How to Generate More B2B Leads with Content

The Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) Council launched a new study centered on how marketing can more effectively generate qualified sales leads through compelling thought leadership content – a task that has proven to be a struggle for marketers today. In fact, only 12% of marketers believe they have high-performance content marketing engines that are strategically programmed to target the right audiences with relevant and persuasive content.
The top failings that impact the number of downloads or registrations include:
- 48% of marketers are not developing customized content for target audiences.
- 48% of marketers are not allocating sufficient budget to create engaging and authoritative content.
- 44% of marketers are not producing content that is relevant or meaningful to different audiences.
- 43% of marketers are creating content that’s not reaching the right decision makers across the organization.
- 39% of marketers are not leveraging the right distribution channels and syndication opportunities to maximize reach.
B2B Lead Generation with Content Requires these Best Practices
- Utilize effective content distribution and syndication processes.
- Distribute content to existing database and third-party resources.
- Create lead nurturing content.
- Tailor content to target audience.
- Establish full partnership between marketing and sales.
The study, Lead Flow That Helps You Grow, finds most companies lack unanimity on what constitutes an actual sales lead. They are also not teaming effectively with sales and business development groups to create alignment on demand generation strategies, themes and advocacy agendas.
The report features findings from a survey of senior-level marketers across a broad range of industries, in addition to interviews with marketing executives at IBM, SAP, Thermo Fisher Scientific, OpenText, CA Technologies and Informatica. The research provides an in-depth, well-rounded view on how content marketing strategies are being managed, how content performance is being measured, and to what degree content is packaged, promoted and syndicated to generate optimal lead flow.