Everything Must Change; Forget B2B or B2C. The Future of Content Marketing is P2P — Peer to Peer!
That Simple. That Complex.
OK. Let me give it to you straight. If you are doing the same thing you did last year in your content marketing program — you are missing the boat. Let me drive the change home for you very easily. You are about to take a vacation. You go on-line to educate yourself about the various hotels available to you. You read a hotel’s web-site. In other words, you hear from the ‘Brand’. According to them, it’s the absolute BEST hotel you could possibly book. Perfect for you — even though they don’t really know you… or what you need, and want.
What is the first thing you do? Exactly. You check the reviews. You want to hear from people like you. People who are sharing their experience to help you make your decisions — which is a kind and helpful thing to do. You want to hear about their journey. What worked for them — what didn’t work. And certainly, you’re looking for honesty and transparency above all else. The fact is that the way people live increasingly is spilling over into how people want to work. And that signals a BIG change in how companies need to communicate with the people they want to do business with. That simple. That complex. The future is Peer to Peer.
Stats Show the Power of Content Marketing in 2018
Bye Bye Brands; Give me Peers or give me Death
So how does this reality affect content marketing you ask? It means people no longer want to hear from ‘Brands’. OK, maybe the spare Super Bowl extravaganza, or a super cool pic from REI or Nat Geo, but studies are showing — shoving general messages down the throats of prospective buyers, no matter what the product, or who the customer, is just not cutting it anymore. Forget B to B, B to C and perhaps B to anything going forward. The future is about P to P Marketing — Person to Person, Peer to Peer, P2P. The future is about using the same approach to making decisions that you use in your personal life, in your professional life — And there ain’t no going back! P2P Content Marketing is moving in and if you’re not ready for it, you could find yourself be behind the eight ball.
P2P at Work in Business
So what does this new mind-set really look like in business? It means people want to hear from people, and if the people in your firm are not empowered to effectively dialogue about problems and possibilities of the business at hand with your potential clients — your message will not ring true. Increasingly, customers will be looking for the same candid sharing of experience they find in reviews — from your employees — and their clients. No flashy campaigns. No annoying chatbots pushing products and services — just good old fashioned storytelling that will allow people to relate… to people.
Readers will no longer be satisfied with pedantic academic or technical writing, they want the real scoop from folks who know, and they’ll be quite aware if they’re not getting it. Genuine storytelling from experienced individuals — this is the only way of delivering the true trust and transparency that’s going to be needed in marketing going forward.
OK. So, say I sold you. Say you agree that people changing the way they buy for themselves, will eventually transform how they buy for their companies. But how will marketing have to change? And how can you prepare your organization for a new era in corporate communications, and advertising overall? The truth is that you need to work with, and support, your employees in becoming brand ambassadors by being honest influencers first. Companies must break down silos between marketing departments and business lines, in order to help bring the authentic voice of committed workers, on the front line, to the fore. No ivory towers or ghost writers here, marketers will have to become experts at nurturing and nudging real stories from the ranks of their workers. How do you begin?
A Real-Life Example
When Ismail Amla, a consultancy visionary, took the helm of IBM’s consulting enterprise ‘Global Business Services’, he knew things would have to change. It became clear that in those all important moments, right before a prospective client was to meet an IBM practitioner, clients were googling the consultants— but the consultants simply were not ‘googling up’. Yes, the client could find lots of information exclaiming that IBM was the best to buy — but they couldn’t find any proof that the individual they were about to meet understood their business. Or had experienced helping other customers through challenges similar to their own. Or had a vision for the future of the market — and what it would take to survive and thrive going forward. That, as it turned out, this was proving to be a real problem… especially in light of very stiff competition.
Amla wasted no time in employing a corporate Storyteller, and launching a program to grow his practitioners eminence in the marketplace. It was incredibly important to align this initiative with the strategic goals of the organization, which meant getting business leads involved in owning the direction of the new content/comms program.
Strategic workshops were set up and what started as a question ‘for marketing’, quickly became a complete re-examination and re-definition of the business by the senior leadership team, which proved invaluable. A commitment to this type of Introspection became, for them, a central value. In a way, agreeing to their storytelling themes was nothing short of the articulation of their corporate strategy, making content creation then, extremely important to the health, future and reputation of the firm.
Organizing Innovation
Soon ‘The ForumMovement’ was born. This program organized the practice into 16 Forums representing the areas in which the firm wanted to increase their presence, or break into new marketplaces. The Storytelling Team forged an incredible alliance with Forum leads and their teams, and that trust empowered people to change in ways they may never have had the courage to do on their own. By helping these think tanks stay on top of industry trends, and encouraging them to comment on important insights gleaned from their own expanding expertise, the team was able to support the practice in generating 2 point of view (POVs) articles per week, up from only one white paper in the previous year! People started to notice the change.
The results of the storytelling initiative speak for themselves. As practitioners found their voice with the support of the Storytelling Team, confidence climbed and content creation soared. Within the first 6 months of the program, practitioners produced over 100 POVs on behalf of over 300 Subject Matter Experts. The practice launched an award winning Thought Leadership site, Into the Future, that actually stood apart from the larger brand, and lawfully allowed people to speak from their own views. Their authentic, modern, peer-based voice, built on empathy and offering expertise, seemed to be just what the market was waiting for. The site quickly leapt in readership and won two writers awards in Artificial Intelligence and Technology Thought Leadership.
Only the Beginning
Producing quality content, of course, is really just the beginning — the ability to share successfully is the next piece of the puzzle. By employing a group of ‘social listeners’ to help, the team started to amass data bases collecting the market influencers, industry web-sites and communities interested in the stories being written. Practitioners were supported in forging relationships throughout the marketplace, and were able to engage in dynamic conversations with exactly the type of peers they were targeting.
In the first 6 months alone, the content shared on Into the Future was re-posted to over 6.5 million potential clients. The new thought leadership being produced was deemed valuable, educational, and informative by their audiences. Practitioners’ LinkedIn pages lit up with thousands of downloads and comments like, “Wow! Great read. This sounds like a whole new voice!” The small Storytelling Team, working together with leadership and the men and women working in the field on behalf of their customers and clients every day, reached goals no one dreamed imaginable. Eminence indicators soared and sales followed.
Is your organization ready to really talk… P2P?
