Content marketing

What is content marketing?

Content marketing is publishing useful material that attracts buyers and builds trust before they talk to sales. The Content Marketing Institute defines it as creating and distributing valuable, relevant and consistent content to attract and retain a clearly defined audience and to drive profitable customer action. Formats include guides, case studies, newsletters, videos, webinars and how-to articles.

Why it matters to a revenue leader

Buyers research before they call. A facility manager facing a new code requirement or a budget deadline will read whoever explains it clearly, and that company starts the conversation with credibility. For a revenue leader, good content is also a sales asset: a plain explanation of a compliance change gives sellers a reason to reach out that is about the customer's problem. Its weakness is measurement: content shapes demand long before anyone fills in a form, so judge it over quarters and by the conversations sellers report, alongside lead counts.

An environmental testing company publishes a plain-language guide to a new state stormwater rule six months before the compliance deadline. Over the next two quarters, 40 property managers download it and 12 ask for a site assessment, several from companies the sellers had never reached. Sellers start sending the guide ahead of first meetings.