Shaheen Samavati recently spoke with Simon Blake, a Munich-based EMEA marketing director with over two decades of experience. He currently works at Vertiv, a global equipment and services provider that manages critical infrastructure for data centers. In this interview, Simon explains the basic content strategies he relies on and how he puts them into practice, differentiating his brand and providing real value to clients in a highly technical industry.
You can watch the full conversation in the video above or on our YouTube channel, listen to the podcast on Apple and Spotify, and read our recap below.
Key takeaways
- The main goals of Simon’s strategy are to identify the themes that customers are interested in, and to bridge the gap between what they know and what they need to know in an engaging way.
- Establishing trust with customers takes time, and requires you to focus on themes that are relevant to the target audience, but may not be explicitly related to selling your products or services. (See Vertiv’s Datacenter Career Simulator.)
- One of the greatest challenges of global marketing is that campaigns and concepts often work better in some languages than others. You have to find a middle ground that works across regions, without compromising on quality.
- When it comes to measuring success, remember that content marketing is a long-term strategy; an investment in valuable content may not produce immediate results. (See John Deere’s The Furrow magazine and Vertiv’s Channel Continuum.)
- Social media provides a huge opportunity for organizations to differentiate themselves by giving customers the information they actually want, instead of just talking about their own products and people.
It takes time to demonstrate the success of content marketing, but when you really understand what you need to do, it works. It’s all about building trust with your audience.
Rapid-fire recs
What’s an app or tool that you can’t work without?
Grammarly, which has a free version and a business version, is especially helpful for writers. It gives you immediate feedback on how you’re doing, and suggests quick changes that can really make a sharp difference in the end product.
A valuable resource, event or group?
I went to Content Marketing World almost two years ago in Cleveland, Ohio. I’ve been to quite a few conferences in my career, but this one was fantastic. They have speakers from all different industries that have nothing to do with marketing, who provide input on how to tell a story, how to be engaging, how to win people over: behavioral science, not just marketing.
Also check out: Top 8 content and marketing books to read right now (according to experts)
A marketing influencer who you follow?
At Content Marketing World, the guy who really blew me away was Andrew Davis, who runs The Loyalty Loop. It was a eureka moment for me—he really understands how to connect marketing with behavioral science and make a difference. I definitely recommend following him.
Also check out: 8 inspiring content and marketing influencers to follow
Connect with Simon and Shaheen on LinkedIn.
This post was edited by Melissa Haun, a freelance content creator based in Lisbon.
For more insights into the latest trends in content marketing, check out:
Reimagining staycations – Jasmine Anderson, global content marketing manager
Stay competitive in a globalized market – Ilia Markov, Bulgaria-based content marketing manager
Debunk the myth of “perfect content” – Nigel Hawthorn, marketing director at McAfee
To see the full transcript, click on page number 2 below.