1. Content Marketing and Generation
Trends and Success Factors

2. 2
Content Marketing Defined
“Content marketing is a marketing technique
of creating and distributing relevant and
valuable content to attract, acquire and
engage a clearly defined and understood
target audience – with the objective of
driving profitable customer action.” –
Content Marketing Institute

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Content Marketing Defined
Relevant and valuable content is content
that is less about you and more about
your audience. It …
•Addresses issues customers care about
•Supports people with your knowledge
•Provides insights and solutions
•Gives people confidence you know what
you’re talking about

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Content marketing and generation enables you to
educate and influence buyer behavior by:
– Building brand recognition
– Reaching targeted audiences through multiple
channels
– Becoming an industry influencer
– Establishing expertise and thought leadership
– Creating opportunities for two-way
conversations
– Generating leads and referrals
How It Works

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More Important Than Ever
• Outbound tactics often less effective
• Clients and customers are:
– More savvy
– More immune to direct
advertising/promotional messages
– Can leverage technology to surf around ads,
fast forward through commercials, buy
commercial-free services (Sirius/XM)

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High Growth Path for B2B
Dramatic increases in content marketing
•84% B2B marketers making stronger focus
– 20% of marcomm budget to 30% in next year alone
•Top goals:
– Compensate for reduction in traditional tactics
effectiveness
– Generate leads
– Thought leadership/market education
– Brand awareness
– Customer retention
Sources: B2B Marketing Trends, 2012 Survey, and Entrepreneur Magazine

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Biggest Challenges
• Time and bandwidth
• Producing enough content
• Producing relevant and effective content
• B2B marketers create content in following
ways:
– From scratch (94%)
– Leverage third-party content (39%)
– Reuse existing content (32%)
– Encourage users to generate content (30%)

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Biggest Gaps
Too many organizations are still engaged in
random acts of content development,
without having implemented cohesive and
effective strategies, customer-centric
themes and platforms and efficient
publishing and delivery capabilities or the
necessary content performance tracking
systems.
Source: CMO Council, June 2013

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Biggest Gaps
Too many lead generation campaigns are
failing … They lack rigorous targeting,
filtering, tracking … of prospect flow. They
rely on poorly conceived content that
doesn’t connect with customer needs and
concerns. Or they fail to provide access
across essential channels and touch points,
such as mobile devices.
Source: CMO Council, June 2013

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B2B Trends
Most popular content generation
tactics and social media delivery
channels are not always the most
effective or bring highest ROI.

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B2B Trends
Most Popular
Tactics
•Twitter
•Articles on website
•e-newsletters
•Blogs
Most Effective
Purchase Influencers
•Articles
•Case studies
•Videos
•eBooks
What Brings Greatest ROI?
Articles
Videos
White papers
Case studies
Sources: Content Crossroads, B2B Content Marketing Trends

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B2B Trends
Most popular social media platforms
•LinkedIn
•Twitter
•Facebook
•YouTube
•Google+
•Pinterest
•SlideShare
Source: Content Marketing institute

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Best Practices
Effective content marketing requires:
•An understanding of all the possible vehicles
•Strategic approach to leveraging those vehicles in
the right way, with the right message, at the right
time
•Creative, meaningful and engaging content to
ensure ROI is realized
– Compelling storytelling
– Originality
– Strong writing

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Content should help achieve business objectives,
not content objectives.
•Know who you are reaching
•Understand how they use the content channel
•Recognize different social networks suit different audiences
and content types
•Additionally, ask yourself:
– Is this the best channel for me to post or present this content?
– What are people in this channel interested in?
– What action do I want them to take (more followers, download report)?
Best Practices

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There is no “One-Size-Fits-All”
- Content Marketing Institute
•Efficiency of creating one piece of content for multiple social
media platforms is not the best way to go
•Doing so short changes your content and the audiences
you’ve cultivated in each network
•Different social networks suit different content types/formats
– Example: People who subscribe to your blog could be different
audience than those following you on LinkedIn
Best Practices

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A Good Content Generation and Marketing Program…
•Requires a cohesive and comprehensive approach
– eBooks, webinars, research reports, newsletters, articles
•Utilizes internal and external mediums
– Blogs, websites, e-mail lists
– LinkedIn Groups, social media platforms
•Creates engagement through audience segmentation
– By service or product offering
– By buyer persona or profile
– By industry vertical
How To Be Successful

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How To Be Successful
• Generates leads and creates opportunities for
follow up
– Tailor content to sales cycle stage, i.e., initial
engagement to lead nurturing
• Is monitored and measured to understand:
– Who is interacting and to what level
– Which topics are of the most interest
– What contributes to most effective lead generation
– How can content be adapted accordingly to increase
engagement

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Bottom Line
B2B marketers…
•Believe in the power of content marketing
•Are devoting more dollars/focus to it
•Are time pressed, so need help
•Often don’t know where to begin
•Use many platforms without always
knowing which is most effective

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Success Factors
Marketing Works can help solve
challenges and meet goals with:
•Content marketing roadmaps
•Content topics and ideas
•Content generation storytelling/writing
•Content marketing execution
•Content marketing measurement