B2BQ&A 112: How can B2B content stay consistent when everything changes?

B2B Q&A | Your B2B content questions, answered

As Greek philosopher Heraclitus pointed out, change is the only constant. So, how can B2B marketers ensure their content stays up-to-date and relevant to customers when technology and markets never stand still?

We’ll find out in this episode of B2BQ&A, where we answer a question posed by Kate Terry, Head of Demand Generation at Unily.

Specifically, Kate asked:

“How do you keep up with content when your products and business keep evolving into new markets?”

To tackle Kate’s question, we welcome to the podcast two experts with a wealth of experience in content marketing. Our special interview guest is Jason Miller, Head of Brand and Content at Tyk, and our guest co-host is Diane Wiredu, B2B messaging strategist and founder of Lion Words.

Along with Radix’s George Reith, our guests explore how your messaging can stay consistent when everything else is changing.

In this episode, you’ll also learn an essential copywriting pro tip from Ettie Bailey-King, founder of Fighting Talk Communications and consultant for inclusive and accessible content.

You’ll find a full transcript of this episode at the end of this post.

Need consistency in your B2B content? Here are 5 key takeaways from the podcast:

1. Have a core piece of evergreen content

Jason suggests having a core of 80% of content; what he calls “big rock content”. According to Jason, “Your core content is based around the subject area you want to own and should answer the number one question in your customers’ minds. The remaining 20% of little rock content you can set aside for experimentation to try out ideas.”

2. Treat your content like a best-selling book

There’s a reason our most trusted and respected textbooks remain popular for years: they’re updated so they stay relevant through change. Jason’s tip is to treat your core content the same way, by giving it a fresh coat of paint every now and again. But Jason doesn’t think we need to reinvent the wheel. Simplify, get back to basics, answer questions, and, above all, be helpful.

3. Don’t give up if content doesn’t perform

If you trust the reasons for creating a piece of content, you should give it every opportunity to work. For Jason’s team, that could mean tweaking the format, the targeting, or the approach. “Every piece of content that me or my team has ever created at any org has always been created for a purpose rooted in data… So if we put it out there, and it doesn’t perform, we don’t give up.”

4. Change brings a chance for genuine thought leadership

“Every time there’s a change… there’s an opportunity to answer the biggest questions,” says Jason. “As soon as we see that… we go after the big questions with some blog and video content. But then we go to our leadership and we say, ‘What does this mean?’”

5. Curate a group of trusted advisors

Jason also recommends leaning on trusted advisors for guidance during times of change. But he’s always cautious when new voices come on the scene. “There’s no shortage of experts and opinions out there,” he says. “It’s how you curate them, and how you build trust or trust those folks to keep you in a good place.”

Want some further reading? Here are the sources Jason mentioned:

• Two classic guidebooks – and great examples of how to create evergreen content – Jason recommends are David Meerman Scott’s The New Rules of Marketing and PR and Ann Handley’s Everybody Writes.
• As well as Ann Handley, Jason’s trusted advisors are Jay Acunzo and Doug Kessler (who we invited onto this podcast in 2021).
• You can learn more about Mark Schaefer’s theory of content shock here.

Here’s what you can expect in this episode…

3:46 – George poses Kate Terry’s question to Jason Miller.

17:24 – Co-host Diane Wiredu shares her thoughts on Jason’s insights.

21:40 – Diane and George discuss the changes that generative AI could bring.

28:13 – Ettie Bailey-King shares her copywriting pro tip.

Got a question? We’ll find the answer.

To get your burning B2B content questions answered, just send us a voice memo at [e-mail]. And if there are any other thoughts you’d like to share, you can connect with us on LinkedIn and Twitter: @radixcom.

How to listen:

• You can download the episode here (right-click and select “Save As”).
• Or you can subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts.
• Alternatively, add our RSS to your preferred podcast player.

Credits

• We’d like to thank Jason Miller, for sharing so much content wisdom.
• Cheers to Kate Terry for such a thought provoking question.
• Special mention goes to Ettie Bailey-King for sharing a great copywriting pro tip.
• And heartfelt gratitude to Diane Wiredu – our excellent guest co-host.

