Changes never go down well. Often, it takes coming almost to the brink of disaster to get management to realize the company needs a new direction. If your retirement community is in dire need of marketing help but you simply don’t have the budget for it, content marketing could give you the solution you need. Getting management to accept a “new-fangled” approach could be challenging, though. Here are a few ways to persuade them to buy into the idea.
Show Me the Money!
Money talks, no question about that. The great thing about content marketing is that it’s really cost-effective compared with traditional forms of marketing, so when budgets are tight it’s an excellent option. Show your top management the money by outlining the budget you’ll need to create and deliver a campaign compared with a typical outbound marketing campaign using media such as billboards, television, radio and print advertising. You can be sure they’ll like the numbers!
Present the Proof
A great idea is truly great only if it works, so your execs are going to want to see some proof of the pudding before they’ll be prepared to consider your suggestion. Show them stats like these from the Content Marketing Institute’s 2013 report on B2C Content Marketing Benchmarks, Budgets and Trends – North America:
- 84 percent of B2C marketers use social media marketing and articles on their websites effectively
- 62 percent believe email marketing newsletters are an effective form of marketing
- 55 percent of B2C marketers plan to increase their spending on content marketing over the next 12 months
- The most effective marketers spend a higher percentage of marketing budget on content (average expenditure is 37 percent)
At the very least, this should convince your higher-ups to allocate some money towards content marketing and give you a chance to prove your point.
Identify Resources
One of the main objections to introducing a new form of marketing is always “so who’s going to do the work?” Pre-empt the question by identifying a resource to produce your content before presenting your proposal, so you don’t get caught out on the issue. Your resource could be a freelance content writer, a content management agency or an in-house staff member who has experience with content marketing and search engine optimization. Present the plan along with a draft editorial calendar showing how / where you would source content and who would be responsible for each task.
Manage Expectations
Take care not to generate expectations that you can’t match. Avoid promising incredible results until you get the campaign going, because you might have problems that need sorting out before you can deliver. Negotiate a realistic timeline in which to show progress, allowing for a couple of false starts and changes to the plan if necessary. You should also ensure that you have tracking options in place to monitor the results, because you’re going to need conclusive evidence to win over the nay-sayers.
Content marketing can deliver exceptional results if you get it right, and as long as your management gives you the chance to prove it you could turn your business around completely.
