B2B folk, how do you measure your content?

Funnily enough, if you’re one of the rare professionals who says, “We don’t”, you get a pass. For now.

The worse answer is to say you tally up views, subscriber numbers, page dwell time and so on. After all, these are all very obvious in different analytics dashboards. And your bosses, whether in marketing or other departments, most likely have a good sense of what they mean. More is good, less is bad, and so on.

But those same bosses might also ask: “So what?”

And there’s the rub. Your content is effective only if it is achieving wider goals, for example, making you more trusted, improving brand sentiment, starting conversations with would-be customers or even generating a sale.

And in B2B, these things don’t happen with a million people. (Big hello to our B2C cousins 👋. We see you.)

The boardroom book

Allow me to take a detour to yesteryear. What I’m about to describe predates most of our careers, although you might recognise it from TV shows such as Mad Men.

There was a time when an agency or other type of company would present in another company’s office, often in that company’s boardroom.

A small team from one side would meet a small team from the other. There’d be pleasantries, maybe some food and drink, and some sharing of materials.

These might have been artwork (the classic Mad Men artwork, replete with creative walk-through), or there could even be a book of ideas.

I say ‘book’ lightly. But think leather-bound tome of ideas, presented beautifully (no print outs!), and leafed through carefully as the assembled pitch team does the describing and the prospects listen.

My point is that this involved a lot of time and effort (and, so, money), to reach a very small group of what some would today call decision makers.

Team buying, ABM and more

Fast-forward to today. Modern B2B marketing understands that large, complex purchases are done by extended teams, over many months. There is a rarely a single decision maker. And the process is rarely fast.

Practices such as account-based marketing (ABM) recognise this and have grown in popularity.

This post isn’t about diving deep into that decision-making process or ABM, but it’s to reinforce the idea that your marketing is likely most effective when it speaks to a very small audience, in ways that they recognise is just for them.

That doesn’t mean scaling to reach millions of eyeballs on the internet. But it does mean:

• Customising content
• Communicating naturally and consistently
• Showing your clients and prospects that you know them and understand the pressures that come with their sector, their company and their careers
• Meeting them in real life – maybe first on common ground (eg a trade show) but then in carefully curated environments, maybe with some of your existing clients, who will vouch for you

No detail should be overlooked (See The $$$ is in the detail). Your prospects will be comparing you to competition – not just on the fundamentals of what you do, who you are and how much you charge, but on whether your culture aligns well with theirs and what you say in your content, even on your private social media feeds, as well as what you say in official company channels.

So serve small audiences, be true to yourself and remember that no detail is too small to win or lose new business.