Podcast editing and music by Bang and Smash.

Transcript: B2BQ&A 112 – How to keep on top of your B2B content when your product keeps changing?

Kate Terry: How do you keep up with content when your product and business keep evolving into new markets?

Diane Wiredu: That’s a great question. Let’s ask Jason Miller from Tyk.

George Reith: Hello, listener, and welcome to B2BQ&A, the podcast where we go in search of an answer to your question about B2B content writing. This is Episode 112.

Diane: Change is something of a constant in the world of B2B. But when your organisation, its products, and even the entire industry you work in, are constantly changing, how do you make sure your content stays up-to-date and relevant?

Well, in a few moments, content marketing guru Jason Miller will answer that very question, posed by Kate Terry from Unily. Plus, we’ll hear a copywriting pro tip from Ettie Bailey-King.

George: But first, we should introduce ourselves. It’s been a long time since I hosted the Radix podcast. But if you’re a longtime listener, you might remember my dulcet tones.

I’m George Reith, Senior Copywriter at Radix Communications, the B2B writing agency. And today I’m delighted to be joined by Diane Wiredu founder and messaging strategist at Lion Words. Diane, thank you so much for joining us.

Diane: Thank you for having me, I’m excited to help you host.

George: Oh, it’s such a pleasure. And Diane, I hope you don’t mind, but I had a quick look at your LinkedIn and I saw that you’ve done all sorts of things over the years from messaging strategy to translation and everything in between. How do you manage it all?

Diane: There’s been an evolution over the years; many pivots and many sorts of changes in positioning. But, right now I am exclusively focussed on messaging strategy for B2B and B2B Tech – and SaaS in particular.

But, my journey has been quite a linear one, I think. My background was in translation and languages. And I moved into copywriting and the world of copywriting. And from there kind of into the more strategic side of how you actually build a kind of messaging framework that can inform your copy and content.

George: It’s great to hear actually about your own transformation. Considering the theme of today’s episode is very much about change, it sounds like you’ve had a fair few of your own over your career. So, I think you’re well-placed to co-host this one.

Diane: I think so too, yeah.

George: Cool. So, before we get into the meat of it and start answering this episode’s question… Diane, would you mind telling the listener how they can get in touch with the show?

Diane: Sure thing. Listener, if you have any comments or suggestions you can find Radix on LinkedIn or Twitter.

Voiceover: @radixcom.

Diane: Or, if you want us to answer your question on a future episode, record a quick voice note and send it by email.

Voiceover: [e-mail].

George: Thanks very much.

Diane: Now it’s time for our B2BQ&A for this episode. It comes from Unily’s Head of Demand Generation, Kate Terry.

Kate Terry: How do you keep up with content when your product and business keep evolving into new markets?

George: Thanks for your question, Kate.

It’s a thought that’s probably immensely common across the B2B marketing world – we have new technologies constantly coming into play and threatening to change the game. But it’s not just external changes to watch out for. Even changes a company makes to its own products and messaging can risk existing content falling out of vogue very quickly.

So, how do you keep ahead of change and ensure your marketing content stays relevant? To find out, I spoke with Jason Miller – the head of brand and content at Tyk.

If you’ve not come across Tyk before, they offer a full lifecycle API management gateway. So that means the things that businesses use to connect one thing to another. And when you’ve got lots of connections going on, loads of different components keep changing, they have to keep changing, too.

So, I sat down with him and asked how he’s handled industry and technology changes across his illustrious career in B2B marketing. And I asked him Kate’s question directly, “How do you keep up with content and keep it clear, sharp and consistent when your product and business keep changing?”

Jason Miller: So, you know, it’s a great question. I think I would go back to say, “Everything changed, but nothing changed.” Right?

So, even from my days at Marketo, or LinkedIn, or Microsoft, the core fundamentals of the content strategy that I believed in, and that I believe still works to this day, are still there.

