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Do You Make These 4 Common Mistakes With Subject Matter Experts?

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Do You Make These 4 Common Mistakes With Subject Matter Experts?

You don’t need content creators with deep vertical experience to develop a unique viewpoint that makes your brand compelling to target audiences.

By collaborating with subject matter experts, creators can help transform decades of experience into powerful storytelling. But mistakes in the partnership can lead to poor content and reduce internal support for SME content in the long run.

Here are four common mistakes to avoid so that your SME content connects better with your target audience and you connect better with the subject matter experts.

Collaborate w/ subject matter experts to enrich #ContentMarketing with decades of vertical experience and a unique perspective, says @SarahLParkerUK @CMIContent. Click To Tweet

1. Forgetting about the audience

Surprisingly, content creators often forget about their audience when deciding what to write. Almost half of marketers (49%) struggle to determine what their audiences want to read, a 29% increase from the previous year, according to Typeset’s 2021 State of Writing.

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Sarah Mitchell, co-founder at Typeset, is an experienced brand journalist and content marketer. She says that the root cause of the problem is a preference for third-party data over speaking to customers.

“Less than half the marketers who answered the survey are in direct contact with their customers,” Sarah says. “Instead, they’re relying on analytics, social media signals, or secondhand information from other people in the business.”

Answering the questions your readers ask is essential to audience-focused content. Failing to do this creates two problems when working with SMEs.

“First, you may not be extracting the most valuable information from them,” Sarah says. “Second, getting time from SMEs can be difficult. If they don’t see a return on their investment, it will be an uphill battle for marketing to get help from them in the future.”

She continues, “Ask your audience what they want and let that guide how you engage your SMEs.”

Ask your audience what they want and let that guide how you engage your SMEs, says @SarahMitchellOz via @SarahLParkerUK @CMIContent. Click To Tweet

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To do that, establish processes that enable you to create content for your audience, not your business. “Pick up the phone, create a survey, or get involved in online discussions. Direct contact with your target audience can be the most satisfying activity for content marketers,” Sarah explains.

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​​​​​​​2. Failing to provide content goals

To work successfully with SMEs, you should brief them on the content goals before the interview. Andi Robinson, global content leader at Corteva Agriscience, has led content operations and a global content marketing program.

“Marketers who work with SMEs often fail to provide context to the SME prior to engaging with them. You need to give the SME information about who you are trying to reach and what your goals are,” she says.

Make sure that your #SMEs understand your #ContentMarketing objectives, says @hijinxmarketing via @SarahLParkerUK @CMIContent. Click To Tweet

Briefing experts on content objectives leads to fewer rounds of reviews and better results. But how do you link SME expertise with the content goals?

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Andi asks these questions to put the expert’s perspective alongside the market context:

  • Is this SME used to talking in technical terms while your audience is less technical?
  • Is this SME used to talking about product benefits when the content goal is to create awareness?

The answers can indicate the potential misalignment. Quickly close the gap by providing the SME with the context for the content along with the relevant data points. This now shared common understanding brings the SME closer to your audience and links this tactical content to its strategic goals.

“Most SMEs will know their area well enough that they can easily adjust if you tell them what you are looking to get out of your work together,” Andi explains.

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3. Writing before the SME interview

While helping SMEs understand the content objectives will help drive success, avoid letting the strategic intention dictate the content. SMEs can provide unexpected insights and surprising angles.

Ashley Faus, content strategy lead at Atlassian, has run content marketing for major software and technology organizations. “Many marketers make the mistake of writing the asset before talking to the SMEs, and then ask closed-ended questions or leading questions to ‘fill in’ the rest of the piece with expert quotes,” she says.

Interview #SMEs before your write your content, says @ashleyfaus via @SarahLParkerUK @CMIContent. Click To Tweet

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For example, outlining the content around keywords and existing research can be problematic before you get guidance from the SME. It can lead to content that is not informed by expert opinion.

“The result is an article that can rank but has little or no unique point of view,” Ashley says.

To uncover the most interesting angles, interview specialists first:

  • Ask open-ended questions.
  • Follow up on different threads.

It’s also necessary to record the call and prepare a transcript. “Since SMEs are often busy and in high demand, getting as much information from them as possible is much better than simply trying to lend credibility to an already crafted asset,” Ashley says. “This way, the marketer draws out true expertise, and often, they end up with more information for additional pieces of content than simply asking a couple of leading questions.

4. Ignoring the experts​​​​​

Interviewing experts before writing content is key, but it isn’t a magic bullet. To create a powerful piece, you need to listen to what your SMEs say.

Amy Higgins, senior director content strategy, at Twilio, has spent her career creating content that audiences want to read. “I believe a ton of times as marketers, we go into a call or an interview with SMEs with very specific expectations,” she says.

Let the experts guide the conversation to uncover unique ideas, stories, and opinions that will enrich your argument. “I’ve been on many calls with SMEs who help expand the narrative and offer insight that I would have never thought about,” Amy says.

