Crafting Compelling, Customer-Centric Content

4 Comments

1. Tony
   November 30, 2018 @ 8:11 am

   Dear Mr, Blessington.

   So much going on in my head after reading your whitepaper
   I don’t know where to start. By the beginning perhaps?
   One word: Genius. That’s what came to my head after reading this content manifesto.
   The most helpful whitepaper of 2018 by a long shot.

   I feel like I stumbled upon a well-kept secret. There is no doubt that other people could have charged some serious money for this type of information. Consentric Marketing has taken the definition of providing value to a whole different level and settled an important precedent. No doubt about that.

   With this whitepaper, I realize how far a lot of companies are to create content aligned with the customer journey and their jobs-TBD. It’s also a big opportunity for those who are willing to put the hard work.

   Your other work and articles deserve also mentioning and praise.
   All the Customer-Journeys that I have seen don’t resemble anything at all like yours. It’s incredible how the customer-journey and ODI work so well together. I only knew about its use in breaking down the job into discrete steps and the other parts of the process/framework. But ODI used as a foundation for the Customer-Journey is a novelty to me and a pleasant surprise.

   This type of whitepapers answers a lot of doubts and provides a lot of useful information. But at the same time, more questions arise, and there’s an almost urgent need to know more about such a fascinating concept.

   Is there a way to learn more via some examples of content created following the points in this whitepaper? If you have any recommendation, please do not hesitate to tell me.
   Do you think that it will be possible to gather all the customer-journey steps on a website? Especially in a non-linear way?

   I have seen some work by Evolve Digital ( a DM agency which uses ODI for its projects) where they structure sites using the job map. But I don’t know if their sites also follow the Customer-Journey. Merging the two on a website seems complicated. But I also think that it depends on the Job, I could be wrong.

   Sorry for this long comment. But ODI and anything related passionates me and writing becomes inevitable.
   Thank you again for proving such useful information.

   Consentric Marketing has a very bright future ahead; there’s no doubt about it.

   With kind regards,

   Reply

2. Mark Blessington
   November 30, 2018 @ 8:23 am

   Hi Tony, Thank you for your comment. We are pleased the whitepaper was useful. Your request for examples would be a great companion piece. We will try to put something out on that soon. We merge jobs-to-be-done (JTBD) and journeys by looking for the most important jobs for major steps in the journey. We also tend to create content that addresses multiple journey stages, rather than just one. I think you are right that it gets too complicated if a website and its content is segmented for each JTBD.

   Reply

3. Tony
   December 1, 2018 @ 11:00 pm

   Thank you for your response.

   It’s something that not your average internet marketer could do that’s for sure.
   The Casper website example you gave is an excellent example of how to communicate a Job. I am not an innovator or a marketing expert like you. But I feel that some companies struggle more in providing a well-written content cause of the Job they are addressing. I think that there are essential daily jobs where customers go through the minimum amount of content to learn and get results.

   No doubt that Tech/software/Saas companies, providers and the like have a natural advantage regarding content over other industries where the job is pretty straightforward and thus, no urgent need for a lot of quality content. I have wondered how these type of companies involved in those industries can compensate.
   That’s, of course, my personal opinion.

   Perhaps Casper has arrived at a similar conclusion because they haven’t written a blog entry in more than a year. This, of course, doesn’t mean that they aren’t helping their customer in getting a job done.
   Whit this, another problem arises. Publishing content for the sake of pleasing the search engines. Google loves good and fresh content. Content is king according to them. But what happens when companies have already published enough content to help their customers achieve a job in the most effective way possible.

   Start writing about related jobs? Even if a company doesn’t address them? Stop publishing content?
   Perhaps some companies addressing specific jobs should depend on other web traffic channels to avoid being manipulated by Google by publishing content just for the sake of it.
   Merging SEO+Content Marketing+ODI seems almost like a supernatural ability.

   Thanks again!

   Reply

4. Mark Blessington
   December 2, 2018 @ 7:13 am

   Hi Tony,

   You raise an important content issue: routine versus considered purchases. When customers make routine purchases, they may have a lower need for content. Or, as a purchase is more carefully considered, the importance of content can increase. The purchase of a bed is a considered purchase compared to a bar of soap.

   Yet Unilever has proven with the Dove brand that even bath soap can be much more than a generic routine purchase. Their website offers a vast array of content from product selection to social activism.

   So, the opportunities for connecting with customers through content is much broader in today’s digital world. Products can do so much more than merely help a customer accomplish a simple task. The marketer’s job is to explore the depth of human complexity that surrounds the full context of how products interconnect with human lives and their surrounding communities, societies, and environments.

   Reply

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