ABM Content Strategy: Top 3 Mistakes Marketers Make and How to Fix Them

If you ask sales, there’s never enough content. Am I right? Maybe that’s partially true, but I’m here to suggest that as a content marketer, you don’t need a ton of content pieces if you have the right content strategy.

Having walked in the shoes of a content marketer, I can now look back on my time in the role with the advantage of hindsight. The pressures from product teams, segments, and internal customers are immense – often trapping you in a content hamster wheel. But it doesn’t have to be that way!

Here are some of the biggest mistakes I made with content strategy and some ways to correct them.

1. Not creating content for the customer journey

When creating your content plans, always start with the end in mind. Consider your journey stages and think through your strategic goals for the year, including product launches, campaign themes, and even target industry verticals. Then consider what high-value pieces of content you will need to achieve your goals. These content pieces, your ‘big rocks,’ typically require the most budget and time from both yourself and your SMEs.

Next, map out your existing content for each key priority using a basic content map by journey stage. This can be done in Excel or Google Sheets. You will notice some gaps right away. Consider how your planned ‘big rock’ content can be broken down into smaller pebbles to fill those gaps. For example, a report designed for bottom-of-funnel conversion can be used to create an interesting top-of-funnel infographic and, potentially, some smaller blog pieces.

Lastly, make sure to leave room to consider trending topics for quick win pieces like social posts and blogs. I recommend reviewing your Demandbase high-intent keywords for ideas on topics. Intent keywords are timely and give you a good indication of what your targeted audience is most interested in. Use your primary target account list and the associated keyword set or sets to see what terms are trending.

If you are unable to come up with new content on your own or through your SMEs, consider using AI to generate your short-form content. According to SEM Rush in April of 2024, 68% of businesses see an increase in content marketing ROI when using AI.

Here is a sample content map based on journey stages. This can be simplified to funnel stages of TOFU, MOFU, and BOFU for multiple product lines, launches, vertical segments, and other campaign priorities.

2. Having too much of the same content

Have you ever gone to a website and all they have is product data-sheet PDFs on each product page? Boring! This is an example of using too much of the same content format. Mix it up with a variety of content types designed to pull accounts through the journey. Use a mix of Analyst Reports, company research, E-books, quizzes, infographics, short-form and long-form videos, as well as blog posts and social media.

‘Too much of the same’ doesn’t typically happen by accident. In many organizations, the development of the product data sheet and short-form video from the product manager are standard parts of the marketing mix. As a content marketer, take this to the next level by creating other engaging content pieces using this content as your core.

According to Forbes, in 2023, 91% of businesses report incorporating video into their marketing approaches, marking a significant uptick from previous years. Video is an excellent way to keep content fresh and engaging.

3. Tossing top content pieces too soon

Just because a piece of content is old doesn’t always mean it’s no longer relevant. Use the Demandbase engagement tab to review your top downloaded content for a specific time period.

• Go to the Engagement tab and scroll down.
• Click on “Activities,” and then sort by the activity type table header and look for “Campaign Response.” Then click the “Details” column. Here you will see the names of the content pieces driving responses during the time frame selected.
• You may also use the search function to look for all activities with a specific naming convention.
• From there, export the data for further analysis.

From the Engagement tab, scroll to the bottom of the screen, and click on Activities. Sort by Activity Type and then Details. As you can see here, a piece of content from Q3 2023 is still a top-performing content piece in Q2 of 2024, beating our several new content pieces.

Using this quick analysis, you may notice that a particular piece of content that is a year old or older remains the top piece of content for engagement. To monitor your content downloads, you may use Demandbase to create a report of top content downloads and have it sent as part of an email digest to your inbox each week.

Rather than discarding older content pieces, review their engagement and downloads to see if they are still interesting and compelling to your target accounts. Consider refreshing them with new statistics, imagery, and perhaps even a new headline.

Refresh and Diversify to Sustain Engagement

Content marketers are under a lot of pressure to produce new and exciting content, but mapping your existing and planned content to the journey stages can be an excellent place to start for identifying gaps and focusing your efforts. Try to keep your content interesting by experimenting with different content formats. Don’t always assume that because a piece of content is considered old, it is no longer engaging your customers and prospects. Always use data to determine the success of a particular content piece and consider refreshing older content pieces that continue to show strong engagement.

If you’d like to learn more about using Demandbase Professional Services support to activate your GTM Strategy, view our ABX Leadership Series presentation on Activating Your Strategy or read our other Professional Services blogs.