How often do you get asked: What is content marketing? Are our competitors doing it? Should we be doing it? Would we get leads from it?
If you’re like most marketing managers, your boss or leadership team (and maybe even your conscious) is bombarding you with questions, pressuring you to hop on the content marketing bandwagon.
You might understand the basics of content marketing – enough to know that it’s an inbound marketing method and a time-consuming one, at that. But are you familiar with its role in boosting your company’s ranking on the search engine results page (SERP) or forming connections with your target audience over their pain points?
We’ve compiled a list of our favorite content marketing blogs that you can include in your daily news intake. Each blog provides an insider’s look into content marketing and will help you feel confident explaining to management why you believe your company should or should not execute it.
1. HubSpot Marketing Blog
Whether your business uses HubSpot as its customer relationship management (CRM) software or prefers another platform, HubSpot also operates as an agnostic publisher of content marketing tips, trends and industry-wide data that marketing managers have come to rely on. In fact, HubSpot maintains more than 400,000 subscribers across its three main blog categories, marketing, sales and customer success (for HubSpot agencies like Sagefrog). Each blog is updated daily with new information, how-to articles and examples for building a business through inbound marketing methods like content marketing.
If you’re a marketing manager weighing the pros and cons of content marketing, here are three HubSpot blogs you should check out today:
- How to Develop a Content Marketing Strategy: A Start-to-Finish Guide
- The Difference Between Content Marketing and Inbound Marketing (and Why It Matters)
- The Best of B2B Marketing Content: 9 Examples
2. Content Marketing Institute Blog
Simply put, the Content Marketing Institute (CMI) is the leading global content marketing education and training organization, teaching enterprise brands how to attract and retain customers through content marketing. For marketers exploring the method or justifying a content budget to leadership, CMI’s blog is one of the most reputable resources available to support your research. From simple ‘getting started’ guides and proprietary content marketing frameworks, to daily ideas and inspiration, the content CMI provides makes it more than a blog – it’s a conversation starter that will have you sounding like an expert in no time.
If you’re becoming convinced that content marketing might be right for you, these three blogs will help you develop personas and avoid big first-timer blunders:
- How to Implement a Content Marketing Platform in a Global B2B Organization
- Quick and Dirty Guide for Creating Actionable Content Marketing Personas
- 24 Experts Share How to Avoid Big Mistakes in Content Marketing
3. NewsCred Insights
As the global leader in enterprise content marketing, NewsCred aims to empower marketers with powerful resources that inspire, educate and make marketing better for everyone. The Company’s offering combines software, content creation and expert services, while its blog NewsCred Insights is an information hub separated strategically into six buckets:
- Audience: How to reach your audience with content they care about
- Industry Leaders: Learn from the best of the best in content marketing
- Inspiration: Explore the successes and learnings from the best in content marketing
- Management: Best practices for creating a culture of content within your organization
- Measurement: How to prove the ROI of your content marketing efforts
- Strategy: How to build a framework for content marketing success
These three NewsCred blogs will teach you how to integrate other channels into your content marketing efforts as well as how to boost and report on your marketing ROI:
- How to Use Social Media to Strengthen Your Content Marketing
- How Interactive Content Can Boost Your Lead Quantity and Quality
- How the NewsCred Methodology Drives Content Marketing ROI
Hopefully whetting your palate with our favorite blogs has you thinking about content marketing as a worthwhile tactic for your B2B company. We understand that content marketing is time-consuming, but the benefits are big when executed right. An integrated content marketing campaign includes creating not only the content itself but also the subsequent landing pages, emails, blogs, social media dissemination, automated workflows and more. If you’re ready to take the next step, let’s chat.
Schedule a consultation with us today. We’ll evaluate your marketing challenges and help you vet the option of adding content marketing into your mix. Our chat will even produce a free Marketing Plan Summary that will help accelerate your success.
Are you interested in B2B marketing services? Contact Sagefrog Marketing Group today.
