Delivering ‘Real Customer Value’: Where B2B Content Marketers Are Headed in 2012

2 minute read

Upland Admin

Crystal Ball_B2B Trends report_Content Marketeer

Crystal ball by bb_matt via Flickr.

The end of 2011 and beginning of 2012 saw a proliferation of predictions from marketers and content professionals on past and future trends. Forrester’s recent “B2B Marketing Trends and Predictions for 2012” brings the most important themes into a more focused view. Overall, the research firm summarizes that this year will find B2B marketers moving from a phase of technological experimentation to one in which those new technologies are used “to deliver real customer value.”

When it comes to content marketing, the report highlights three points that speak to marketers becoming more creative in presenting innovative ideas, as well as meeting the demand for content.

1) Thought leadership will lead.

CMOs will guide their organizations to a more structured approach in developing a thought leadership platform, and the big ideas and provocative positions of this platform will be a major part of what companies share through digital, social, and mobile channels.

2) Marketers will embrace their roles as publishers. 

Taking their cue from publishers, marketing leaders will create editorial calendars to plan their content creation needs and use tools like Kapost to manage the editorial process. Many will hire or contract people with journalism backgrounds to provide more dedicated attention to content creation.

[Disclosure: The Marketeer is produced and powered by Kapost. Learn more about us here.]

3) Short-form content will take center stage.

White papers and reports have been a staple of content marketing, but buyers in 2012 prefer to consume information in smaller chunks that are easier to digest. Marketers will move away from the long white papers to more frequent and timely content vehicles like blog posts.

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