Content marketing is defined as being “a type of marketing that involves the creation and sharing of online material that does not explicitly promote a brand but is intended to stimulate interest in its products or services.”

And it’s really a big deal. Like bigger than you probably imagined.

Business.com notes that “B2B Content marketing generates three times as many leads as traditional outbound marketing, but costs 62% less.”

Translation: For a bit more than half the price of a monthly full page ad in a popular insurance trade magazine, your company could develop a kickass blog that’s three times more effective.

What’s Effective?
Success in Content Marketing

An astounding 55% of us don’t know how to define content marketing success, let alone how to maximize it. The good news is it’s our fault, which means we can fix it — and it’s pretty much common sense.

1. Define strategic objectives.
2. Document the objectives to guide the program.
3. Decide tactical approach(es).
4. Determine whether 2 satisfies 1 with constant measuring.
5. Remodel the tactics as needed.
6. Repeat the process until it’s perfect.

I call this method “D4R2”.
(I wish the R’s had come first so this could have been a better Star Wars reference).

Give the market what it wants

An overhwelming number — 96% — of B2B consumers want more content and real information from industry leaders. And only 29% of your audience wants to talk to a sales guy, while the rest go online and search for information.

That means your company must participate in content marketing in order to maximize the number of opportunities to interact with target audiences.

And it must participate often. Hubspot reports that “B2B companies that blogged 11+ times per month had almost 3X more traffic than those blogging 0-1 times per month.” Three times more traffic!

So get cracking on that content. The Field of Dreams method you might have heard of — “If you build it, they will come” — is hooey. As in hogwash, malarky, jive; an intentional fabrication.
(And yeah, that was a slightly more successful Star Trek reference).