Foreword Years ago, B2B marketing was primarily a paper-based or In order to be successful and rise above the clutter, B2B in-person activity. Companies would devote large portions of companies need laser focus on buyers’ pain points. They their marketing budgets to placing ads in industry publica- need to approach their marketing much like a publishing tions or sending company delegates to trade shows, all with entity — developing a strategy and building a team that can the hope of promoting and growing their customer rosters optimize and deliver content to the right contacts at the and bottom-line revenues. That strategy worked, largely right time in ways that have the greatest impact. Ultimately, because those tactics were the best options available and that is the core argument for building a content factory to the most effective way to interact with large groups of pros- support your B2B business. pects and buyers. In “It Takes a Content Factory! A Guide to Creating and Today B2B marketing is a different animal. With the advent Delivering the Content Your Company Needs to Attract and of the Internet, e-mail, and social media, it’s now easier Retain Great Customers,” OpenView lays out an easy-to- than ever to find and engage customers and prospects, follow framework for constructing a content factory from the whose appetite for online content is growing by the day. ground up. It contains a high-level overview of the compo- At the same time, the digital evolution has also created a nents necessary to build a content factory and is supported unique challenge for marketers — while buyers are digesting by a rich appendix of additional resources designed to more content, they have also become far more discerning supplement your efforts. about what they consume and from whom they consume it. At the end of the day, B2B marketers simply need to ask Ultimately, those changes have paved the way for a new B2B themselves this question: If content marketing is so critical marketing approach: content marketing. to your company’s ability to go to market, then why would you manage it with reckless abandon? The answer is simple: At its most basic, content marketing is about creating highly You shouldn’t. relevant content that appeals to your buyers’ biggest needs and moves them down the path to purchase. In that way, Joe Pulizzi it’s not just a marketing best practice, but also the veritable Founder, Content Marketing Institute backbone of a successful go-to-market strategy. After all, Author, Epic Content Marketing the more you are able to produce content that contextually Senior Advisor, OpenView Venture Partners addresses each step in a buyer’s journey, the easier it will be to drive conversions and to help your buyers actually buy, or stay longer as customers, or even buy more than they normally would. It Takes a Content Factory! | 1