Planning for 2015: Stop Making Stuff to Make Stuff

November 19, 2014

You know, for marketers, this is a really relaxing time of year, what with the upcoming holidays, temperatures dropping, and year-end revenue numbers to hit. Oh, and all that measurement we need to wrap up to show off our good work in 2014. Oh, right, and there’s that pesky need to write a marketing plan for 2015 that likely involves hitting higher targets than we did in 2014, sometimes with less budget.

How does the song go? “It’s the most wonderful time of the year…”

Yes, I busted out a Christmas carol – err, non-religious-holiday-celebration-tune – before Thanksgiving. It’s time, people.

It’s also time to get serious about your 2015 marketing plan. Many of us are in the latter stages of finalizing our budget requests and resource requirements, but at the heart of what’s facing marketers in 2015 is our content.

Study after study shows that marketers can’t make enough of it. Aberdeen research shows that only 32% of marketers feel they are able to publish sufficient content to meet their needs. This capacity issue is a challenge as content itself is now a critical lynchpin to marketing success, with better conversions and customer acquisition cost hinging on the ability to execute content well at scale.

Unfortunately, many marketers are making stuff simply to make stuff. They’ve not been thoughtful about what they need and when.

Now is a good time, in preparation for 2015, to really assess what you are doing around content marketing.

Ask yourself:

What do I have for content and how does it align to my buyer’s journey?
Does it contain the right info to address their questions at each stage? What is missing?
Do I have the right mix of status-quo-loosening content and product content?
Does everyone on my team know when to use various pieces of content?
Am I using credible sources of information that tell a story that supports our value proposition?
Am I getting this content under buyers’ noses at the right time?
Have I proactively determined the right channels for certain content, and is everyone aligned around that plan?

Content is ubiquitous. A marketers’ job is to boil that omnipresence down to actionable steps that need doing. The dialogue needs to evolve from “I need content” to “here is the content I need, why, and what I’m going to do with it.” If you need a tool to help plan some of that out, or some ideas for how best to address all the challenges facing you down as you go into 2015, register for a live webinar I’m leading on December 3^rd. Upon registering, you’ll receive a free program planning tool. It was built by my team here at Aberdeen, and could help you and your team organize your thinking around content for your programs.

In the live event, I’ll also be sharing: