Here’s what the most effective companies do differently.
Content marketing—employing valuable, useful content to attract and engage customers—is still a popular tool for B2B marketers.
According to a recent study by the Content Marketing Institute and MarketingProfs, nearly 90 percent of surveyed marketers said their organizations use content marketing. About 76 percent said they plan to produce even more content in 2016.
While content marketing might be common, it isn’t always successful at attracting solid sales leads or increasing conversions. Only 30 percent of those surveyed said their company’s efforts were effective.
It’s clear that content marketing is working for somebody. So what do the successes do that other people don’t?
They Understand What Success Looks Like
Being good at content marketing is like anything else: The more practice you have, the better you’ll tend to be. About 64 percent of marketers who had been doing content marketing for a while described their efforts as effective. Only 6 percent of newbies said their content marketing was effective.
The successes also have a clear idea of what their content marketing is supposed to accomplish. Overall, only 44 percent of those surveyed understood their company’s goals. Among the most effective content marketers, that rises to 79 percent.
They Put It in Writing
More than half of the most effective content marketers have a written plan that spells out their organization’s strategies and tactics for putting content marketing to work. Overall, only 32 percent have a written plan.
Almost half of the most effective also have a documented editorial mission statement. Only 28 percent of all surveyed marketers do.
Several respondents said they had a plan, but nothing written down. While it’s important to talk about your content marketing, the act of writing forces you to crystallize your ideas into specific steps and may expose potential problems.
They Meet Regularly About Content Marketing
If your small business is serious about making content marketing work, you can’t put it on autopilot.
About 61 percent of the most effective content marketers meet daily or weekly, either virtually or in person. Virtually all the surveyed marketers said that regular meetings were helpful as they executed a content marketing strategy.