You have your core content which is answering the number one question in a customer and prospect’s minds. And, you know, it’s based around what sort of conversation you want to own. That’s sort of what we call the big rock content. And that big rock content’s a stake in the ground – what conversations do you want to own? So that’s your core, that’s always-on stuff, right? I’d say that’s about 75–80% of your content strategy.

Then that 20% is where we put in sort of this intelligent risk content, which is the blog stuff, video stuff. And that’s based on not only, you know, extrapolating, slicing and dicing the big rock content, keeping that always-on strategy. But it’s also carving out some space for experimentation and going after new conversations. Or finding if there’s an appetite for a direction that you want to take that conversation.

So yeah, when you have that big rock, and you have the blog, and you have those two pieces moving, I think that’s core and critical to any piece, any content strategy. And anyone who says anything different? You know, you have to dive into how much can you repurpose and how much value can you extract out of every piece of content? That’s number one.

Number two: is that piece of content necessary?

Number three: how do you activate that content effectively, outside of just checking boxes and pushing it out, and moving on to the next thing?

So, I think it doesn’t matter if your business is changing, or the conversation’s shifting, or if the products evolving, which it obviously should be. It’s a matter of: do you have a core piece of evergreen content that you can evolve with it, that you can put a fresh coat of paint on?

And you treat it like a best-selling book. I mean, you look at something like a classic like The New Rules of PR and Marketing by the great David Meerman Scott, or Ann Handley’s Everybody Writes. These are classic books, essential books, and each year they do a new version of it. Why can’t you just think of your content like that?

So, I’d say that’s worked for the past 10 years, and it continues to work. The channels, the activation strategies aren’t going to change. But again, I don’t think we need to spend too much time trying to reinvent the wheel. Simplify, get back to basics, answer questions, be helpful, and put in those intelligent risks.

George: Just wondering if someone’s listening to that and thinking, “Well, how do I get back to basics? How do I discover like, what is my big rock for my brand?” How’s the best way to go about that?

Jason: There’s no question about what topics we should be creating for our audiences. All the data is out there; from the various numbers of free and paid tools, you can find out within a second, right? So, that’s the data; that approach of what people are searching on.

There’s also the element of what are they not searching on, that value that you provide, that you can put an answer to, or put something out there, or an innovative solution, right?

So, there’s a balance between intent search data, which is core and which should always be on. You should always be looking at and adjusting accordingly. Obviously, that’s going to shift around AI and ChatGPT, and wherever Google goes with this.

But at the end of the day, it’s still pulling from the best of the best of authoritative content. And that’s what we should be trying to address with the best content we can, written with opinions and fact-checked and researched and providing some sort of direction instead of just answering the question.

But, again, it’s as simple as: “What’s the number one question that someone would type into a search engine or type in ChatGPT, that you want to be the best answer for? The most creative answer for? The most helpful answer for? And how do you build on that?”

And the big rock is the core, and every piece of content that comes out of that derivative piece of content – video, podcasts, whatever it may be – just links back and supports that. So, you can own that conversation.

There’s a wealth of content that we know that it’s the content apocalypse, or whatever, I think Mark Schaefer calls it Content Shock. Well, you know, we’re probably on the verge of content shock 3.0 with all the AI-generated stuff coming out. The difference here is, everybody wants to be better storytellers; everybody wants to be more creative.

But we discovered very quickly, and I saw this at Microsoft, I saw this at LinkedIn, that it’s very difficult to tell a very compelling story that stands out and tie it back to the product. We thought it’s super easy. Everybody’s a storyteller, Yadda, yadda, yadda.

Well, it’s hard. And it’s hard to get people to pay attention not because of the attention spans, but because of all the crap that’s out there that’s inundating them. And everyone’s looking for a shortcut to going viral or a shortcut to get engagement.

And if you look at it, you take a step back, and you look at creativity. And creativity has been associated with arts and design, and I think if you take a look at how creativity can be applied to B2B, B2C marketing, whatever, creativity is about finding unique solutions, unique ways to address very complex problems. And the more constraints you have, the more elegant that solution can be.

So, I think if you take that storytelling angle, and you bring in this new definition of creativity, or this revised definition of creativity, and apply that to really good informative content – add opinions, add personality – that’s the piece that we’re missing. That’s the piece that’s going to stand out.

