If you are a marketer in a software company you will know, it is not easy to constantly produce great content that will lubricate each stage of the buying process. It is even harder when you are working to balance the mix of your marketing activities between brand and lead generation. On the lead generation you will be working on traditional outbound tasks (e.g. events, advertising, telemarketing, email list and direct marketing) and some newer inbound tasks (e.g. Website, SEO, Social Media, Blogs and Campaigns). This presentation shows ten ways for you to build a stronger content capability that will help drive the success of our inbound mix.

1. 10 WAYS
SOFTWARE
COMPANY
into a Publishing House
to turn your

2. Jonathan Crowe, the Managing Editor of
Openview Partners, a leading software venture
capital firm, recently wrote a piece on content
production best practices. Here are his top 3:
Hi Jonathan
Interactive
Incredibly Visual
Full of content for every stage
of the buying process
If you are a marketer in a software company then
you may look at this last point and wince. It is not
easy to constantly produce great content that will
lubricate each stage of the buying process. It is even
harder when you are working to balance the mix of
your marketing activities between brand and lead
generation. On lead generation you will most likely
be working on traditional outbound tasks
(e.g. events, advertising, telemarketing, email list and
direct marketing) and some newer inbound tasks
(e.g. Website, Search Optimisation, Social Media,
Blogs and Campaigns). This document outlines ten
steps for you to build a stronger content capability
that will drive the success of your inbound mix.
STEPS TO BUILD A STRONGER CONTENT CAPABILITY
10

3. Software engineers and sales people are not
hired for their literary talents. So you may need
to do some work to identify those who have a
flair for expressing themselves in the written
word. Try these tactics:
FIND WRITERS1
STEP

4. Software engineers and sales people are not
hired for their literary talents. So you may need
to do some work to identify those who have a
flair for expressing themselves in the written
word. Try these tactics:
FIND WRITERS1
STEP
Make a mental note of any
well-crafted internal emails you
receive and approach the sender
Do a search on the main social media
channels for your firm’s employees to
see if there is anyone out there who is
communicating well
Run a competition with a prize
for the most visited blog

5. So, you need to present your CEO with
examples of highly successful software
companies whose leaders are their chief story
tellers and make the connection between their
content and their software’s success.
GET BUY-IN2
STEP

6. So, you need to present your CEO with
examples of highly successful software
companies whose leaders are their chief story
tellers and make the connection between their
content and their software’s success.
GET BUY-IN2
STEP
Dharmesh Shah: Serial Tech start
up entrepreneur and blogger with
100,000 followers on LinkedIN
Doug Richards: Big tech entrepreneur, dragons den
investor and has nearly 20,000 twitter folowers
Mark Richard Shuttleworth:
billionaire blogger and founder
of Canonical and first South
African in Space

7. What monthly returns can I get from inbound?
How much new booked revenue do you plan to
generate each month
What % will come from inbound marketing
What is your average initial revenue per customer
How many new customers are needed monthly
What’s the lead-to-customer conversion rate
How many monthly leads are needed
What is your visitor-to-lead conversion rate
How many new monthly visitors are needed
£25,000
£25,000
100%
£5,000
5
10%
50
5%
1000
Building a publishing
operation in your
company is hard to do
without some resources.
In order to recruit the
level of financial backing,
you need to put some
resources in place.
MAKE A BUSINESS CASE3
STEP
You might want to use
a model like this:

8. Building a publishing
operation in your
company is hard to do
without some resources.
In order to recruit the
level of financial backing,
you need to put some
resources in place.
MAKE A BUSINESS CASE3
STEP
Or this: courtesy of
The harte of marketing

9. Building great content takes quite a bit of
planning and starts with Personas, Messaging
and Campaigns.
PLAN4
STEP

10. Building great content takes quite a bit of
planning and starts with Personas, Messaging
and Campaigns.
Hi Ellie
The communication from many software companies
is frequently all about themselves and their
products. But, if no more that 5% of your web
visitors are ready for a sales conversation then the
other 95% are not ready to talk about your products.
That means they need other kinds of content that
speak to their issues in order to engage.
PLAN4
STEP
Messaging - Follow a structured
framework like this one from DocStock
Personas - This is a great guide
from Ellie Mirman
Campaigns – This is a quick checklist
from our friends at Impact

