Curt Porritt, SVP of Marketing at MasterControl, is known worldwide for coming up with the latest breakthroughs in global internet marketing. More recently he was a finalist for Chief Marketing Officer of the Year from The CMO Institute.
What is content marketing?
Here’s an interesting way to think about content marketing:
“You can make more friends in two months by becoming interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get other people interested in you” – Dale Carnegie
Content Marketing should be process-driven
Curt explains that at MasterControl they follow a process-driven approach for lead and sales generation. The main process is similar to a typical sales process: prospecting, qualifying, negotiation and closing a sale. Along the way, some of the prospects drop out. But at MasterControl, they have incorporated a content marketing strategy that allows them to continue to engage their prospects. Much of that content focuses on 5 formats:
- Direct Mail
- White Papers
- Newsletters
- Webinars
The result: More than 50% of their sales are from “repeat prospects” – clients that dropped out of the sales process at one point yet came back at a later date and purchased. When asked why, more times than not the client mentioned that they appreciated the continued education on products and viewed MasterControl as a thought-leader in the industry. MasterControl built a relationship with the consumer through education, credibility, and trust.
Two must-avoid content marketing mistakes
Curt shared how MasterControl approaches each of the above 5 content formats. Each of the approaches provided the consumer with multiple types of content, industry expertise and ways to connect with the company. While there are many ways to approach content marketing, Curt is persistent in preaching two mistakes that all content marketers must avoid:
1) Make you fill out a form before getting any content
2) Provide content but don’t provide a next step
Frequently Asked Questions
Q: How do you create so much content? Do you repurpose any of it?
Curt: Yes, we do repurpose some of our content. An article becomes a Newsletter entry and a video becomes an aspect of an email content. We leverage our internal teams, industry experts, and our customers to create and deliver content. Content from industry experts and our customers are the most popular and best lead generating content we have.
Q: When developing content, do you segment or tailor it based on how the prospect found it?
Curt: We pay attention to how people find and consumer our content and it does help us tailor some of our messaging. We’ll also tailor content to different industries that we serve. Different industries and companies speak differently which requires us to match our messaging to different individuals.
Q: How do you identify topics that resonate with your customers?
Curt: We have a tool on our customer website that allows our customers to vote for enhancements that they are most interested in. We conduct surveys and also hold an annual customer conference. Our current customers help develop the agenda. We also have incorporate a customer advisory board that leads some of our strategy development.
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