That’s the element that I think we’re missing, and we talk about it so much, but every time a brand gets up to bat and takes a big swing… they seem to get cold feet. And they don’t want to take a risk and they play it safe, and then it gets lost. And that’s what drives me crazy.

George: I’m just wondering if we could talk a little bit about sort of how you guys are navigating that journey and putting that unique value into your content to sort of stave off the change side that we’ve been talking about.

Jason: Out of all the roles I’ve ever had, I think this is the most challenging, but also the most rewarding. I don’t want that to sound cheesy, but marketing to a very technical audience – they don’t like to be marketed to they don’t like the fluff and the snake oil, they like to solve problems. And they like to get to the core, and they like straight talking.

So, it’s almost like everyone should take lessons from marketing to this technical crowd – developers, CIOs, CTOs, architects – because it is challenging, and you have to be real. And they can see through all this fluff and BS.

So, Tyk is an open-source gateway, full lifecycle API management platform, we do lots of different things. But what we’re seeing in the market, and it’s really interesting and I think it’s called a once-in-a-marketing-lifetime opportunity, you’re seeing category creation happen right before your eyes.

APIs are becoming much more mainstream, they used to be very technical, just for developers and architects. But now everyone needs to understand the basics of how you can use APIs to grow and monetise your products, right? So, we’re seeing new audiences come into this very technical world and there’s an opportunity to not only educate them, and build trust with them, but also to create a new category.

It’s always about, you know, educating and building trust. And I think that’s why you’ve seen sort of branding, making a comeback. Now we’re figuring out that no one’s going to click on anything unless they know who you are, and they trust you. And I think that’s the importance of the brand coming around. Brand storytelling, creativity, content, social, all of this is coming back to becoming the most critical piece to moving forward. It’s the only thing we have left, I think in terms of marketing effectively, and in an authentic manner.

George: I’d love to hear from you, Jason, some more like small-scale stories of like, you know, when you’ve been working with Tyk, or even before, when you were with LinkedIn, and Microsoft, you know, were there specific situations where you had a piece of content and something happened that changed it? And you thought, “Okay, we’ve got to go back and do something else with this.”

Or maybe the opposite, where the other people thought something had to be changed, and you were like, “No, no, no, this has got to stay the same.”

Jason: Here’s the thing. Every piece of content that me or my team has ever created at any org has always been created for a purpose rooted in data, right? So if we put it out there, and it doesn’t perform, we don’t give up, and I think that’s the difference, right?

So, we either change the title, we change the copy, we change the creative. I think you keep going, if you know it’s rooted in data, and you know, there’s an appetite for it, I think you need to give it two or three shots.

So, even at LinkedIn, and even at Tyk, we’ve released the same piece of content two or three times, tweaked it, changed the creative, changed the targeting, changed the approach, changed the format.

So, I do see a lot of marketers just being forced into launching and moving on – if it fails, it fails. And I think anything that you create, anything that you bring your team together to put some blood, sweat, and tears into, you need to give it every opportunity.

I’d say after the third time, maybe if you got it wrong, by the third time…

George: Three strikes and you’re out sort of thing, right?

I guess there’s changes that are sort of internal like, say, if you guys at Tyk decide to release a new product set or something like that, you know, that’s a change that you guys are starting and you know, I guess you’d want to create new content around a new product or solution, you’ve released that type of thing.

And there’s obviously change that gets sort of forced upon you by external factors. So, like your market changes, or like, I don’t know, ChatGPT. Suddenly, everybody thinks it’s going to change how your industry operates, and you’re almost reacting to change that’s happening externally.

Do they hit differently for you as a content marketer? Is there a different approach you would take for those different types of changes?

Jason: I think with every time there’s a change, it’s an opportunity, right? There’s an opportunity to answer the biggest questions, but also be a bit of a thought leader. Again, I think these are words that are tossed around way too loosely. But you know, you answer the questions, and you tie it back to how your platform or your solution can help solve that answer or ease that pain. But the biggest opportunities around getting the experts in your company to form an opinion on what this means for that. Right?

