About the Guest Ryan has spent over 20 years in B2B technology marketing with strategic leadership experience across both agency and client-side roles. Throughout his career, Ryan has supported companies ranging from high-growth SaaS providers to some of the largest brands in the world. In his current role as AVP of Portfolio Marketing, Ryan leads product marketing, content strategy, digital experience, and communications teams for AT&T Business, supporting their full portfolio of products and services. Contact Ryan Bearden Key takeaways Two of Ryan’s favorite content strategies are creating video podcasts on LinkedIn and creating content that sheds light on gaps, or weaknesses and opportunities, in your industry. To effectively enable the right sales conversations, content needs to align with customer needs and learning styles. Sales enablement today is thinking through the lens of the customer. Insert your content into the places the buyers are researching. The more educated the buyers are, the easier the sellers’ jobs will be. There’s a new, tech-enlightened generation of professionals entering the market, so B2B strategies will continue to innovate as they mature and proliferate. Marketing hasn’t evolved to adapt to the digital landscape as quickly as it should have because marketers are still clinging to metrics that aren’t moving the needle. For marketing to evolve with content strategy to meet buyers’ needs and behaviors, you need a leadership team that will embrace this new world of B2B buying. You need to rethink your marketing engine and redefine the right metrics for your company. Quotes “The key role content should play in today’s world is really aligning to the customer needs and how they learn.” Highlights from the episode What are the best B2B content strategies you’ve come across in your career as a marketer? Around the turn of the century, content strategy wasn’t really a mainstream thing. It was a sales-driven world. Content strategy has since matured into blogs, podcasts, and other interactive content techniques where consumers can be entertained and educated about certain topics, products, and services. One of the best content strategies I’ve seen is creating video podcasts on LinkedIn (check out Refined Labs for examples), as well as shorter video snippets under “Show More Content” that show you what’s in the longer (8-10 minutes) video. Now, I listen to their podcast regularly and consume their organic content. Another one I helped lead was when I worked at HotSchedules. We were launching a new product offering, a new platform in the restaurant hospitality space. We put a ton of content out there to shed light on the gaps in the market and restaurant technology that keep them from driving more efficiently and better managing their costs. We highlighted the weaknesses and opportunities in the tech landscape and the industry. With the majority of stakeholders doing their evaluation anonymously, what role does content play to enable the right sales conversations effectively? As a marketer, my job is simply to create and enable a meaningful engagement between the buying prospect and the seller. The key role of content in 2022 is aligning to the customer’s needs and how they learn. Are they easily finding the content where they spend time shopping and engaging online? Is your content adding value and removing complexity for the buyer in their stage? What is your definition of sales enablement in today’s digital landscape? The legacy method of sales enablement is training our sellers to sell our products and arming them with collateral and tools to do so. With more buyers doing their own research, we need to flip the script. Think through the lens of the customer. Insert your content into the places the buyers are researching. The more educated the buyers are, the easier the sellers’ jobs will be. What are the evolving strategies of B2B buying practices? A new generation of professionals is entering the market, so as they mature and proliferate, B2B strategies will continue to innovate. These are kids who grew up with technology. More online research is happening, and buying committees are growing. Why hasn’t marketing evolved to adapt to the digital landscape as quickly as it should have? We still have marketers that are still clinging to marketing and lead flow metrics that look good and clean on a report but aren’t moving the needle. We’ve gotten too comfortable in focusing solely on the funnel. Additionally, content is a long game that requires discomfort, shifts, and sacrifices. You’reYou’re going to have to give up channels that capture information to invest in creating content that consumers want to consume. Look at the metrics that are actually moving the needle. How can marketing evolve with content strategy to meet buyers’ needs and behaviors? You need a leadership team that will embrace this new world of B2B buying. Then, rethink your marketing engine. How can you get the right people in place that can create consistent and compelling content? Finally, redefine what the right metrics are for your company. Do you have any resources you recommend to the audience? TrustRadius G2 State of Demand Gen Podcast by Refine Labs Atomic Habits by James Clear Think Again by Adam Grant
