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Chapter 22—How do you produce content?
The reality of B2B marketing is that content needs to come,
in good measure, from the thought leaders. Unfortunately,
they don’t always enjoy the process of disseminating their
expertise. Ask an engineer to write a white paper, and he or
she will be happy to do it—but you’ll be lucky to see it within
a few months.
The best way to produce content for B2B marketing is to make
it very easy for the technical experts to contribute—which
means not forcing them to produce content all alone.
A good approach is to choose a topic and interview a technical
expert for thirty to sixty minutes, capturing as much knowledge
as possible, and then prepare a first draft of the piece. It won’t
be perfect, but it will be something the expert can respond
to. Book more time with him or her and get verbal feedback.
Then do another draft and work this way, on a timeline, until
completion.
Another approach is to hire a third party to develop the content.
The pressure of having someone else involved can be a good
motivator to keep the technical experts moving.
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© 2012 Lisa Shepherd