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“This could lead the conversation in a different direction than what my ‘program’ needs. But when we listen, really listen, to our SMEs, they provide much more actionable insight that is more relatable to our intended audiences.”

Listen to your SMEs to expand the narrative and find insights you would have never thought about, says @amywhiggins via @SarahLParkerUK @CMIContent. Click To Tweet

The point is clear: How you work with SMEs directly impacts the value that your content offers to your audience. It’s a competitive advantage as most creators follow their set topics and miss the unique angles that will draw in their audience. Their outcome is content that reinforces what they (and their audience) already know.

To avoid copycat content, you should get better at collaboration, and that starts with listening. “My advice when working with SMEs – listen more and love the journey of discovery,” Amy says.

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Be ready to listen and discover

If you want your collaboration with SMEs to be more than a routine exercise, be open to discovering new and interesting directions. You often can more easily create the content you think is needed, but then you would miss out on what your audience says they want and get focused insight from SMEs to build your brand’s content credibility. That’s how you establish a competitive edge.

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Cover image by Joseph Kalinowski/Content Marketing Institute

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MARKETING

Trends in Content Localization – Moz

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Trends in Content Localization - Moz

Multinational fast food chains are one of the best-known examples of recognizing that product menus may sometimes have to change significantly to serve distinct audiences. The above video is just a short run-through of the same business selling smokehouse burgers, kofta, paneer, and rice bowls in an effort to appeal to people in a variety of places. I can’t personally judge the validity of these representations, but what I can see is that, in such cases, you don’t merely localize your content but the products on which your content is founded.

Sometimes, even the branding of businesses is different around the world; what we call Burger King in America is Hungry Jack’s in Australia, Lays potato chips here are Sabritas in Mexico, and DiGiorno frozen pizza is familiar in the US, but Canada knows it as Delissio.

Tales of product tailoring failures often become famous, likely because some of them may seem humorous from a distance, but cultural sensitivity should always be taken seriously. If a brand you are marketing is on its way to becoming a large global seller, the best insurance against reputation damage and revenue loss as a result of cultural insensitivity is to employ regional and cultural experts whose first-hand and lived experiences can steward the organization in acting with awareness and respect.

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How AI Is Redefining Startup GTM Strategy

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How AI Is Redefining Startup GTM Strategy

AI and startups? It just makes sense.

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More promotions and more layoffs

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More promotions and more layoffs

For martech professionals salaries are good and promotions are coming faster, unfortunately, layoffs are coming faster, too. That’s according to the just-released 2024 Martech Salary and Career Survey. Another very unfortunate finding: The median salary of women below the C-suite level is 35% less than what men earn.

The last year saw many different economic trends, some at odds with each other. Although unemployment remained very low overall and the economy grew, some businesses — especially those in technology and media — cut both jobs and spending. Reasons cited for the cuts include during the early years of the pandemic, higher interest rates and corporate greed.

Dig deeper: How to overcome marketing budget cuts and hiring freezes

Be that as it may, for the employed it remains a good time to be a martech professional. Salaries remain lucrative compared to many other professions, with an overall median salary of $128,643. 

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Here are the median salaries by role:

  • Senior management $199,653
  • Director $157,776
  • Manager $99,510
  • Staff $89,126

Senior managers make more than twice what staff make. Directors and up had a $163,395 median salary compared to manager/staff roles, where the median was $94,818.

One-third of those surveyed said they were promoted in the last 12 months, a finding that was nearly equal among director+ (32%) and managers and staff (30%). 

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Extend the time frame to two years, and nearly three-quarters of director+ respondents say they received a promotion, while the same can be said for two-thirds of manager and staff respondents.

Dig deeper: Skills-based hiring for modern marketing teams

Employee turnover 

In 2023, we asked survey respondents if they noticed an increase in employee churn and whether they would classify that churn as a “moderate” or “significant” increase. For 2024, given the attention on cost reductions and layoffs, we asked if the churn they witnessed was “voluntary” (e.g., people leaving for another role) or “involuntary” (e.g., a layoff or dismissal). More than half of the marketing technology professionals said churn increased in the last year. Nearly one-third classified most of the churn as “involuntary.”

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Men and Women

Screenshot 2024 03 21 124540Screenshot 2024 03 21 124540

This year, instead of using average salary figures, we used the median figures to lessen the impact of outliers in the salary data. As a result, the gap between salaries for men and women is even more glaring than it was previously.

In last year’s report, men earned an average of 24% more than women. This year the median salary of men is 35% more than the median salary of women. That is until you get to the upper echelons. Women at director and up earned 5% more than men.

Methodology

The 2024 MarTech Salary and Career Survey is a joint project of MarTech.org and chiefmartec.com. We surveyed 305 marketers between December 2023 and February 2024; 297 of those provided salary information. Nearly 63% (191) of respondents live in North America; 16% (50) live in Western Europe. The conclusions in this report are limited to responses from those individuals only. Other regions were excluded due to the limited number of respondents. 

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Download your copy of the 2024 MarTech Salary and Career Survey here. No registration is required.

Get MarTech! Daily. Free. In your inbox.

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