This infographic from Inside View provides some good stats on content marketing. Click it to see the full-size graphic.

By Dan Pecchia

Among the many strategies companies employ to land and keep customers, we see a lot of these three:

• Freebies: Buying clients and prospects dinners, holiday gifts, greens fees and the like.
• Creativity: Crafting clever, high-impact messages to “break through” to influence buyers.
• Content: Providing straightforward information about what you do and how it’s valuable.

As you might have guessed, we have a bias toward the last one on the list. The other two are likely here to stay, but they aren’t as powerful as they used to be.

In the years ahead, organizations that do a good job with content marketing won’t need to buy as many rounds of golf or hire ad agencies as often. Here’s why.

Freebies don’t have as much impact

The wisdom around buying gifts and meals is that it helps establish “relationships.” We buy that to a point. But these days, business relationships are based more on results than on things any supplier can buy.

Also, as companies get more sophisticated with the way they identify and manage expenses, and buy products and services, it’s likely that the client you golf with has less spending authority today than he used to have. He may be sharing it with a purchasing or compliance professional who will never meet you, let alone share a seat on your golf cart.

Just as the Enron and WorldCom scandals earlier in the decade brought the draconian Sarbanes-Oxley Act, every new story with a hint of bribery (like last week’s Deutsche Bank beauty) renews chatter about tighter gift and entertainment policies.

Moreover, as more business people find themselves doing more work than they used to do, there’s less time for golf or shopping trips with people other than family and close friends.

Still getting that creative on?

Many of my contemporaries grew up in the school of “creative” marketing, which suggests marketers must work “outside the box” to concoct messages that are “distinctive” enough to “cut through the clutter” in order to reach and influence customers and prospects.

This is based on the premise that the “best” channels – the ones that reach the most people – are so cluttered with messages that only the cleverest ones will “break through.” Thus, many “creative” professionals have made nice livings creating geckos and cavemen to sell insurance, hip-hop hamsters to sell cars and gazillions of characters, slogans, songs and jokes to sell other stuff through cluttered channels.

Though that premise still makes sense in some situations, we see problems with it in the years ahead. For one, the value of disruptive commercials, print ads and billboards is fading. A generation of internet users is growing up with the notion that you can use Google and visit company websites to shop – totally separate from enjoying a game or movie.

Further, no matter how “creative” paid advertising is, or even how well it “cuts through the clutter,” it’s still recognized as a bought message. That immediately inhibits its credibility. While this has always been the case, the credibility void in paid advertising is recognized more readily today by internet users accustomed to seeking out third-party reviews and discussions.

This recent study says more than three quarters of consumers consider most of the claims in ads to be exaggerated.

Why content is coming on strong

An emerging way to attract and keep the best customers is to develop good content and share it with them.

By good content, we mean written, audio or video material that helps customers and prospects get their questions answered. We mean articles, case studies and FAQs that reveal, in a straightforward fashion, what you do, for whom, and how that has value.

This is not the “creative” material that’s designed to “break through” a cluttered channel to catch a prospect during an intrusive commercial break, print ad or billboard. Content marketing aims to become not the interruption but the material the prospect is actually looking for, primarily via internet searches, social media channels and email (if they grant permission for their email to be used).

For good examples, check out the extensive content sections by General Electric, this global aircraft manufacturer, this Mahoning Valley law firm and this Youngstown public relations firm.

Does generating good content actually draw or secure clients? A growing body of evidence suggests it does indeed. One survey said business-to-business companies with active blogs generate 67 percent more leads than companies that do not.

According to the Custom Content Council, 90 percent of consumers find custom content useful. More than 60 percent feel better about a company that delivers custom content and are more likely to buy from that company. (Read more here.)

So, where’s your content?

Do you have a plan to develop and share content that shows your customers and prospects how you can help them and why they should hire you or buy your products? Have you looked into what content your competitors are sharing online or via email?

It is not very expensive or time-consuming to build a good volume of content that reflects expertise and capabilities your customers would find valuable. As more young people who’ve grown up using the internet to guide buying and life decisions find their way into company leadership positions, the value of good content will grow.

Our view is that companies that invest in content development and distribution will find it easier to connect with tomorrow’s clients – and today’s.

Those that continue to rely on freebies, creativity and other marketing approaches from yesteryear will find themselves hitting last.

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Dan Pecchia is president of Pecchia Communications, an Ohio public relations firm that helps its clients build and advance good content.