Goodbye, B2B Brand Marketing: Developing Content-Based Marketing Programs for the Post-Marketing Era

In a previous article in this journal, we described the end of B2B marketing as we know it, the ways prospects will access information on products and applications in the post-marketing era, and the critical role played by content in this new environment.Goodbye, B2B Brand Marketing. Hello, Content-Based MarketingProspects in B2B don't notice and don't care about most of the conventional "marketing" they see around them, when they now have access to all the product information they need just a few keyword searches away. In this new post-marketing world, content-based marketing programs will be the key to lead generation and lead development.Content used in content-based marketing programs is defined as a base of substantive, reasonably objective, information, developed by or for your company, that:* Informs prospects on the unique knowledge, processes, and skills possessed by your company and used to conceive, develop, and manufacture its products;* Addresses the needs of your prospects, by showing them how your product solves their business problem or applications issue;* Positions your company as a unique and preferred player in its market, relative to your competition Once developed, content forms the basis of your new marketing programs in the post-marketing era, driving your choice of the presentation, sales benefits, copy, and offers used in every marketing deliverable. In content-based marketing, your content comes first: Developing a content-based marketing program is more than offering a free white paper in the call-to-action tagline of a conventional promotional space ad, mailing, or banner ad. It means first discovering and developing the content that most effectively sells your product by most uniquely positioning your product, and your company, and then placing content into vehicles and methods to engage potential prospects in, as marketing content and engagement expert Ardath Albee puts it, the conversations that lead to sales and new business for your company. When content becomes the core of your marketing program, the quality of this content, and its usefulness, desirability, and relevance to the prospects in your market, determines the level of measurable response you will generate from the marketing programs based on this content.The Key to Developing High-Quality Content: "Show What You Know""Show what you know" is the essence of using content to market and sell your company's product: By showing what you (your company) knows-the unique, special, and often proprietary information and knowledge held by your company, infused in your manufacturing and business processes, demonstrated by your company's track record, experience, and longevity in its field, and held by your company's key team members-you can uniquely position your company against your competition, and build a favorable, lasting impression in the minds of your prospects that is far more powerful than any impression created by brand advertising or other conventional marketing approaches.Developing Content-Based Marketing ProgramsDeveloping content-based lead generation and development programs is a process of:* Discovering what your company knows that makes it, and its product, truly unique in its market;* Developing this content into easily communicated forms;* Building measurable, response-generating marketing programs around this content for leadgeneration, using both new and conventional marketing media;* Producing additional, specialized follow-on content programs for use in lead developmentprograms, once leads are generated, qualified, and passed through to your sales processGoals for Content-Based B2B Marketing ProgramsHere's what you want to achieve by implementing content-based marketing programs: 1) Create measurable interest for lead generation: To influence and motivate potential prospects to respond directly or indirectly (i. …