“So, What Do You Do For a Living?”
“What do you do for a living” is a common icebreaker in social situations, especially in North America. Find out why the question can be challenging for B2B content creators, along with the answer I’ve come up with.
Like most people in North America, I’m often asked what I do for a living in social situations. I usually answer, “I’m a writer.”?
That tends to trigger some excitement and curiosity, prompting the question, “Oh really? What do you write about?” That’s where it can get tricky.
I could say, “I write copy for B2B content marketing.” Unfortunately, outside a very small circle of peers, that doesn’t mean much of anything.
What’s B2B Content Marketing?
Assuming they hadn’t completely lost interest and changed the subject, they might persist, asking, “What’s B2B content marketing?” In that rare case, I could start with the simple part and define B2B.?
B2B is one of the only acronyms I tolerate, and only when dealing with other marketers. As readers of this newsletter already know, B2B stands for business-to-business.?
I tell people it’s industries where companies sell their products or services to other companies. If they ask for an example, I might mention Xerox or Caterpillar.
Content Marketing Institute’s Formal Definition
These aren’t brands from which consumers would buy items for personal use. With that out of the way, I could try to explain the “content marketing” part to my new friend by quoting the Content Marketing Institute (CMI). Their formal definition goes:
“Content marketing is a strategic marketing approach focused on creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and retain a clearly defined audience — and, ultimately, to drive profitable customer action.”
Of course, if I did that consistently, I’d be an awfully lonely guy. So, what do people like me really do, and how do we help businesses and the economy as a whole?
If Someone Watched Us, They’d Say We Tell Stories
If someone watched us working, they’d say we tell stories. People have been telling each other stories since long before they could write, and narratives are the foundation of human culture.
Storytellers entertain and educate. Writers like me tell stories on behalf of companies to communicate with their potential customers.
We use entertainment to attract those prospective buyers, and education to raise brand awareness and build trust. In the B2B sector, our stories make a business case to our target audience about the value our brand could add to their business.
Content Is an Awfully Nebulous Term
That’s why what I really tell people is, “I write stories for businesses who sell to other businesses.”?“Content” is an awfully nebulous term that doesn’t accurately describe the work we do or why we do it.
Besides, content marketing is nothing new. For example, Benjamin Franklin began his career running a printing business in Philadelphia.
Back in 1732, he started running off his famous periodical Poor Richard’s Almanack. Many people think the almanac was an end in itself, but that wasn’t the case, at least not in the beginning.
Poor Richards Almanack Was B2B Content Marketing
Franklin came up with the idea of publishing Poor Richard’s Almanack to remind the good citizens of Philadelphia to use his printing services.?The almanac contained entertaining and informative content to which readers could refer throughout the year, so they held onto it.
Until recently, advertisers called these kinds of periodicals “in-house publications.” Although they mentioned brands, their primary purpose was to be useful to the reader.
I think if I told everyday people I write stories for in-house publications that companies send to customers, they’d understand me a whole lot better. It doesn’t speak well for our industry that the name we use for our work makes it harder for people to understand what we do.
Write to Express, Not to Impress
One of the sure signs of a buzzword is that it tries to replace a perfectly good existing business term. Or, to put it another way, buzzwords like content marketing violate the principle, “Write to express, not to impress.”
So why would a business tell entertaining and informative stories to staff at potential client companies? It’s part of a philosophy whereby advertisers share information with their audience the way the audience wants to receive it.
The days of “we interrupt this program with a word from our sponsor” started to disappear the moment social media replaced mass media. Audiences have always preferred marketing messages to be entertaining and informative, minus the old-school sales pitch.
Entertaining and Informative Minus the Sales Pitch
People have this inclination in their personal and their professional lives. In the business world, according to the CMI, the five most popular story types are webinars, research reports, articles, white papers and case studies.
Of course, webinars have been unusually popular recently because of social distancing. Even so, the one trait all of the top five formats have in common is informative storytelling.
By moving away from the sales pitch and toward telling meaningful stories, brands build relationships with potential customers. For example, according to CMI data, the top five reasons B2B organizations use content marketing are brand awareness, credibility, education, loyalty and generating leads.
Business Audiences Look for Trustworthy Brands
Sales revenue ends up in a distant eighth place. B2B marketers have learned that business and professional audiences look to trustworthy people and brands for advice, news and even entertaining stories about their industries and occupations.
The B2B buyer’s journey is long and convoluted, making it hard to trace the connection between a story and a sale. Even so, successful marketers agree that the trust that meaningful narratives generate for brands pays for itself in the long run.
So, let me answer the question, "What do people like me really do, and how do we help businesses and society?" We tell meaningful stories for businesses who sell to other businesses. Those stories build the trust that drives our economy.
And it’s a great job!
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