Feb 11, 2014 By Michael Gerard

Content Marketing: Evolve or Die

in Featured, Marketing

As marketers, we’ve undergone a significant amount of change during the past 20 years:

Enjoying the glory years of the Internet boom
Rising from the ashes when the Internet bubble burst
Shifting 100% of our focus to ROI (return on investment)
Allocating many of our resources to lead generation
Cautiously entering the social media space
Expanding our awareness building and demand generation agenda to include sales enablement

Now we are once again being driven to evolve or die as a relatively new type of buyer emerges. These new buyers are hungry for content to help them in their job, profession, career and personal life; and they can get this content anywhere they please across the Internet. The most successful marketers have been quick to understand the needs of this new buyer, and more importantly, they’re using this as an opportunity to offer a unique value which serves as a differentiator for their own vendor organization -- that is, CONTENT.

Content marketing is the new buzz word, but more importantly, it is here to stay. (I’ll spare you the “content is king” analogy, but check out this link for a good laugh). If you don’t believe me, believe over 70% of marketing organizations who, according to a recent Curata survey, indicate that they will increase their spend on content marketing in the coming year. As content marketing matures, best-in-class marketers are rapidly evolving their organizations to create and distribute innovative and relevant content. This better engages their buyers and builds trust with them early on in the customer creation process. These marketers are quick-thinking and clever with an ability to use existing resources for survival and growth. They’re also not afraid to blaze new trails using innovative strategies, processes and technologies. Here are some of the practices and approaches that other content marketers can emulate:

Successful marketers invest in their teams

Brands that excel at marketing understand the importance of building strong internal and external teams. Many are now hiring a content strategy executive and a dedicated content development department so that content creation doesn’t fall by the wayside when other priorities pop up. Many now invest time and resources into outsourcing some of the content creation to freelancers so that their content development team can focus on strategy and execution. Investing in staff and freelancers for content marketing helps ensure a steady stream of relevant, quality content.

Effective marketers include curation in their marketing mix

Enlightened marketers strive to create 65 percent of their content, with the remainder being 25 percent curated and 10 percent syndicated, according to the Curata survey. Content marketers use content curation to increase customer engagement, improve brand visibility and buzz by starting more online conversations, and build thought leadership through a variety of perspectives from third-party sources. They not only find the best content for their audience through powerful discovery engines, but also contextualize it by adding their own insights.

Best-in-class marketers embrace technology

Instead of cobbling together a makeshift system of Post-It notes, Word and Excel documents, these marketers outpace others in their use of content management technology. Curata’s survey found that 56 percent of marketers are already using content marketing specific software (free tools, vendor software, or tools developed in-house) to manage their content workflow and distribution. We expect that number to grow in the coming year. The best marketers leverage technology to create and curate content, reducing time spent per day.

Characterized by their adaptability, passion, and efficiency, the best content marketers know how to leverage and grow their teams, build efficient and effective processes, and tap into new and existing technology.

To read more about the strategies used by successful content marketers, download the 2014 Content Marketing Tactics Planner, Curata’s third annual marketing benchmark study.

Michael is the CMO of Curata. He is responsible for Curata's marketing strategy and all related activities. Michael has over 25 years of marketing and sales experience, having successfully launched and sustained three start-up ventures as well as having driven innovative customer creation strategies for large technology organizations. (e.g., IDC, Kenan Systems, Prospero (mZinga) and Millipore). Michael received his MBA from the MIT Sloan School of Management, as well as a BS in Engineering from Worcester Polytechnic Institute and an MS in Engineering from Northeastern University.