What's the point of marketing content?
Last week, I wrote that I was going to start exploring mental models of the B2B SaaS market. I want to kick off the series with a model of something that’s been on my mind lately, as I’ve been doing more work on content marketing for B2B SaaS clients: A model for what we expected readers to get out of marketing content.
What I mean by this is that when you decide what kind of content to write - for a single piece, a campaign, or a long-term strategy - it’s useful to think about the different levers you can pull to make it more effective. There are some obvious levers like the target reader and the problems you’re helping them with. But the more subtle one is how you expect their views of the company and the product to change after interacting with the content.
It’s easy to gloss over this question as getting your name out there, promoting your brand, creating positive associations. But none of that tells you much about what the content should actually look like. So in this post, I want to define some more specific goals for what you might want readers to get from your marketing content.
Call to Action
This is content designed to get your ideal customer profile (ICP) to do something that moves them along your marketing and sales funnel: click to a product page, enter their email, book a demo. This is always the most tempting goal because the faster you can move buyers along the funnel, the better your metrics look.
The problem with this goal is that if a reader isn’t ready to follow the call to action (CTA) then pushing them too hard can actually have a negative impact. It reminds them that you’re trying to sell them something, and detracts from the other goals below.
Reciprocity
This is the most charitable interpretation of “getting your name out there.” Your ICP is looking for information to help them with a problem. You give them that help, then subtly make sure they know it was you by placing your logo somewhere on the page. It’s almost like a paid ad, but instead of paying with money, you pay with the effort of writing the helpful content.
Because of the subtle psychology of reciprocity, the reader develops positive associations with your brand. Though if you overdo it with CTAs, you’ll just remind them that you’re only helping them in the hopes of selling them something, and that kind of kills the subconscious impact.
This content should specifically target the problems that your ICP faces. And strictly from perspective of reciprocity, it doesn’t matter so much if the subject is related to what you actually do. But since you want to associate the feelings of reciprocity with the problems your product solves, it probably matters a little.
Positioning
Going beyond a general sense of reciprocity, this goal is for readers to associate your company/product with a particular approach/opinion/mission/etc. The content doesn’t have to explicitly stay “this is what we stand for.” In fact, it probably shouldn’t. Instead, it should imply this based on the topic and how it’s presented. This can be through more strategic “thought leadership” or just by biasing towards tactical content that aligns with your position.
Compared to Reciprocity, this content should be more closely aligned with what you actually do. On the other hand, it’s probably less appealing to a general ICP because it’s targeting ICPs who align with, or are open to, this targeted positioning.
Persuasion
The goal here is to actually change your reader’s understanding of their needs, their approach, etc. in a way that makes your product the ideal solution. This isn’t deception (or at least it shouldn’t be): This content should help readers understand their problems more clearly and in more detail. And if your product is actually the right one for their problem, then understanding the problem better should help them see that.
This feels similar to positioning, in that both involve writing about things that make your product unique and better. But while positioning is all about associating your product with that position, persuasion is about helping the reader adopt that position. If you is persuasion, it doesn’t matter if your logo is attached to the content. For example, if ChatGPT decides to appropriate the content as its own, you still achieve your goal.
Conclusion
These are four of the goals that I think of when I’m deciding what to write about. (Can you think of any that I missed?) Any piece of content can address more than one of them, but it can’t put 100% into all of them. You’re always going to have to decide which ones to emphasize and which ones to leave for later.
Thanks for reading Viral Esoterica! Through my company, Merelogic, I help clients build trust and credibility for the age of AI. To learn how I turn B2B SaaS companies into authoritative sources of industry knowledge and solutions, check out merelogic.net.