3 Steps Marketers Should Take to Transcend Commodity Content

A NOTE FROM THE EDITOR

This week our topic is Content Marketing. Our guest writer is Joe Zappa, CEO, Sharp Pen Media. I will say that his thoughts on content marketing excellence is spot on. In particular, we need to address the elephant in the room with content marketing. As Joe says, “… How do we produce content that transcends commoditization?”

What are your thoughts on Content Marketing Excellence and avoiding the commoditization of content? Share your feedback on The Buzz Community.

And, of course, from the bottom of my heart, I want to thank you for being part of the Buzz community. This endeavor is not possible with you -- our readers. For questions, comments, and feedback, please don't hesitate to let me know.

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3 Steps Marketers Should Take to Transcend Commodity Content

By Joe Zappa, CEO, Sharp Pen Media

The rise of generative AI has called into question the future of content marketing and the importance of the human role in it. Marketing leaders are widely cutting agencies and even internal headcount, opting to automate the writing process.

Generative AI necessarily produces commodity content; it synthesizes what’s already out there on the web. But if that’s the case, why is it good enough to replace human marketers and agencies? Because many human marketing teams have long been creating commodity content themselves.

If human marketers can only copy what their competitors are saying, they are no better than generative AI models and will be replaced. So, how do we produce content that transcends commoditization? How do we say something so novel and insightful that our content couldn’t have been produced by AI, something that truly differentiates us from our competitors and allows us to gain an edge in the marketplace?

To transcend commodity content, B2B marketers should follow three steps: narrative building, editorial planning, and content creation. In addition, the people who execute these steps are as important as the process. So, let’s consider what each step entails and who the best people are to execute them.

Step #1: Narrative Building

Most B2B companies rush to create content. When they hire a content marketing or PR agency, for example, the agency may spend one or two weeks interviewing their point of contact or perhaps an internal thought leader about the company, its sector, and its perspective on a couple of key issues. Then, the agency starts writing white papers, bylines, and blog posts.

In other words, most content marketing and PR teams start with what should be the third stage of the B2B content production process: content creation. They rarely do the investigative work of narrative building that leads to truly distinctive content that accentuates their company’s competitive advantage and unique positioning. So, their content sounds much like that of their competitors.

The way to transcend this commoditization problem is to undertake an intensive month-long process of differentiated narrative building — before your team puts pen to paper. The comms or content team should interview business leaders (CEO, product, customer success, and possibly technology), marketing leaders, and a representative sample of three to five customers to understand how the company is currently perceived, what customers find most valuable, what unique knowledge or strengths the company possesses, and how content can amplify those advantages.

The narrative building process should lead to what my collaborator Paul Knegten, former CMO of Beeswax and Outbrain, calls a crusade that is bigger than the company itself as well as supporting narratives. To use an intuitive example, the crusade for a content and PR agency might be against commodity content. The supporting narratives illustrate why commodity content is so common, how to transcend it, and what it has to do with dominant industry developments and new stories like the rise of generative AI.

Narrative building matters because, without it, you can have the best possible marketing strategy and press, and your content and communications program will not have the desired business impact. If you are constantly featured in your industry’s trade publications but your columns and quotes mirror the industry consensus, what good are they? Ensuring that all your content reinforces narratives that truly differentiate you and accentuate your competitive advantages is critical to maximizing the return on your comms and content investments.

Step #2: Editorial Planning

There are two halves to any great content and comms strategy: narratives and go-to-market. You need to say something distinct (narrative building), but you also need to ensure that message will reach your audience, which is where the second step in a non-commoditized approach to content marketing comes in: editorial planning.

Once you’ve developed distinctive narratives, you should be able to create a three-month editorial plan. For each asset, the editorial plan should include headlines, the narratives each asset reinforces, an abstract detailing the main argument or topic, and a distribution strategy. The plan ensures that you’re not haphazardly or reactively creating content but are rather methodically reinforcing the narratives that will put you in a category of one and establish you as the primary authority on your top issues.

Very few B2B companies do the work of narrative building; just as few take a proactive, long-term approach to editorial planning. If you do both, you’ll have the opportunity to stop being, say, just another media buying platform or employee benefits platform and increasingly win business on the basis of your brand. You’ll also extract far more value out of each asset because instead of creating it haphazardly, putting it out once, and forgetting about it, you’ll have a disciplined process for distributing it across three or four channels to ensure it reaches as many of your customers as possible.

Step #3: Content Creation (and the people who make it possible)

Once you’ve built distinctive narratives and planned your editorial output, it is time to create content. There are two critical elements to the process of world-class content creation.

First, it should be proactive and based on differentiated, novel ideas, which is what narrative building and editorial planning enable.

Second, it requires the input of internal thought leaders. So many B2B companies spend money to become thought leaders without the involvement of … their thought leaders. If you’re going to spend hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars on comms and content personnel and programs, make sure the people crafting your message have access to those who best understand it.

But even more important to world-class content creation than process is people. At its best, writing is not the mere transcription of pre-established articles or ideas (which is what creating commodity content entails). Rather, writing is thinking. There’s a wise adage in marketing: “A $10 per hour writer can’t write something a $1,000 per hour reader wants to read.” True also, if your content team is a mix of junior employees, inexperienced freelancers, and cheap software, you may hit your SEO numbers, but you can’t expect to build a differentiated brand that commands the attention of high-level decision makers.

The ideal content marketing team might include a marketing strategist and/or journalist with deep industry expertise to build differentiated narratives, a veteran content strategist to spearhead editorial planning, and writers and editors with the gravitas, experience, and industry knowledge to interview your CEO and articulate their insights in a range of formats without losing what distinguishes them. The best content marketing team is not just AI prompt writers or interview transcribers; they are, in the depth of their skills, almost the equals of the people whose insights they are crafting into prose or video. A world-class content marketing team empowers its company to beat its competitors on an additional plane: not just that of product or sales but that of content, perception, and ideas.

That’s what building a revenue-generating brand is all about. With an intensive process and world-class people, B2B companies have a chance to build one.

What are your thoughts on Content Marketing Excellence? Share your feedback on The Buzz Community.

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