During the COVID-19 shutdowns, companies had to pivot their content marketing strategies. B2B marketers seized the opportunity to create content and reach more customers. They created guides for working from home, ramped up webinars, and hosted virtual events.
But as the year dragged on, customers developed screen fatigue: Zoom meetings, Slack collaborations, and the dreaded virtual event. Even people who have been working from home for a decade grew weary of so much screen time and no face time. The last thing they wanted to do was consume more content on their screens, particularly about working from home.
Instead, content marketers need to start planning content for the hybrid workforce. Most companies plan to return their employees to their physical locations in the fall. But some may embrace the new hybrid model, particularly for employees who have demonstrated their ability to remain productive while working from home or for employees who relocated outside commuting distance during shutdowns.
5 Key Points to Include in Return to Work Content
So what does that mean for your content marketing? As you create your content plan, remember that many of these companies still have their fast-and-furious work-from-home setups. They may be using VPNs for everything, slowing down productivity for remote employees. Some employees may have set up shadow IT deployments with consumer-grade cloud services to collaborate. As they return to the office, they will want solutions that shore up their IT stack.
As content marketers, we need to remember what customers want. While it will vary by persona and role, the essential items IT buyers look for when they’re choosing a solution are:
- Total cost of ownership (TCO). I can’t stress this enough. While cost is not the deciding factor, it still is a factor. When decision-makers present a solution to the powers that be, they must argue how this product will help them reduce costs and improve productivity – while keeping their own capital and operational expenses manageable.
- Security. Every company today stores sensitive data, particularly in their ERP and HR software. They may also have intellectual property that, if stolen, could cause them to lose their competitive edge. Buyers want to know how your solution will be protected and, depending on who is reading your content marketing, what the level of encryption is.
- Ease of use. Shadow IT flourishes because employees don’t like or don’t understand how to use the fantastic new enterprise solution that IT just implemented. Whether an intuitive interface or role-based dashboards, anything your customers choose must be easy to use.
- Scalability. As your customers add to their workforce or manage larger workloads, they’ll want to know that their IT implementation can keep up with them. Whether that’s adding more users or cloud bursting to handle more traffic, including this information can help them make their decisions.
- Integration. Does your solution play nicely with others? Many companies still use legacy technology, like an on-premise ERP system or database. They’ll want APIs and middleware to use their existing data. They’ll also want any technology they purchase to integrate with anything new.
Start working on content right now. You’ll be ready as companies bring back their employees and shore up their technology systems. Contact me today for a no-obligation quote on white papers, case studies, or blog posts to fuel your marketing.