Picture this: you’re a digital marketing manager, and you know how important content is to your brand. You’ve worked across multiple organisations and seen the results of content marketing first hand.
But not everyone in your business has the knowledge and experience that you do, and they might be the ones holding the purse strings. Although you’re sold on the benefits of content marketing, you might have some work to do.
You may or may not have your own budget to play with, and even if you do, you might need sign-off from someone else when investing in something new. With 48% of marketers having a monthly content marketing budget of up to $5k (Source: Proper Expression), it’s definitely time to get buy-in.
If you’re struggling to know how to start those conversations with the key stakeholders at your workplace, don’t worry. We’ve got some hints and tips to help you communicate how vital it is that investment is put into creating content.
Read on to find out how to convince key stakeholders to invest in content marketing.
Getting buy-in for content from your team
First thing’s first: getting your team onboard. Hopefully, your team is just as knowledgeable about digital marketing as you, in which case it will be an easy sell. If not, you’ll need to inspire and engage your team members by involving them in your content goals.
You could bring this up in your team meeting and show some results and benefits from projects they have worked on. This will also act as a bit of a practice for your stakeholder meeting later on.
Make sure you include your team in the planning process for your content projects. Having roles will help to increase their enthusiasm and commitment to your cause.
Include information about content marketing in all of the presentations you give that have visibility throughout the business (think monthly updates, team briefs, campaign and sales meetings) and get your team members to do the same. The more people talking about content marketing throughout the business the better.
Get face time with key stakeholders
This step very much depends on the size and culture of your business. If it’s a small business, then a casual “water cooler chat” may be the first step towards getting your investment. However, if it’s a larger business, a more formal process may already exist.
Chances are, you’ll need to put together a presentation detailing your proposal and organise a meeting with the key stakeholders at some point in the process. Try to get everyone together at the same time, either face-to-face or over a Teams call, so you can address questions or concerns anyone might have.
Align your content goals to your stakeholders’ goals
You’ve got the meeting in your diary – you’re presenting to the stakeholders. Now it’s time to prepare.
Of course, your content marketing goals should match up to the goals and targets of the business as a whole and should be a step along the way to get there. Make sure that any plans you have for content align with what’s most important for your stakeholders at the time.
For example, if inclusivity and diversity are number one on the agenda, then make sure that your ideas for content marketing focus on these.
Think about the challenges your stakeholders are facing and the company’s business strategy, and then tailor your presentation to this. It’s essential that they are interested in your proposal and that you can prove that investing in content will help them achieve their overall goals.
Presenting a clear vision for your content strategy
Be clear about what you’re asking for and what your investment will get you. It may be best to concentrate on one project first rather than tackling your entire content marketing strategy, as this will feel more tangible.
Outline the project costs and what this investment will get you, including agency fees, content production, and any maintenance that’s included. Remember that content for SEO isn’t a one-off investment—there’s the initial investment to create the content, but then this must be monitored and maintained to ensure a good ranking on the SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages).
Show the purpose and objectives of your project and how they relate to the company’s overarching goals.
Your presentation will need to be engaging and persuasive. Key stakeholders are often interested in the numbers rather than anything too creative or “fluffy,” so make sure you include quantifiable examples.
Showcase the benefits and results
You’ll need to clearly communicate the benefits of investing in content marketing and there are plenty of success stories to share. According to 74% of companies, content marketing has led to an increase in lead generation (source: Forbes) and many brands see it directly contributing to sales.
If your company places a lot of emphasis on ROI, then you’ll need to focus on how your content will generate revenue. Have a look at our beginner’s guide to proving ROI to help with this.
It’s likely that you’re already creating content for the brand in-house. Perhaps you want to scale up but lack the resources to do so, or you want certain expertise that your team currently lacks, such as technical SEO knowledge or video editing.
You can use the content you’ve already created as real-life case studies. Show the stakeholders the benefits that this content has already made and provide detailed projections of how successful your investment could be based on this.
Include as much data as you can get your hands on. This data will really help to illustrate and underline your points, after all – you can’t argue with the facts!
Identify potential risks and how you’ll mitigate them
All investments come with some risks, but the good news is that content marketing is relatively low-risk, especially when compared to other expenditure. One of the main risks of investing in content is that it doesn’t perform as well as you expected it to in the time frame you had hoped for. However, if you’re investing in SEO content for your website, that may just be a matter of time and patience. It’s always worth revisiting content to look at how you can better optimise it.
Put together a list of all the risks you can think of and include a plan for how these will be dealt with.
Examples of risks:
– You create content about a destination, and then travel to that destination is halted
– You invest in content, but your team doesn’t have time to implement it
– Content is created to promote products or services which are then discontinued
Remember, there is no secret formula to building a business case for content creation for key stakeholders. It’s all about seeing a shared objective within your company and delivering a convincing case about how an effective content strategy can meet that.
Looking for help in convincing stakeholders to invest in content?
If you need a hand building your case for content support within your organisation then get in touch. Once of our friendly team will be more than happy to get you started.
