It’s a Content Driven World

I am currently attending the third Content2Conversion conference which is sponsored by DemandGen Report.  Drawing a crowd of approximately 400, mostly B2B marketers there is a thirst for knowledge and deeper understanding of how to advance their content marketing strategies.

Rather than try and recap all of the great sessions and information that has been given, which has been plenty, I have hand-picked some of the best Tweets from the conference and encourage those who are not present to follow #C2C14 for the second day, as just this approach will provide a wealth of education.

–          Via @AmandaF_Batista A recap on the Challenger approach to marketing: Content2Conversion Keynote Recap: 5 Tips For The Challenger Marketer elq.to/1g5Nq8j

–          Via @jolajola9 – Buyer personas: If you don’t Buyer personas: If you don’t know who you’re talking to, you won’t know what to say. @ardath421 @Content2Convert #C2C14

–          Via @barjosh29“If content is king, context is everything.” @TonyZambito

–          Via @GetCurata #ContentMarketing should be educational, not salesy! @dayroth 


–          Via @LaurenBarber 7 – Lead scoring goes hand in hand with nurturing #C2C14

–          Via @Ardath421 – Break up your buying process into stages so you can take metrics of each movement

In a nutshell and as you can see from the Tweets, the buyers are buying differently today – no secret there – CEB again reiterated this point by pointing out that B2B buyers are 57% of the way through their buying process before vendor engagement.  With this in mind, how do we engage with content?  It starts with strategy – it starts with the buyer and understanding the following:

–          Who from the buying company is involved in the sales process?

–          How do each of these buyers consume content through the buying process?

–          Where do these buyers access their content?

–          What are their needs and challenges?

–          Develop content accordingly and make it accessible to them in multiple formats.

However, as reminded by Jim Lenskold, not all content is designed to serve the same purpose – brand content is different that Demand Generation – so understand the purpose and build accordingly.

At the end of the day, an overwhelming amount of companies are “doing” content marketing, however, there are those who are doing and those who are doing it right.  Without a strategy, you are just going through the motions.

Author: Carlos Hidalgo @cahidalgo CEO and Principal, ANNUITAS