The Top 3 (Sad) Excuses Tech Consulting Firms Give for Ignoring Content
Tech consulting firm marketing can be a challenge. How do successful firms establish a marketing system with consistent and predictable results? Results that deliver prospects and effectively convert them to customers?
The answer? They include content as a primary element of their marketing strategy and plan the execution of content production.
Content is the fuel for the marketing system. Without content, nothing works as it should.
You can build a website, but what goes on the page?
You can send an email, but what is included in the body?
You can post on social media, but how do you connect and engage with your audience?
You can host webinars, but what gets delivered to the participants (or gets them to attend in the first place)?
The answer is content!
The majority of tech consulting firm leaders don’t recognize content as the consistent thread that pulls marketing together and makes it work.
So why don’t more consulting firms concentrate on marketing? There are many excuses and reasons why, but here are the top three (3) that are most often used.
We don’t have time to create content.
Tech consulting firms will claim they are too busy in the business, working with clients, and handling other priorities. Content just isn’t something they have time for.
We don’t know how to get started. There is no plan.
Consulting firms will admit they just don’t know where to start. They don’t have a content plan, calendar, or schedule to work on content. They don’t think of content like any other project, so they haven’t established a set of actions and responsibilities necessary to consistently produce content.
Our audience doesn’t read blog articles.
Firm leaders will say, “our audience doesn’t read blogs” as an excuse for ignoring content. It may be true that many members of your audience are not anxiously awaiting your latest article on the technology or business problem you are solving. That doesn’t mean there aren’t people that will be interested – yout have to be there when they are ready.
That may be articles, but it’s likely to be a combination of content. That content may be in the form of an explainer video, a decision matrix, a checklist, or the recording of a webinar. All examples of content that B2B decision-makers consume.
Why you need content
Content establishes thought leadership, supplying your unique perspective to the world.
Content is the grease that removes friction, allowing customers to move past awareness into actively considering your solution to solve their problem. B2B prospects require not just blog articles, but worksheets, budget planning tools, inventories and assessments, and webinar recordings that offer deep dives into the skills of your firm. A variety of content that engages with the audience at the right time with the right information.
Three Consequence of Ignoring Content
What happens when you ignore the need to produce quality content?
You lack differentiation.
Your firm will look like every other firm that works with the same technology and solves the same problems. There will be no way to tell the difference between your firm and others. Without content, your audience does not know the difference between you (we implement AWS) and everyone else (we implement AWS too).
You have a shallow online presence.
Any interest in your firm is quickly extinguished as prospects attempt to dig deeper and find little information. Instead of finding a pathway of guidance and supporting information, the candidate finds a dead end with no information on the parameters of making the right decision or the tools and data to make the right decision.
Your marketing efforts, when you have any, are expensive and yield little results.
Without content, your marketing system suffers from a lack of fuel. It sputters and never gets up to speed. You can’t reach a critical mass because prospects aware of your firm have little information to determine if a next step is beneficial and a relationship is beneficial.
Three actions to take now.
Turn your sad excuses into a call to action. Get glad by recognizing your need for content.
Action 1: Update your strategy.
Content is developed for a “person.” Your strategy contains the definition of the audience you wish to reach and the persona of your ideal customer. With this identified, you can tune your content to the person most likely to benefit by consuming your articles, videos, checklists, and visual content.
Action 2: Create a content production system.
Plan your content production and determine the most critical measures. You will need to assign resources and a schedule to make content production “real.” The goal could be the number of articles posted or the number of sales assets created. Whatever the specific asset, set a goal and measure your ability to create a content production system.
Action 3: Make someone responsible.
Having a single person in the firm responsible for content management will increase success. This person doesn’t have to be responsible for creating every piece of content. Still, they should be accountable for the identification of content, schedules, and promotion of content once it’s produced. This will significantly improve your content marketing success.
Summary
There are lots of excuses for why your firm isn’t concentrating on content. Some of which may be valid reasons (billable resources that are making the customer happy is indeed a valid reason). But overall, establishing a content system that consistently produces the content that your prospects and customer want will improve marketing results by reducing the time and cost to acquire new customers.
Want to get started with your content plans and production? Send me a message on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidclintonsmith/) or email me at David.c.smith@valenspoint.com.
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