How to Build Your Content Strategy for New Product Launches Without Use Cases

WEBVTT 1 00:00:02.540 --> 00:00:02.740 Yeah, 2 00:00:05.740 --> 00:00:10.640 Hi everyone welcome back to be to be growth. I'm Olivia Hurley with sweet 3 00:00:10.640 --> 00:00:15.070 fish media and I'm joined today by Griffin Moss, the senior digital 4 00:00:15.070 --> 00:00:20.190 marketing Manager over at Microstrategy. Hey Griffin, how you doing? Hey good. 5 00:00:20.190 --> 00:00:24.160 How are you? Good to be with you? Awesome. I'm doing well too. I'm glad 6 00:00:24.160 --> 00:00:27.560 we get to chat today and I'm glad we get to dive into some of this. So 7 00:00:27.940 --> 00:00:32.750 before we hit record, we were talking about the biggest challenge, Some of 8 00:00:32.750 --> 00:00:37.240 the biggest challenges that people face with content marketing. And you were 9 00:00:37.240 --> 00:00:41.230 saying that one thing that you've encountered before is that when you're 10 00:00:41.230 --> 00:00:45.620 planning a release of new products, it's always the same issue, you know, 11 00:00:45.620 --> 00:00:49.120 the product is great, it has the capabilities that people want and are 12 00:00:49.120 --> 00:00:54.490 asking for. But how do you create the content calendar without use cases? So 13 00:00:54.500 --> 00:01:00.380 I think we should unpack that and let's start super basic what our use case is 14 00:01:00.380 --> 00:01:04.950 going to provide for the content strategy. Sure. Well, yeah, I think, I 15 00:01:04.950 --> 00:01:09.970 think fundamentally what use cases can provide you, especially if you can tie 16 00:01:09.970 --> 00:01:17.340 in specific customers is a less like sales, e and direct approach. Um which 17 00:01:17.340 --> 00:01:21.350 I think helps you to build a certain degree of trust because you're going to 18 00:01:21.350 --> 00:01:26.930 be able to kind of lead people to examples that have already worked well, 19 00:01:26.930 --> 00:01:30.280 you're not saying oh this is the greatest thing ever and like you should 20 00:01:30.280 --> 00:01:33.600 definitely jump on board because that's just going to kind of I don't think it 21 00:01:33.600 --> 00:01:38.490 hits the right tone, but when you can show people possibilities, I think it 22 00:01:38.490 --> 00:01:44.330 gets the wheels turning in a more organic way. I think a good example 23 00:01:44.330 --> 00:01:50.010 that we used recently was a use case kind of customer success story in 24 00:01:50.010 --> 00:01:55.960 conjunction with cox automotive, who is not a hugely familiar name but they 25 00:01:55.960 --> 00:02:02.050 kind of run the background of sites like Autotrader and Kelley Blue book 26 00:02:02.640 --> 00:02:07.390 and so the use case that we found for them with hyper intelligence products, 27 00:02:07.390 --> 00:02:11.290 which I won't get too in the weeds on that, but we were able to present a 28 00:02:11.290 --> 00:02:17.640 scenario where, you know, when they're looking to purchase a car and put it on 29 00:02:17.640 --> 00:02:21.650 the, on the market on one of their sites that's not a peer to peer. Uh, we 30 00:02:21.650 --> 00:02:26.150 were able to build out something for them where it literally shows them like 31 00:02:26.160 --> 00:02:30.810 a green light, a yellow light or a red light, depending on the specific specs 32 00:02:30.820 --> 00:02:34.970 of the car, what they know the market, what they know the make and model. Um, 33 00:02:34.970 --> 00:02:38.190 and I just thought that was a really interesting story where it's kind of 34 00:02:38.190 --> 00:02:43.860 like intellectually stimulating. Um, it's a unique use case and then for 35 00:02:43.860 --> 00:02:48.410 somebody that's, you know, looking at the product that might again make them 36 00:02:48.410 --> 00:02:51.180 think, well, like, that's a very interesting way to do