Content marketing is the process of planning, creating, distribution, managing, and measuring your use of content to influence your constituents. Engaging, informative content is the holy grail of marketers everywhere. In the BTB arena, where content marketing has long been used as a lead generation tool, 26% of all 2011 marketing expenditures were for marketing content, according to a recent study by Marketo and Junta42. And 51% of the respondents to that survey anticipating their use of content marketing would grow in 2012. 

Content marketing is about establishing thought leadership and credibility while providing truly USEFUL information to your target audiences. Let's take a quick look at the components:

Content: Articles, white papers, case studies, market surveys and trend reports, how-to Webinars, videos and podcasts -- these are the core tools in the content marketing toolkit.  What distinguishes them from strict marketing collateral is that their primary purpose is to provide real value to the reader by educating, informing, or arguing a position. use them to publish blatant sales messages and you'll miss their real power, which is to draw people into your circle through persuasion.

Distribution. Distribution is getting your content out there. This requires fastidious planning and attention to detail. An editorial calendar is essential, and should indicate for every content item the relevant meta data, target publication points, promotional plan, and schedule. The plan coordinates timing for posting offers on your Website and blog for the new materials, along  with social media promotions, Adwords, and PR.

Managing and Measuring. Measuring the impact of your efforts on a daily basis is critical. Are you getting the results you are aiming for? Do you need to adjust the offer, placement, keywords, or social platforms you're using? Are you getting picked up by influential bloggers? If not, what can you do to spread the word more aggressively?  Is your content bringing good leads to your landing pages? Are your conversion processes working? Is the sales process behind the scenes working? Are they happy with the leads they're getting from your efforts?

Next Up: Anatomy of content.