Saturday, March 17, 2012

Content Marketing Has Value Elsewhere in an Enterprise

Most business-to-business marketers likely would agree that the primary purpose for content marketing, and hence content curation, is its role in stimulating revenue. Like all other marketing activities, content curation aims to build a sales funnel, directly or indirectly.


What tends not to be considered is whether content curation also has value for other parts of the enterprise, typically taking the form of enhanced organizational efficiency. 


Sensei Marketing argues, for example, that content curation improves collaboration between content creators (thought leaders, executive, product development, R&D, marketing) and content consumers that include not only potential customers, but also organization service, support, sales, and product development staffs. One might also argue, in that vein, that content curation also supports channel partners, not only prospects and customers.


Granted, the impact will be hard to measure, at a time when virtually all marketing executives want better analytics and measures of effectiveness. 


But here's the argument, in outline. Sales staffs can use curated content as a convenient source of  "proof points," rather than spending lots of time looking for such material on their own. 


Curated content can be a time saver for executives, allowing them to quickly stay up on important market and industry trends. 


Product development staffs can use content curation to gain new or timely insights into customer and market needs, while also benefiting from market feedback.


Curated content also can be used by external sales partners in much the same way that direct sales personnel can use the filtered content. In some cases that will consist of information on customer needs and context, in other cases provide training on product or service attributes and value. 


Content curation has value for B2B firms aside from its primary purpose of driving organizational revenue, Sensei Marketing argues. 

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