The Numbers Are In — B2B Content Marketing Works! [INFOGRAPHIC]

Seems like just yesterday Content Marketing was the latest buzzword marketers threw around to sound savvy. 

Content marketing was initially met with a lot of skepticism. After all, marketing has traditionally been about selling a prospect on why the needed your products. How would providing people with useful, domain-specific information lead to sales unless every piece ended with, “buy my product!”

It turns out that  being a consistent source of useful information leads to loyalty, which leads to sales. It doesn’t happen overnight, but content marketing does lead to conversions.

A recent study shows that B2B marketers are gaining confidence in this new way of doing the business of marketing. In fact, 93% of B2B marketers are using content marketing, and 42% of them even believe they’re pretty good at it. Those who are most successful have some traits in common:

• They use 7 social media platforms, compared to the 4 used by lead effective marketers
• They have an overseeing content marketing strategist
• They have a documented content strategy
• They spend more of their marketing budget on content marketing (39% vs 16%)
• They are good at producing compelling content

For more insights from the study, take a look at the info graphic. There’s bound to be something in there you can use to improve your results.

What is Inbound Marketing Anyway?

Marketing has changed. While traditional methods of marketing -- such as advertising, press releases, and direct sales -- are still needed, they have become increasingly expensive, and less effective. Most startups don't have the financial means to advertise their way into people's awareness amid the barrage of ads from their well-heeled competitors. So what's an entrepreneur to do?

Enter inbound marketing. Instead of buying your prospective customer's attention, you earn it by freely providing something of value to everyone. While this sounds altruistic, the goal is become a valuable resource that others rely on for information relevant to their needs. This builds trust, and repeated exposure which can then lead to conversion.

There's a lot more to it that that, and an entire industry has sprung up around inbound marketing, but you now have the basic concept. The people at Impact Branding and Design produced an infographic that sums up the inbound marketing process nicely, so I've included it below for your enjoyment.

So what are your plans with respect to inbound marketing. Are you already using it in your business? Is it working well for you? I'd love to hear your experiences.

The Inbound Marketing Process Infographic

From: IMPACT Branding & Design