If you are a B2B marketing writer and editor or a content strategist you no doubt hit a dry well from time to time on what to write, how to write it or to whom the information should be customized to help.

It certainly wouldn’t be from a lack of people sharing their tips on what works, what doesn’t and how you can get free of the brain tangle. If that works to inspire you, I’d recommend swimming around with the likes of the Content Marketing Institute or Convince and Convert. @JayBaer is flat out awesome and committed to a “help-not-pimp” approach to content (more on this in a future post). But for me, walking where others have been makes me feel like I’m cheating.

If you’ve met me in person or taken the time to read anything I am even remotely satisfied with you know that I feel like I’m failing if I don’t ignite fires in people and get them to do something positive with it.

Don’t get me wrong. I love to see people building mousetraps with better bait, but I still find myself wanting to incite a thought riot of raw emotion at the core of the content experience.

Yeah … I know blah blah blah  on the last sentence unless you’re in my head, but here’s a tip to get at the hot molten center of what to write and why for any writing exercise. Stop thinking about content marketing or writing anything and listen to the music that gets you to dance like a fool, want to punch somebody in the face, cry the ugliest of cries or shudder at the thought of something horrible.

This, my friends, is raw emotion. Without it, your content is dead.

How does digging into your own emotional well ignite your content ideas? For me it creates an environment of empathy for the plight of people with whom I’d like to begin a discussion.

Using music to tap into human emotion

Rather than spin my wheels too early on formats like videos, infographics and the like, or channels such as email, social and other distribution vehicles, I push myself to think of the person I want to speak to and what they want and how I can help them get it.

Here’s a process I go through to get a little more primal with content development:

• How is my prospect like me?
• How is he or she different?
• What are they afraid of?
• What are they absolutely fired up about?
• What do they want coworkers and bosses to think of them?
• What do they hate most about their jobs?
• Who do they hate at their jobs?
• What do they hate about them?
• What does a good day at work look like?
• What would they rather be doing than working?

For me, that usually cools the meltdown in progress and helps me focus on people rather than  the blank page with a blinking cursor.

An immediate example as I write this, I’m listening to Burden in My Hand by Soundgarden. It is completely free of B.S., with nowhere to hide.  I needed to feel this to get me to think aggressively and without restraint. This “audio content” makes me:

• Angry at the status quo
• Intolerant of platitudes
• Eager to push people’s buttons
• Hopeful that being an irritant can yield a few pearls

For the sake of discussion, however, if it was this haunting, rhythmic remix of Amy Winehouse’s “Stronger Than Me,” I’d be a mess of emotion:

• A sense of profound loss; sad
• Flat out awestruck and inspired
• Ready to step out of other people’s shadows

If I ever feel the need to wet my pants in fear (rare), this cover of Led Zeppelin’s When the Levee Breaks by A Perfect Circle certainly does the job. Just a spooky song meant to unearth insecurities.

And, finally, if shuffle-play had managed to deliver Gerry Rafferty’s Baker Street let’s just say I’d be in my most comfortable pair of shoes, if any at all. A ponderous moment with a declaration that, right now, just before the saxophone’s wail … is what I fight to get back to every time I feel scared, sad or uncertain. It’s the time of sunshine and lemonade stands in my life. Easy breezy.

OK … before I reveal too much of my own psychological makeup … the point is music smacks the beehive in all of us. Use it! There is no reason your audio, visual and/or textual content shouldn’t stir up the same emotions in search of some level of resolution. And, as we all know, resolution, sometimes, comes with the recognition that there are no immediate answers and a tougher fight ahead. For this, I highly recommend Survivor’s Eye of the Tiger.

You ready to kick some writer’s block butt now!?!?

If not, let’s talk.

April is here, and spring allergies aren’t the only thing coming back with a vengeance.  AMC’s highly acclaimed series Mad Men is back for a sixth season, and with it Don Draper in all of his advertising glory.  Draper’s personal life might be questionable but there is no denying his professional prowess.  He can conjure up a flawless ad campaign and pitch it to the client like a poet, and all this after a fifth of bourbon.

If only it were that easy.  Unfortunately the days of Draper are long gone and virtually everything done in the marketing/advertising industry has changed.  Which got me thinking, what, if anything, is still around that the ad men of Manhattan used?

After some research I found a tactic that even pre-dates the Mad Men era―corporate magazines.  A recent article from Teagarden.Tech suggests that corporate magazines have been around since the 1940s and perhaps even the late 1800s. Early corporate mags promoted their products to consumers through glossy print ads of Hollywood star endorsements.   Over the decades, the magazines shifted from pictures of celebrities to in-depth technology magazines for computer companies such as IBM.  The corporate magazine evolved from a consumer marketing tactic to a B2B tactic.

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As we’re nearing the end of March there is more than just spring in the air.  The craze of March Madness has arrived and with it, bracket frenzy.  The “science” behind creating your bracket and predicting where each of the 68 teams will end up is known as bracketology.  In reality, there is no real science behind choosing your bracket, but good guessing and a bit of luck.  In Vegas, this luck results in millions of dollars trading hands; in my four bedroom apartment, it’s $20.

Twenty dollars might not sound like much, but to four college guys that is a free case of beer.  I spent more time studying my bracket matchups than for my upcoming Accounting test, but hey, there was twenty dollars on the line and I wanted to make the most out of my $5 investment.  And that’s when I realized that marketing, in many ways, can be related to March Madness.  The industry is constantly evolving and every agency has to reevaluate their strategies to get the best return on investment.

