Today B2B brands are not only fighting competition with their peers when it comes to content marketing, but with media outlets, information resources, thought leaders and bloggers. Everyone is producing an abundance of content to ensure theirs is clicked and read. Sadly this has negative consequences, with an increasing number of brands and marketers carrying out bad content practices and committing ‘content crimes’ to reach their audience.
B2B Marketing’s Content Marketing Benchmarking Report 2014 highlights just how fierce competition has become, with 89 per cent of B2B marketers creating more content over the last 12 months compared to the previous year. However, committing content crimes for a quick win when it comes to inbound strategy shouldn’t be
the answer.
“People remember bad content and it deters them from looking at the good stuff,” says Tim Prizeman, thought leadership specialist at Kelso Consulting. “In one case I came across, the CIO of a major corporation had instructed his PA to intercept all whitepapers and research reports from the auditor, a top accountancy firm, and put them in the bin before he saw them. He was angry because weak content was wasting his time, and the strong reports the firm did had been completely undermined in the dross.”
Prizeman’s story illustrates the real dangers of producing poor quality content. To avoid falling foul of bad practice it’s important you understand what it looks like and the damage it can do to your brand. We’re here to highlight three common content crimes to keep you out of trouble:
Click baiting
The Oxford English Dictionary defines click bait as: ‘Content, especially that of a sensational or provocative nature, whose main purpose is to attract attention and draw visitors to a particular web page.’ This is an issue because the article behind the controversial headline is misleading and ultimately does not fulfil its promise.
Sarah Gavin, European director of Marketing at Outbrain, explains: “As a reader, if you click on something that’s spammy, or simply completely irrelevant, not only will you click away (increasing the brand’s bounce rate), but you will be less likely to click on an article by that brand in the future.”
Marketers need to be careful to balance clickability with honesty. If you have done your research, created relevant content and implemented SEO correctly you shouldn’t have a problem gaining views for your work. So avoid using buzzwords, choose subjects that are of interest to your audience and present content in an attractive and
genuine way.
Chris Field, director of Fieldworks Marketing, believes the imagery is essential: “The power of imagery really needs to be considered. Audiences have so little time now that images and video are important parts of the pitch; sometimes overly wordy pieces of content become uninteresting very quickly.”
Companies should also be wary of jumping on the latest trends or biggest news stories to gain views. Nik Andreev, content and social media manager at Wolfestone, outlines why hijacking news stories can be problematic: “After Robin Williams’ death there were a series of articles especially on LinkedIn Pulse talking about ‘What Robin Williams taught us about XYZ’. The backlash from the community meant instead of being engaged, people were turned off the brands putting those messages out – forever being associated with trying to get commercial gain from a sad event.”
Over-repurposing
The next content crime on our list is over-repurposing. Marketing teams are urged to make the most of their inbound campaigns and reproduce content in a variety of different ways. While it’s intelligent to make the most of a new research report by creating an inforgaphic, writing a press release and sending it to media outlets for extra exposure, some marketing departments have taken this a step too far. These teams reuse messaging across all channels in all forms, bombarding potential customers.
Unfortunately, it’s sad to say that in the B2B space some brands are choosing this path. For example, numerous organisations choose to produce whitepapers, blogs, infographics and host webinars and events on the same subject over a prolonged period. Promoting the same message – communicated in different ways – across social, email and direct channels can become tiring, boring and ultimately frustrating for the audience. They will eventually unsubscribe.
Over-repurposing can also occur if brands overuse keywords in a bid to increase their SEO ranking. Ilona Hitel, MD and founder of The Commsco, explains: “A company gets hot on their key search terms and starts to scatter them to whichever audience, regardless of their level of understanding.”
However amazing your new content is, it is not suitable for everyone. Adding the same key words to all your online content, or using unrelated popular search terms for SEO can mislead people, resulting in them arriving at a useless webpage. This technique also runs the risk of attracting the wrong people – those that are not interested in your offering.
Still, Karen Webber, marketing director at Axonn Media, defends practitioners: “I don’t think B2B marketers should be criticised for trying to get the most out of their content. Repurposing content is clever, but the problems happen with the way in which each individual piece of content is deployed.”
Webber is right, repurposing content is a good thing, but it is also something that can be easily abused. Over-repurposing or continually reusing content can damage your brand. People will end up ignoring your messages altogether.
Ignoring the end user
The ultimate content crime is ignoring the end user, it means you’re creating content for content’s sake and adding no real value to the market. Broadcasting your organisation’s agenda without understanding the gaps in customer knowledge or current marketplace is a waste of time and money.
Nick Swan, founder of Voucher Codes Pro, shares some advice: “Write for yourself and your customers, not just to please Google, not least because their algorithm changes so frequently. The way you write today may please them, but all that could change tomorrow.”
B2B brands should strive to become thought leaders in their marketplace, sharing and adding to conversations that are already happening rather than increasing the mass of noise already out there. To do this is simple: just listen. Listen to what your employees have to say, what your current customers are talking about and what your potential prospects are interested in. If you find out where each of these groups
of people are and what they are saying you can be there with the right information when it matters.
“The negative consequences of bad content practices impact not just those guilty brands or companies,” says Andreev, Wolfestone’s content and social media manager. “It also impacts all of us content creators – the more marketers do these kinds of things the less audiences want to read content as a whole.”
Facebook proves this point perfectly. A few years ago brands could easily engage with their fans on the platform, but now – because the social network has been over saturated with click bait and over-repurposed content that ignores the end user – Facebook has made it harder for brands to be seen or heard without paying for ads. So even great work is ignored.
The entire B2B marketing industry has the responsibility to ensure these content crimes do not keep happening, because eventually it will have a negative effect on all brands and marketers. Next time you are planning or executing a content marketing campaign, make sure you avoid any of these content crimes.
