What Is Content Marketing and Why Should You Care?
According to Wikipedia, “Content marketing is any marketing format that involves the creation and sharing of media and publishing content in order to acquire customers”
Content marketing encompasses any type of content, such as blog posts, articles, videos, infographics and forum posts. The more you create, the more likely your content is going to be seen by someone that is interested in your product or service. In fact, the current trend in B2B services is that buyers are actively seeking out content from potential vendors and using that content to evaluate potential vendors before they are approached for a bid.
At Content Marketing World 2013 the keynote speaker, Jay Bear, presented this interesting statistic, “By the time B2B buyers reach out to vendors, 70% of the buying decision has already been made – and competitors weighed, vetted and nixed.”
Sarah Skerik of PR Newswire provided some additional insight as to the reason behind this, “The buying audience is doing a majority of their research based solely on online content, so brands must ensure that they are producing engaging, discoverable content that tells their story.”
Let’s break down exactly what this means for your business. Your clients are now spending time researching online and putting together a short list of possible vendors. So, the first part of this means that if you are not visible online, then you are missing out on a number of potential deals, because these vendors will never find you.
The second part of the process is that, once they find you, they are going to evaluate your business by reading the content you are creating and using that to determine if you are a good fit. This content is your chance to portray your company values, expertise and your ability to understand and respond to your client’s or customer’s needs. If you are not actively involved in content marketing, then you are not only missing out on deals that are happening in your market, you are not even being contacted about being involved.
Now What?
The next logical step is to look at what type of content you should be producing. One of the best things you can do is to make a list of all the questions you get asked and then simply answer them as honestly as possible.
Your sales staff is your best resource for this, as they know more than anyone the questions that your potential customers are asking. Another great resource is your implementation staff, as they can help you understand the issues that customers will face once they receive and start implementing your solutions.
While your sales and implementation staff are great places to start looking for content ideas, your customers’ issues and expectations are constantly changing. In order to keep up with their most current issues, you should also be doing the following on a regular basis for content ideas:
Searching Twitter
Visiting industry forums
Reading related industry websites/periodicals
Asking your customers
Content marketing boils down to creating content that your customers want to read and know more about. The more you know about your customers and their needs, the better results you’ll have with your overall content marketing efforts. When you put the focus on your customers, instead of trying to win at the SEO game, everyone wins.
According to Wikipedia, “Content marketing is any marketing format that involves the creation and sharing of media and publishing content in order to acquire customers”
Content marketing encompasses any type of content, such as blog posts, articles, videos, infographics and forum posts. The more you create, the more likely your content is going to be seen by someone that is interested in your product or service. In fact, the current trend in B2B services is that buyers are actively seeking out content from potential vendors and using that content to evaluate potential vendors before they are approached for a bid.
At Content Marketing World 2013 the keynote speaker, Jay Bear, presented this interesting statistic, “By the time B2B buyers reach out to vendors, 70% of the buying decision has already been made – and competitors weighed, vetted and nixed.”
Sarah Skerik of PR Newswire provided some additional insight as to the reason behind this, “The buying audience is doing a majority of their research based solely on online content, so brands must ensure that they are producing engaging, discoverable content that tells their story.”
Let’s break down exactly what this means for your business. Your clients are now spending time researching online and putting together a short list of possible vendors. So, the first part of this means that if you are not visible online, then you are missing out on a number of potential deals, because these vendors will never find you.
The second part of the process is that, once they find you, they are going to evaluate your business by reading the content you are creating and using that to determine if you are a good fit. This content is your chance to portray your company values, expertise and your ability to understand and respond to your client’s or customer’s needs. If you are not actively involved in content marketing, then you are not only missing out on deals that are happening in your market, you are not even being contacted about being involved.
Now What?
The next logical step is to look at what type of content you should be producing. One of the best things you can do is to make a list of all the questions you get asked and then simply answer them as honestly as possible.
Your sales staff is your best resource for this, as they know more than anyone the questions that your potential customers are asking. Another great resource is your implementation staff, as they can help you understand the issues that customers will face once they receive and start implementing your solutions.
While your sales and implementation staff are great places to start looking for content ideas, your customers’ issues and expectations are constantly changing. In order to keep up with their most current issues, you should also be doing the following on a regular basis for content ideas:
Searching Twitter
Visiting industry forums
Reading related industry websites/periodicals
Asking your customers
Content marketing boils down to creating content that your customers want to read and know more about. The more you know about your customers and their needs, the better results you’ll have with your overall content marketing efforts. When you put the focus on your customers, instead of trying to win at the SEO game, everyone wins.
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