How Schneider Electric built a new B2B content

marketing strategy
Brian McGee
Source: Event Reports, Digital Marketing Exchange, September 2016
Downloaded from WARC

This event report details how Schneider Electric, a multinational corporation that specialises in energy
management and automation solutions, modernised its B2B content marketing strategy.

Companies engaging in B2B content marketing struggle to make an impact due to the overall
volume of competing content.
Schneider Electric retooled its content marketing strategy by coordinating its editorial board and
analysing its audience and distribution model.
The company used the convergence of various media post-internet and repurposed content to
construct its message.
Pilot programmes were also important to testing the potential of marketing campaigns.

Brian McGee

Content, there's no shortage of it. Any company's target market is bombarded with content whether on digital, on
social media or in offline publications. The problem is particularly acute in B2B marketing which tends to rely on
content marketing to a far greater extent than B2C brands. At the Digital Marketing Exchange conference held in
London in September 2016, Giuseppe Caltabiano, VP/Marketing Integration at Schneider Electric, addressed
the challenge of breaking through the proliferation of content to grab the attention of an audience.

When it's done well, there can be significant – and measurable – business benefits, he said, noting that content
had high adoption rates, with more than 27 million pieces of content shared every day. Over the past 12 months
he has implemented a new content marketing strategy for the German specialist in electrical distribution,
industrial control and automation products, systems and services, moving from an advanced but traditional
model to a new, modern marketing model. It's important to have a documented strategy, he added, citing
research from Content Marketing Institute, which has shown that companies operating this way are better able
to justify spending a higher percentage of their marketing budget on content marketing.

And as well as these practical steps, there is an in-house PR job to be done: "You need to explain internally to
gain support for a company-wide push towards effective content marketing," he explained.
Caltabiano outlined three ways in which a B2B marketing strategy can be transformed to a modern and
successful content marketing model that's aligned with business goals:

Devise a content marketing strategy.

Integrate content, social media and PR.
Transform the marketing model with the help of technology.

There is a tendency to over-complicate the strategy definition process, he added, but a well prepared content
marketing strategy should include the following elements:

1. The case for change

Companies need to assess the situation "as is" and think about a "to be" model, based on objectives and
medium/long-term vision. Content marketers have to communicate:

reasons for moving away from a traditional model;

the risks involved;
the vision of what success will look like.

This is more likely to gain support for your strategy, Caltabiano stated.

2. The business plan for content marketing and its mission

This comprises the content programme's goals, the unique value the company aims to provide through content,
and details of its business model.

A content marketing strategy should include a clearly expressed mission statement in all documentation,
Caltabiano declared.

3. Editorial process
The business plan has to stand side by side with internal transformation, he said. And the content editorial board
is the core. The board has to handle all content-related requests and issues as well as defining internal
communication and distribution strategy. In large organisations, the editorial board has the key role in aligning
and coordinating between several divisions and content sources.

And an editorial calendar is essential to map content production to the audience persona and the phases of the
buyer journey. "Without a plan, an editorial board and editorial calendar, nothing will happen," Caltabiano said.

A proper content strategy also requires the right technology and tools – and according to Caltabiano, the best
are those that combine a content marketing platform with workflow, calendar, publication and distribution
functionalities.
4. Audience persona, buyer journey and content map
Marketers need to analyse their audience and their needs and how their content engagement cycle might look.
"You should also map out content that you can deliver throughout their buyer's journey," he said.

The entire content marketing strategy is based on persona and buyer cycle, so the selection of a proper set of
personas and a deep understanding of each one's cycle is at the heart of the strategy.

5. Alignment with your company's brand story

Here, content marketing is defined in terms of what ideas and messages the business wants to communicate;
how these connect with your brand story; how those messages differ from the competition; and how the
business sees the landscape evolving after these messages have been shared with the audience.

6. Distribution channel strategy: distribution and amplification

A lot of content distribution is now done via social media, but, Caltabiano warned: "A presence on social media is
pointless without a proper content strategy." Beyond that, content marketers have a responsibility to look at all
available channels to tell their stories and adapt content. These include:

technology platforms used to tell and distribute your story;

the criteria, processes, and objectives for each one;
how these are connected to create a cohesive conversation.

The most innovative and forward-thinking companies have merged content, social and PR "channels". By doing
so, they can capitalise on the synergies between these three, he explained.

7. The POEM Model

In the past, businesses only used only used paid and earned media, such as traditional PR, noted Caltabiano,
but with the advent of the web, online blogs and social media it has been also become possible to talk about
owned media – a business's own digital assets that can be deployed in support of its marketing.

"The convergence of paid, owned and earned media (POEM) has helped create a profitable content marketing
strategy that led us to start thinking about content in a whole new way, he added.

8. Big Rocks and Thanksgiving

One of the most effective ways to take advantage of this media convergence, Caltabiano explained, is using the
"Big Rock and Turkey Slices" discipline applied to content marketing.

"Big Rock" is a substantial piece of content that aims to become the definitive guide to a conversation that a
business wants to own. "The idea is to develop an all-encompassing guide to whatever your keywords or
themes are, written strategically instead of instructionally."

This can serve many additional purposes, he said, including SEO, fuel for social and lead generation, sales
enablement, and event collateral. And "Big Rock" should be launched with the same emphasis as a new
product.

"Turkey Slices" is simply looking for opportunities to repurpose existing content – exactly as one might
repurpose leftover Thanksgiving food. For instance, eBooks can be repurposed into infographics, SlideShare
presentations, blog posts, videos and then disseminated on social media. This tactic takes advantage of owned
media and generates earned media exposure. Caltabiano also highlighted the related concept of "content
atomisation" – taking a strong content marketing theme, and executing it in many, strategically sound ways. "You
extract as much value out of a single piece of content as possible by breaking it down into smaller parts or
different formats." That's a far better approach than simply generating more content which doesn't generate
more results. "Repurpose and reuse existing content," Caltabiano advised.

9. Measurement and optimisation

"Everything you measure needs to start with an objective," he stressed. "Dashboard and KPIs have to be in
place to measure results and help with decision-making." Marketing automation tools now allow marketers to
track which content gains the most engagement, leads and revenue.

10. The role of pilots

In large companies it's common practice to run pilot programmes to test and prove viability; if the pilot's
successful, go ahead with the series. "You need to start small and test that your strategy works," Caltabiano
advised. Then, once a business case has been developed, "go back to your management and move to the next
step".

It's important to add that content marketing is not a campaign with a start and stop date; "it will take time, and
even more so for large companies," he said.

In conclusion, "you might not be an expert B2B content marketer but you can diligently plan and document your
strategy. In some cases, you will need to redesign your organisation to be aligned with the strategy and to make
things happen."

About the author

Brian McGee is a freelance writer.

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