Steve MacDonald: You and I are both very vested in content, right? And believers in content by the companies we are in and the roles that we play. But if you had to put the importance of content on a scale of its overall impact on the business’s success, where 1 equals “not at all” and 10 is that content is vital to that success—where would you put content on that scale, 1 to 10?

Mariana Just: It’s vital. I think it’s oxygen. I think the future of content is this concept of content as an asset. What is your content worth? And a lot of organizations are not talking enough about the value of content. We know how much a lead costs, and we know how much an opportunity costs, but we are not talking enough about the cost of content and this concept of content as an asset.

So it’s absolutely vital. I sometimes like to make provocative statements. One of the ones I make is that there is no demand generation without content. And sometimes, I will talk to organizations who come in and say I need to build my demand gen function and that engine, and I’ll bring content in later.

Absolutely not! You either need to have that content machine going, or you bring them both together at the same time. But it is absolutely vital.

Steve MacDonald: And the reason why it’s vital is that what demand gen is promoting is content.

Mariana Just: That’s the product. Yeah. That’s what we are using to educate.

It’s to provide a wonderful customer experience throughout all the stages of the buying cycle. From that very top-of-the-funnel content down to onboarding to customer success to customer marketing, it is absolutely vital throughout the entire funnel.

Steve MacDonald: There’s going to be some people that are listening here that are saying, yes, I agree. Tell us more about when you think about content, about thought leadership content versus product marketing content that you’re putting out in demand gen campaigns. How are you, in your mind, separating out the different kinds of content that we should be creating?

Mariana Just: I think different content serves different purposes, and they can serve different people in different stages. An executive team is probably going to care more about thought leadership content.

They want to hear from other C-level executives. So writing that way, you probably don’t want a lead form in front of something you will offer to an executive team, right? So there is thinking about what the executive leader wants and needs versus the person that’s doing the evaluation of the product.

Oftentimes it’s a C-level executive saying, go evaluate this. Come back to me. And to that person that’s evaluating, you’re giving them more tactical, maybe educational content about how to go about, let’s say, using Acrolinx, right? Whereas that C-level person might want to hear from my CMO and may want to come to a fireside chat, right? And hear from other like-minded people. 

So that distinction is very, very important. And again, keep your audience in mind. Who are they, and where do they like to look at content and read content? What types of content do they prefer, and build your ecosystem? 

Steve MacDonald: You know, it’s interesting about thought leadership content.

It impacts the top of the funnel. It impacts the bottom of the funnel. There’s a stat, 56% of the B2B buying decisions are actually emotionally based. So the company, certainly its products, its features, the solutions have to make sense, right? Acrolinx may be in a very different situation than many people that are listening right now, where they have a number of different competitors that offer very, very similar solutions.

So about thought leadership content, I wanted your opinion on that to share with everyone. Providing a reason to believe that you as a company are experts in the industry, right? You’ve created confidence with those buyers that are making those decisions. They want to know where the industry is going, right?

They want to hear a point of view that they’re not hearing from everyone else. 

Mariana Just: Yes. A hundred percent.

Steve MacDonald: There’s a big role, in fact, that these decisions that are being made, lots of times, are being made on a risk-averse basis, very emotionally charged. What’s your thought in terms of the importance of thought leadership, content, and impact on the pipeline and revenue?

Mariana Just: Yeah, I thought you said something interesting, which is developing that opinion, right? And I think thought leadership is a lot about that. You are saying something with authority, and you are distributing that out.

We see that so much today with a lot of influencers who are sharing their opinion, and now you’ve got a flock of people following them and going by what they say. I think that that’s really important. Develop your opinion and your narrative and build towards that, right? 

It can come in the form of a podcast. It can come in the form of a fireside chat and bring people together in this community. It is incredibly important, and it’s been very helpful in our ability to continue to generate pipeline and to accelerate that pipeline. We bring a lot of our prospects together in this format, a community format, where they’re hearing from other customers, and they’re hearing from thought leaders.

I think that that helps develop trust. Build that trust. And when they hear from a customer and that we’ve got that executive in the room. I think it’s very, very important. And as you said, the emotional aspect of it, when you’ve got that trust built, it is very important.

People want to see that.

Steve MacDonald: I love what you’re talking about here because there’s trust in numbers, and there’s a number of other customers and executives and thought leaders that are very like-minded and talking about how important it is, what your company is doing, what you allow your prospects and your customers to do—that gives a safety zone, that gives confidence, right?

Mariana Just: A hundred percent. I wish more companies did it. As a buyer of software, especially MarTech, I look at many of our vendors as, okay, do you have an opinion about this? What can you tell me? What’s happening in the industry right now? How are your customers doing? I actually feel like a lot of companies don’t do this enough, and it is incredibly, incredibly valuable.

Steve MacDonald: And no company wants to be a vendor, right? We want to be partners with our customers, a solution provider. Right?

And everything that you’ve just been talking about here takes you from a vendor to a partner, and a partner is going to help with the overall success of their customers. And so that translates. Yes, it resonates from what you do, but how it impacts the greater industry and its success. Just selling on features and benefits and not bringing that greater conversation together and leading that conversation pretty much is going to guarantee you to relegate yourself to being a vendor in the industry.

Mariana Just: Yes, a hundred percent. You don’t want to just be that, that vendor. You want to be that partner. And there are many ways to do that. 

Steve MacDonald: Yes. so very important. Well, Marianna, thank you very much. I almost don’t want to stop the conversation. 

Mariana Just: I love this. I absolutely love it. Thank you for having me. This has been a fabulous conversation. I hope we can do it again soon.