Online marketing guru, David Meerman Scott, author of “The New Rules of Marketing and PR” sums up the idea in this post, “Brand Journalism,” which explains why journalists make the best corporate storytellers.

Content marketing and SEO best practices require research about what language your customers use when searching for products and services.  Adopting a well-researched keyword strategy coupled with proven storytelling techniques positions your brand as a trusted advisor and as a go-to source for educational information.

Content Marketing Lead Generation

Fashion Content Marketing, Fashion Week 2008 by Kathleen Colan

Joe Pulizzi of the Content Marketing Institute says “Content marketing is marketers becoming publishers; owning the media instead of renting it. Attracting and retaining customers by creating/curating valuable, compelling and relevant content to maintain or change behavior.”

In essence, your goal is to reach the people who will buy your products and services. Content marketing is useful in a variety of traditional lead-generation and brand awareness marketing tactics, including:

• Website Content
• Landing Pages
• E-mail Drip Marketing Campaigns
• Social Media
• Corporate White Papers
• E-Newsletters

What can you expect from instituting a comprehensive content marketing campaign? The results are measurable. With Google Analytics, Google Webmaster Tools and a host of analytics products you’ll be able to quickly understand how well visitors respond to your content.  The experts at Search Engine Land recently shared their perspective on the topic,  ”From Garbage to Gourmet, Fixing SEO Content Strategies.“

Content Marketing for Social Media

If you’ve jumped on the social media bandwagon to promote your business it’s imperative that you have content to share. We’re talking about content that drives leads.  Read how our former client, Mongoose Metrics, generated brand awareness and leads with a comprehensive Twitter campaign in a recent article in BtoB magazine, “Twitter drives traffic, leads, conversions at Mongoose Metrics.“

We’ll be posting much more insight on topics covering of the convergence of SEO, social media and content strategy in the future so check back soon.

How do you use content marketing to generate leads?