it. What's one of 37 00:02:51.180 --> 00:02:54.930 those situations that we encounter? Um and all of a sudden it's not 38 00:02:54.930 --> 00:02:59.220 necessarily like marketing as much as, you know, getting them into the 39 00:02:59.220 --> 00:03:03.710 consideration phase, I think, a little more quickly. So what do you stand to 40 00:03:03.710 --> 00:03:11.190 lose without use cases? I think without use cases you're confined to maybe a 41 00:03:11.190 --> 00:03:14.950 more direct, and I'm gonna probably overuse sales. E but, um, sales, the 42 00:03:14.950 --> 00:03:18.600 approach, you might have to lean a little bit harder on, you know, the 43 00:03:18.600 --> 00:03:23.120 unique product offering, It's a unique service offering, which, well, you do 44 00:03:23.120 --> 00:03:27.860 want to communicate that. I don't think that's ultimately what gets people to 45 00:03:28.040 --> 00:03:32.880 By. I think ultimately, especially in B2B when oftentimes, the product is 46 00:03:32.890 --> 00:03:38.150 specialist, you want people to be able to really wrap their head around what 47 00:03:38.150 --> 00:03:42.140 they're going to be able to get out of it. And so if you don't have those, and 48 00:03:42.140 --> 00:03:46.990 it's something that's a little bit more murky, uh then you maybe lose people at 49 00:03:46.990 --> 00:03:49.570 the beginning, where they're just like, I don't really understand how I could 50 00:03:49.580 --> 00:03:55.250 plug this in, so I'm just gonna, it's a pass for me and you know, then you may 51 00:03:55.250 --> 00:03:59.770 not get the second opportunity to interact with them. So how do you 52 00:03:59.770 --> 00:04:05.230 replicate the credibility that comes with use cases? Oh, I think one big 53 00:04:05.230 --> 00:04:11.140 thing is leveraging your existing brand clout. If you haven't, obviously not, 54 00:04:11.140 --> 00:04:15.770 everyone is going to have a brand, brand cloud or recognition in the space, 55 00:04:15.770 --> 00:04:19.089 but, you know, if it's a new product, then you don't have a use case. I think 56 00:04:19.089 --> 00:04:24.070 that's something that you have to do, um, you know, speak to your strengths 57 00:04:24.070 --> 00:04:26.380 that are already going to be known, especially if there's an existing 58 00:04:26.380 --> 00:04:31.740 audience and then you may just have to sort of make the leap. And even though 59 00:04:31.740 --> 00:04:36.050 it's not ideal, you know, speak to those unique value proposition is kind 60 00:04:36.050 --> 00:04:41.140 of in conjunction with your existing branding and that that may be enough to 61 00:04:41.140 --> 00:04:45.720 kind of get people to open up to the idea of the new product, but it's 62 00:04:45.720 --> 00:04:51.590 definitely a tougher road to how I would say. Mm So let's get tactical 63 00:04:51.590 --> 00:04:57.670 here. How do you craft your content strategy without the use cases? So I 64 00:04:57.680 --> 00:05:02.310 spoke to it a bit, but as far as like the actual content to put forward, I 65 00:05:02.310 --> 00:05:09.270 think if you have it any kind of 3rd party validation of your company or 66 00:05:09.270 --> 00:05:14.480 brand or product is great and that could even be like average customer 67 00:05:14.480 --> 00:05:18.100 rating on something, although I know that's not quite B two B, but if there 68 00:05:18.100 --> 00:05:22.570 is like a analyst report that says like this is where you fall in the ranking, 69 00:05:22.570 --> 00:05:27.870 leveraging any kind of good takeaways there. And then I think really thought 70 00:05:27.870 --> 00:05:32.850 leadership content, especially if you're in a unique space is good. Again, 71 00:05:32.850 --> 00:05:39.940 anything that's going to advance, I guess people's perception of you as a 72 00:05:39.940 --> 00:05:43.490 leader in the space, I think it's going to make them