Predicting the “death” of a media-related technology will get you in trouble the fastest. The next prediction of the worse incident? Saying that there will be no replacement at all.
Watch me try to stay out of trouble.
Our journey started in 1995.
In that year, we were 22 years removed from the invention of the Internet. (This year, we're 22 years since I'll Be There For You, the title track Friends, hit #1 on the pop chart.) But I digress.
In February 1995, then the weekly national print magazine Newsweek forecast : “(N) o An online database will replace your daily newspaper, no CD-ROM can replace a teacher, and no computer network will change the way it works. government. ”
In the greatest ironies, 26 years later, Newsweek is now only available only Online, tens of millions of students around the world virtually attend school, and the impact of social media on government can only be described as transformative.
But predictions about the growth of the Internet that would kill everyone and media formats have been proven wrong. In many ways, as Miracle Max in The Princess Bride might put it, they were "almost dead."
When are you asking?
How do you know when to move? Are the old formats worth sticking to? Is your B2B content marketing like Blockbuster videos?
Are the old formats worth using? Whether your B2B #ContentMarketing is like Blockbuster video, ask @Robert_Rose via @CMIContent @GetFoleon. #Research Click To Tweet
These questions come up a lot with the marketers we work with. A financial services company wants to know when they should stop sending thought leadership emails with PDF attachments to switch to another format. An e-commerce company wants to know when to stop printing its brochure in exchange for a digital version . A technology company wants to know when to grow its stockpile of PowerPoint presentations and PDFs into something else.
Avoid affiliate approaches
While legacy media formats survive successfully today, they can also be an anchor, slowing a business's ability to innovate and transform. Businesses intentionally cling to old media formats or get in the way of the evolution of customer experience.
A great example of purposeful reasoning is The New York Times. In 2014, in the breakthrough innovation report, leaked their the internal team laments the transition to full digital as “the hardest”:
Companies without a legacy background have the advantage of being able to focus entirely on creating the best digital reports. For newspaper companies, making this transition can be so challenging that some of our competitors have delegated responsibility for the daily newspaper. [print] for small, independent teams so everyone else can focus on digital.
Initially, digital news organizations recognized the benefits of getting the most out of the digital consumer experience. But a legacy brand like The New York Times was at a disadvantage because it entered the era of print journalism. As a result, they argue, any attempt to speed up the digital transformation would be helpful because journalism is now obsolete. . The early Netflix battle 2000S. Now, it's too simple to say that Blockbuster "knows nothing" about internet streaming and that Netflix is growing faster. When more balanced exploration into history ended, Blockbuster tried (and almost succeeded) to grow into a digital business. It was the ability to convince shareholders of the need to reinvent itself in a timely manner combined with the anchorage (and high cost) of physical DVD management that caused Blockbuster to collapse.
But is that trap inevitable for all companies?
Comprehensive thinking
Context, not feature format or quality, determines what content experiences consumers prefer today. This concept is called theory all products – consumers choose more than the core product (vehicle) itself. They choose a core product that incorporates additional and contextual attributes around it.
Context, not formatting features, determines how consumers prefer to # experience the content, @Robert_Rose said via @CMIContent @GetFoleon. #Search Click to Tweet
Simply put: Consumer content is more likely to appreciate a media format because it is easier to fit into a desired personal context than a new format that offers higher quality or has more features. more power.
So just like in Blockbuster and Netflix, legacy media experiences don't go stale when a new, better type of media comes along. They become obsolete when old experiences are created in a context that is not relevant to the consumer.
What is a B2B marketer supposed to do?
B2B businesses have seen the whole product theory. The last 20 years has been a long race to keep up with the pace of digital content development. Eight years ago, SiriusDecisions (now owned by Forrester Research) discovered 67% of the buyer journey is digital . Research firm Gartner found 27% of B2B buyers' time is spent reviewing their content. independent online study .
ONE 2020 McKinsey's research found that “B2B companies view digital interactions as two to three times more important to their customers than traditional sales interactions.” CMI .'s own research found the biggest investment by B2B marketers in 2021 is digital content creation (70%), followed by “improved websites” (66%).
70% of B2B marketers expect #digital content creation to be their biggest investment in 2021 via @CMIContent @GetFoleon. #Search Click to Tweet
B2B audiences really expect more from today's digital experiences. And yet, most B2B resource centers or learning centers are legacy repositories of hidden assets that are split and subdivided into classic, static format types.
Conclusion: This is not the death knell for the classic digital file format, but to address today's buyer landscape, B2B businesses must evolve to create digital content marketing experiences. more attractive digital.
To determine when your best chance is to change, start by considering these four questions:
- We can provide the quantity and quality of content needed to drive differentiation and personalized content experience ?
- To what extent is our content experience “usable” and integrated into our content marketing technology infrastructure?
- How measurable are our content marketing efforts?
- What abilities do we have to gather intent data or provide Interactive through our content experience?
B2B content marketing is going through the same transition as The New York Times, Netflix, Blockbuster, and every other media company out there. We can no longer be bound by or attached to legacy digital processes, technologies and experiences. As marketers, we must recognize the disruptive new competition coming from every angle and be ready to answer questions – and act on our answers.
Cover photo by Joseph Kalinowski / Content Marketing Institute
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