Stop Pushing, Nagging, and Whining to Get More Content from Partners

Instead, Show Them That Content Has an Impact on B2B Buying Decisions

Are you familiar with the “irresistible force paradox”?

That’s the one that asks, “What happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object?”

Here’s why I’m talking about this paradox.

Last week I had a discussion with a very frustrated marketing director at a CPA firm who knew about the power and value of content marketing (the unstoppable force), but couldn’t convince partners to step up to the plate ( the immovable object) and produce content for blogging, lead generation, or even updates to bios and LinkedIn profiles.

Does Content Have an Impact on Buying Decisions?

In one form or fashion, accountants and other professional service firm providers have always been doing content marketing. It might come in the form of “meets and greets”, presentations at trade association functions, trade shows, and so on.

The difference between those activities of the past and those of today is that content marketing now needs to play a bigger strategic role with specific objectives for its use in getting more visibility, more leads and more new business for the firm. It’s no longer just about building brand awareness, it’s also about considerations like search engine rankings, building thought leaders, providing materials for top of the funnel, middle of the funnel and bottom of the funnel lead generation and nurturing.

DemandGen recently released a report of their findings on B2B business buyer behavior called The 2014 B2B Buyer Business Behavior Survey. Among its key findings:

• About two thirds of respondents said that content produced by their choice of vendor had a significant impact on their buying decision

• 61% said that the winning vendor delivered a better mix of content appropriate for each stage of the buying process (TOFU, MOFU, BOFU)

There are plenty of other reports with stats and data that show the critical importance of content marketing like CMI’s 2014 B2B Content Marketing Benchmarks, Budgets and Trends – North America; and HubSpot’s 2013 State of Inbound Marketing Report, among others.

If your partners need data to help them make a commitment to providing content for marketing, these are a couple of good resources that show that there can be added purpose, value and ROI from their efforts.

Moving the Immovable Object

Here’s the thing about the irresistible force paradox: it can never be solved.

It’s always a stalemate between the unstoppable force and the immovable object ... but, there is a way forward. Find and work with the partners that want to move and commit to a constant and consistent schedule of publishing content. For those who can’t or don’t want to be moved: find other ways to give them marketing support and don’t ask or expect contributions towards the firms content marketing initiatives.

In fact, there may be some niches – like government auditing for example – that may not need priority attention from a content marketing perspective. On the other hand, there are niches like business valuation or vertical industries like construction where there is a huge opportunity to use thought leadership to reach and motivate prospects to engage with your firm.

By selecting partners who want to participate in content marketing, you’ll end up needing to do less cajoling, pleading and nagging. And by using marketing analytics that will show the tangible results of their efforts, you’ll move the discussion from one of anecdote to one of evidence.