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Content marketing

Also called: Content strategy, Editorial marketing, Inbound content

Content marketing is creating and publishing material people choose to consume, rather than buying their attention, in order to build an audience that trusts you before it needs you.

What is Content marketing?

Content marketing earns attention instead of buying it, which only works if the thing is worth consuming. Zendesk invented a fake band to own "zendesk alternative" and still ranks years later. Cognism turned live cold calls into a recurring show. Most B2B content fails because it was built to rank, not to be read.

What is content marketing?

Content marketing is publishing something people actively choose to consume, so that when they eventually have the problem you solve, you are already familiar. It is the slow half of demand generation, and it compounds in a way paid channels do not.

The formats that matter in B2B:

  • Search-led. Articles, guides, and glossaries built to answer a question someone typed. Durable, compounding, and increasingly competitive.
  • Audience-led. Newsletters, podcasts, video series, and shows people return to on purpose rather than finding by accident.
  • Product-led. Free tools, calculators, benchmarks, and data studies where the useful thing is the marketing.
  • Reactive. Commentary and jokes tied to whatever the category is arguing about this week.

Here is the honest problem. The overwhelming majority of B2B content exists to rank rather than to be read, and readers detect this instantly. A 2,000-word article that restates the same eight points as every other result on the page technically competes and creates nothing. It generates sessions that bounce, and teams read the sessions as success.

The bar that actually matters is whether someone would send it to a colleague. That is a much harder test than ranking, and it is the only one that produces the compounding audience the channel promises. Ranking without being worth reading buys you a number in a dashboard.

How to run content marketing without screwing it up

  • Solve the search problem sideways. Zendesk built a fictional Seattle rock band called Zendesk Alternative, with a website, fake tour dates, and a concept album about customer service. It still lands on page one for "zendesk alternative" years later, and it made the rounds on Hacker News because the commitment was the joke.
  • Publish the experiment, not the conclusion. One team hired an agency to make the same ad three times at $1k, $10k, and $100k, then filmed the whole thing as a documentary. The $10k version won, driving installs about twice as efficiently at roughly half the cost per install. The finding is the content.
  • Turn the unglamorous work into a show. Cognism ran Cold Calling Live, a recurring event where a rep and a guest expert make real cold calls on stage in front of an audience. Nobody skips a live cold call.
  • Make the joke a real product. Figma launched FigPals on April 1, a Furby-style virtual companion for designers who live in the tool, advertised like a genuine 90s toy.
  • Put the belief somewhere expensive. Air handwrote its core belief and ran it in the New York Times. Ad Age, Mediabistro, and It's Nice That picked it up, which is a content play wearing a media buy as a costume.
  • Aim commentary at a category, not a company. Sybill's Gong Wrapped took the Spotify Wrapped format and pointed it at a competitor from a PMM's personal LinkedIn, timed between a comparison page launch and a webinar.

When is content marketing a bad idea?

You need pipeline this quarter. Content compounds over quarters and years. If the number is due in ninety days, this is the wrong instrument and running it under that expectation guarantees it gets cancelled right before it works.

You cannot commit past six months. The channel punishes stop-start effort more than almost any other. Three months of publishing followed by silence produces nothing except a sunk cost.

Nobody on the team has a point of view. Content built by committee to offend nobody reads exactly like content built by committee to offend nobody. If there is no opinion in the building, you will publish the same eight points as everyone else.

Your category is genuinely tiny. With a few hundred possible buyers worldwide, building an audience is less efficient than simply contacting all of them. Run outbound prospecting instead.

You are measuring traffic. Sessions are the easiest metric and the most misleading. If traffic is the target, you will optimise toward volume and away from the thing that makes anyone care.

Examples of content marketing in the wild

A fake band that owns a competitor search. Zendesk Alternative put an entire fictional grunge group in front of anyone shopping for a rival, and has held page one for years.

The same ad at three budgets. Make One Ad Three Ways turned a media experiment into a documentary, and found the $10k version beat both the $1k and the $100k on cost per install.

Cold calls as appointment viewing. Cognism's Cold Calling Live made the least glamorous activity in sales into a flagship series with rotating guests.

An April Fools toy that shipped. Figma's FigPals gave power users a joke product complete with a real launch.

A handwritten belief in the New York Times. Air's letter earned coverage in Ad Age, Mediabistro, and It's Nice That off one sentence.

Wrapped, but aimed at a competitor. Sybill's Gong Wrapped borrowed a format everyone already understood and pointed it somewhere useful.

Sources

  1. uglyGTM play library, content tag. 2026. https://www.uglygtm.com/t/content

FAQ

What is content marketing?
Content marketing is creating and publishing material people choose to consume, rather than buying their attention, so they trust you before they need you. In B2B it spans search-led articles, audience-led shows and newsletters, free tools, and reactive commentary.
How long does content marketing take to work?
Longer than most quarterly plans allow. Search-led content typically takes two to four quarters to compound, and audience-led formats take even longer to build a habit. The channel punishes stop-start effort, so a six-month commitment is the realistic minimum.
Why does most B2B content fail?
Because it was built to rank rather than to be read. An article that restates the same points as every other result competes technically and creates nothing. The test that matters is whether a reader would send it to a colleague, which is much harder than ranking.
How do you measure content marketing?
Traffic is the easiest metric and the most misleading. Better signals are returning readers, direct and branded search growth, shares into private channels, self-reported attribution on demo forms, and whether sales conversations reference specific pieces.
What is the difference between content marketing and demand generation?
Demand generation is the broader discipline of creating and capturing interest across a market. Content marketing is one of its main engines, specifically the part that earns attention by publishing something worth consuming rather than paying to interrupt.

Related terms

Brand awareness

Brand awareness is the extent to which buyers recognize and recall a brand when a relevant need arises, which determines whether it makes the shortlist before evaluation begins.

Ideal customer profile

An ideal customer profile is a description of the company types that get the most value from your product and are the cheapest for you to win, keep, and grow.

Demand generation

Demand generation is the marketing discipline of creating awareness and interest in a category across an entire market, then capturing that interest when buyers are ready to act.

Outbound prospecting

Outbound prospecting is initiating contact with buyers who have not raised their hand, using email, calls, social, or physical touches to start a conversation the buyer did not ask for.