In James Holland's session, he delivered a fascinating presentation on the importance and practicalities of a good brand strategy. He discussed:
What is a practical brand strategy?
How brand strategy differentiates your brand.
Workshopping a new brand identity.
Do I need to rebrand? Refreshing your brand versus rebranding.
One interesting point that James made was the importance of being able to draw what your brand is about. In other words, your brand message should be clear, not complicated.
Sally Adam used her session to compare the story of Dante's Inferno with the world of B2B content marketing. Worryingly, the parallels are abundant.
So, according to Sally Adam, what are the nine sins of B2B content marketing?
This is where marketers don't fully commit to content marketing. Trust must be built with your audience gradually, and you need to help them achieve their goals. If you're in the content marketing game, you've got to be in for the long haul.
This is the lust for personal glory, and thinking about content that's going to make us look good. What we should be doing, however, is thinking what our audience actually wants.
In the world of content marketing, this is wanting to do everything without thinking it through and without having a plan. When publishing content, marketers have to understand the objectives, what the customer wants, and the overarching plan. This is opposed to acting in a rash manner without planning things through.
This is when B2B marketers try to jump to sales too quickly. Sally implores us all to avoid having content that's just about selling. Selling is a gradual process and we should not rush potential clients.
This is where we act in the heat of the moment, and don't follow the processes we have put in place. We need to think objectively and rationally.
This is where we ignore or fail to follow those good marketing practices that we put in place. We know what works, so why ignore this?
This section is all about avoiding 'career suicide'. Easily avoidable mistakes can lead to major repercussions for your business or your personal career. Think about how your content will be perceived. Could it be seen to be rude or offensive?
Be genuine. Your audience will know when you're being disingenuous with your content marketing. The trust of our audiences must be respected. If the audience were under the impression that they were being lied to, this is a sure way to lose business.
This follows on from the last point. Lying to your audience and betraying their trust is, again, a sure fire way to lose business and respect.