more open to any new 73 00:05:43.490 --> 00:05:48.480 products that you may come out with. So I think it's it's more of having to 74 00:05:48.480 --> 00:05:52.590 have a little bit of an end around in mind where you're kind of promoting 75 00:05:52.590 --> 00:05:57.090 content that's not as directly focused on the product, maybe even, but but 76 00:05:57.090 --> 00:06:02.080 really knowing you're promoting the product just with your general content 77 00:06:02.080 --> 00:06:07.750 strategy and then maybe in a small way, kind of seeding the ground with that 78 00:06:07.750 --> 00:06:12.860 more products specific content. But within a mix of these other thanks 79 00:06:12.900 --> 00:06:18.590 other other pieces. Hey everybody Logan with sweet fish here. If you've been 80 00:06:18.590 --> 00:06:22.090 listening to the show for a while, you know where big proponents of putting 81 00:06:22.090 --> 00:06:26.570 out original organic content on linked in. But one thing that's always been a 82 00:06:26.570 --> 00:06:30.630 struggle for a team like ours is to easily track the reach of that linked 83 00:06:30.630 --> 00:06:34.430 in content. That's why I was really excited when I heard about Shield the 84 00:06:34.430 --> 00:06:38.510 other day from a connection on, you guessed it linked in since our team 85 00:06:38.510 --> 00:06:42.990 started using Shield. I've loved how it's led us easily track and analyze 86 00:06:42.990 --> 00:06:47.130 the performance of Arlington content without having to manually log it 87 00:06:47.140 --> 00:06:51.310 ourselves. It automatically creates reports and generate some dashboards 88 00:06:51.310 --> 00:06:54.770 that are incredibly useful to see things like what contents been 89 00:06:54.770 --> 00:06:57.710 performing the best and what days of the week are we getting the most 90 00:06:57.710 --> 00:07:02.330 engagement and our average views proposed. I'd highly suggest you guys 91 00:07:02.330 --> 00:07:05.680 check out this tool if you're putting out content on linked in and if you're 92 00:07:05.680 --> 00:07:10.500 not, you should be. It's been a game changer for us. If you go to shield app 93 00:07:10.510 --> 00:07:15.240 dot Ai and check out the 10 day free trial, you can even use our promo code 94 00:07:15.250 --> 00:07:21.910 B two B growth to get a 25% discount again. That's shield app dot Ai. And 95 00:07:21.910 --> 00:07:27.340 that promo code is B the number to be growth. All one word. All right, let's 96 00:07:27.340 --> 00:07:37.720 get back to the show, curious. Have you tried to create content without use 97 00:07:37.720 --> 00:07:42.020 cases in the past and what ideas haven't worked? How would you caution 98 00:07:42.030 --> 00:07:43.260 our listeners? 99 00:07:44.340 --> 00:07:50.300 Sure. Well, I I think there's a temptation and in B two B to operate 100 00:07:50.300 --> 00:07:54.710 more like B two C where it's like, here's the product, like download it 101 00:07:54.710 --> 00:07:58.620 now, trial it right now, you know, that's obviously specific to the SAs 102 00:07:58.620 --> 00:08:03.240 space, but like the phrase that I've, it's not mine, but I'm going to steal 103 00:08:03.240 --> 00:08:07.130 it, just asking somebody to kind of move in on the first date. Um and this 104 00:08:07.130 --> 00:08:11.440 kind of goes back to my earlier point about having these other pieces of 105 00:08:11.450 --> 00:08:17.800 content to kind of push maybe a broader brand messaging strategy to push in 106 00:08:17.800 --> 00:08:21.690 conjunction with that final step. Because ultimately, you know, from my 107 00:08:21.690 --> 00:08:26.660 perspective, being like the digital marketing space, if you're only doing 108 00:08:26.940 --> 00:08:31.660 product specific content by now to talk to somebody right now, um if you 109 00:08:31.660 --> 00:08:35.419 haven't ceded the ground with