The Growing Importance of Content Marketing – Stephanie Stahl from Content Marketing Institute

71% of content marketers said that the importance of B2B content marketing is growing over the last year (Content Marketing Institute, 2022).

Source: Stephanie’s presentation slide

Last week, I was honoured to attend an insightful sharing session on content marketing by Stephanie Stahl, the General Manager of Content Marketing Institute. She is leading the brand’s event and digital operations, and is very experienced in content development, content optimization and audience engagement. Below are some key takeaways from her session.

Role of a Content Marketer

Content marketers help brands to create valuable, educational and/or entertaining content that builds audiences. Content marketing is a pull marketing strategy because it aims at drawing the target audience’s interest in the brand or products by providing high-quality and relevant content. For example, Content Marketing Institute organizes events and creates educational digital content to share industry insights with marketers. This is different from traditional adverting, like display ads or direct marketing, that pushes price-based promotions or offers to consumers to drive sales.

Recent Trends in Content Marketing

Stephanie emphasized that content marketing is becoming more critical for big or small brands because it helps them to build their “own” audience and capture first-party data. More importantly, content marketing is taking a more prominent role in generating sales, especially with the growing engagements in the digital space after the pandemic. According to Gartner (Blum, 2020), 80% of B2B sales interactions will occur in digital channels by 2025. Therefore, content marketing is not only about education or thought leadership, but also about conversions and revenue generation.

Source: Stephanie’s presentation slide

My Experience and Reflections

I think content marketing is interesting and fulfilling because it allows me to create my stuff and bring insights to people. I am currently running my food blog CANTOTaste on Instagram to share my exploration journey of Hong Kong-style or Asian foods in Toronto. I like sharing authentic food and restaurant reviews with other food lovers, and I am particularly happy when they visit and actually like the restaurants I recommend.

CANTOTaste Instagram

My Query

As much as I enjoy creating content, I am worried that I might not have a good job opportunity in Canada as English is not my first language. Stephanie gave a clue that a lot of international brands are looking for experts to help them localize content for the local market. She reminded us to keep an eye out for such opportunities during our job search.

More Career Opportunities

With the growing importance of content marketing, companies are investing more resources to build their unique content. Stephanie shared research (Content Marketing Institute, 2022) saying that besides content producers, organizations are also hiring content marketers, community managers, sales marketing experts, UX designers, and so on, in the coming year.

Source: Stephanie’s presentation slide

There are certainly a lot of opportunities and roles available in the content marketing field as long as you stay open-minded and be willing to tap into it. I am ready to explore more, what about you?

References:

• Blum, K. (2020, September 23). Future of Sales 2025: Why B2B Sales Needs a Digital-First Approach. Gartner. Retrieved October 2022, from https://www.gartner.com/smarterwithgartner/future-of-sales-2025-why-b2b-sales-needs-a-digital-first-approach

• Content Marketing Institute. (2022). B2B Content Marketing Benchmarks, Budgets, and Trends: Insights for 2022. Retrieved October 24, 2022, from https://contentmarketinginstitute.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/B2B_2022_Research.pdf