It was in 2008 that I realised the power of creating and marketing unique content to pull people to your website and blog.

I discovered this when I stumbled upon Hubspot, a company that was one of the early innovators of content marketing. Their marketing was refreshing change to “old school” marketing and was based upon creating attention through attraction with blog articles and free ebooks.

It was  the dawn of “pull marketing”  or “inbound marketing” rather than push strategies such as telemarketing and direct mail.

Fast forward to 2012 and it appears that there is a growing groundswell of  activity and interest in content marketing is racheting up.

This momentum is not only for B2B but B2C is starting to adopt this marketing philosophy and  Coca Cola has created a brand new marketing strategy based upon this emerging trend.

Other companies such as American Express are also embracing this trend.

So Why has Content Marketing become Popular Recently?

More companies and B2B marketers are now recognizing the power of content marketing, and the effect it is having on customer engagement and brand awareness specifically.

The other enabling factor in this mix is social media because having great content is all good but it needs to be made “visible“.

Social media adds leverage and provides the free “distribution technologies” to your content that were not available before, this adds the “X-Factor” and increases visibility and buzz and creates marketing synergy that is hard to stop.

So What makes a Good Content Marketing Strategy?

According to the infographic below, it is quality, shareable content. Content that people actually want to read, engage with and share.

Companies like Coca Cola are becoming early adopters, maximizing their efforts with unique, compelling content development (such as the Content 2020 campaign).

The Content Marketing Explosion by the Numbers

So what is the current status of content marketing and what are the marketers plans for 2012?

  • 90% of B2B marketers are doing some form of content marketing
  • 60% of B2B marketers plan to spend more on content marketing in 2012
  • The major content marketing tactic is article posting at 79%
  • B2B Marketers are investing on average 25% of their budget on content marketing (smaller companies are spending more)

Take a look at how content marketing has become a power source in marketing as a whole, and why it has become one of the fastest growing industries today.

Written by Jeff Bullas