SmartPulse — our weekly nonscientific reader poll in SmartBrief on Leadership — tracks feedback from more than 190,000 business leaders. We run the poll question each week in our e-newsletter.
How effectively do content marketing efforts (blogs, white papers, etc.) drive action by your customers?
- Extremely — our content marketing drives great lead generation: 6.06%
- Generally — our content sometimes sparks new conversations with prospects/clients: 34.55%
- Not at all — our content generates few, if any, comments, feedback or leads: 36.97%
- Not the point — we only publish content because everyone else does: 4.24%
- Not relevant — we have much higher priorities than content marketing: 18.18%
Increase Your Return. “That’s Marketing’s job.” Sorry but if you think content marketing is only the purview of marketers, you’re missing a big opportunity. Thought leadership is your product and the leaders in your organization have plenty of it. If you’re not tapping into it, you’re missing out. First, you should be driving new ideas. Second, share those ideas with the world. Think about all the knowledge your team has to share with the outside world. Give them a platform to do so, have it link to your product/service (both in terms of the content you share as well as with relevant URLs), and be responsive to the ensuing discussion. You’ll be surprised how many leads come from sharing great ideas.
Mike Figliuolo is managing director of thoughtLEADERS, author of “Lead Inside the Box: How Smart Leaders Guide Their Teams to Exceptional Results” and “One Piece of Paper: The Simple Approach to Powerful, Personal Leadership.”