The Content Marketing Institute recently shared a statistic that only 28% of B2B marketers say their organization is extremely or very successful with content. Twenty-eight percent. They attribute that success to, among other things, having a strategy and following a plan, tying the content to specific goals and objectives, and measuring their content’s performance. Sounds reasonable, and it is, but that’s not the focus of this article; instead, I want to talk about the use of the word “success” and how it comes into play with content creation.
According to Oxford Languages, the term success means “the accomplishment of an aim or purpose.”
Feeling successful is a human emotion that causes our brains to release dopamine, a neurotransmitter that makes us feel good and is associated with reward and motivation. Because humans like to feel good, we like any dopamine rush.
But success causes more than a chemical reaction in our brains. It also enhances our self-efficacy, or increases our belief in our abilities to accomplish similar tasks in the future. According to Albert Bandura’s social cognitive theory, this increases our motivation and persistence, and will drive us to set higher goals and exert a greater effort toward achieving them.
But wait; there's more to what a feeling of success does. It also strengthens our sense of competence, which further motivates and encourages us to want to continue engaging in the activity. And all of this leads to enjoyment in the activity.
Taking all of this into account, it makes sense that if we feel successful with our content, we’ll continue to write it, no?
So the question becomes, how do we feel successful with our content?
The 28% of B2B marketers who are successful with their content attribute their success to a few things:
• Knowing their audience
• Aligning content with the organization’s objectives
• Measuring and demonstrating content performance
• Collaborating with other teams
• Following a documented strategy
Let’s break each one down:
It seems obvious that if you know your audience, your content is more likely to stick. "Knowing your audience” means understanding who they are, what they do, what their challenges are, what keeps them up at night and what excites them.
It also means, in some cases, knowing their problems before they do; having the ability to anticipate the roadblocks they’ll face before they actually face them.
By aligning your content with your organization’s objective, you are giving your content purpose. It has a reason to exist beyond your need to post something. It can help articulate your company’s objectives, explain why they are important, and what it will mean when your business meets them ( or what it will mean if they go unmet).
This helps you understand what content is working and what isn’t, so you can double-down on the good stuff and change course with the bad. It also helps you explain to the powers-that-be how critical content is in the overall marketing picture and justify its existence.
Content can’t exist in a vacuum. Collaborating with other teams gives your content exposure to all areas of the organization and vice versa. By working with different departments and groups within the company, you are expanding the breadth and depth of the content you can propose and create.
When you want to lose weight successfully, you follow a diet plan. When you want to successfully train for a marathon, you follow a training plan. When you want to save for retirement successfully, you follow a financial plan. It makes sense then, doesn’t it, that when you want to successfully implement content, you follow a content plan?
When you know your audience, align your content with your company’s objectives, measure and demonstrate its performance, collaborate with other teams and follow a documented strategy, you are more likely to succeed with your content.
And when you succeed, you feel good (thanks dopmanine!), gain confidence, feel competent, and are more likely to continue. In other words, if we feel successful with our content, we are more apt to continue to create it.
Being successful sounds simple but that doesn't mean it's easy. That's why The Roadmap to the 7Cs was created. Its purpose is to help you succeed with content.
Isn't it time for you to feel successful with your content? It is! Reach out to find out more.