Content marketing is not a short-term affair; it’s a long-term commitment that requires continual collaboration and engagement to succeed. This means you’ll most likely need to sell the idea to the executive team, as well as other key people or departments within your organization. According to Ardath Albee of Marketing Interactions, “You need executive backing to fund and source a content strategy. You also need the support to ensure there is enough commitment to see a content marketing strategy through.” One effective technique for getting internal buy-in begins with not talking about content marketing at all. (At least not initially.) Instead, focus on your stakeholders’ goals and pain points, even their bonus systems – those areas that affect their own success. Then introduce content marketing as a valuable way for them to get better results.
Content marketing isn’t about selling. It’s about educating, entertaining, or otherwise delighting your readers in order to earn their trust over time. To be successful, you need to understand who your audience is – and what they want and need from you – in order to gauge how much viable content you already have and what content you’ll need to create. There are two key activities here, both of which require stakeholder commitment and participation to be most effective: