How to Improve Your B2B Content Marketing for Better Results

 

We hear it so often when it comes to B2B marketing: content, content, content. But how has the content marketing landscape changed when it comes to B2B? What are some of the common mistakes and misconceptions, and how should they be addressed? In our conversation with Matthew Royse (Marketing Director, Syntax), we talk about how all of these factors affect B2B content marketing, the importance of having the right strategy in place, and why leveraging different formats for your content is crucial.

Topics discussed in this episode:

• Taking the journalistic media approach to content marketing is key to success. [01:36]
  
• Misconceptions about B2B content marketing. [05:50]
  
• Key changes in B2B content marketing and demand lead gen: the increasing importance of websites, a “sales-free” sales experience, and online demos. [09:40]
  
• How to leverage different formats and channels for content marketing. [15:12]
  
• Matthew’s tips:
  
  • In 2021, reflect and reprioritize what is important to you and your company. Then create that real marketing strategy. [20:40]
    
  • Review your old content. Update and refresh it, and make sure the foundational SEO is covered. [23:52]
    
  • Produce quality content that is unique, solves your audience’s challenges, and is ideally evergreen. [25:38]
    
  
  

Companies & links mentioned in this episode:

• Matthew Royse
  
• Syntax 
  
• Knowledge Enthusiast
  
• CoSchedule Headline Analyzer
  

Click here to access the episode key takeaways.

SPEAKERS

Christian Klepp, Matthew Royse

Christian Klepp  00:08

Hi, and welcome to the B2B Marketers on a Mission podcast. I’m your host, Christian Klepp, and one of the founders of EINBLICK Consulting. Our goal is to share inspirational stories, tips and insights from b2b marketers, digital entrepreneurs, and industry experts that will help you to think differently, succeed and scale your business.

Welcome everyone to this episode of the B2B Marketers on a Mission podcast where you get your weekly dose of b2b marketing insights. This is your host, Christian Klepp. And today, I’d like to welcome a guest onto the show, who is a senior marketing leader with 20 years of marketing and communications experience. His areas of expertise cover several facets of the marketing spectrum. And he’s also a Duke University teacher and professional speaker for digital and social selling. I mean, I could go on and on, but I’d rather leave it to him to tell us more.

So Mr. Matthew Royse, welcome to the show, sir.

Matthew Royse  01:01

Thank you appreciate being here.

Christian Klepp  01:03

All right, Matthew, I really enjoyed our, you know, the discussions that we had in the pre interview call, and I’m really looking forward to this conversation. So why don’t we just get started? So one of the things that, you know, we discussed during the pre-interview call, Matthew, was like, you know, that you developed your expertise, you built your career around a very, I would say, is a very important area. It’s a b2b content marketing. Right? So, talk to us about what you believe is required in order for organizations to be able to successfully implement a b2b content marketing strategy.

Matthew Royse  01:36

Yeah, so, yeah, this is a topic near and dear to me. And I work for a b2b technology company, I’ve been in the tech space 12 years and wholeheartedly believe that content marketing is the foundation of a good digital marketing strategy and an overall marketing strategy. So to be successful in b2b content marketing, you really need to take that media or journalistic mindset. And you have to think like the traditional media, the traditional TV, industry publications, mainstream media publications, become a media company yourself. And how do you do that? You really do that by answering the questions that people are asking the most. So going into Google and figuring out what questions people are asking on Google and then answering that, and not only answering it, but answering it 10 times better than anybody else. So if you google a keyword, such as content marketing, you’re gonna see Content Marketing Institute is the top four results. And so you have to produce better content around the topic of content marketing, to be really successful. So just by answering the most frequently asked questions with your content, through thought leadership, through sales enablement content, through sip case studies, even you know, things like this and podcasts. And if you answer these questions for your prospects and customers, you’ll be successful. And so content, really, content marketing really needs to be a critical part of everything you do in marketing, you need to take that journalistic media approach to your content. And it’s critical for your lead generation and demand generation efforts, your brand awareness, your customer retention strategy, it all starts and end with content marketing.

Christian Klepp  03:23

No, those are some great insights. And, you know, thanks for sharing that. I love what you said, like, you know, you need to think and become a media company. And I’m sure you also might become a media company without the massive costs involved, right?

Matthew Royse  03:37

Yes, that’s correct. Yes, you can do everything on, you know, on the cheap, so to say, where, you know, there’s so many software tools out there that you just got to make sure you have the right ones in place. And then make sure you again, answer the questions that your audience is asking.

Christian Klepp  03:54

Yeah, that’s exactly right. Um, I know, we were gonna talk about key misconceptions. And we’ll get to that in a second. But just ponder me this, Matthew, like, Where do you think, you know, based on what you’ve said, Where do you think a lot of b2b companies go wrong in terms of their content marketing?

Matthew Royse  04:12

I think it really goes to they talk about themselves too much. You know, I think everyone thinks they’re the best thing since sliced bread. And that’s okay to have confidence in yourself. But really, it’s not about you, it’s about them. And you got to answer those questions. You got to be helpful, as much as possible. You know, we all make mistakes, but it’s how you recover from those mistakes. That is critical. And, you know, customer service is lost sometimes. And so the companies that really go above and beyond when it comes to customer service, and answering your customers will succeed because word of mouth is still very powerful, even in this digital age. And they’ll spread the word about those bad experiences that most people share bad experiences rather than good experiences. And so it’s really important to make sure your customer is happy, and that those questions that they have, those challenges, those pain points are being answered and you’re solving them. You’re not talking about yourself. You’re answering and in answering the questions that they have.

Christian Klepp  05:17

Yeah, no, that’s exactly right. I love I love the comparison of sliced bread, by the way. (laugh)

Matthew Royse  05:22

Thank you I mean, everyone thinks they’re the best, but you know…

Christian Klepp  05:26

Well, like you said, right. You alluded to it. It’s, it’s, it’s less about you, you being obviously the company or the product or the features and whatnot. And it’s more about them. Them being obviously the target audience. Right?

Matthew Royse  05:39

Exactly.

Christian Klepp  05:40

Right. So onto misconceptions, alright. So what are some of those key misconceptions that you’ve seen out there that people have when it comes to b2b content marketing?

Matthew Royse  05:50

Yeah, so I have three:

The first one is b2c marketing has really little relevance and B2B. And I think that’s wrong. It’s really human to human. People buy from other people, and b2b and b2c are very similar in that regard. So really, it’s about people to people marketing, rather than a b2b or b2c. Now, there is a big difference between the two worlds that B2B is more professional, it has more buyers, the buyer committee. You know, there’s some differences there are consumers is obviously more one to one, but at the core, you know, marketers are talking to people, and it’s about helping them solve their problems.

The second misconception is that content marketing equals thought leadership. Yes, thought leadership is very important. It’s a critical part of content marketing, but there’s also sales enablement, there’s middle funnel, lower funnel activities, such as webinars and case studies, podcasts like today, and you know, lower funnel activities such as data sheets and workshops. So content marketing is more than thought leadership. Thought leadership is very critical, especially around the brand awareness and showing your unique perspectives, but it’s not everything content is.

And the third misconception is marketing technology is a silver road. Yes, having the right marketing automation system, the right customer relationship management system, such as salesforce.com, the right collaboration system, you know, the right systems, such as collaboration systems, such as zoom or video platform is important, but it’s not the end all be all solution to problems. Technologies and it enabler for marketing. It’s not the, you know, solver for your marketing problems, if you’re going to have marketing problems in the traditional world, you’re gonna have marketing problems in the digital world, if you bring all those bad practices, or those bad habits that you’ve formed in the traditional world, you’re gonna bring them on to the digital world. So it’s really important to build a strategy that goes beyond just solely technology.

And so those are the three misconceptions. Again, b2c marketing has little relevance with b2b that’s wrong. Content Marketing is more than thought leadership, and marketing technology is not your silver road.

Christian Klepp  08:04

All really great points, man, and especially like, you know, once like, I mean, I thought they were all equally relevant. But like, for example, like number three with MarTech, I mean, it’s so true, though, because everybody keeps talking about it. I mean, you know, you just look at platforms like LinkedIn, and everybody’s talking about what’s the latest tool that everybody’s using to enhance their productivity and what have you. And, and I think there’s been a lot of discussion in the grapevine about, like, you know, you can have all the greatest tools in the world at your disposal. But if you don’t have the right skills, the right team, and like you said, the right strategy, it’s all going to be for naught.

Matthew Royse  08:40

Agree.

Christian Klepp  08:40

Right. Okay. Let me drop some statistics on you. Before I ask my next question. And this is coming from a research that was conducted by the Content Marketing Institute. And so they were saying that some changes that b2b organizations have made in response to the pandemic, right, were the following. Well, I’ve picked three points.

So point number one is 70% of organizations change their targeting and messaging strategy.

Point number two: 64% said they adjusted the editorial calendar, and 53%, which is point number three, change their content distribution and promotion strategy.

So I mean, besides these three, like what are some of the other significant changes that you’ve seen? You know, with regards to b2b content marketing or demand lead gen, do the pandemic and why do you think these changes are so important for b2b companies?

Matthew Royse  09:40

Yeah, I mean, the pandemic really accelerated the shift towards digital if you didn’t have digital marketing, you know, before the pandemic, you definitely have it now. And so for those who are behind with digital marketing, they have a chance to catch up. Well kind of, I mean, there is that first mover advantage for those who are already digital. But you know, there’re those who find those new ways to use digital to your advantage. And you got to really figure out what your strategy is in terms of marketing and what’s your advantage.

And so the pandemic really changed how we operate, changed how we were, changed how we thought about buying and selling. And so the global pandemic, you know, made your website more important. People really want to take real time actions on your website, chat with someone, get a quote, do an assessment. You know, everything needs to be real time on your website, and your website is your storefront window. It’s the, it’s your home. And so you really got to make it welcoming for them.

The “sales-free” sales experience – that has really accelerated as well. You know, pre pandemic, you probably went into a store, you know, such as GAP or whatever, and they say, Hey, can I help you, and usually, you would probably say no, and then go find what you needed. And then when you were ready to talk that person, you would go talk to them if you needed a new color, or a new size. But really, the experience is now gone to you want to make the decision, you don’t want that salesperson, you know, kind of hovering over your back, it’s especially critical digitally, especially with Millennials. I think it’s 44% of Millennials want that sales free sales experience. And so really, going back to the website, that is key to marketing. Now is that digital and your website, and a lot of people neglect their website. But I mean, it’s more than a business card. It should be your lead gen. It should be your demand gen, your hub for your entire experience with your prospects and customers.

And then 3. Online demos now are a mess. A must, excuse me, not a mess. But I mean, people were a mess, probably before pandemic and then they came into the pandemic. And they’re like, oh, wow, you know, for example, you know, a brick company. I maybe a brick company. But how do I sell bricks if people are not coming to my showroom, to see those bricks. And so companies had to shift to these online demos, where you could see the bricks in action, almost feel like you’re touching it or see it in an environment. You know, if you’re building a house, for example of how these bricks look, in a house with your other parts of your house. And so really online demos now are a must. So the pandemic has really accelerated marketing two to three years when it comes to digital.

Christian Klepp  12:30

Yeah, I couldn’t agree more man, especially with the rapid acceleration towards digital. And you talked about a little bit in the past couple of minutes, Matthew, but like, why do you think, especially in b2b, why were they so resistant to digitizing? And was it because… I suppose it’s a combination of certain factors, right? It’s mindset. It’s the organization itself, it was probably the market too, because like, you know, certain b2b industries, they were more accustomed to going to trade shows, for example. And that’s how they generated leads. And like you said, others have showrooms where customers would go in and see or sample the products and whatnot. Well, what are your thoughts on that?

Matthew Royse  13:12

Yeah, I mean, B2B generally is sales driven and it should be. But you know, it’s, it’s tough to teach an old dog new tricks, so to say. So, you know, it’s very sales driven, very in-person. It’s very relationship driven. And so how do you replicate that relationship driven business digitally. And it really varies on how strong the marketing department is, if you really think about it, marketing is now sales and sales is becoming more like marketing. And still the best marketing departments think like the sales person or sales team. And those are the most successful, the marketing departments that don’t just worry about ads, or brand awareness or anything are not going to be successful. Marketing has become a performance business, just like sales. It hasn’t gotten totally there yet, but it’s heading there, where you’re gonna see marketing departments eventually have quotas if they don’t have it already.

Christian Klepp  14:09

Well, yes. And like you said, they’re going to be attached or responsible, at least for a part of that revenue that’s going to be brought into the organization. Correct.

Matthew Royse  14:19

Exactly. Yup.

Christian Klepp  14:20

Okay.

Hey, it’s Christian Klepp here. We’ll get back to the episode in a second. But first, is your brand struggling to cut through the noise? Are you trying to find more effective ways to reach your target audience and boost sales? Are you trying to pivot your business? If so, book a call with EINBLICK Consulting. Our experienced consultants will work with you to help your b2b business to succeed and scale. Go to www.einblick.co for more information.

Talk to us about the importance of leveraging different formats or channels for content marketing. Because as we know, you know, content marketing is not just okay you write a blog article right? I mean, there’s several different options at your disposal. And that’s anything from like videos to visuals… podcasts like this one. So why is it critical for content marketers to use a mixed format approach?

Matthew Royse  15:12

Yes, I’m gonna go back to that media company analogy. Again, we’re all media companies, you’re an entertainment company and information company. You know, if you’re a one man band, you’re an intermediate company of one. But as you know, B2B, you’re obviously bigger. But you need to use those different formats because your audience hangs out in different channels online. So really, that’s where that multi-channel marketing is becoming more and more important. So if you know your audience is on Instagram, you need photos and videos. You’re not going to really use a very text based format for Instagram. You know, if they like to read, you need a very text base with your blog, or Medium or any of the other channels. And then if your audience likes to listen to podcasts like this, you know, on Apple or Spotify or Google Play, you’re going to need to have audio. So the key is to develop those different types of content. I look at it is… there’s heavyweight content, there’s middleweight content, there’s lightweight content, what does that mean? So heavyweight content is your strategic content that requires more internal resources, or working with an agency to develop a big piece of content that you know, 20-30-40 pages long, such as an eBook. Or it could even be a, you know, a regular book, like a printed book that you would get at Barnes and Noble on Amazon. Or if you’re really a thought leader, like a TV show, Red Bull think like that. Middleweight content is your worker bee content. This really drives the needle, this is your day to day content. This is your white papers, your blog posts, your video interview series, your podcast interview series. This is your, your day to day really, things that move the needle. And then your lightweight content, that’s your daily social media posts. That’s something that’s more timely and topical, that’s something more around news jacking and figuring out what’s going out on the day. You know, for example, when the lights went out in the Superbowl, and Oreo did a social media post about dunking in the dark and stuff like that. So, you know, it’s things like that to really react to it. And then, you know, it’s really easier to produce that because there’s a quicker turnaround, you have to really be nimble on your feet. And so what I found most successful is you started that heavyweight content. And then you break up that heavyweight content into more middleweight content or lightweight. So really it’s about repurposing and reformatting. You don’t have to recreate the wheel. You can turn a blog post and go deeper on a topic and turn into a white paper, or have a white paper, be split up into multiple blog posts and add something there or, you know, the images from your eBook, you could then post on Instagram, and then promote a chapter of your eBook. There’s so many different ways you can use that mixed format approach, right to be successful with content.

Christian Klepp  18:13

Exactly. I mean, those are some great points. And like, if I understood you correctly, it’s also about like getting more, you know, to use that colloquial term, get more juice out of a squeeze, right?

Matthew Royse  18:23

Yes, exactly.

Christian Klepp  18:24

Yeah. Just circling back to what you’ve been discussing the past couple of minutes, you know, in terms of the different content and what have you. I mean, how important… I mean, obviously, you need to have a strategy, as you’re developing all these different types of content. How important do you feel it is to have, you know, the developing the target personas and understanding the buyers journey?

Matthew Royse  18:50

Yeah, you definitely have to know who you’re talking to. I mean HubSpot as this cool tool, persona tool that’s free out there that you can build. There’s a lot of cool, free persona tools, but you got to really understand your audience, you got to make sure you understand what their pain points are, you have to put yourself in their shoes. And you also have to think, Hey, if you’re producing content that you don’t like, how is your audience reacts to it…  little things like that goes so far.

Christian Klepp  19:20

Yeah, but that’s such a relevant point, though, for b2b because, you know, like, and I mean, you said it earlier, like, you know, more often than not like the content tends to get extremely technical, right? Or really, are really like detailed. Like, for example, if you’re not in the…let’s just pick one industrial adhesives industry, right? Like, how would you know, the chemical combinations of that particular product, right? So how do you make that more digestible for people that are going to read that content? Right.

Matthew Royse  19:48

Yeah. So it’s important. I mean, how do you explain it to your mom and dad, it’s as simple as that. Can you explain what you do every day to your mom and dad into simple terms? If you can’t explain that to your audience in there, how is anybody… you know, how are you going to make your content easy to read? Now, you do need to probably put in some of those, you know, technical content, but you need a good healthy mix of technical content and thought leadership content, you can’t just be solely technical.

Christian Klepp  20:16

Right. Right. Exactly. For this next question, we already had a little bit of a discussion about this. And I know that we’re not like trying to prophesy anything here or tell any fortunes. But if you have any predictions, if ever, when it comes to b2b content marketing, what would they be?

Matthew Royse  20:40

Yeah, so I’m gonna, I’m gonna go back to you know, for 2021 is a great time to take a step back. 2020 was a hell of a year for a lot of people. So now’s a great time to think about what happened in 2020, reprioritize what’s important to you and your company, and really start to create that real marketing strategy. You know, marketers are asked, or even sometimes we put on ourselves to do more, more, more, but it’s really more actually going to be more for the business or more for your revenue. You know, sometimes less is more. And you can see this with the rise of Account Based Marketing, especially in the b2b world, you know, the spray and pray approach, as I say, it doesn’t work and you need to be targeted, you need to have that unique perspective, you need to be helpful with your marketing, you need to work smarter, not harder. And so you need to work hard, but you need to think about things in a smarter way. If you’re thinking about in your own life, you know, your personal productivity is not how many hours you work, how much hours you work every day, you know, there’s no longer the eight to five job that we all have anymore. You don’t clock in at eight o’clock and clock out at five o’clock, that doesn’t happen anymore. And so it’s really it’s about getting your top three things you need to get done that day. The same thing with content marketing, what are the three things I need to do? What are the three things my audience really needs to understand? or What questions do they need help to answer? You know, the same thing goes with marketing, just like productivity. And same thing happens with marketing. So it’s a great time to take a step back, concentrate on what’s really important for you. Get rid of all the other noise or everything out there, you don’t need to change that shiny new penny, or that shiny new tool or anything like that, you know, don’t keep adding on to your list, try to take things away from your list. I know it’s gonna be tough. It’s tough for me. But you know, all these other departments, you gotta have the bands on, you know, what I see is everyone thinks they’re a marketer. And so they always have, they always think they know how to do marketing’s job, but do they really? And so can you explain to them how you should think about marketing and do it in a way where it gets them? Them meaning your, you know, other departments within your company.

Christian Klepp  23:03

Man, that was such fantastic advice. I mean that in itself was worth its weight in gold. So I, you know, it’s amazing to see, I mean, let’s just take LinkedIn, as an example of a platform where people are turning out copious amounts of content, and you know, even just from what you see on a daily basis, I mean, there’s just so much opportunity out there for improvement. I mean, to your point, right, like just reviewing what’s been done in previous years and looking at it now and saying, okay, so is that still relevant? Can it be done better? And if it can be done better? Like, how are we going to do it. Right? And totally with you on the spray and pray approach? I mean, I don’t even think the spray and pray approach really works in b2c. I mean, like, but definitely it has no, it has no home and B2B.

Matthew Royse  23:52

Yeah, let me add one other thing you just got reminded me of something. I mean, you know, even go and look back at your old content, I mean, it’s an easy way. Go with your own content and refresh that thing. Not only will you do, it’ll be better for you, but it’ll be better for Google, you’ll show up higher. I mean, you have tons of content probably. Go back and refresh it. You know, how often brands just put it out there and just let it you know, die on the vine? Well, go find it, you know, give it some love, add some new stats to it, you know, that will really help you overall, and Google will actually reward you if you get rid of your underperforming content. So, you know, it’s a great time to go and look at your old content. And then you might get some new ideas, because usually what’s old becomes new again, and you’re like, Oh, yeah, I remember I published this like five years ago. Wow, that’s actually relevant again. Yeah. You know, put a new fresh coat of paint on that thing and, you know, do a new headline use tools like CoSchedule Headline Analyzer or some other headline analyzers give it a better headline, refresh it. And then voila, you got new content. You don’t even have to hire anybody or you know, doing it is just the care and feeding of your old content.

Christian Klepp  25:17

Yeah, no, that’s definitely some great advice. All right, we come to one of my favorite parts of the interview, because we had such a great discussion about this before. Commonly held beliefs, every discipline has one, right? So b2b content marketing is no exception. So, Matthew, talk to us about one of those commonly held beliefs in your area of expertise, and talk to us about why you strongly disagree with it.

Matthew Royse  25:48

Yes, I think it’s the quantity versus quality debate. Yeah. You know, I think people maybe take one side or the other, you know, I kind of toe the line and go in the middle. I think you need both. But where I think people struggle with and I even struggled this with my personal blog is how can you be consistent with quality content. And so I figured this out for a while, but I only publish on Tuesdays and Thursdays on my blog, occasionally may, you know, added a day here or there. But you know, just being consistent. Almost back to that TV appointment viewing. You remember when your show was on always Monday night at eight o’clock? Or when the Sopranos used to be on Sunday night at eight o’clock. Appointment TV viewing, right, the same thing needs to be with your content. So you need to have a way where your audience comes to expect, hey, every Tuesday and Thursday at 8am, I’m going to get new, fresh, fresh content. So, you know, that is where the quantity discussion goes in. And then the quality discussion, and both are subjective by definition. So you know, what’s subjective to you about a quality piece of content may be different than me, for example. But what’s the key when it comes to quality content is evergreen. Can it stand the test of time? You know, you don’t need to create the Sistine Chapel, so to say, of our work, but you do need quality content that will last that won’t get, you know, a storm come through and get blown away so to say. But you need to have it there where it’s helpful, it solves their challenges. Needs to have that substance. You know, it just can’t be that, you know, content of the day. And you can’t really just be that content factory where you just produce that blob vanilla content over and over, you got to take a stand, you got to be unique. You got to take a almost a contrarian type of view to your content, because those pieces of content perform better.

Christian Klepp  27:50

Right. I love that comparison. By the way, I’m producing vanilla content. It’s almost like… it’s similar to like, you know, if you say cookie cutter, right, so…

Matthew Royse  28:01

Yes, exactly.

Christian Klepp  28:02

Just like generic templated. Oh, I’ve read that somewhere else. Right? That kind of content.

Matthew Royse  28:08

Yes exactly. Oh! One of the things did you hear about why Oreo creates new flavors?

Christian Klepp  28:13

Nope.

Matthew Royse  28:14

They create new flavors, because it’s add for their original flavor. And so they’re not concerned about the new flavor / the sales of the new flavors, because the new flavors bring sales back to the original.

Christian Klepp  28:26

Ah.

Matthew Royse  28:28

So you’ve got to think about that. It’s really about building momentum with your marketing and your content. And, you know, it comes back to what your Cornerstone piece of content, that you’re really known for as a company. And then all the new fresh content should come back to that core Cornerstone part of your content and all the new content is kind of the outer edge of it. If you look in a circle, the circles the core. Everything else is out there. But if you think of it like Oreo, thinks of new flavors, I think you’ll be successful.

Christian Klepp  29:00

That’s a really great piece of advice, man, just one more time for the listeners – the Oreo analogy.

Matthew Royse  29:06

Yes. So yeah, Oreo cookie creates new flavors. I think they just came out with new one was Lady Gaga.

Christian Klepp  29:13

Yes they did.

Matthew Royse  29:14

So you know, all those new flavors help sell the original more. Because it gets top of mind. And people get sentimental and nostalgic. And like, Oh, I love Oreo. Oh, but I actually liked the original better. Let me put the original in my shopping cart, instead of this new Lady Gaga, or they may buy the Lady Gaga. But they’re like, Oh, I still like the original content. So they buy both. So that Oreo wins there too.

