3 Ways to Convince Your C-Suite to Love Your Content Marketing Strategy

You live in a world where “content is king” and the digital space is more relevant and powerful than ever before. Brands can make products look enticing in advertisements on both TV and online but it is ultimately the audience that requires reassurance and trust in order to buy-in to whatever it is you are selling.

Experts on content marketing would argue that it is actually the audience that drives a brand or product’s success in this era of “digital rules”. Therefore, if you do not have a well thought out plan to authentically engage with your audience and provide true value then you are not doing your job well to market your brand in today’s world.

What does properly marketing your brand look like?

I believe various executional tasks is a great beginning to your journey into the content landscape. Blog content is a great way to educate the consumer throughout the sales cycle. You can understand how to communicate with your audience and provide them with targeted content at the right place and time to effectively reach them. This ensures that you create value so that your audience chooses you when they need something, understanding your offerings without the feeling of the sales pitch.

Now that you understand the advantages and value of a content marketing strategy, you need to convince and navigate your way up to the top leaders in your organization to get them to comply with your recommendations moving forward and I am going to provide some rock-solid suggestions to help you achieve your objectives which is to get the “buy-in”.

Develop Your Baseline, Your Starting Point and Test.

It is imperative that you produce the metrics to support these tactics and strategic initiatives. At this years Mesh Marketing Conference in Toronto, brilliant and successful Canadian entrepreneur Dan Martel who co-founded Flotown, acquired by Demandforce and now runs a venture backed start-up, Clarity, said:

“Before you start, develop a baseline, measure and test sh*t”

Become an expert in content marketing. Do your homework, and your research so when you present your case you look like you are the expert. This means submit a blueprint of what this looks like and map it all out with a fine-tooth comb. Provide examples of your competitors that have exemplary content marketing programs. Demonstrate value depending on your company’s goals.

Your goal is to help your c-suite understand how doing A, will result in B. By consistently communicating with your audience on your website and social media platforms,you demonstrate that you care about your audience.

Inspire Change to Achieve Success but Do It With Data:

There is nothing, I mean absolutely nothing better than demonstrating how your plan leads directly to cash flow. By way of doing this, you must collect data and do the number crunching before you share your game plan.

Create What-If Scenarios:

What if resources and money are no object? What would success in your content marketing efforts do for you? Examples of best in class content marketers are important to note.

Create a tangible, visually appealing and digestible document which will articlulate the value of content marketing for your business. An infographic is the perfect way to showcase your presentation. Jeff Bullas wrote a post about why infographics are so powerful: 9 Awesome Reasons to Use Infographics in your Content Marketing.

In fact, Jeff, listed as top content marketer, is number one on Michael Brenner’s Top 200 Marketing Brands and Influencers List. Oh, Michael Brenner is very influential as well. A well known successful marketer in the content marketing landscape.

Become a content marketer when educating your C-Suite executives about the facts and figures of a successful content marketing strategy. In other words, provide an environment where increased lead generation, thought leadership and increased sales is the result. Here is a handy blog post by Salesforce listing 50 Awesome Content Marketing Stats.

Develop a baseline, collect data, and create what-if scenarios to convince your leadership team to love your content marketing strategy.

3 Ways to Convince Your C-Suite to Love Your Content Marketing Strategy