Mark Schaefer’s {Grow} marketing blog is one I keep tabs on.

He published two posts in January about the limits of online content marketing. They’re worth reading if you’re at all concerned about how prospects managed to find yours, and how some then make time to consume it. (We’ll leave digestion for another day…)

Mark’s first ‘Content Shock’ post is here and a followup addressing points raised by readers is this one.

In the B2B IT networking world I think that one major difference between mediocre content and the stuff people actually make time to read, and sometimes share, is ‘relevancy’. That got me thinking about a possible checksum, a content relevancy checksum (CRC, if you like), that might help b2b technology marketers get a better bang for the buck.

This CRC goes roughly as follows:

DA: The content message must show an end state or goal that the customer can see and understand. “Here’s your problem, here’s our solution, here’s what happens when implemented.”

SA: The content message and the people who deliver it must know the target customer, their industry, their challenges and fears, better than that very same customer. This requires research, planning, creativity… and time.

TYPE: It should be clear to all (marketers, sales, and customers/prospects) what the content piece is aiming to achieve, along with how much time and specialist knowledge will be required to understand and make use of it e.g. if it’s a white paper aimed at tech support managers then it should clearly say so from the start and not lead others into believing they must also wade through it in order to ‘get’ your solution offering.

PAYLOAD: The content’s length, delivery media, complexity and relevancy should be categorized so that anyone seeking it can do so effectively and with minimal assistance. The goal is to have the ‘back office’ aspects of how this content came to be, invisible to the reader.

Ping! Your message succeeds when targets are unimpeded by the marketing CRC that guarantees receipt.

Author: Mark McClure - A freelance b2b case study and white paper writer to the computer networking industry. Based in Tokyo, Japan. Mark McClure Google + Profile About Mark