Each year a new marketing tactic can change the spectrum of a company’s strategy, a Cinderella tactic if you will.  I don’t think anyone expected Florida Gulf Coast University (FGCU) to win a game in the tournament, let alone be in the Sweet Sixteen.  Much like FGCU’s surprising explosion in the basketball world, infographics have become one of the hottest content sharing tools in the matter of a year.  In fact, Content Marketing Institute’s esteemed Content Marketing: Benchmarks, Budgets and Trends Report didn’t even have infographics as a usage tactic in 2012.  A year later, infographics are at 38%, used more than 8 of last years tactics.

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I’m back in the saddle here at at the Content Desk after a brief stint living the Rock N’ Roll lifestyle in Los Angeles to see legendary rockers The Who.

A great show at the Staples Center, as evidenced by my phone video below. That said, as many of us in the information creation and dissemination business are wont to do, I found myself breaking down why this thing I had just experienced was so great and how it could apply to what I do for a living.  This time, however, I was having this pensive moment in a stretch limousine.

Don’t hate.

The Who — Staples Center — Jan. 30, 2013

What I came up with  are really five things The Who have done exceptionally well with their audio, video and live performance  content that you should emulate.

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OK … so while the headline tries its darndest to secure the required Google Juice to get read, I’m sure it strikes hollow to many of you. I’ve read or seen promises just like this one each week for the last handful of years from a mix of well-intentioned compatriots and blatant opportunists. But before I divert on a rant, know this. I’m asking content creators and content curators to commit themselves to a mission of sorts as we move into 2013.

A Content Call to Action in 2013

Redefine “Good B2B Content” for 2013 and beyond as an altruistic endeavor geared to help rather than blatantly pimp products or services. There continues to be a tremendous amount of thrash among colleagues, content pros, clients and readers on just what constitutes “good content.” My personal struggles with this center on the fact that delivering information that people need when they need it is largely a subjective endeavor based on reader preferences and objectives, company goals, personal or professional biases, desired reader actions, deliverability concerns and where it fits in a buy cycle continuum akin to  Inform > Encourage > Influence > Validate > Deliver. 

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Content Consumption Trends Are Changing. Are You?

As the hour hand reaches 11 my accounting teacher begins his lecture. Within five minutes, 40 percent of the students’ heads in front of me have dropped. No, they’re not sleeping; they’re on their smartphones. If they aren’t on a smartphone, then they’re on a laptop or tablet, and the only “notes” they are taking are via Facebook or Twitter. This isn’t just the scene of a lecture on accrual accounting; it’s the scene for everyday life.

How many times did you check your smartphone or other digital device today? Probably more than you’d care to admit.

My peers are good predictors for the trends of tomorrow and if their content consumption habits are any indicator of the future of marketing, you better be making your information viewable and sharable on mobile devices. I can say firsthand that college students rely on their smartphones for nearly all content consumption. I find myself updating Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn so often that I almost feel like I’m on auto-pilot.

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Fellow B2B Content Marketing geeks, our coming year has been laid out for us – or at least become generously more informed – thanks to two of the best in our business, MarketingProfs and the Content Marketing Institute.

Earlier this week these companies released a joint report “2013 B2B Content Marketing Benchmarks, Budgets, and Trends.” In it they give us plenty of food pellets to consume on our way to greater understanding of the types of content and marketing tactics that are driving awareness, interest and the purchasing of products being sold by businesses to businesses.

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Like many of you, I’ve been a “B2B content marketer” for most of my professional life and well before there was a buzzy little category for it. I thought sharing my hardest lessons would be helpful or at least reassuring.

Here are my top three B2B content marketing blunders in the order that they painfully re-enter my mind. If I can help you avoid similar content marketing mistakes or craft a reasonably intelligent sounding email to your boss to make it sound like your gaffe was intentional, be sure to reach out to me on Twitter @MarkAEvertz.

Without further ado … my B2B content marketing blunders you should avoid.

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It’s no secret that content marketing is a huge strategic priority for B2B organizations. According to analysts like Forrester Research, B2B marketers are paying even more attention to content development and content marketing strategy in 2012 than in years past.

As I work with clients at Left Brain DGA to develop and create the right content for their demand generation marketing programs, one of the continual challenges I see is helping them understand the role and importance of what we often call “brand-agnostic” content. That doesn’t necessarily mean brand-neutral content (though sometimes it does). It signifies content that doesn’t promote your brand over another, and may in fact even mention your competitors.

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A few weeks ago I wrote a blog post called “Who is Buyer 2.0?” I followed up last week with “How to Engage Buyer 2.0,” stressing the importance of buyer persona research and analysis. Now that we know how to properly identify prospects, influencers, their content consumption patterns, and their sources of information, lets take it to the next level and talk about moving away from old school batch-and-blast techniques to thoughtful, well-designed nurture processes.

Is your marketing one-to-one or one-to-many? One-off email blasts to your house list offer a very low probability of your critical information making it through to your potential buyer. Even the greatest piece of marketing content does nothing to support the buying process if it is delivered to a prospect too early or too late in their journey. Marketing automation can be an effective tool for delivering content but it is often misused. Utilizing it without an integrated buyer-driven strategy that maps relevant content to your buyer will only add to your list fatigue challenges.

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