Looking for a surefire source for topical, relevant content that grabs your executive audience? Look no further than your own clients. At a minimum, you develop some compelling stories to share with clients and prospects. Done well, content co-creation can help you create a powerful voice, build a market, and deepen important client relationships.Continue Reading

To connect with busy executives, you need content that taps directly into the C-suite’s most pressing priorities and concerns. Get the topic right and you can sustain an ongoing conversation with your most valuable audience across all the communications channels where you engage them.

How do you find topics that are compelling to the C-suite and make sense for your company to tackle? We have found three core ingredients in C-suite-worthy content: client relevance, credibility, and innovative value … and the elusive content trifecta is securing a topic in the sweet spot where those three come together.Continue Reading

Connecting with hard-to-reach C-level clients remains an ongoing challenge for marketers. More should consider creating a client advisory board, which when done right, provides traction with your most coveted clients.

Let’s start by clarifying the concept of a client advisory board. The term is used fairly broadly to describe a range of marketing- and sales-related activities, which all contribute in their own ways but are designed differently and provide separate outcomes.Continue Reading

 Though content marketing has firmly established itself as critical for connecting with customers across industries and companies of all sizes and types, many marketers still struggle internally to get resources and attention from the executive team to get a program off the ground. Some company leaders fear letting go of traditional views about how marketing should operate; reallocating dollars to content marketing seems risky. Others view creating an idea culture in a product-focused environment with skepticism. And spending your time and effort to build the case for content marketing takes up scarce resources that should be spent elsewhere.

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Contrary to headlines in the marketing press, the white paper is not dead. While versions of the concept have proliferated and greatly diluted its potential power, if done right the white paper continues to serve as the basis of highly effective content marketing. The question is, what is the best way to leverage this old marketing workhorse given our plugged-in, multi-channel world?Continue Reading

Armies of content developers are packaging research results, expert opinions, and success stories into papers, podcasts, videos, and events… all of them rich with hard-earned insights. But does all this content fuel business development efforts? Does it help your sales executives educate customers struggling to make good decisions and get results? Continue Reading

The elusive C-suite sale. Marketers spend large amounts of time and energy digging deep into their demand generation toolkits to access executives and try to get them to buy, only to find themselves facing silence, disinterest or, at best, a pass-off to their team. But for large-scale B2B sales in particular, it’s critical to create a content plan and engagement strategy to break through to this lucrative and powerful buyer. Continue Reading

When it comes to content marketing, much is written about narrative-based content (i.e., the written word). Often overlooked is the role of in-person content — content shared through events — to engage with customers and prospects. And for marketers trying to connect with top executives, getting them to attend an event like a salon, forum, conference, or client roundtable can be particularly daunting. Continue Reading