To help ease the burden on busy marketers and overworked executives who don’t have time to start from scratch, we’ve put together this short guide to developing a winning content marketing plan.

1. Six Ste
p
s to a
Winn
ing
Content Strate
6
gy

2. “By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.”
―Benjamin Franklin

3. Since so many people know and understand Franklin’s quote,
why is it that centuries after
the phrase was first recorded so many organizations still do little more than pay lip service to planning?
Take content marketing for instance. Content Marketing Institute and Marketing Profs’ B2B Content Marketing 2014
Benchmarks, Budgets and Trends–North America uncovered the alarming fact that of the 93% of B2B marketers surveyed
who engage in content marketing, only 44% say that they have a well–documented strategy.1
That means that 56% of marketers are unintentionally planning to fail. Finding time to make a content marketing plan,
though, can be difficult because it feels like there aren’t enough hours in the day.
STRATEGY
44% of B2B marketers have a documented
content strategy.
Percentage of B2B Marketers Who
Have a Documented Content Strategy
6%
 B2B marketers who have a documented
content strategy are far more likely to
consider themselves effective (66% vs. 11%).
Unsure
49%
44%
Yes
 48% of smaller B2B organizations (10-99
employees) have a documented content
strategy, compared with 41% of large
organizations (1,000+ employees).
No
2014 B2B Content Marketing Trends—North America: Content Marketing Institute/MarketingProfs
SponSored by
6
VieW & SHare
Source: 2014 B2B Content Marketing Trends - North America, Content Marketing Institute/ Marketing Profs
To help ease the burden on
busy marketers and overworked
executives who don’t have time
to start from scratch, we’ve put
together this short guide to
developing a winning content
marketing plan.

4. 1
STEP ONE
Start by Asking Yourself Three Key Questions
1
2
3
Why are we doing this?
To have any chance of success, first you need define what you are trying to accomplish in the first place.
Do you want to spread brand awareness?
Do you want to improve SEO and increase inbound web–traffic?
Do you want to increase the effectiveness of email marketing?
Do you want to create warmer conversations for your business development team?
Do you want to do all of the above?
To be clear, this is not just a discussion for marketing. The best content marketing plans are those that have full
buy–in and participation from the sales team.
Are we in it for the long haul?
By its nature, content marketing is something that will grow in effectiveness over time. Creating a few blog posts
and putting a whitepaper up on your website is nice but will have limited long–term impact. Doing the same thing
consistently over a long period of time is another story entirely.
Do we have the budget to feed the machine?
A good content marketing strategy requires a never–ending stream of new material. To keep that stream moving you
need, planners, writers, editors, and graphic designers, as well as a team with the tactical expertise to distribute the
content to all appropriate digital channels. If you aren’t willing to budget the dollars necessary to do it
right, why do it?

5. “Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will
spend the first four sharpening the axe.”
―Abraham Lincoln

6. 2
STEP TWO
Start Sharpening the Axe
Once you have complete buy–in on goals, long–term commitment, and budget allocation—all of which should be
documented and included in your plan—it’s time to get a bit more specific.
Answer the following questions:
1
What is unique or different about what we are selling? [our key differentiator]
2
Who is our audience? [the people we are writing for]
3
What are their needs and frustrations? [the pain points our content needs to address]
Customer service
Technology
Key partnerships
By market
By vertical
By role
By market
By vertical
By role

7. 4
5
6
How does our product or service fulfill those needs/eliminate frustrations? [the tie in]
By market
By vertical
By role
What are typically the biggest perceived barriers to a sale? [the key objections]
Internal operation/solution already in place
No need to change
Competitor currently in place, etc
Look at your answers to questions 1–5, then ask yourself, what related content themes
can we focus on that will educate, inform, entertain, and otherwise pique the interest
of our identified prospects and customers. [the real meat of any content strategy]
At the lead stage—suspect
prospect
marketing qualified
sales ready
At the account stage—known attributes
At the opportunity stage—known attributes, verbally expressed interest

