Developing Engaging Content from Consumer Insights

B2B tech companies are addicted to getting you to subscribe to their corporate echo chamber newsletter graveyard, where they dump their latest self-love notes. It's a cesspool of "Look at us!" and "We're pleased to announce..." drivel that suffocates originality and murders interest. Each link, each event recap and each funding announcement is another shovel of dirt on the grave of what could have been engaging content. UNSUBSCRIBE What if, instead of serving up the same old reheated corporate leftovers, your content could slap your audience awake? Ego-stroking company updates are out. 1. The pain point deep dive: Start by mining the deepest anxieties, challenges and questions your audience faces. Use forums, social media, customer feedback and even direct interviews to uncover the raw nerve you're going to press. 2. The unconventional wisdom: Challenge the status quo of your industry. If everyone's zigging, you zag. This could mean debunking widely held beliefs, proposing counterintuitive strategies or sharing insights that only insiders know but don't talk about. Be the mythbuster of your domain. 3. The narrative hook: Every piece of content should tell a story, and every story needs a hook that grabs from the first sentence. Use vivid imagery, compelling questions or startling statements to make it impossible to scroll past. Your opening should be a rabbit hole inviting Alice to jump in. 4. The value payload: This is the core of your content. Each piece should deliver actionable insights, deep dives or transformative information. Give your audience something so valuable that they can't help but use, save and share it. Think tutorials, step-by-step guides or even entertaining content that delivers laughs or awe alongside insight. 5. The personal touch: Inject your personality or brand's voice into every piece. Share personal anecdotes, failures and successes. 6. The engagement spark: End with a call to action that encourages interaction. Ask a provocative question, encourage them to share their own stories or challenge them to apply what they've learned and share the results. Engagement breeds community, and community amplifies your reach. 7. The multi-platform siege: Repurpose your anchor content across platforms. Turn blog posts into podcast episodes, summaries into tweets or LinkedIn posts and key insights into Instagram stories. Each piece of content should work as a squad, covering different fronts but pushing the same message. Without impressive anchor content, you won't have anything worth a lick in your newsletter. 8. The audience dialogue: Engage directly with your audience's feedback. Respond to comments, ask for their input on future topics and even involve them in content creation through surveys or co-creation opportunities. Make your content worth spreading, and watch as your audience does the heavy lifting for you. And please stop with the corporate navel-gazing. #newsletters #b2btech #ThatAshleyAmber

Demand gen is utterly broken. It's overly complicated & lacks the soul and creativity that consumers deserve. I promise there's a better way. Here's the 3-pronged content engine we're building for companies at storyarb: Principles: - Treat your content as the product, not as marketing for another product - Unique insights + Unique voice + Unique packaging = Unique content - Pick topics that make your Market of 1 better at their job Channels: 1) Deeply researched long-form content Purpose: create data-driven OR interview-based website content that is deep enough & insightful enough such that a reader feels the need to bookmark & reference later. Good examples: Lenny Rachitsky: "How the biggest consumer apps got first 1,000 users" - Lenny interviewed hundreds of founders, identified patterns, and broke down the seven strategies consumer apps used to grow. Carta: "State of Private Markets: Q3 2024" Report - Using tons of internal funding data by Carta customers to pull together trends in startup funding for the quarter. HubSpot: "My First Million's Business Idea Database" - Aggregating & organizing 57 startup ideas shared by past MFM podcast guests into an e-mail gated database 2) Editorial email newsletter Purpose: create the best industry read for your market of 1 that allows you to build an owned audience of current/future customers. Good examples: - Content Examined by Alex Garcia: the best read for consumer content marketers, which acts as a perfect nurturing tool for his community, course, and agency - Big Desk Energy by Tyler Denk 🐝: a window into building a high-growth startup as it's happening by the founder of beehiiv - Exploding Topics: a snapshot of 4 emerging trends (based on google search data) that founders & investors should be aware of. 3) Personal brand social content Purpose: allow your market of 1 to build a parasocial relationship with your company through 1-4 personalities (execs, founders, etc) who enable connection with your faceless brand. Good examples: - Adam Robinson: fully transparent monthly breakdowns of his companies' (Retention.com & RB2B) performance with lessons learned & plans to fix key issues - Peter Walker: Head of Insights at Carta uses first party data from the company to share unique startup ecosystem trends + his own POV - Kieran Flanagan: AI & GTM expert who shares deep marketing insights, playbooks, and predictions that help build his & HubSpot's brand If you want help building this 3-pronged engine at your company, shoot me a DM or email at alex@storyarb[.]com.

