Content Marketing is a hot new topic because businesses have realized that customers run away when they sense traditional marketing techniques.

But now instead of competing on the sheer quantity of interruptions, businesses are competing on the quality of their content.

Change is coming for many B2B Marketers. But for some of us, it’s already here and we are lighting the path forward.

Velocity Partners is a UK-based B2B Marketing agency that has learned how to set itself apart with great content. Last year they wrote the B2B Marketing Manifesto, a dedicated rant and call-to-arms for marketers in Business-to-Business companies to wake up and start doing marketing that customers don’t hate.

Now, they’ve created the content marketing checklist (reg. required) and I will provide you with an overview of the key points here, with permission from Velocity’s co-founder and creative director Doug Kessler (@DougKessler).

Good content isn’t enough any more. You need insanely great content that’s on-strategy and incites action. And you need to deliver it in a consistent, ongoing program. ~ Velocity Partners B2B Content Marketing Strategy Checklist

According to the checklist, content is critical to your business for the main reason that your customers care more about their problems than they care about your products. Content strategy allows you to focus your company’s expertise to help your customers solve their problems instead of talking about yourself. Content allow you to get found, get shared and get leads.

The Content Marketing Checklist

1. Identify the business goals content can help you achieve and which metrics you will track
2. Visualize the audience you are targeting based on a combination of demographics and psychographics
3. Identify the content that incites your buyers to move from one stage to the next
4. Map out the events (new products, mergers, growth) that trigger interest in your solutions
5. Map out the sweet spot where your company expertise uniquely matches your customer pain points
6. Perform a content audit to identify gaps in the content you already have
7. Map business themes to your sweet spot to prioritize focus
8. Create a list of high-volume keywords for each theme for good search engine optimization (SEO)
9. Define your editorial calendar with content production by themes, personas, and stages
10. Create great content (there is a whole section on how to do it in another 9 steps!)

I was honored and privileged to have been consulted and mentioned in the “big fat checklist.” And I truly believe there is some great stuff in here, presented in a candid and simple way.

So check it out, download it and use it in your business so you can start earning new customers instead of buying them.