social-Powered Enterprise content with Velocity Partners – but I rated them highly before that). 

Click the image to see it full size.

Original Focus post here »

Worth a watch.

It was created by the people behind The Underwater Realm – a project looking for Kickstarter funding who are putting up a whole bunch of useful stuff on their blog.

Enjoy.

DSLR Lighting Techniques from Eve Hazelton from Realm Pictures on Vimeo.

Definitely worth 3 minutes and 48 seconds of your time.

NYT Labs - Cascade from Lucas Black-Dendle on Vimeo.

1. Producing the kind of content that engages prospects and customers (41%) 
2. Producing enough content (20%)

With the increasing move to content marketing, especially in B2B, the need to get both quality and quantity has never been greater. Whacking together a couple of self-serving case studies and an inaccessible white paper won't cut it (and let's face it, they never really did). So what can the time-poor, budget-limited marketer do?

Producing engaging content

Too many companies still assume that customers are really very interested in their businesses. That, somehow, if they can just get their story about their products and their 'solutions' in front of customers, those same customers will devour it and pass it on to everyone on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter. Back in the real world of course, it doesn't work that way. 

Customers have 1,001 things to worry about every day. Chances are that your product is not one of them. Sorry.

What they really worry about is themselves of course. They worry how they're going to compete more effectively, become more agile, market their products better, keep their costs down – you know, all the stuff you worry about too.

The trick to producing engaging content is to discover what these worries actually are, tease out the ones that your business has some expertise in (and that your products ultimately solve) and then produce content that makes those customers' days just a bit better.

Yes, I hear you say, but how? Good question – three things to start:

1. Listen first – everyone will tell you this – what are customers asking about both online and to your salespeople and resellers? A little searching and a couple of well-phrased Google Alerts can go a long way
2. Image you were publishing a magazine for your industry (a good one, not just another trade rag) – what would your 4 core themes for the year be? (This will form the basis for a quarterly content cycle.)
3. Search out the opinion formers in your sector – you probably already know who they are – what are they saying? Are they right? What are they missing? What are the overarching themes when you look across the industry gurus?

From this foundation, you should begin to have the basis for a content plan.

As long as you always keep repeating "this is about them not about me," you should be fine.

Producing enough content

But what about quantity? How can you create enough stuff?

The first thing to look at is where you can get content. This falls into 4 key areas:

1. Legacy content – stuff you already have that could be either repurposed or combined into new content
2. Created content – brand shiny new content that you get a very talented writer to create for you
3. Commissioned content – content that you get a third-party to create under their own name for you (either paying them to do so or under a guest blogging style arrangement) 
4. Curated content – existing content that already exists on the web (and that gets added to every day) that you can bring to your customers' attention and, importantly, have your own say about

The next thing is to atomise your content.

Virtually every piece of content can spawn a number of others. Let's say you create a 12-page ebook on a key topic. From this you could then create:

• A set of how-to cheat sheets
• A number of blog posts focusing on different areas
• Some interviews with customers and partners to get their take on the issue
• Countless tweets
• A curated set of posts from around the web that also cover the issue 
• A presentation to go on Slideshare
• A poll or two to go on key LinkedIn groups
• An infographic covering key points

And that's just the start. Because you have the core content as a starting place, creating added-value derivatives becomes easier and less time-consuming.

So there you have it, content marketers' top two challenges solved.

Tomorrow? World peace.

On the whole Nokia is very good at these large scale stunts. Sadly in recent years the products just haven't kept up with the brand promise. Maybe, the move to Windows may herald the beginnings of a turnaround. I hope so.

Take a look at the video below (which must have been shot from a couple of floors below where I was in the hotel across the river from the Millbank Tower). It's certainly better than the video I took on my (ahem) iPhone.