Christian Klepp  29:41

Right. Right. Well, fantastic, man. Fantastic. Just this we’re slowly beginning to wrap up this discussion, talk to us about one thing that you think people should start. And one thing you think people should stop doing when it comes to b2b content marketing.

Matthew Royse  29:58

Yes, I’ll start with this stop. I think we’ve kind of talked about this before, but you know, creating content that says you’re the best thing since the sliced bread. You know you need to stop talking about yourself. When you go to a networking party, you don’t want to get, you know, pre COVID obviously, you don’t want to… If you go to a network party, and you get stuck to the person that talks about themselves a lot, you’re going to be dying to get out of that conversation as quickly as possible.

Oh, yeah, absolutely.

Christian Klepp  30:24

Stop creating content that talks about yourself. Think about how you can better serve your audience how you can ask them better and smarter questions about what’s going on in their lives, and gearing your content around that. And then what you should start doing is mastering the fundamentals. It’s crazy how many companies forget about simple fundamentals of content marketing, they’re all caught up in the shiny objects or doing the new things, we got to get the basic things right, such as great quality customer service, content that is helpful, content that answers your question, content that’s 10 times better than your competitors content. Really doing the foundational things. And if you do the foundational things correctly, you’ll go faster as a marketing department, because you’ve mastered those fundamentals. If you played sports or anything like that, if you know how to dribble well or know how to run well. If you master all those fundamentals, you’ll become better and more sophisticated player who can concentrate on more of the advanced type parts of the sport. Same thing with marketing, you master those fundamental parts of marketing, Master those one on one things, you’re going to become better as a b2b content marketer.

Well, that’s exactly right. I mean, I couldn’t agree more, and to your point, we see it everywhere. Like, you know, people just, I guess you can say, like, missing the point is one way or just yet not getting the basics right. And just going, going on and you know, and b2b content marketing, especially, you know, you can get so granular and then people forget, like, okay, but how does that actually solve the problem that your target audience is facing. Right?

Matthew Royse  32:16

Exactly. I mean, little things like making sure when you do share content that it has a good image, it has a good headline. Making sure that meta data is correctly. I mean, doing the simple foundational SEO stuff is so critical to your success.

Christian Klepp  32:33

Absolutely. Absolutely. Matthew, this has been such a great discussion. So you know, we get to the part where you tell the listeners a little bit about yourself, and you know who you are.

Matthew Royse  32:44

Yeah, so I’ve really enjoyed this discussion. So, my name is Matthew Royse. I’m the Marketing Director at Syntax. We’re a cloud managed services company that supports mission critical applications like SAP and Oracle. I’ve been in technology for more than 12 years. I’ve been in marketing my entire career of 20+ years. And I’m just excited to talk to you guys here today. And I’m honored to be part of this podcast. And thank you for inviting me, Christian. And, yeah, thank you again.

Christian Klepp  33:14

And we were really thrilled to have you on the show too, Matthew. It’s been such an incredible session. Thank you so much for your time and for sharing. So what’s the best way for people out there to connect with you?

Matthew Royse  33:27

Yeah, so they can they can reach out to me on LinkedIn, and Matthew Royse on LinkedIn and say, you heard me on this podcast. You know, please make sure when you do a connection request, you add a little note to say, How do I know you or what you’re interested in. And then you can also visit my blog at knowledgeenthusiast.com. And that’s why I write about digital marketing and content marketing. And, yeah, excited for you to check that out and see how I can help you in your digital marketing content marketing efforts.

Christian Klepp  33:58

Perfect. Okay, folks, so you heard it, you can reach out to Matthew on LinkedIn. And that’s Matthew Royse. Royse with an “s” and not a “c” by the way, I made that mistake once before.

Yes. Spot on. Everyone thinks it’s Rolls Royce with a ‘c’.

Yeah exactly. Exactly. And the blog is knowledgeenthusiast.com. So, Matthew, once again, this has been such an insightful, informative session. Thanks again for your time. Please take care. Stay safe and talk to you soon.

Matthew Royse  34:28

Thank you.

Christian Klepp  34:29

Bye for now.

Thank you for joining us on this episode of the B2B Marketers on a Mission podcast. To learn more about what we do here at EINBLICK, please visit our website at www.einblick.co. And be sure to subscribe to the show on iTunes or your favorite podcast player.