How Concord Is Turning Heads With Content

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There is a lot of content out there. From written to aural to visual, the content never stops. Customers are becoming experts at tuning out noise which is good for their sanity but bad for business.
Travis has found that when it comes to breaking through the wall of self-imposed silence, quality trumps quantity every time.
Employing the content pyramid ensures there is an easy-to-digest theme running throughout your site that reinforces your message to consumers. Using one major piece to inspire smaller bits of content also helps focus and unify your sales and marketing team across the organization.
Another trick Travis has discovered is that if your content is good enough, you don’t need to walk your customer through the funnel. You can set good content up like a line of dominoes, and with a little Netflix-esque magic, your potential customer will be more than happy to go down that content rabbit hole towards a sale.

In This Episode

• Why standing out in a crowded market means asking yourself two questions: how are you presenting yourself on your website and how you are presenting yourself through the content funnel
• How speaking to the silo leads to breaking down the wall for new customers
• Why successfully walking your customer through the content funnel means incorporating some Netflix ideas
• How actual customer testimonials lead to a better profile and better sales

Quotes From This Episode

“You can’t market to everyone, and you can’t sell to everyone.” —@travisbickham
“The content pyramid keeps you honest in your content creation and also keeps your content very clear and focused.” —@travisbickham

“We have a unique perspective that a company on the inside that’s looking in their own silo might not. We want to give that knowledge to all of our prospects and all of our customers and hand them something of value right out the gates.” —@travisbickham

“We want to give people the Netflix experience.” —@travisbickham
People are happy to consume your content if it's good enough. Click To Tweet
“If it’s not good enough to go in the New York Times or the Economist or on TV, it shouldn’t be good enough for our website because that’s what people have come to expect in 2017.” —@travisbickham
“You have to have happy customers, but you have to get those happy customers on video or on your blog talking about what they were doing because they’re on the front lines of it.” —@travisbickham
“The point is to let our prospects understand that we know what they’re going through and we want to learn more, and we’re here to help.” —@travisbickham
80% of the buyer journey happens before they even talk to sales. Click To Tweet
“I’ve always been a believer that inbound feeds outbound.” —@travisbickham
There's no point in doing personalization if you're not going to take it all the way home. Click To Tweet
“As marketing, we have to make sales peoples’ lives as easy as possible.” —@travisbickham

Resources

• Travis Bickham on Twitter: @travisbickham
• Concord: Blog, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn

Content Pros Lightning Round

Can you talk a little bit about your varied background and some of the media outlets you’ve written for in the past? My background is in writing. I have done some writing for Forbes. When I was working in finance, I took a leave of absence to spend time on the business desk at the Economist, both in London and New York. That was a really amazing experience because it’s really writing at its finest. It taught me that content takes time. It taught me that there’s no substitute for good research and quality.
Having won a NCAA Championship in water polo, tell us what you’ve learned in water polo that applies to your life as a marketer. That experience teaches you really the value of being on a team, learning to rely on other people. When other people rely on you to do your best, you’re going to do your best if you care about them and you care about the end goal.