Claire Mason, managing director of Man Bites Dog, urges marketers to get their B2B beauty sleep
Are you a tactics person, or a strategy person? Are you aware that there’s a difference? The problem is most people couldn’t explain the difference if their Twitter feed depended on it, and that’s why it can sometimes feel as though you’re spending so much of your time producing content. But for what exactly?
The received wisdom is content is king (or queen), and that the more the better, no matter what it is – so long as we don’t have to get the legal team involved. In the past there has been some truth in this, but now the cat and mouse game between Google and SEO has reached its logical conclusion. With Panda in place your search engine ranking no longer depends on the amount of relevant content your chosen keywords pull up.
Our recent Follow The Leader study found three-quarters of B2B CMOs find themselves under tremendous pressure to produce large volumes of content – and the same number feel too close to the coal face to spot emerging trends. Their investment of time and resource in marketing channels is almost the inverse of what they know to be effective. CMOs spend just 17 per cent of time thinking, strategizing and coming up with ideas – compared with 26 per cent evaluating results.
We are the creative thinkers of the organization, but increasing pressure is squeezing the strategic thinking, critical insights and creative ideas required to really make an impact. Allowing our brains to have a breather increases our capacity for creative thought – and if we overload on content as much as we overload our inboxes there will never be time for strategic thinking. True thought leadership for B2B brands means having the courage to take a break and step off of this content treadmill.
For the month with both National Bed Month and the International Day of Sleep, here’s a fresh perspective where everyone benefits: take a break. A proper breather to regroup and re-examine your strategy. It can be tempting to hit the snooze button on strategic thinking in favour of the instant gratification of content, but getting our B2B beauty sleep will help in finding real insights and originality.
So, embrace National Bed Month, put overloading to bed and allow yourself a little more time to dream big.
