Industrial and Manufacturing Marketing Blog

Content Creation vs. Content Marketing – There’s a Big Difference

Unless you’ve been living under a rock somewhere for the past couple of years, you’ve surely heard or read about the power and the popularity of content marketing by now.

91% of B2B marketers are using content marketing as shown in this chart from the survey done by CMI and MarketingProfs (2013 B2B Content Marketing Benchmarks – North America).

Percentage of B2B Respondents Using Content Marketing

Industrial content marketing is playing a key role in how manufacturers, engineering and industrial companies are marketing today. According to GlobalSpec’s Industrial Buy Cycle Survey, 83% of buyers review up to three pieces of content before making a decision on purchases under $1,000, while 70% of buyers review four or more pieces of content on purchases greater than $10,000.

According to the recent 2012 IDG Enterprise Customer Engagement survey, IT decision-makers download an average of nine pieces of content throughout the purchase process.

Driving leads and sales continues to be the top priority for B2B marketers, and marketers are implementing strategies to help them meet this goal. (Source: B2B Marketing Trends 2012 Report by Curata).

There have been several more studies done on content marketing’s ability to produce higher quality leads at a lower cost per lead.

Does that mean creating more content will lead to even better results? Not exactly!

Creating content for the sake of producing content won’t move the needle for your lead generation. As I have said here in the past, you have to first develop a sound content marketing strategy before creating content. See my post, “What Does a Content Marketing Strategy Mean for Industrial Companies?

Earlier this year, I downloaded a slide deck called “Crap. The Content Marketing Deluge” from Velocity Partners. The opening slide says it all.

“Crap. The Content Marketing Deluge

The rest of the presentation provides excellent insights into the difference between merely pumping out content and content marketing. I recommend that you download and read it.

Are you seeing good results from your own industrial content marketing and how long did it take you to get there? Share your experiences in the comments area below.

Achinta Mitra

Achinta Mitra calls himself a “marketing engineer” because he combines his engineering education and an MBA with 36 years of practical industrial marketing experience. You want an expert with an insider’s knowledge and an outsider’s objectivity who can point you in the right direction immediately. That's Achinta. He is the Founder of Tiecas, Inc., an industrial marketing consultancy in Houston, Texas. Read Achinta's story here.
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Comments:

  1. I love the content.

  2. This is very intriguing and something I will probably share across my social media: ”83% of buyers review up to three pieces of content before making a decision on purchases under $1,000.” Overall, your post was very thought-provoking and well written! I totally agree with the sentiments of ”pumping out” content, from owning a content agency that writes hundreds of pages weekly. We don’t pump out, and clients sometimes don’t understand that since they ”want it yesterday.” Unique, humanly-penned content for your business takes quality time.

    • @Julia,

      Thanks for your kind words and for sharing your insights from the perspective of being the owner of a content agency.

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