Especially in business-to-business content makes all the difference. I’m not asmuch referring to the glossy corporate brochure or the annual report. Coming from corporate communications. I do refer to content coming professionals, experts. People of flesh and blood. Who excel at and are willing to share their vision on eg managed services in IT (the system architect), the most recent developments in corporate law (the attorney) or this month’s best insights in the world of new media (the B2B marketing consultant).
Content is king. Right?
Word-of-mouth is widely recognized as way more reliable than paid advertising. According to Seth Godin the future of marketing is in the content you create and distribute. “Be prepared”.
In a flatter, increasingly horizontal world meaningful content and expertise prevail over paid media. Content ensures buzz, recommendation, word of mouth. And indirectly sparks leads as well as business.
According to the Edelman Trust Barometer one needs to needs to hear something 3 to 5 times about a specific company to believe that the information is likely to be true? This implies your content ‘fishing net’ needs to be substantial.
Lots of content work to be done therefore. Especially in business to business companies see the opportunities in content marketing. But what resources do we free to do this? Or will we recruit another intern to fill the gap? And what content will both grab our audience’s attention and is then shared amongst friends or peers in this age of information overload? Proper content can come from any department. Even from where you’d least expect it. With the best returns when done in cooperation between various experts and managers. The CCO | Chief Content Officer vacancy: open to any colleague.
The Zero Moment of Truth or ZMOT (“zee-mot”) refers to the online research a prospect undertakes when considering a new purchase. The ZMOT kicks in after one has seen an advertisement for a product a service, yet before the actual purchase is made.
Last week I attended Enterprise Marketing 2.0 (#EM20) in Amsterdam. Speakers from amongst others DSM, Ericsson, Philips, Dassault Systemes, DHL/ Deutsche Post shared their insights into how to leverage social media in new B2B marketing.
Results of a study amongst 132 B2B marketers jointly conducted by Booz & Co, American Business Media (ABA) and the Association of National Advertisers (ANA) was presented last week. Assuming the findings are (or will soon be) relevant for the European and Dutch marketplace as well, this survey made me wonder.