So, what does ChatGPT mean for developers or mean for the API world? You know, we have a very outspoken, very opinionated CEO in Martin Buhr, and James Hirst, our co-founders. And so as soon as we see that, as a content team, we go after the big questions with some blog content, video content. But then we go to our leadership and we say, “What does this mean? People need to know what this means?” And they’re looking for someone to take that conversation and share hopefully some good news, but also some things to be maybe cautious about.

So, I don’t see that enough. And I think that’s the biggest opportunity.

George: If you could share one piece of advice for somebody that was in a situation where they were seeing change and were a bit frightened by it. As a content marketer, you know, if you could give them one tip to kind of change their perspective, what would you say to them?

Jason: I mean, the biggest tip for me when I first heard about AI, and I talk a lot about creativity, AI creativity and it’s something I’ve been talking about quite a bit. Was I concerned? Of course.

But here’s the thing, if you have your network of trusted sort of advisors, right – and I know my go-tos right, they’re the Doug Kesslers, the Jay Acunzos, the Ann Handleys – if you have that in place, and these are the folks that you trust in your feed, and that you go to these folks, and this is, again, goes back to that opportunity of that opinion, what does this all mean by a trusted leader who’s got the expertise?

If you have that in place, and you do your own research on the side, those two coming together will alleviate any sort of anxiety or challenge because you have the trusted advisors and you have your own research, and you can form your own opinion.

The part that frightens me is that people just take these text-based posts at face value because they’ve gotten 600 shares or whatever, and they don’t look at where it’s coming from, and they don’t look at the intent on where it’s coming from. Right?

Again, and this goes back to every good marketer, every good content marketer every like, even as a photographer as a creative, who are your 10 to 12 sources, that you have an individual feed or you subscribe to the newsletters, and these are the ones that you trust in, believe in, that you’ve built up over time. There’s always some new ones coming in, but just see where they’re coming from. And make sure that they’re coming from a place of good intent, and not trying to take advantage of the situation, right?

So, it’s your responsibility – there’s no shortage of experts and opinions out there, it’s how you curate them, and how you build trust or trust those folks to keep you in a good place.

George: Thanks, Jason, for your insightful response to a very tricky question. It’s interesting to hear that yes, there are plenty of ways savvy marketers can create content that stands the test of time, and resists change.

So, Diane, what stood out for you there?

Diane: Yeah, I think it was a really great answer, actually. There were a few different parts that stood out to me.

One, the key thing about having, big rock content, right? And also this idea of, if you have evergreen content that you can just slap a fresh coat of paint on.

I think that’s a really great place to start. Because when it comes to content, there’s a lot of talk about creation, and not as much talk about repurposing, re-igniting, I guess, redistributing, looking at one piece that you have, and actually looking for different angles, different points of views, different ways to share them, and kind of elaborate on those.

So, I think that that was a really great place to start in probably the same place, I would have started with my answer as well.

George: Yeah, absolutely. I think it ties in with something he said at the end, that actually really stood out for me, which is: if you know an idea is good, you kind of need to give it a few tries. He mentioned this idea of like he might try something two or three times and you know, you might put it out there and it doesn’t get the engagement you expect. But you know, the idea is good.

So you’ve tweaked the PPC adverts that link through to whatever piece you’ve produced something like that, you tweak a few things and give it another try, because you kind of have that confidence in it.

And, I think that kind of goes back to what you were saying about, you know, almost you can give something a new lease of life by repackaging it and give it that second chance that it might deserve to kind of actually break through and well, go viral – I say in sort of quotation marks – as much as anything in B2B goes viral.

I’m curious about how you felt when I was interviewing Jason. I almost hoped we were doing good justice to Kate’s question, because I think it’s such an interesting idea of all these different forms of change. But I kind of love that Jason almost just took it to a different angle and was like, “You know, what, don’t worry about change. What’s evergreen is you need to tell a good story.” Like, “Forget about change, don’t worry about that. You’ve got to focus on making your content just really good to read.”

