What B2B content marketers get wrong

By Ariella Brown

You know that advice that every piece of B2B content should have a clear CTA? It's bogus. In fact, the piece of content I wrote that had an immediate impact in terms of bringing in a sales qualified lead for a six-figure annual contract the day after it was published had no CTA at all -- not even a hint about having to schedule a demo.

What it did have were features that many B2B businesses forget about in doing their own imitation of thought leadership outlets and removing all content from individual identity.

Here's what the article had:
☑A vivid description of the challenges he experienced in his work that others in the same line would identify with
☑A clear presentation of the company's solution and how it directly addressed these pain points
☑Mostly important of all, it had a name associated with a bio and pic for the expert in the insurance industry who served as the source of information for the article and related his own experience.

💡Why was this most important? As it turned out, that was the lead's way of marking his interest in the solution. He know the featured expert, maybe even had direct dealings with him in the past. That made him not just trust what he said but also feel comfortable enough to reach out to him directly rather than to a general company contact or form to say he was interested.

One of my pet peeves about B2Bs is that they offer no point of direct and immediate contact. Many of them refuse to list a phone number, and some won't even put in an email. No, they insist, if people are real prospects, they'll fill out the form that makes it easy for us to automatically feed their information into a CRM and send it on to sales people.

This foolish delusion prevents easy access to people who don't want to have to be treated as just prospects you'll get to at your own convenience. They want to get a response while they're thinking that your offering may be just what they need. Keep them waiting, and they'll start looking elsewhere for that solution, and you may not even know you had a prospect that got away. That's the wrong way to attract inbound.

Learn more about the #WriteWay by following The Write Way Pro LinkedIn page and connecting with me on that platform.

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Yes, I did include a CTA here. I didn't say never to have a CTA -- only that you don't have to have a CTA for every piece of content. But I'm going to break another rule here and give you yet another course action. You can check out my portfolio here: AriellaBrownPortfolio.blogspot.com

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The 6 step plan that fails

Photo by Aleksejs Bergmanis: https://www.pexels.com/photo/aerial-photography-of-concrete-bridge-681347/

By Ariella Brown

I should have known better, but I still  fell for it. 

I put in my information in order to ungate and  download the tantalizingly titled "How to build pipeline with content in 6 steps" from a company I won't name here. Disappointment doesn't begin to express my feeling at this one-pager that only someone who has never created business content wouldn't know.

The first step is: "Do some research" in order to know you customers.  Obviously, that is your starting point. But it doesn't give you any advice on how to go about this. That's what many businesses who fail to understand their customers really need help with. Surveys are ignored, and few take the time for really in-depth talks because all conversations turn to upsells and not to fostering understanding.

Step 3 is another obvious step for any content creator: "Tell a story."  That was to be the bridge to step 4: using data and the claim that first-party data is the best (definitely debatable).

But the real goal of the whole piece was to declare in step 5 that you need the right tool -- the one the company that put this out offers -- to track engagement. Step 6 is to track engagement (no doubt, with this tool).

The dichotomy that's wrong

What struck me more than the blatant selling in this presented-as-helpful-guide  was the assumption of step 2, which focuses on a division of content that must appeal to people who love categories but that is, ultimately, counterproductive.

It says: "Determine if your content is tactical or 'experience-driven'.” It then goes one to explain that "collateral related to the business image like presentation decks, press releases, and thought leadership" all goes into the "tactical" bucket.

That is presented as distinct from "collateral related to demand gen activities, supported by personas, nurture content, event material, and industry-specific content" go into the "experience" bucket. The chef's kiss here is that the writer (I picture a college student intern using Chat GPT) adds in this note: "(hint: this is the one you want to focus on for demand gen)."

Now, if were to uphold this division of content type, something I don't advocate at all, I would definitely put thought leadership into the experience/demand gen bucket. That's where it belongs, no question about it. 

On the other hand, there is a very important form of content for the tactical bucket that is not named -- case studies or success stories.

Ultimately, though, the division seems to be about the more direct sales enablement materials that would be considered tactical vs. the brand and relationship-building content that is more often associated with demand gen. The delusion of this division is that the former works for immediate conversions-- at least to the point of an MQL while the latter is the stuff you put out to get the person primed for the tactical stuff.

