The CEO of Triangle Manufacturing met with Dan, his marketing manager.
“Dan, six months ago you pitched your Content Marketing plan to us. We bought into it and invested all those dollars. Since then we have not seen any return. I feel you sold us a worthless bill of goods.”
It is common knowledge that Content Marketing is the way to go in marketing and pays great dividends for companies that adopt it. One thing most companies don’t realize is the pay-off is not immediate.
In the Business to Business world, it may be 18 to 24 months before a company starts to see a payback on their investment in a Content Marketing campaign. At times that may be faster but 18 to 24 months should be used as a conservative estimate.
A real problem arises when the CMO or the Marketing Department wants to sell the CEO or the executives at their company on the value of converting to Contact Marketing. They’re afraid to let the CEO or the executives know the return is not immediate.
The CEO and the executives approve Content Marketing. Then they’re anxious to see when all these new orders and sales they have been told about materialize. When that doesn’t happen, they believe they’ve been sold a bill of goods. Any trust they had in their CMO or marketing department disappears and may never be restored.
What’s the Answer?
Right from the start the CMO or the marketing department has to be totally honest with the CEO and other executives. They have to let them know there is not going to be an immediate payback on the dollars invested in a Content Marketing campaign.
This is the structure of every good content marketing campaign. It’s rare that a prospect goes from the first step to the last step in a matter of days. Yes, it may happen with a company that needs a specific product or service right now. That’s not the norm.
Ideally a company does not abandon their traditional forms of marketing and convert to Content Marketing all at once. They continue their regular marketing efforts until their Content Marketing campaigns start to be successful.
This is the way the CMO or Marketing Department have to sell a switch to Content Marketing to the Executive Suite.