And so I thought it was quite an interesting way to tackle that and think about, you know, becoming better storytellers. And how hard that is. I mean, well, it resonated with me from a writing perspective. I don’t know how you felt about that, Diane.

Diane: Yeah, I do think that was a really great point as well. And I think that coming from that angle, it’s almost like kind of “Disregard the idea of change. So, I know that’s your question, but let’s put it to the side for a minute.”

And really thinking about not just the quality and actually really great storytelling, but one thing that I think is incredibly important is this idea of having a strong point of view at the core of thought leadership, which is a phrase that gets thrown around a lot. And it’s like, well, the phrase does begin with “thought”. So you do have to have a really strong thought on something and some kind of opinion.

And, you know, it doesn’t always have to be based around change, I think that a really interesting way of looking at how you approach content in times of change is, well, all of these trends are happening, and there’s a lot of change happening around you, what are you constant about? And that might also be a different way of looking at things.

I know that in the work that I do with my clients, helping them create a messaging strategy. One of the key things that we work on is, you know, what is your point of view? What is your point of view about the changing landscape and about the industry in which you operate?

Because there’s often a huge shift happening, and your customers and prospects are often coming to you to help them kind of solve a problem. And so, what is it that you stand for? And I think that’s also a really great way of looking at building out evergreen content and different ways to approach that theme or that topic that you can own.

George: Absolutely. It’s really interesting to hear about your experiences from the sort of strategy and messaging side with your own clients, and how these same topics apply really whatever sort of area of the marketing piece you come in from, it all has the same sort of foundational requirements to meet something that’s really good and will stand the test of time.

I’m also wondering, I know this wasn’t necessarily directly what Kate was getting at with the question, but it struck me that, at one point, Jason and I wound up talking quite a bit about ChatGPT. Because you know, I think that the generative AI technology that’s coming in does pose a really fundamental change; maybe one of the biggest changes potentially, we’ve seen for a lot of industries in a long time.

And again, I think the idea that a lot of these technologies, all they can do is sort of repackage things that are already out there and that they’ve been trained on, right?

So, the idea that you can counter that by just having your own unique perspective as a human is quite a sort of empowering way, I think of looking at a new technology that I imagine a lot of marketers are sort of finding a bit scary that this stuff can come out and produce stuff that sounds like real copy.

I don’t know if you’ve sort of had to play around with any of these technologies, Diane, and have your own perspective on that sort of change coming in.

Diane: I think I’m most interested in using AI from a process-oriented perspective to bring operational efficiencies into the way that I work. Definitely, in terms of maybe summarising, synthesising data, and helping me find themes.

But, particularly because a lot of the work that I do is based on the company’s strategy, based on interviewing founders, really kind of human-to-human understanding your perspective and your point of view, and brainstorming and workshopping, and all that kind of stuff. So I’m not too worried about AI from that perspective, but I do see that it can bring a lot of value in other areas.

Jason was talking about, you know, if you’ve got a question, if you’ve got to answer a question, or you’re going to type a question into a search engine, and then kind of spew an answer… If that’s the type of content you’re producing, then you really need to add another layer on top.

George: And I think, you know, Jason made a really good point as well about how that change with generative AI, and also lots of other changes, they do create that sort of opportunity, like you said, to have a unique thought that positions you as a thought leader and leads into thought leadership content.

Speaking of which, one final thing Jason said, that really jumped out to me that I’d love to discuss with you is this idea of him saying that when there’s change happening in your industry, and it’s kind of scary, what do you do? And he suggested turning to these people that you trust, voices in your industry that you know will have a good thought about it.

I’m just wondering, do you have any particular people that you trust as a sort of trusted voice within the industry? What kind of things would you recommend for people looking for those trusted sources of information?

Diane: Yeah, I think this was a really great point. And I think it really depends on your industry, the industry in which you’re operating, and whether you’re looking for voices who operate in that industry, or who have this sort of same role as you. You know, marketers follow marketers, or CEOs and leadership, also following other leaders to hear how kind of how they’re addressing the challenges in their org. Or whether you’re sort of trying to listen to, you know, top voices within tech or AI.