11. If your content is not connected to the other
parts of your marketing infrastructure then
it will operate in a silo and not deliver the
required return.
INTEGRATE5
STEP

12. If your content is not connected to the other
parts of your marketing infrastructure then
it will operate in a silo and not deliver the
required return.
Most software companies know how
important it is that their product integrates
with their customers’ systems. The
same is true of your marketing content,
so make sure that your website, social
media channels, blog, CRM, Marketing
Automation, Analytics and SEO systems
all join up, in order that you can get a full
view of your prospects’ interaction with
your content
INTEGRATE5
STEP

13. Most software companies have a ‘rain maker’
model for sales where individual sales people
rely solely on their own resources to generate
revenue.
This model is now being challenged by
models that help your sales team work more
effectively with marketing on inbound leads
generated from your content.
ALIGN WITH SALES6
STEP

14. Most software companies have a ‘rain maker’
model for sales where individual sales people
rely solely on their own resources to generate
revenue.
This model is now being challenged by
models that help your sales team work more
effectively with marketing on inbound leads
generated from your content.
Hi Mark
ALIGN WITH SALES6
STEP
Mark Roberge of HubSpot calls this ‘Inbound Sales’
Check out his most recent piece on the subject

15. To create the great software that you are
marketing someone had to think out of the
box and come up with something innovative
and compelling. Your content marketing
needs to be the same.
GET CREATIVE7
STEP

16. To create the great software that you are
marketing someone had to think out of the
box and come up with something innovative
and compelling. Your content marketing
needs to be the same.
How about thinking of your great
value-pieces of content as the product that
the 95% are buying who are not ready for a
sales conversation.
If that is the case then the
value-pieces of content need to
be innovative and compelling.
GET CREATIVE7
STEP
Reach beyond the marketing team into
sales and development for ideas
Take some inspiration from some of the
best software content marketers
Reach out to
your customers
and ask them

17. Just because someone in your company has
created a user interface does not mean that
they can be let loose on the creative design
of your marketing content.
FIND DESIGNERS8
STEP

18. Just because someone in your company has
created a user interface does not mean that
they can be let loose on the creative design
of your marketing content.
FIND DESIGNERS8
STEP
Remember that your tone of
voice is more visible in your
design than in your words
Go find out who created
content you love
Find professionals who really get you
and your vision and who can delight you
Use social media to follow
designers you would like to hire
Think about what would get
a designer excited about
working with you

19. Once you have everything joined up you can
monitor the way in which people interact with
all of your content and understand better what
they are interested in which in turn will feed
into your content.
ANALYSE9
STEP

20. Once you have everything joined up you can
monitor the way in which people interact with
all of your content and understand better what
they are interested in which in turn will feed
into your content.
Hi Pamela
Understanding user journeys through content,
heat maps and bounce rates, visitor numbers and
conversion ratios into leads and conversion rates
down the marketing funnel are critical metrics to
drive and demonstrate success.
ANALYSE9
STEP
Try the Analytics section
of our Brightfire blog
Have a look at an introduction
to marketing analytics
by Pamela Vaughan
Check out Definitive Guide to Marketing
Metrics and Marketing Analytics
from Marketo

21. It is important that your company does not
perceive the content marketing effort as
ad-hoc. Set-up an editorial process so that
everyone knows what to expect and when
to expect it.
SET UP AN EDITORIAL CALENDAR10
STEP

22. It is important that your company does not
perceive the content marketing effort as
ad-hoc. Set-up an editorial process so that
everyone knows what to expect and when
to expect it.
SET UP AN EDITORIAL CALENDAR10
STEP
Here are some resources reviewed by
Sprout Content that you might find useful
when setting up an editorial calendar:
Share a content calendar, communicate some
editorial guidelines for creating content and
share it on social media.

23. You CAN build great content no matter the
size of your marketing team.
There are some great tools and some first rate
advice available. These ten steps are doable
for all sizes of marketing team and the results
will make you into the company’s most
valuable player.

24. We would love to share your ideas on
building a content production capability
for your software company.
We will share them on our blog and social
media channels if you send them over.
Thanks
johnny.mone@brightfire.co.uk
www.brightfire.co.uk

25. www.brightfire.co.uk
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