How to get the c-suite to actually read your content? It’s an age-old question in B2B content marketing, and one that people struggle to answer. You can spend hours, days, or weeks working on content, but if it doesn’t hit the right target market, that effort becomes worthless. And when your target market is those at the very top of the corporate food chain, you need the right strategies to help shape the content you create.
And the proof is in the pudding. We worked with our client HB Reavis to create content that resulted in 3.6 million c-suite social media impressions. How? Let’s explore the tactics you should implement to reach the c-suite, whilst showing you exactly how we did it.
Figuring out what c-suite want to hear
C-Suite are bombarded from every angle with content that they ‘just have to read’. When it comes down to it, they’re only going to spend time with content when it genuinely piques their interest, either offering a fresh perspective or talking about something they’re dying to know more about.
That’s exactly what we did with HB Reavis. As an international real estate developer and smart office technology provide, the covid pandemic hit them harder than most. But together, we realised that c-suite audiences around the world and across industries were looking for an expert voice to tell them what the office would look like after the remote working of lockdown.
By identifying this gap, we were then able to tailor our content to answer exactly what every boardroom was asking. Try and place yourself in the mind of the c-suite persona you’re targeting and think about the kinds of issues they’d care about right now, and the questions they’re looking for answers to.
Offer something fresh
To be taken seriously, you need to make your content stand out. How can you prevent your target persona from saying, ‘I’ve seen it all before’?
With HB Reavis, we did this by challenging the assumption that remote working would become the new normal. Then, we conducted a series of surveys that questioned both employees and employers on what they wanted from the future of work. In doing so, we not only created thought provoking content that went against popular thinking at the time, but we were able to back it up with strong market research.
Don’t go for the easy option. If it’s simple to write about, that’s probably because it’s something that’s been said and resaid many times before. Create content that offers something new, so people have no choice but to read your content to find out more.
Provide something useful
Your content can do more than just talk around a topic. By providing insights not only into current topics, but explicitly stating how this will impact businesses, you’re hitting c-suite right where you want. They aren’t likely to care about something until they know how that will impact their bottom lines.
As part of our campaign with HB Reavis, we created a fully comprehensive report, taking the results from our market research and layering these with four ‘megatrends’ tipped to drive business productivity and employee wellbeing in a post-pandemic world. By doing so, we were able to not only offer fresh research, but tie this into wider themes at the time and demonstrate the impact this will have on businesses in the future.
Give them something they can take away. This means they view your content not just as a means to sell your product or service, but as something useful they can refer to. This helps to build trust and presents your brand as a trusted expert opinion.
Track results
When we launched our ‘Future of Work’ report with HB Reavis, the response was almost instant. Supported by a digital marketing campaign, in just the first four weeks of active promotion we were able to generate 500 qualified leads. And since then, it’s been pulling in leads organically and even led to HB Reavis winning new enterprise-level business. With a 1:7 ROI, it’s safe to say that this campaign was a certified success.
Creating content that reaches c-suite can seem difficult, but it’s just a matter of putting in the right content strategy and thought. By creating fresh, thought provoking, and useful content, you can ensure your content is seen by those who truly matter.
Not sure where to start? Reach out to us at hello@isolinecomms.com to see how we could devise a content strategy that speaks c-suite’s language.
