One of the major trends in B2B marketing for 2010 will be the continuing growth of content marketing. A recent study by the Custom Publishing Council found that branded content accounted for 32 percent of the average overall marketing, advertising, and communications budgets in 2009. According to the CPC, this was the greatest ever proportion of overall marketing/communications funds dedicated to branded content. The importance of content marketing was further emphasized last week when the Custom Publishing Council announced that it had changed its name to the Custom Content Council.
What is content marketing? Joe Pulizzi, co-author of Get Content. Get Customers., defines it this way: "Content marketing is a marketing technique of creating and distributing relevant and valuable content to attract, acquire, and engage a clearly defined and understood audience - with the objective of driving profitable customer action." The basic idea behind content marketing is to create content that speaks directly to the issues and challenges that potential buyers are facing, and thus provide those buyers a compelling reason to engage with the selling organization.
Content marketing has become a critical discipline because today's B2B buyers are researching buying decisions independently, and they are delaying conversations with salespeople until much later in the buying cycle. If your company doesn't provide useful and compelling content, potential buyers will simply find it somewhere else.
To understand the importance of content marketing, think of your marketing and sales activities as being part of a process that must in itself create value for customers. In other words, treat the marketing and sales process as if it is another service that you provide.
And how do marketing and sales create value for potential buyers? By providing information and tools that help them better understand the problems and challenges they're facing and how those problems and challenges can be addressed. Content marketing is the vehicle for providing this kind of information. Therefore, once you treat marketing and sales as a process that must provide real value for prospective buyers, the logic behind content marketing becomes clear and compelling.
You can read more about content marketing here.
Discussion
By Paul Coleman on Feb 23, 2010
Great post. I agree that Sales and Marketing content generation should be seen as a distinct service as the two are fundamentally linked when delivering meaningful content. If your company is not delivering this useful info, then how do you expect customers and prospects to engage with you over the sales cycle. Content marketing is vital to the long term success of your company and if you haven't started, then now is the time to start putting in place your strategy.
By Joe Pulizzi on Feb 24, 2010
David...I love this line from you.
And how do marketing and sales create value for potential buyers? By providing information and tools that help them better understand the problems and challenges they’re facing and how those problems and challenges can be addressed.
Keep spreading the faith!
Joe
By Sandra Zoratti on Feb 24, 2010
David,
Your article is spot-on. While marketers focus on the channel and the tactic, the consumers/customers care about the content. Is it relevant? Is it compelling? Is it developed and designed for me?
Sandra
By David Dodd on Feb 24, 2010
@Paul - Thanks for your comment! Viewing marketing and sales as a distinct value-adding process opens up a whole new way of thinking about those functions.
@Joe - Thanks for the compliment!
By David Dodd on Feb 24, 2010
Sandra,
Thanks for your comment. I totally agree. With all the marketing and advertising clutter that's out there, there really is no substitute for relevant and compelling content.
By Mark McClure on Feb 24, 2010
That third paragraph is gold:
"Content marketing has become a critical discipline because today’s B2B buyers are researching buying decisions independently, and they are delaying conversations with salespeople until much later in the buying cycle."
I know that a lot of internal discussions go on before B2B buyers of IT go out to suppliers for RFPs (or even for RFIs).
Business budget holders are getting much more savvy and demanding of funding requests from IT departments... there's nothing like feeling the warm wrath (!) of IT procurement folks to encourage doing adequate due diligence,,,
By David Dodd on Feb 25, 2010
Mark,
Thanks for your comment. Earlier this year DemandGen Report conducted a survey of B2B buyers who had made a recent purchase. Forty-eight percent of survey respondents said they were using a wider variety of information sources to research buying decisions, 48% said they were taking more time to research buying decisions, and 36% said they were doing a more detailed analysis of costs/ROI. Today, B2B buyers are far less dependent on sales reps than in the past. They can get information from a wide range of sources, and they are taking advantage of this independence. Which is why having compelling marketing content is so important.
By Robert Mir on Feb 26, 2010
"To understand the importance of content marketing, think of your marketing and sales activities as being part of a process that must in itself create value for customers. In other words, treat the marketing and sales process as if it is another service that you provide."
Absolutely, totally and completely spot-on!
By carro Weston on Mar 03, 2010
A subject that has been near and dear to my heart for years. But where is all this content to come from? Is badly written content better than no content at all? And the problem of too much content -- the info firehose -- is also a risk. And Get Content. Get Customers. should be required reading for serious marketers.
By David Dodd on Mar 03, 2010
Carro,
No doubt, creating the kind of compelling content I described in the original post is a lot of work. But it isn't quite as overwhelming as it first appears. The key is to find ways to repurpose your content. For example, let's say that you create a white paper that's 6-8 pages long. You should be able to also get two or three short articles out of that white paper. You could also use the white paper content to create a podcast.
I'm not sure whether bad content is better than no content at all. I just know that neither is really acceptable in today's environment.
"Get Content. Get Customers" is an excellent book. I'd also recommend "eMarketing Strategies for the Complex Sale" by Ardath Albee.
Discussion
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