I’ve spent the last few months talking with many B2B marketers and the number one priority I hear is content marketing.  Marketers want to use content to educate and better engage with prospective customers.

The Content Marketing Institute offers an excellent definition:

“Content marketing is the marketing and business process for creating and distributing relevant and valuable content to attract, acquire, and engage a clearly defined and understood target audience – with the objective of driving profitable customer action.”

Through engaging content, B2B marketers have better brand control and can more fully express their key messaging.  Interestingly, the marketing role has evolved into content publishing—online and print publishers no longer have exclusivity.  This is the appeal of what is termed “owned media” (besides content, owned media includes websites, newsletters, and whitepapers) which is the new mantra for B2B marketers.

Good content marketing techniques address a customer’s business and operational issues, as well as align with the entire buyer journey. Brand advocates are created who can increase audience reach dramatically via their social channels.  It’s a wonderful amplification of a brand’s story touching many additional potential customers—the end result includes more conversions, leads, and sales.