A Short Definition of Content Marketing – It not about you

Is ‘content marketing’ the prevailing form of B2B marketing in use today? It seems to be, based on it showing up at the top, or near the top, of almost every recently published article on marketing. | LinkedIn.

I just joined the “B2B Technology Marketing Community” on LinkedIn.  The first article that was  pushed to me was this one about Content Marketing.  It quickly became obvious that many people have no clue of the definition of Content Marketing .  I read statements like “…good marketing has always been about content.  We have lots of brochures and case studies.  Now we have added blogging and video,” or “We write blogs, tweets and post to other social media,” and “We now use syndication to distribute our content.”  Many seem to confuse the tactical (having lots of stuff and finding new ways to distribute it) with the strategic definition of Content Marketing.

Content Marketing is establishing subject-matter credibility with relative content that is NOT about you or products.  You may know it as “Trusted Adviser” or  “Marketing disguised as education”.  It is about generating and distributing content (of any format though any method)  that is important to the people with whom you want to engage.  The goal is get your prospect to engage on the topic because it is important to them.  Once you have engagement, then you let them know that you have a product or service to sell that can help them resolve their issues.