8. 3
STEP THREE
Keep Sharpening…
Just as an axe grows dull with time, so does content. Take a fresh look at the aforementioned questions at least once a quarter
so you don’t miss out on evolving trends. Question six—the actual content themes you want to cover will likely be the most
difficult.
Here are some suggestions for coming up with fresh themes:
• Hold a brainstorming session. Include participants from other departments. Talk to your sales team. Are there any
questions or concerns that come up repeatedly in conversations with prospects? Write down anything and everything. All
you need is a starting point.
• Pay close attention to the content being produced in industry magazines and blogs and take notes on any theme relevant
to your product.
• Check out what the competition is doing, and weigh if similar strategies would work for you. What areas are they missing
that you could deliver?
• Use social media tools to listen in on industry chatter. Follow influencers on Twitter. Join industry LinkedIn groups.

9. Still struggling with the idea of coming up with repeated fresh content?
We like these quick tips, taken from marketing expert Heidi Cohen’s 5 Content Marketing Strategies
to Fill Your Editorial Calendar2:
Create evergreen content. Problogger’s Darren Rowse calls this pillar content. He defines it as
topics that are central to your overall subject that contain solid advice you’ll link to again and again.
Leverage “just–in–time” content. This is content crafted to take advantage of trending topics.
They show that your organization is nimble and on top of things.
Repurpose content. This content is information that you’ve used elsewhere and are refining for
other platforms and needs.
Curate content. At its core, curated information extends your content–offering by selecting
the best content on your niche that’s available, organizing it into a structured format for easy
consumption, and explaining why it’s important for your target audience.
Co–create content. This content is developed with input from your community through the help
of influencers and customers. The key benefit of this information is that it’s social by nature and
lends itself to social sharing.
Read her full post

10. 4
STEP FOUR
Map Your Content to the Buying Cycle
Even though on rare occasions you will have your prospects “at hello,” more often than not your first touch–point with a
prospect will not result in an immediate sale. To be an effective content marketer, you must create pieces that speak to your
prospects’ evolving needs. In other words, map your content to the buying cycle.
As Content Marketing Institute’s Nancy Liberman wrote in Content Strategy: 4 Tips for Communicating at Every Customer
Stage, “The typical sales funnel reflects the stages of engagement — from awareness and consideration to decision and
purchase. The types of content that will engage customers and prospects will likely be very different at each stage of the
purchase cycle—a one–size–fits–all content strategy simply won’t work.”3
The following chart highlights examples of the various types of content that should be used at
each stage of the process:
Sales Cycle
Lead
Account
Opportunity
Client
Buying Cycle
Unknown through
Awareness
Awareness &
Demonstrated Interest
Consideration
Purchase
Support Advocacy
Renewal
Appropriate Content
• Press Releases
• Whitepapers
• Infographics
• eBooks
• Thought leadership
articles
• Blog Posts
• Press Releases
• Whitepapers
• Infographics
• eBooks
• Thought leadership
articles
• Blog Posts
• Case Studies
• Demos
• Product Literature
• Product updates &
announcements
• FAQs
• Newsletters
• Tips & Tricks
• Product
updates and
announcements
• Webinars

11. 5
STEP FIVE
Choose Your Delivery Methods
B2B Content Marketing 2014 Benchmarks, Budgets and Trends–North America indicates that B2B marketers use an
average of 13 different content tactics. This by no means says that you need to use all 13 to be effective. The key is finding the
right mix. As with everything else marketing and sales related, that boils down to knowing as much as there is to know about
your customer, including how technically savvy they are, where they spend their time online and how they like to be
communicated to.
Because that is not information you can easily uncover overnight, we recommend implementing a dual outbound/inbound
approach that leverages multiple different types of media.
• Outbound campaigns use email marketing to
distribute your content to your prospect database.
TACTIC USAGE
B2B marketers use an average of 13 content
marketing tactics.
B2B Content Marketing Usage
100
(by Tactic)
87%
81%80%
80
 Tactic usage has
remained relatively
consistent when
compared with last year.
76% 76%
73% 73%
 Infographics has seen
the largest year-overyear increase in usage.
Last year, 38% of b2b
marketers were using
infographics, compared
with 51% this year.
68%
64% 63% 62%
60
51%
Games/Gamification
Print Newsletters
Annual Reports
25%24%
22% 10%
Virtual Conferences
Licensed/Syndicated Content
25%
27% 26%
Podcasts
Mobile Apps
Books
eBooks
Print Magazines
Mobile Content
Branded Content Tools
Microsites
Research Reports
Infographics
Webinars/Webcasts
Online Presentations
30%28%
White Papers
Articles on Other Websites
Videos
Case Studies
In-person Events
Articles on Your Website
Blogs
Social Media – Other than Blogs
0
eNewsletters
20
35% 34%
Digital Magazines
44%
40% % %
38 38
40
2014 B2B Content Marketing Trends—North America: Content Marketing Institute/MarketingProfs
9
VieW & SHare
Source: 2014 B2B Content Marketing Trends - North America, Content Marketing Institute/ Marketing Profs
SponSored by
• Inbound campaigns use content to drive SEO and
social tactics to attract “unknown” prospects that fit your
buyer profile.
Content that you create for your outbound efforts should
be used for inbound campaigns, and content you create
to drive inbound traffic should be sent out via other
channels as well. As for actual media format, start broad
and then narrow it down as you begin to identify which
tactics resonate best in your marketplace.

