Content marketing is the great, painful new thing

When I used to attend B2B CMO round tables four years ago, the buzz topic was social media, now more commonly social marketing. Though today the buzz centers on content marketing, the same issue exists: a high expectation by CEOs of B2B leads at little cost, leaving marketers on their back foot. The problem lies in the gap between expectation and reality.

Content marketing is about delivering valuable and timely information to targeted buyers with the goal of driving a favorable outcome.

While there are dozens of favorable outcomes that could be achieved, they all tend to fit into two buckets: enhancing the awareness and value of brand, and creating a purchase opportunity or lead. Given the choice a CEO will more often prefer leads. They are tangible, non-fluffy outcomes that any B2B selling organization would choose hands-down.

Yet, therein lays the issue.

I recently viewed an insightful webinar about challenge that marketers face in trying to get their content marketing to do some very heavy lifting. The problem is summarized well in this eMarketer article. It’s worth a 2-minute read.

Written by Michael

Michael Douglas has held senior positions in sales, marketing and general management since 1980, and spent 20 years at Sun Microsystems, most recently as VP, Global Marketing. His experience includes start-ups, mid-market and enterprises. He's currently VP Enterprise Go-to-Market for NVIDIA.

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