those other things, then that's going to be a 110 00:08:35.419 --> 00:08:41.860 very, very expensive strategy that is not going to yield probably the results 111 00:08:41.870 --> 00:08:46.610 that you want. And you're really not going to be bringing net new people 112 00:08:46.610 --> 00:08:50.730 into the fold, You're going to be just sort of probably reengaging maybe your 113 00:08:50.730 --> 00:08:55.480 existing customer base or people that have already taken in your messaging in 114 00:08:55.480 --> 00:09:00.380 some way. It's very hard for to somebody just take a a leap because, 115 00:09:00.380 --> 00:09:04.600 you know, in our case, even if it's a free trial, it's it's not free in the 116 00:09:04.600 --> 00:09:09.720 sense that you're going to have to undertake maybe hours of implementation. 117 00:09:09.730 --> 00:09:13.870 So, so that is one thing where, you know, I think we're definitely getting 118 00:09:13.870 --> 00:09:17.730 better about this, but there have been occurrences in the past where we do 119 00:09:17.730 --> 00:09:21.690 focus just on that bottom of the funnel or we have focused on just that bottom 120 00:09:21.690 --> 00:09:26.350 of the funnel. And it's, you know, something where we're 121 00:09:27.440 --> 00:09:30.780 building upward in the funnel, when really we should be kind of starting 122 00:09:30.780 --> 00:09:35.540 upward and then gradually move down and have a smaller subset of people where 123 00:09:35.540 --> 00:09:41.510 you're really encouraging them to move in and interact with the product. So 124 00:09:41.510 --> 00:09:47.860 for somebody wanting to do what you're suggesting, who's in your shoes? What 125 00:09:47.860 --> 00:09:53.600 is Step 1? What's step 2? Uh, yeah, no, that's a, that's a good question. I 126 00:09:53.600 --> 00:10:00.610 think the first thing that you need to do is have an idea of your timeline. I 127 00:10:00.610 --> 00:10:04.540 think, I think one mistake that a lot of people make is okay. The product 128 00:10:04.540 --> 00:10:08.720 launches like next month. So I'm going to start thinking about it two weeks 129 00:10:08.720 --> 00:10:13.770 before and then by the time I request, um, you know, all of the content needs 130 00:10:13.770 --> 00:10:17.820 that we have and think through the campaigns were already kind of into the, 131 00:10:17.830 --> 00:10:21.580 you know, the products maybe already launched or you're just, and you don't 132 00:10:21.580 --> 00:10:26.110 have as many assets as you need to work with. So I think Really think probably 133 00:10:26.110 --> 00:10:30.540 with, you know, at least like a 3-6 months lead time on, Anything that 134 00:10:30.540 --> 00:10:35.810 you're wanting to do is a step, one that I think is very important. And 135 00:10:35.810 --> 00:10:40.750 then uh, step to, you know, kind of touched on this to an extent, but I 136 00:10:40.750 --> 00:10:45.510 think, you know, don't reinvent the wheel on certain things that go with 137 00:10:45.510 --> 00:10:49.180 certain brand messaging tactics that have worked well and just figure out 138 00:10:49.180 --> 00:10:54.490 how you can kind of plug in the new product. And then I think as a, maybe a 139 00:10:54.490 --> 00:10:58.470 final thing to not get kind of too into the weeds on, on steps and just keep it 140 00:10:58.470 --> 00:11:04.850 broad, you know, think of like the emotional value proposition more than 141 00:11:04.850 --> 00:11:09.190 the product specific value proposition because that's probably what's going to 142 00:11:09.190 --> 00:11:13.760 bring people's interest enough to interact and get to the point where 143 00:11:13.760 --> 00:11:19.020 they're actually learning about product specifics griffin. What results can a 144 00:11:19.020 --> 00:11:24.660 listener expect to see if they're following these tactics, implementing 145 00:11:24.660 --> 00:11:30.270 this strategy? Tell me about that. Sure. Well I think one thing to keep in mind 146 00:11:30.270 --> 00:11:35.660 is especially if you kind of follow the steps that I've kind of laid out, where 147 00:11:35.660 --> 00:11:39.060 you're doing like a broad approach of like seeding the ground and maybe 148 00:11:39.060 --> 00:11:44.590 slowly kind of ramping up what your what you should probably see is that 149 00:11:44.600 --> 00:11:48.830 it's not going to be an immediate, you know, probably not an immediate win. 150 00:11:48.830 --> 00:11:53.110 People probably need to interact with, you know, your campaigns, your tactics 151 00:11:53.110 --> 00:11:57.420 a handful of times before they're really deeply into the consideration 152 00:11:57.430 --> 00:12:01.250 phase, especially in B two B um you know, they might interact with a 153 00:12:01.250 --> 00:12:05.170 webinar or they're on your mailing list and they're interacting in a few 154 00:12:05.170 --> 00:12:11.100 different ways, so I would expect. Um and what you want to see is, you know, 155 00:12:11.110 --> 00:12:14.460 maybe very little activity in the beginning, but like a slow and steady 156 00:12:14.460 --> 00:12:21.360 ramp up of improvement over time. And I think that's just unfortunate sometimes 157 00:12:21.360 --> 00:12:26.100 because a lot of times we want that immediate win and so does so does our 158 00:12:26.100 --> 00:12:31.490 CMO. Um, but I think oftentimes it's just, you know, you have to almost 159 00:12:31.490 --> 00:12:35.190 fight that battle uh, internally to start with and say, you know, look, 160 00:12:35.190 --> 00:12:38.600 this is probably going to take some time. It's a new product, you know, I 161 00:12:38.600 --> 00:12:43.400 don't expect us to, you know, overnight, see a big flood of activity, but as 162 00:12:43.400 --> 00:12:46.750 long as you're seeing more in week two than you did in week one and more in 163 00:12:46.750 --> 00:12:50.680 week three than you did a week too. And that kind of extends through then 164 00:12:50.680 --> 00:12:55.480 you're, you know, you're on the right track and if, and if you don't then you 165 00:12:55.480 --> 00:13:01.280 probably need to retool. I love it. Well that is such good encouragement 166 00:13:01.280 --> 00:13:06.780 for anybody who is in that scenario right now, Griffin, thank you so much 167 00:13:06.780 --> 00:13:10.760 for joining me today. Where can people go to learn more about you and 168 00:13:10.760 --> 00:13:16.360 microstrategy? Yeah, absolutely. I'm not a huge social media person, but I 169 00:13:16.360 --> 00:13:21.610 feel free to direct message me on linkedin and if it's related to this, 170 00:13:21.610 --> 00:13:26.550 I'm happy to connect and kind of share more explicit contact info and then 171 00:13:26.740 --> 00:13:31.950 microstrategy. Uh we're on all social media and microstrategy dot com if you 172 00:13:31.950 --> 00:13:37.930 want to learn more about what we do. Well, thank you again for joining me on 173 00:13:37.940 --> 00:13:44.060 the to be growth. All right, thank you. It was fun. Is the decision maker for 174 00:13:44.060 --> 00:13:48.230 your product or service at BBB marketer. Are you looking to reach those buyers 175 00:13:48.230 --> 00:13:52.970 through the medium of podcasting? Consider becoming a co host of GDP 176 00:13:52.970 --> 00:13:57.250 growth. This show is consistently ranked as a top 100 podcast in the 177 00:13:57.250 --> 00:14:02.230 marketing category of Apple Podcasts, and the show gets more than 130,000 178 00:14:02.230 --> 00:14:06.520 downloads each month. We've already done the work of building the audience 179 00:14:06.530 --> 00:14:10.870 so you can focus on delivering incredible content to our listeners if 180 00:14:10.870 --> 00:14:15.860 you're interested, email Logan at Sweet Fish Media dot com. Mm hmm.