12. 6
STEP SIX
Create Your Editorial Calendars
When it comes to creating an editorial calendar, we suggest you start broad and then narrow it down. Pick four
quarterly themes. Break each theme down into three monthly topics, then break each month down from there. When
possible, use the creation of smaller pieces to seed the content of larger pieces later in the month. There is no perfect,
one–sized–fits–all calendar format. Play around with what works for you, but getting it on paper is a great first start.
Example [Lead Stage] Content Calendar:
Theme
Q1–Sales &
Marketing
Infrastructure
Date
Delivery Method
week1
blog
5 reasons CRM implementations fail
website/social
week2
blog
8 things your CRM should tell you
website/social
blog
How to get your sales team to buy into
your CRM strategy
website/social
week4
eGuide
What the best sales organizations know
about CRM that other’s don’t
email/press release/
website/social
week4
Feb
–Marketing Automation
Title
week3
Jan
–CRM
Media
press release
announce release of eGuide
online
week1
week2
week3
week4
March
–The Intersection of CRM &
Marketing Automation
week1
week2
week3
week4
Assigned To

13. Partner Effectively
If you are looking to truly leverage the power of content marketing and don’t have the
bandwidth or desire to do it internally, it is important to work with a team that is in
constant conversation with the marketplace. Those conversations will create a cache of
intelligence that can be leveraged across all your sales and marketing efforts.
NuGrowth Solutions is that team. We bring a full sales and marketing engine—
including CRM implementation and management, inside sales and relationship
building, content creation and marketing automation. We have the infrastructure,
the capability, the tools, the processes, and the reporting in place to run sales and
marketing campaigns with the dedicated cadence necessary to be successful.
As one client so aptly put it, “There are good ideas, and there are
good ideas that work. The ones that work require a dedicated
cadence.” The NuGrowth sales and marketing teams create and
sustain that dedicated cadence so our clients can concentrate
on what they do best. Call 800.966.3051 to find out more.
About NuGrowth
NuGrowth Solutions helps organizations
grow their businesses with pace and
purpose. We build and lead results–oriented,
“sales as a service” business development
teams and support them with exceptional
lead gen marketing—utilizing our propriety
territory management methodology to
generate leads, build pipelines and increase
sales for our clients.
4181 Arlingate Plaza, Columbus, OH 43228
(p) 800.966.3051 (f ) 614.388.5811
www.nugrowth.com
Copyright ©2013, NuGrowth Solutions
Sources:
1
“B2B Content Marketing 2014 Benchmarks, Budgets and Trends–North America.” Content Marketing Institute/Marketing Profs, http://contentmarketinginstitute.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/B2B_Research_2014_CMI.pdf
2
Cohen, Heidi. “5 Content Marketing Strategies to Fill Your Editorial Calendar.” http://heidicohen.com/5-content-marketing-strategies-to-fill-your-editorial-calendar/.
Liberman, Nancy. “Content Strategy: 4 Tips for Communicating at Every Customer Stage.” Content Marketing Institute. http://contentmarketinginstitute.com/2013/01/content-strategy-communicate-at-every-customer-stage/.
3