Walking Dead Tips for Content Marketing Strategy Buy-In

When you’re trying to get buy-in for a new content marketing strategy, the landscape can appear bleak. Perhaps your company doesn’t understand that a great content marketing strategy is the path to not just surviving in a competitive market—but thriving. How can you pull together a great team, then get everyone working together so your impending kick-ass content marketing strategy rolls out successfully? Are you a hardy survivalist or already one of the herd?

1. Assemble a Killer Team

The most important aspect of survival is teamwork. You can’t fight walkers with a weak team. Everyone has to be all-in. Each member of your team should be aware of responsibilities and task deadlines, well prepared, and responsive to threats (and leads).

Here are a few tips to get everyone on board:

• Start at the top. Your problem might be the boss. Sales managers and decision makers often demand immediate results. If you have The Governor on your team, you need a plan to convince him that long-term content marketing benefits (increased visibility, enhanced customer interaction, better branding, voice and reputation, reduced cost per lead, and improved lead quality) are far more worthwhile than old-fashioned scorched earth attacks.
• Introduce your teams. Integrate sales and marketing. Not everybody can fight walkers with Michonne’s level of calm, but somebody’s got to tend to the farming. When teams understand how everything fits together, the whole operation runs more smoothly. Every member of your organization needs to understand their role in content production—and that everyone can play an important role. After all, when the plants don’t get watered, nobody gets fed.
• Pull in the same direction. Tyreese’s inherent peaceful nature may enrich the group dynamic, but in the end, it’s kill or be killed. It can be downright annoying when people have different agendas. Sharing ideas is one thing; undermining the group is quite another.
• Offer team and individual incentives that help pull everyone together. Just be careful not to exclusively tie marketing incentives directly to sales results. That’s likely to result in an endless blame game.

2. Stockpile Your Supplies

A successful content marketing strategy is crucial for long-term buy-in. Your must-have successful-content-marketing-strategy survivalist kit includes:

• Authority – A consistent, well-established voice that’s authoritative, strong, and solid. That’s your Rick Grimes.
• Food – Fresh content, to nourish your existing group (customer base) and so new survivors (prospects) can easily find you and learn more about you. For practical ideas about how you can nourish your customer base, download our free Growth Cycle Marketing eBook.
• Weapons – Use email marketing and social media best practices to safely lure more customers into your sales funnel. Now you can pick them off with precise weaponry. (We’re talkin’ customer rewards and targeted offers here, folks—let’s not get carried away…)

3. Reinforce your Fortress

If you’re a fan of The Walking Dead, you already know any fortress can be breached. The same is true on the web. Your content marketing fortress stands as long as you produce quality content that creates visible results—so know that to survive you must also adapt as new technology and new content platforms emerge or change. The long-term survival of your content marketing strategy buy-in depends on it!

Don’t be Lizzie. You can’t play with the herd and survive. Be Darryl and Carol. Keep a clear head, work as a team, get results, and be prepared for anything. When you respond to every new opportunity with a sound strategy—you’ll come out on top every time. It’s all about surviving together.