But in reality, your target customer won't be pushed into a linear funnel, neatly progressing from your ToFu to your MoFu to your BoFu content and take the action specified as soon as they hit the tactical content. The buyer's journey is a lot more complex and recursive than that, and recognizing this reality should be part of your first step in building your pipeline.

 Related:

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You can also follow Ariella Brown.  

Building foundations for castles in the air

By Ariella Brown

“If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.”

― Henry David Thoreau 

Two results of the Gemini-generated pics for my prompt based on the quote. Let me know which one you prefer in the comments

This is the essence of creative content marketing. You can start with the creative idea to construct something truly different and unique. But if it is not grounded in reality, which is the actual experiences of the target customer, then it will never be a sustainable structure.

HT to Alfredo A. Lopez for making the comment on Tom Goodwin's post that made me think of this.

I'm wondering if Tom's dichotomy was sparked by reading the "bothism" advocated by Mark Ritson. https://www.marketingweek.com/ritson-bothism-cure-marketers-fascination-conflict/in which he says:

We’ve had the decade-long custard-pie fight over ‘digital’ versus ‘traditional’ forms of communication. I remain completely bemused as to what these terms actually mean in 2020, given almost every form of communication from radio to outdoor is now demonstratively digital in delivery. And yet we have spent all this time pushing the benefits of one side and then defending the honour of the other.

Twenty minutes with a decent data set and an open mind would demonstrate to any marketer that when you adopt a Bothist view of communications and add a dash of traditional media to the digital cake mix, the whole confection improves dramatically as a result.

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Nigerian prince scams updated for LinkedIn

By Ariella Brown

Today's Nigerian prince appears as the one who will teach you the secret to increasing your income.

I understand the need to pitch to try to make sales, and I get that people want to entice customers with concrete numbers. But I'm starting to think that like the classic Nigerian prince scams, they are deliberately aiming for low intelligence people who just swallow the promises of easy riches and hand over their money without question. 

That's because I'm struck by how very unsophisticated they seem to assume their audience is. I got two pitches like that today -- one in my Linked Inbox after a person requested to connect to me and one in my actual email that the person obtained from my having attended one of his presentations.

Flattery only works on people whose egos exceed their intelligence

Don't send an invitation to connect with someone and give them a false compliment leading right into your sales pitch. You're following a playbook and showing that you're trying to manipulate your mark, especially when it is very obvious that you're being so general because you are not, in fact, familiar with the person's work and are just pulling off their current place of work as reference.  

For example, I just responded to an inmail with "What do you think I do at NYC Data Science Academy?" in response to the pitch that said this: 

Hello Ariella, thank you for accepting my invitation.

I love what you are doing at Nyc Data Science Academy

I recently helped Deekron, a client of mine,
make an extra $25k a month without spending anything on ads

And I am sharing the exact process on my upcoming linkeidn [sic] event

If this interests you, here is the registration link:

I'm not sharing her link. I seriously doubt she loves what I'm doing because she can't really see what I'm doing at the school. My name doesn't go on the work I edit. In other words, I'm most invisible there.

Anyone who is so obvious about throwing out flattery because she's too lazy to even try to make herself sound credible is not the type of person I want to work with. It makes me doubt her claims altogether.

Seeing is not believing

The email I opened was from Russ who charges $1500 a course that he hopes will attract up to 60 attendees at a time. He sent along this visualization with completely made-up numbers (notice no footnote for sources of info) to try to convince you that you can easily go from earning $25 an hour to $100 an hour and then to $250 and, ultimately, $500 an hour so long as you can sell yourself as a strategist.

Everyone who is a mechanic can also be a quarterback

That assertion is ridiculous isn't it? Yet that's what's implied by the labels Russ decided to use for his visualization that lies on very level, including deliberate vagueness and poor choice of words to represent the different roles. 

Why call the one who implements the plan a mechanic? Mechanics are not mindless drones who just follow orders. They're highly skilled workers, and they tend to comman salaries way above $25 an hour. 

And then why the shift from a job to a sport roles by choosing the term quarterback? It doesn't fit and again underestimates what real quarterbacks earn. 

