Leading Lights: Junta42's Joe Pulizzi

In their recent book Get Content, Get Customers, Joe Pulizzi and Newt Barrett make a powerful case for what they call “content marketing.” Their objective is to show how marketers can – and must – turn content into a powerful asset for generating leads and closing business. “No longer is it necessary to buy ads to get your message out,” they write. “Today, marketers can be the media. Businesses, both large and small, have the opportunity to create their own valuable, relevant and compelling content that turns prospects into buyers.” Pulizzi is the publisher of the highly trafficked Junta42 blog, which identifies trends in content marketing, and founder of Junta42 Match, an online service that pairs marketers with custom publishers. Since its launch last summer, the service has matched parties for more than 100 content projects. I spoke with Pulizzi recently about his perspectives on today’s “content revolution” and its implications for B2B marketers.

Tell me about the core premise behind your book. What does it help readers grasp about this emerging field of content marketing?

 The book gives you an understanding about how buyer behavior has changed and how content influences the buying process now. And if you implement the tactics we discuss in this book you will see your business grow.  I really do believe that.  Creating valuable, compelling and relevant information is perhaps the most important part of a marketing program today. Buyer behavior, as we show, has changed  dramatically in recent years. Ninety percent of buying decisions start on the web. They’re looking for information. The question is: Are they going to find your information? We talk about the different questions that you need to ask yourself to develop a content marketing strategy. This will position you as a trusted solution provider – the one to turn to when the time is right to buy.

It seems like content marketing represents a relatively cost effective way for companies to engage prospects early, develop an ongoing conversation and guide them through the various stages of a decision cycle.

Absolutely. What I’m seeing and what marketers I deal with are telling me is that relevant content strengthens their marketing efforts. When people go to a search engine and they go to a website, they find content that helps them identify an answer to their problem. What it’s done is it’s disrupted the whole sales and marketing cycle. Whereas customers used to look to sales reps and distributors for buying information, the B2B complex sales cycle has changed because so much is in the hands of customers now. They are finding that information on their own.  It’s completely changed the cycle, turning it on its head. They’ll now come down to their two, three or four vendors themselves without having to do an RFP – just by going online and searching. 

Right. The buyers are essentially moving down decision cycles on their own through the research they conduct online.

I guess the question is: Will you be completely forgotten if you don’t have valuable and relevant content out there? By the time they’re ready to start seriously talking to companies that can provide a solution, you’re just not considered one of the meaningful players if you haven’t reached them with relevant content.

You discuss both B2B and B2C companies in your work on content marketing.  What is the difference between B2B and B2C in this regard?

Well, I think it’s generally a more complex sale in B2B. If you are making a decision to spend between let’s say $50,000 and $250,000, it’s a decision that you cannot make in a day. You have multiple influencers within your company. Content marketing is about how you as a company are educating them and addressing their questions so they can make a better decision. They’re going to find that content somewhere.  Are they going to find it from you?  Are you the solution provider? Or are they going to find it from your competition? Where are they going to find it? Buyers are creating new processes for making their decisions easier, faster, and better. So they’re going to go out there and find that content and that’s why, in a B2B complex sale, it’s so important that you make that information available. They don’t want to talk to your sales reps until they’re ready to buy.

So if you are not generating insightful and actionable content, you are invisible to these increasingly sophisticated and demanding buyers. 

Right. That’s reality. Well, what are you going to do about that? You have to make sure you have tons and tons of really good content. I think most companies are good at creating information about their products. They’ve done that for years. Just take the stuff that you had in your brochures and put it online and maybe create some new interactive ways for them to get that content. But that’s really not what today’s prospects really need. What they need to know is how you are going to solve their problems. That’s where content marketing comes in. You’ve got to be really educational. But then, at the end of the day, how’s it going to help you accomplish your marketing goals? Buyers are fine with you selling to them, but only if you’re giving them very valuable, relevant, compelling content.

If it’s artfully executed, perhaps there’s never a point at which somebody feels like they’re being sold to.

Oh, I would agree with that. What I’m seeing happen is marketers starting to understand that their companies can be the trusted media source – talking one-on-one with customers. They don’t have to go through anybody. They can educate their customers and prospects so that they become the trusted solution provider. If I am a marketer for a design software company like Autodesk, I can produce content that discusses trends in design engineering and I can distribute that content in multiple channels. When buyers are ready to buy, they will look to us for guidance and direction first.

You’ve also noted in your work that traditional media channels and relationships are disappearing. What opportunity does that present? 

Why can’t you be the media and the trusted solution provider? That channel could be yours. If you want to be the media company, you can. You can be the publisher. You just have to look at it that way. But most companies don’t look at it that way.

 Yeah, I think it’s an interesting challenge. In line with what you said, marketers have to act like publishers. And they must generate fully qualified, “sales-ready” leads. This really gets to the division of labor in marketing and sales. If sales people are spending a great deal of their time on prospecting, they are not developing or applying the skills necessary to guide the buyer through a complex decision. They are not being truly consultative.

