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Become An Inbound Marketer Without Creating Content

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Inbound MarketingInbound marketing is all about your content, right? If you use the components of inbound marketing I have shared or the common definition centered on content, social and search, content is at the core.

Content is definitely one path, and the path most companies traditionally take. However, it isn’t the only viable approach. During Marketo’s Social Rockstar Tour presentation, they presented two alternatives to content in inbound marketing.

With more content competing for attention every day, is it time to add these alternatives to your inbound marketing plan? [Read more…]

Content Syndication Options for B2B Lead Generation

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Lead generation continues to be a top objective for B2B marketers and content syndication is primary offering from publishers.

Definitions:

  • Content syndication refers to distributing content through publishers and requiring registration in order to capture contacts.
  • Leads in this post refer to contacts captured through a registration form, in line with the way B2B publishers label their programs.

As demand for B2B lead generation programs increases, new providers are springing up, sporting slick new websites, massive email databases, lower costs and brand new approaches.

As the landscape changes, here are some of the benefits and drawbacks [Read more…]

Content Marketing is a Juggling Act

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Is your strategy and organization up to the task?

Content marketers need to deliver results in an environment that is constantly changing.

Faced with these constant changes, content marketing can either devolve into a series of reactionary random acts of marketing or take the changes in stride.

The difference comes down to your content marketing strategy and your marketing organization. A solid content marketing strategy lets you keep your eye on the ball and a solid marketing organization lets you keep all of the balls in the air, smoothly juggling the changes happening around you. [Read more…]

The Path to Value from Content Curation

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Increasingly, marketers are adding content curation to their marketing activity, often with objectives of sharing a certain amount of content each day. Ardath Albee (@ardath421) has a sample to-do list for a content marketer in Show Quantity the Door.

Three weeks ago I published Three Reasons Content Curation is Overrated, my reaction to research published on eMarketer and advice we frequently see about curating content in order to establish thought leadership.

That doesn’t mean curation is not valuable. It may be one of the primary ways you stay in touch with your audience. But the path to value from your curation is a winding one. [Read more…]

7 B2B Content Marketing Lessons from Call of Duty 2

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A documentary-style video featuring Oliver North? That definitely would not be marketing.

The video is entertaining. It is educational. It isn’t about a video game. But it is.

If you have not seen the documentary video for Call of Duty 2, you can watch it below. It is an example of content marketing that many B2B marketers can learn from. [Read more…]

7 Steps to Find Your Content Marketing Sweet Spot

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The Content Marketing Sweet SpotYou are ready to take your content marketing to the next level. Until now, you have been producing mostly mid and late stage content.

Your content supports the sales process and effectively communicates the value of your solutions to prospects.

Now, you are ready to use content marketing to raise the profile of your company overall.

Content that drives overall visibility for your company is different. To broadly improve your visibility within your market, you need to focus [Read more…]

Three Reasons Content Curation is Overrated

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B2B marketers are looking for a shortcut to thought leadership, but the shortcut many are taking lead somewhere else completely.

According to a recent report on eMarketer, 85% of marketers curate content in order to establish thought leadership!

Does sharing someone else’s content make you a thought leader? No.

Marketers, in their race to the shortcut, are confusing respect and attention with thought leadership. [Read more…]

B2B Marketers Are Turning Away Prospects

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Staircase and Way Out SignAccording to recent research from IDC, lead generation is a top B2B marketing priority, and in the next four years Sirius Decisions predicts 75% of all registrations will be captured online. (Sirius Decisions actually labels this as inbound marketing, however I use a more limited definition of inbound marketing.)

One of the primary ways B2B marketers capture leads online is asking prospects to register for content. Doing it effectively requires creating content prospects want in a format that is easy to engage with while capturing the information you need.

However, based on recent research from DemandGen Report, marketers are turning away prospects [Read more…]

Why Your Content Sucks!

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If it doesn’t benefit us, entertain us, educate us, solve our problems or advance our causes, we don’t want it. If we find something better, we switch.

Today, our mantra is “What’s in it for me?”

All too often, the answer is “Not much.”

We are flooded with content. This blog post will be one of millions published today. Blog posts and other content are clamoring for attention with [Read more…]

New Research: B2B Content is a Dead End

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Dead End, DeKalb, ILAccording to research from the Content Marketing Institute, B2B marketers are now spending 26% of their budget on content marketing.

What happens when someone downloads or accesses some of the highest value and most in-depth content marketers are offering? Today, many large B2B marketers are putting a stop to the conversation and cutting off prospects ability to continue finding additional information when potential customers get to their best content. [Read more…]