In point of fact, even the lowest tier indicated here for  freelance marketers/content producers, there are the ones who earn $25 an hour and the ones who earn $100 an hour for the creation, whether that is writing the blogs and social media posts or posting them. There's no fixed demarcation in terms of earning potential, as people will often have to do both the creation/plan and implementation. 

Now let's move to the top two tiers and the false demarcation between the consultant and strategist. Again, Russ is being very sloppy with terms, which really make me think that he is not just dishonest but not very good at what he claims brings him so much wealth. 

False demarcations

What he calls a strategist could also be called a consultant. A consultant simply means someone who works in a consulting capacity, which can be for anything. Even what he calls a mechanic or a quarterback  could be hired as a consultant. In fact, I do work at all these levels described here under the title of a consultant, and I don't typically get $500 an hour or even $250 an hour. 

I'm not saying no one gets that. I'm sure some people do. 

However, those rates are usually only offered for very brief stints, just to set up the plan that will be executed by others who are charging less. That's why most consultants will not limit themselves to just the upper tier of work and secure maybe 10 hours per client. 

Instead, they would work on the range and accept some in-between range that may be around $200 an hour. Some senior writers end up earning that much, too, when they charge by the piece and work fairly quickly. 

Bottom line: the visualization paints a very false picture about the actual earnings and demarcations associated with different aspects of work in marketing. Anyone who really falls for the implied promise that your earnings will skyrocket to $500 an hour with full time hours as a result of taking a course is so easily duped that he or she would make a very lousy strategist, indeed. 

Remember, as I pointed in The secret to getting rich is selling other on the secret, if these people were really raking in as much as they claimed from their freelancing/consulting, they wouldn't have pivoted to the courses. They obviously make far more by taking in (pun intended) the freelancers seeking to improve their earnings than by hitting up the business managers with their claims of writing/marketing prowess. 

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Getting rich: the secret is to sell others on the secret

By Ariella Brown

Everyone is doing it!

I'm on an email list from one of the hundreds maybe even thousands of people currently positioning themselves as experts who offer "masterclasses" on improving one's earnings as an independent marketing professional.

Today's email offers the tantalizing lure of drawing in clients that pay $60K a year. The possibility of getting just two of those pushes one into that highly coveted six-figure income slot.

Definitely worth paying $1500 to learn how to earn nearly 10x that amount this year, right?

Then rational skepticism kicks in, and you think this: "If he really has no problem getting all these clients that put him in what he says is the top 1% of earners for this category, why would he take any time away from that highly lucrative work to produce these classes?

He's not retired, so he's not just passing on what he's learned to the next generation. He'd be passing it on to his competition. Altruism is certainly not the motivation here because the cost of the classes are substantial, particularly for something that wholly virtual and not accredited.

How did we come to this?

Perhaps what happened is that when the economy was in a much better state, some of these consultants did very well. The self-proclaimed masters have, indeed, experienced high earnings.

They had already acquired some key connections when the pandemic hit and create a new surge of demand for digital marketing content. With everyone working remotely anyway, it was a lot easier to be accepted as a consultant who delivered without having to be present in a NYC or LA office while still demanding the rates associated with those high-cost cities.

What a difference a year or two makes!

However, times have changed. Now these people have found that they're not nearly as in-demand at present as they likely were when brands were investing heavily in content marketing, particularly during the pandemic.

Finding that their income has dropped, they are now trying to supplement it with courses and some with other materials you can purchase.

In fact, some are even starting to boast about how much they've made from such sales.

Those who are trying to appeal to the value of exclusivity will like not publicize exactly how much they've made. For example, the "master" behind the course I described earlier claimed he will "restrict" attendance to 60 for his course to allow for "individual attention."

At $1500 a pop that amounts to $90K over mere weeks. But that will only happen if he gets the 60, which I seriously doubt. I'm sure he'll get a handful of people, but I believe he priced something with no guarantees too high to attract the desperate.

Of course, there are techniques one could learn and improve. But it's not really the quality of your work or even the leads it brings in that guarantees you're paid what you're worth. However, my own experience of 18+ years in the biz has taught me that timing and connections count for far more.

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