Novella or novel, which length is right for your target audience? That’s the question you have to ask yourself before creating a new piece of content. Short-form types of content marketing play a key role in engaging viewers and boiling down complex information into digestible portions.

Publishing multiple pieces of content weekly is the cornerstone of an effective inbound marketing program. Yet maintaining a consistent stream of content can be a challenge. Many marketers are looking for alternatives to generating original content. Curated content is one approach marketers are exploring. Marketers are often debating whether their organization should be considering curated versus original content.

A well-optimized landing page is the cornerstone of a content strategy and the backbone to a website. This seemingly simple web form allows a company to capture a visitor’s information, typically in exchange for information in the form of an ebook, video, kit, etc.

They are known as the digital generation, Generation Y, the Net Generation or, more popularly, Millennials. These digital natives are the inspiration behind countless articles.

Successful content marketing starts with a plan, strategy and a deliberate set of actions. However, many
companies report that they don’t have a defined plan for content marketing. Effective content marketing for utilities is driven by frequent posting to blog sites about topics that are keyword-driven and centered on issues that interest both business and residential utility customers. Utility marketing should also take advantage of social media as an additional channel for reaching customers with content that casts the utility as a thought leader.

B2B marketing teams report spending more than 25% of their budget on the creation, promotion and delivery of all forms of content intended to drive leads, enhance brand presence and reinforce their authority.¹ Despite allocating more of their budget to content marketing, some companies engaged in B2B marketing don’t always remember that content is most effective when it’s set on a deliberate course. Content marketing tends to be most effective when it is a customer-centric, goal-oriented communication model to attract and retain B2B audiences. Here are 5 reasons that B2B content marketing may be devolving instead of evolving.

Here’s an unsettling truth: There are just as many ways to mess up a marketing communication as there are ways to make it stand out from the rest. Here’s another unsettling truth: Most people don’t need a marketing background to detect a poorly executed marketing communication.

Fast Company¹ has published the numbers: Social media is the No. 1 activity on the Internet. Even though social media continues to grow in importance, many utilities are still struggling with the best role for it within their marketing mix. It’s difficult for many utilities to make the connections that will engage customers. Social media for utilities is often limited to notifying customers of outages or potential weather patterns and general corporate information. While that’s a good start, utilities can capitalize on customers’ innate interest in useful, practical and even educational information. This is, after all, the Information Age, and users’ desire for self-serve solutions aligns to content marketing.

The purpose of any marketing game is creating a brand that promises a great experience for the consumer. This was a complicated task even in the heyday of traditional marketing, such as telemarketing, print and television ads. In the current climate, however, it's even more difficult for a utility to get its message in front of consumers, let alone try to build a brand. With Mashable¹ reporting 200 million people registered to "No Call" lists and 86% of people skipping TV ads, marketers are left wondering if they’re wasting marketing budget dollars when using traditional communication techniques.

This shift in consumer habits is the reason that digital marketing and content marketing for utilities is emerging as an effective utility marketing tool. According to the Content Marketing Institute², 86 % of successful marketing departments understand content marketing's value for branding enough to have someone in charge of content marketing strategy. If you're still not sure that content marketing for utilities is the right approach for improving your utility's brand perception, here are a few ways the strategy has already proven successful.

Your company has revamped the website, built up an archive of valuable material, started a blog, launched some landing pages with downloads and created a content schedule to be promoted via social media. Now you're ready to start driving traffic. But how long will it take for that traffic to arrive? For many reasons, content marketing tends to be a mid-term strategy rather than a short-term one. The reality is content marketing can take time to get traction. It’s important to remain consistent through the initial phase and not give up.