It’s a really good point and gets to the whole role of the salesperson today. It’s completely changed because a lot of that prospecting and cold-calling that you used to do have gone away. As a lot of these marketing organizations become a little bit more sophisticated and generate leads online, you, as a sales professional, are in there to really help the buyer make that final decision.

Right. Marketing must take the prospective buyer a lot farther than they’ve ever taken them. The expectations for a truly sales-ready lead are rising steeply. You aren’t passing along a “prospect” who can fog a mirror but rather, an engaged, motivated, interested buyer who is already exploring the possibilities associated with taking action. So how do you think marketers will go about developing the content marketing capabilities that you urge them to develop?

As I see it, more and more organizations are waking up and they’re saying, “We need content.” Some always knew they needed content, but didn’t realize they needed a content strategy. They are starting to realize they must plan for content all along the way. So what they’re doing is they’re creating editorial calendars very similar to the way media companies have done for years. But they’re doing it on an ad hoc basis.  Some have newsletters and some have magazines but now they have to look at it on an enterprise-wide basis and say, “We have to have content all over the place in all different forms and channels.” Plus, add in the social media stuff. You can’t have a successful social media program unless you have really good content. I’m a firm believer in that. If you don’t have something valuable behind that social media presence, good luck.

Who do you think will take the next great leap in B2B marketing in terms of advanced content marketing capabilities?

I believe you’re going to have organizations like Oracle or Microsoft that start creating content engines. They’ll start hiring high-quality journalists and actively create their own content. Big companies are going to have to do that because it’s going to make a lot more sense for them just to start hiring talent. I think small- and mid-sized companies who can’t afford to hire on all this talent will continue to outsource. But the big companies will have their own editorial content departments.

Why does it make more sense for those companies? What’s the difference?

I think it comes down to the expertise they can afford. Small- and mid-sized companies will be challenged by the growing demands. You have to understand SEO and landing pages and copywriting. You have to understand the value of an interview and storytelling. You have to understand different channels and how to best to distribute content through those channels, whether you’re talking about print, online or in person. It’s just a lot to handle. 

How should companies go about identifying the various types of content they should be developing and marketing? 

Online Content Marketing Presentation from Joe Pulizzi for Web Content 2008 Chicago

View more presentations from Joe Pulizzi. (tags: formula b.e.s.t.)

The first thing that you have to do is where they are at right now. What are they doing? What you tend to find is you have a lot of overlap of content. You have a lot of departments talking about the same thing. Resources aren’t being used effectively. You’ve got different messages coming out of different departments. So you have to spend some time getting a handle on what’s going on in the company. You need to know what’s working. How are you measuring the impact of your current efforts?

And then, you need to really understand the informational needs of your customers.   That’s a big one. Companies all know what they want to say, right?  “Oh, we need to talk about this. We need to talk about that.” You may feel you need to talk about that to sell your products or services. But, do you really, really understand what’s going on with your customers? You really need to have a good idea of what’s going on out there. Who’s talking about what? This is where social media can be helpful.

Then, you need to clarify what you are trying to accomplish from an organizational standpoint. What are your objectives? Yes, you want to focus on the customer.  But, at the end of the day, you’re a marketer and you need to sell stuff. You better be profitable and you better be driving business.

So what are you doing now? What are the informational needs of your customers? And what are you trying to accomplish? You’ll need to know those three things to begin creating a content marketing strategy.

You’ve made the case that three are many types of firms – such as custom content firms, public relations firms and direct marketing firms – that will fight it out to provide content marketing services in the coming years. Could you elaborate?

Well, let’s start with the custom publishers because they think this is their domain.  They’ve been taking the storytelling approach. They started by developing custom print publications and then they made the transition online. 

Then you have PR folks that understand the value of a story but maybe haven’t looked at the channel distribution like this before or concentrated on interaction with a very targeted group of people. 

And then you have the direct marketers who’ve been doing a lot of direct communication for years but really haven’t looked at content quite this way. You don’t really have an “offer” all the time when you’re talking about content marketing.

And then you’ve got advertising agencies and you’ve got you’ve got SEM or SEO and interactive groups.  

Which ones have the advantage?

That’s a good question. I don’t think it’s going to be advertising agencies because I think the jump is too big. I think what the advertising agencies will end up doing is actually buying out small custom publishing groups and content agencies that get it. That’s how they’re going to get in the game. I think that custom publishers probably have the biggest advantage because they already have the model and the setup.  But how quickly can they get up to speed on leveraging social media and new media through that storytelling process? Then I would probably look at PR agencies. If I were a betting man, I’d put my money on those two: PR firms and custom publishers. The reason why is because they both understand storytelling.

 

Comments

[Mike Barlow]

Great column. I create original content for content-driven marketing programs, and I love the look in the eyes of an audience when I'm presenting on the subject and they get it. What surprises me, though, is that content-driven marketing has to be explained to people -- especially when you consider that content-driven marketing was probably the first kind of marketing. "The Illiad" and "The Odyssey" are the original marketing platforms for Western Civilization. Lots of blood and sex to grab the attention, and then careful messaging woven into practically every line. Homer was a marketing genius, and we've forgotten the power of a good story to sell a brand. I'm glad that guys like Joe and Newt are helping us "re-invent" an extremely effective form of marketing!