The biggest problem in climate tech content marketing
(It's probably not what you think it is)
Hello friends,
If you’re like most of the climate tech companies Meg and I speak to, you’ve got:
✅ Great ideas for content and campaigns
✅ Knowledgeable SMEs you can mine for gold
❌ …and a pretty shoddy attribution system.
Why are we — two content marketers — talking about attribution?
It’s a bit like sports teams talking about the scoreboard.
Without it, all the training and playing in the world is immeasurable.
Setting up proper attribution – that is, connecting your systems and tagging prospects in such a way so that it’s clear where they came from and where they’re at in your funnel – is a pain in the neck. And because it’s a pain, and sometimes too complicated for the untechnical, marketers put it off.
#1 mistake.
Do not move forward with content marketing until your attribution systems are bullet-proof.
Let’s take a look at two common problems with attribution, and what to do about them.
Problem 1: Unclear attribution
This is the most common attribution problem. For too long, content marketing has existed in the vague realm of ‘brand-building’ activities – a nice-to-have, but too messy to bother quantifying.
Much as I despise weasel words, I also despise vanity metrics. Unless your attribution is crystal-clear, content marketing can only be measured by vanity metrics. And that’s a shame, because it’s the biggest source of leads for the climate tech companies we know (even the ones we don’t work for).
Problem 2: Overcomplicated attribution
The other problem we see with attribution models — albeit less frequently — is over-complication. We don’t mind a high volume of well-tracked channels and campaigns (granularity is helpful here), but often companies are simply taking it way too far with the number of ‘stages’ they track for their leads.
Do this
If you’re not happy with your attribution models, do this:
On a blank sheet of paper, map out each of your sales/marketing channels
Draw the journey through the funnel and determine a maximum of three lead ‘stages’
Based on this diagram, work out what needs to be set up in what systems to track leads through
The first two of these tasks are strategic; the third is technical. If you’re more strategic than technical, get help with the third item (and then test it). Clicking around the back end of your marketing software and CRM is just a recipe for frustration.
Wrapping up…
We love content, but we love attribution more. Attribution is what puts a dollar value on content marketing — and ultimately, nobody should be doing anything without a dollar value attached. After all, we’re not running charities here. (If you are, this is not the newsletter for you.)