Content Marketing + SEO + Increased Web Visitors = LEAD GENERATION

Don't cha just love it when studies come out that reinforce the broken record message you've been delivering for, oh, I don't know - forever?!

Demand Metric in partnership with Ascend2 completed a SMB/Enterprise Survey covering content marketing objectives for SMB and Enterprise organizations. The survey results were provided by Marketo. Thanks to all for the great info!

Here's one snippet I particularly liked:

"As a lead generation strategy, content marketing is more effective when paired with other objectives on this list, such as increasing website visits and improving organic search rankings. 

While these latter objectives are not highly ranked, they also are top drivers of lead generation performance."

The majority of Small Businesses and Enterprise organizations surveyed had lead generation as a top objective for content marketing while less than a third named their content objectives as focusing on increased website traffic and SEO. The bottom line: you need to have a mulit-dimensional content marketing strategy for it to deliver the benefit of lead generation. And, you need to make sure your content is compelling (will increase web visitors), audience-driven, and optimized for search engines (will improve organic search rankings). 

Why Is Web Content so Important?

Content is vital for the success of your Marketing campaigns. Your audience - no matter the size of your company or the type of product or service -  is a group of "self-educators" who are doing more online research before making purchasing decisions than ever before. 

Because of this self-education process, the information you provide has a big job of attracting, engaging, and acquiring new customers. This is something you might want to do right to make sure your lead generation objectives are being met.

Resources Needed for Content Creation and Implementation

For most companies (SMB and Enterprise) the problem with creating and executing successful content strategies requires resources. Here's something to think about:

"More than half (53%) of SMBs use only in-house resources to execute content marketing campaigns. 

68% of large enterprises outsource all or part of their content marketing campaign creation and implementation, gaining higher levels of expertise and performance available outside the organization. 

Outside resources are helpful for obtaining specialized skills or to remain agile in the production of content." 

SMBs... do you think your in-house resources are the most knowledgeable choice for creating and executing the best content marketing strategy that will meet your lead generation objectives.  Enterprise organizations... are the 32% of you not using outside resources with more specialized skills getting the results you want to compete with the 68% who "get it"? Two words to remember:  Awareness Creation!

Just saying...