As we all embrace the importance and efficacy of content marketing, we must also embrace that it is changing. What’s new is newer. What works can work better. You get the idea. Before we get into what’s new in content marketing, let’s do a quick review of the constants of this approach.

The Basics

1. This is still your opportunity to show yourself as a thought leader in your category.
2. The focus remains of creating content that your prospects really want to know about.
3. The prospect’s needs come first and must be worked into your buying process, fighting your desire to focus on what you think your marketing needs are.

The Next Generation

Digital platforms are enhancing our content marketing deliverables, enhancing the ways we conduct research, streamlining and targeting our messages, and impacting how we distribute our content and how we measure its success. Content marketing is changing how we do business. Let’s take a closer look at what I’m talking about:

1. Social media allows us to instantly conduct research and survey the market to see the competition and where the opportunities are to reach our prospects.
2. Forget about long production times that you faced when marketing was predominantly a print-based business. Now, it’s fast, inexpensive, and effective to create blogs, e-books, videos, PowerPoint presentations, podcasts, etc., that quickly speak to your prospects’ needs wherever you need to reach them.
3. Digital tools enable us to segment our prospects like never before, literally speaking to them where they are in the buying process with the information they want and the medium they want to see it on.
4. Digital distribution of content has taken our ability to reach our prospects to a whole new stratosphere compared to where we were just a few short years ago. We can use e-mail, landing pages, links, stream videos, download e-books, and the list goes on! What this means is that our highly targeted content is making its mark on hot prospects. And, the even better news is that the digital world is connected, so our digital content is also available to prospects who seek it out!
5. How we promote our product/service has also benefited from the digital world. We can get personal in ways never possible before. We can pinpoint our messages to exact prospects delivered in a targeted manner on LinkedIn, Twitter, e-mail, Facebook, Instagram, website, etc. We can use lead nurturing campaigns and drip campaigns to address needs throughout the buying process.
6. We can measure results like never before. Google Analytics, marketing automation tools, and CRM dashboards have revolutionized how we judge the results of our campaigns. And, we use this information to plan our next round of content to ensure we’re continuing to meet our prospects’ needs.

How has content marketing changed how you do business? Let us know!