Content Marketing: You mean give away information without a pitch?

By guest author Joe Pulizzi, Junta42 Blog

To follow the philosophy of content marketing, you've got to want it bad. Content marketing is all about your customer...that one customer who needs just the right information from you to do their job better or make their lives easier.

Doing that is anything but easy.

I speak to a number of audiences around the country about content marketing as not just a marketing strategy, but an organizational strategy. More people are starting to get this, but many, sad to say, just don't get it.

"You mean I create content for my customer, but don't pitch them anything in it?" is a usual response. The answer to that question is whole-hearted YES!

Content marketing is about creating relevant, valuable and compelling content that truly meets the customer's informational needs. If you, as a company, are the provider of that content, isn't that the best way to show that you have something valuable to offer?

When that person is ready to buy a product or service that you offer, doesn't it make sense that they will think of you first, the company that keeps giving them that great business information?

C-Level executives are particularly wary about this concept, mostly because they never want to lose out on an opportunity to sell. That's their perspective...by delivering valuable information and not directly selling, we aren't hitting our numbers. In today's cluttered marketing world, nothing could be further from the truth.

This is part 1 of a post by Joe Pulizzi, Junta42. Joe Pulizzi is founder and chief content officer of Junta42, which recently launched Junta42 Match, an online marketplace to match marketers with qualified content publishers.

Next, Joe suggests you treat your valuable information like a product, with just as much attention and care.