One thing that I think I’ve fallen into the trap of is living in a bit of a vacuum. You know, marketers like to talk to other marketers, and sometimes you go on LinkedIn, and we’re just marketing to each other. And I’m trying to kind of expand my network now and really connect with and follow and listen to podcasts. really out of my realm of expertise, and I think that we don’t talk about that enough.

And so I would perhaps suggest that as well. I want to be up to date on what is happening and so I’m also kind of connecting with and following people on LinkedIn who are kind of top voices in those arenas.

So I would say play around, look through your network, and then sort of branch out. If you’re listening to the same podcasts and reading the same newsletters, I would say ask around beyond your industry and also beyond your role in the org.

George: It’s interesting, what you mentioned about sort of slowly branching out as well because I think when people think about building a network, they think it’s something they can just snap their fingers and have hundreds of people they’ll turn to for trusted information.

But, I know speaking to both you and Jason – people who’ve done all sorts of things in their careers – I imagine it’s a slow process. You slowly start to branch out and see who’s trustworthy, who has the best thoughts about things, who’s covering the latest topics, and you’re building that up piece by piece.

Diane: Listening to or reading thoughts from people who have big followings is great. But bear in mind that often the bigger your following is because you’re sometimes putting out a bit more generic content that is more palatable to the masses. And so I also think it’s worth connecting with – and listening to – underrepresented voices as well.

So, don’t always just go out there and say, “Okay, which are the top 10 marketing leaders, thought leaders, which are the top five marketing podcasts?” Also listen to some of those that are not being spoken about, and that aren’t at the top of everyone’s list, because there are a lot of people doing brilliant things. And I think that diversity of voices and diversity of thought is also incredibly important when it comes to content and improving your own thought process.

George: Absolutely. I couldn’t agree more. It’s a really great idea.

So, Diane, in the interview with Jason, he had this really interesting idea, this model of big rock content that stays the same; little rock content that doesn’t. And I’m wondering if you’ve had any strategies when you’ve been working with your clients to kind of establish those big rock things that don’t change and kind of still stand up and help you create content, even if things are changing and that content’s still relevant?

Diane: Yeah, it definitely is. I think that this links really nicely to an element that I work on with my clients when helping them build out a messaging strategy. And that’s the concept of having key messaging pillars.

So, if you’re creating key messaging pillars at the company level, so these things that you own in your customers’ minds and your prospects’ minds, a few topics, or themes or ideas that you can completely own and go after, that you want to be remembered for. It makes, obviously, creating content around these things a lot easier. And I think that once you have those as well, it’s easier to kind of stay rooted and stay grounded in one thing, even if there are trends consistently changing.

So I think that we talk a little bit in content about having content pillars, and it’s the same as sort of the messaging in your company strategy – you should also have very clear messaging pillars so that everything that you produce from copy and content is also kind of grounded and revolves around those themes.

George: Before we wrap this episode up, it’s time for our copywriting pro tip.

Voiceover: Copywriting pro tip

Ettie Bailey-King: Constantly ask, “What’s in it for me?” to get in your reader’s mindset.

Diane: Thanks, Ettie, that’s an amazing piece of advice for writing and probably many other professions as well. I know I use this daily in my work.

George: As do I. Well, with that then, we’ve reached the end of today’s episode. So, Diane, thank you so much for co-hosting again, it’s been a real pleasure to speak with you today. Thank you.

Diane: Thanks for having me. We should also thank Jason Miller for answering our question, Ettie for the pro tip, and of course, Kate Terry for asking the question that prompted today’s episode.

George: Thanks to everyone that contributed to today’s episode. Remember, listener, next time, it could be your question that we answer.

Voiceover: If you have a question for B2BQ&A to answer, email, a voice memo to [e-mail]. Or find us on social media.

George: We’ll be back soon for another B2BQ&A. Until then, take it easy and remember change is the only constant although the need for good storytelling is pretty constant too.

Diane and George: Goodbye.

The post B2BQ&A 112: How can B2B content stay consistent when everything changes? appeared first on Radix.