Pre-Content Marketing Risks
Pre-content marketing risks include manager resistance to aggressive marketing, future marketing media project cancellation, and rough customer emotional journey. There are things you can do to minimize or eliminate these risks.
Manager Resistance to Aggressive Marketing
Pre-content marketing can be perceived as aggressive marketing tactics by managers. It is a non-traditional approach and managers may view it as misleading and resist it. The very reason they dislike the concept is the main reason why they should allow it. They are concerned that the person who searches for information will be disappointed when they discover it is not available. The risk of releasing poor quality marketing content and media are higher when you do not do pre-content marketing. Using feedback from pre-content marketing results in the creation of better marketing content.
Future Marketing Media Cancellation
The pre-content marketing process changes if a pre-announced media development project such as a white paper or tutorial is cancelled. Ironically, the cancellation of a future media development project can be a good reason to speed up marketing. You can immediately contact all requesters, inform them that the future content project has been cancelled, and offer direct help. While the cancellation of future media is not a good thing, canceled media projects can be a good reason to followup with potential sales lead contacts sooner.
Rough Customer Emotional Journey
The emotional journey for people searching for solutions can be rough. When a solution seeker (potential customer) finds your content description that matches their needs, they are happy and excited. When they discover that the full content is not available yet, they are disappointed. When they are offered the opportunity to register to be alerted when the content becomes available, they have to make a choice to request it. They review their fear of loss of the solution content value and compare it to the concern of sharing their contact information and potential spam or unwanted calls. If your solution content description provides some value evidence such as a tip or resource, this can build trust and motivate them to submit (register) their contact information for the future content alert request.