If I were hired as the VP of Marketing at a B2B company with long sales cycles, here’s how I’d build a killer demand gen engine from scratch: 1. Interview your 10 best customers and analyze 20 recent sales call recordings to uncover the pain points and challenges your buyers are currently facing. 2. Use these insights to develop content pillars and topics. 3. Identify 3-5 internal subject matter experts (SMEs) who are comfortable on camera and willing to build their LinkedIn presence. Preferably include 1-2 people from the executive team. 4. Conduct bi-weekly interviews with each SME on the topics identified in step 2. 5. Turn each interview recording into 1 long-form article, 5 video clips and 10 LinkedIn posts. 6. Publish this content on the personal LinkedIn profiles of your SMEs (3-5 times per week). 7. Publish the article and video clips on the website, repurpose the interview recording for YouTube, and create a weekly newsletter with the best insights from the interviews. 8. After 3 months, start running LinkedIn Thought Leader Ads to promote your SMEs' top-performing posts to target accounts. 9. Launch a LinkedIn employee advocacy program to turn your employees into a powerful organic marketing channel. We can reuse the content we created in step 6 to fuel this program. _____ This approach has a few key principles: ✅ Customer research should be the foundation of any content strategy—it’s the only way to create content that actually resonates with your buyers. ✅ Your buyers are looking for expert insights to help solve their challenges, so interviewing your SMEs is a crucial step to create highly effective content. ✅ Your buyers spend most of their time on LinkedIn, not on your website. Your distribution strategy should reflect this. ✅ Paid social should mainly be used for content distribution, not lead generation. Would you rather pay $150 for 30 decision makers in your target accounts to read your case study, or $150 for just one person to download your ebook? _____ 💡 Want ideas & recommendations for your 2025 content strategy? For March, we have 2 spots left for a 𝗳𝗿𝗲𝗲 𝗰𝗼𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝘀𝘁𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗲𝗴𝘆 𝗮𝘂𝗱𝗶𝘁—specifically designed for B2B tech & consulting firms with long sales cycles. Here's what you'll get: • 𝗖𝗼𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗔𝘂𝗱𝗶𝘁 + 𝗚𝗮𝗽 𝗔𝗻𝗮𝗹𝘆𝘀𝗶𝘀: Our analysis of your content & distribution strategy—uncovering gaps, blind spots, and opportunities for improvement. • 𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟱 𝗖𝗼𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗦𝘁𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗲𝗴𝘆 𝗥𝗲𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗺𝗲𝗻𝗱𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀: Actionable ideas to build a top-performing content strategy for 2025, based on what’s driving success for 50+ B2B tech & consulting firms we’ve worked with. No strings attached, just valuable insights :) Book your session here: https://lnkd.in/eSEMsnb9

Consumer Trust in Advertising Is Growing, Especially Among Younger Audiences. Marketers often chase performance metrics but overlook something more valuable: trust. The good news is that trust is rising and redefining how modern consumers connect with brands. Here’s what the data tells us: • Trust in advertising among 18 to 34 year olds has increased by 16 points since 2022  • 54 percent of consumers trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations. This is not just a trend. It is a shift in how trust is earned and how purchase decisions are made.Younger demographics are not against advertising. They are against inauthenticity. So how do you earn their trust and convert attention into loyalty? Five Trust Building Tactics Backed by Behavior 1. Prioritize Social Content That Feels Native, Not Promotional Social content is where consumers explore and evaluate. Short videos, behind the scenes clips, and real customer stories perform better than polished campaigns. These formats build familiarity and connection faster than static ads ever could. 2. Let Authentic Reviews Do the Talking Real feedback from real users creates social proof. Screenshots, testimonials, and casual shoutouts provide context and credibility. People trust people, not taglines. 3. Start Conversations, Not Just Campaigns Engage directly. Answer questions, respond to comments, and participate in real time. Direct engagement shows there is a human behind the brand, which builds rapport and retention. 4. Be Transparent From the First Click No hidden pricing, no buried terms. Clarity from the start creates a sense of fairness, which leads to stronger trust and fewer abandoned journeys. 5. Partner With Trusted Creators Over Big Influencers The right creator has earned credibility with their audience. That relationship translates into more meaningful attention and better alignment with your brand’s values. If trust drives buying decisions, then content today should feel more like a conversation than a campaign. Want to create content that builds trust, converts customers, and fuels growth? Message me and let us bring your brand to life through the stories your audience already wants to hear.

We didn’t think much of adding a headshot tile of the LO and Agent inside FinLocker. It turned out to have a huge impact. When we first added loan officer and agent profile tiles to FinLocker, it was purely operational. If an LO invited a consumer to the platform, we wanted to show their information. But something unexpected happened. Consumers started viewing those tiles differently than we intended. They saw: "I've got a team behind me. I've got support. I've got people who care about helping me get ready." This small UX decision created trust—the foundation of any successful financial relationship. The truth is, "consumer engagement" isn't about publishing content websites. It's about: • Meeting consumers where they are • Showing them you understand their challenges • Demonstrating you're on their side • Humanizing complex financial processes and situations Think about why people love shopping at Nordstrom (despite the higher prices). The moment you walk in, you feel like the most important person to every employee. You know they'll accept returns no matter what. The experience builds trust. When financial institutions engage with consumer education and empathy, they're not just sharing information—they're: • Building relationships before transactions • Creating bonds that are hard to sever • Earning loyalty that transcends price competition • Demonstrating competence through helpfulness Education isn't simply explaining what an APR is. Real engagement is contextual and relevant to the consumer's specific situation. It's showing a 51% DTI on THEIR numbers, then explaining what that means for THEIR journey. Remember: You can't fake caring about consumers. They'll see right through it. But when education comes from a genuine desire to help, it creates the most powerful differentiator in financial services: Trust.