Content marketing is the new black. It's just sooooo fashionable!
This is somewhat of a surprise when you think about it, content marketing is hardly new. So why the renewed interest?
Consider this statistic: Marketing Sherpa reports well over 80% of B2B buyers start their purchasing journey online.
Your buyers are researching their options, connecting with their peers, all online and all without referring to you or your competitors. Good, useful, well constructed, valuable content is highly prized by buyers in an online world crammed with information that is little more than simply noise.
Your second job as a B2B marketer is to get your content into the hands of your buyers or at least in front of their eyeballs.
Get these two elements right and your firm will dramatically increase the quantity and particularly the quality of leads. With better quality leads, conversion rates will soar and you lead-to-revenue ratios will significantly increase. In short your funnel will flow more efficiently.
This is why content marketing is receiving so much attention presently.
So what is content marketing? It means building valuable content that you give willingly to your contacts, leads, qualified prospects and customers that expand their understanding of the issues they face, assist them to clarify what's wrong, and help them understand how best to fix their problems - one at a time.
Content marketing should aim to trouble the buyers of your target market about the problems they face, to such a point and in such a way, that they take action. Without creating action, marketing is a pointless exercise.
But here's the rub. It means you have to stop shouting at your audience and do something useful; put your own agenda to one side; stop talking about yourself and the wonders of version 2.7.3 of you latest software or wonderful widget.
Is this revolutionary thinking? Hardly. Solution based sales people have known this essential truth for years. It's time for B2B marketers to catch up. The environment is rapidly changing and the stakes are getting A LOT higher.
The web has fundamentally changed the way we research topics we are interested in and how we solve problems and gaps in our knowledge. Your target audience is engaging with you directly much later in the sales cycle. You must seek to influence their understanding via content marketing.
Successful content marketing requires a selling organisation to:
Content marketing is the manifestation of the marketing revolution that is sweeping the B2B world, inbound marketing. It is in direct contrast to traditional interruption-based marketing and builds a true and meaningful dialog with prospects.
If you're interested in learning more, download our free eBook on Content Marketing below.
How does your organisation stack up against this list of 10 "must haves?" Did you give yourself 10 out of 10? Perhaps you have some work to do and you scored only 2 out of 10? B2B Marketers are quickly realising they must invest in content marketing to initiate conversations with prospects.