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Just as every B2B company stakes a claim to a market position, each of them has a story to share. The challenge is in figuring out how to share that story in a way that aligns with the needs and priorities of prospects and customers. But, it’s not just sharing the story. It’s about making the story so compelling that it elevates perceptions of value and urgency resulting in more qualified leads and faster purchasing momentum.

This is the sage advice from Ardath Albee, a B2B Marketing industry thought leader and practitioner that consistently delivers useful information. In fact, Ardath was one of the participants in our Content Marketing Secrets project and has been in the B2B content marketing game a very long time. The following post is a summary of her presentation at the recent Content Marketing World.

For my first liveblogged session at Content Marketing World, C.C. Chapman opened things up with a warning that this is 101 level content and to leave if you know what you’re doing. I think that’s a bit subjective, because the thing most companies suck at is the basics.

While the official CMI session title is: Transforming Your Small Business Into a Content Powerhouse, I’m going to make up my own for the purposes of this blog post:

17 Lessons About Content Marketing for Small Business

1. Whether you’re a big or small business, content is content. Many of the same rules apply. Content is essential for growing your company whether it’s a big brand or a mom and pop looking to expand.

According to a study by AOL & Nielsen, 53% of time on the internet is content consumption and in the U.S. alone, 27 million pieces of content are shared each day, not counting status updates and tweets. In the Content Marketing Institute and MarketingProfs report earlier this year, 9 out of 10 B2B marketers are using content marketing tactics to grow their business.

While content demand and interaction is high along with the reported levels of content marketing implementation by marketers, most companies are not satisfied with their ability to create compelling content over time, connect that content to relevant audiences and measure the full impact of the content investment.

How do I know? We get calls and emails from them every day, looking for help!

Relationships are essential for Content Marketing Secret Agents that need to develop critical assets to get missions accomplished. Take for example, the relationship between content and social media.  Many would-be content marketing operatives separate their content marketing efforts from social media marketing.  Unproven and disconnected strategies create costly mistakes and who has the time or resources for that?

In this final installment of our Content Marketing Secret Agent series, we have social media strategist and co-author of Facebook Marketing All-In-One for Dummies, Amy Porterfield to share her best content marketing secrets for small and medium sized businesses to succeed online.

You have substantial experience as a social strategist and an author.  How has your work with content marketing evolved and is all the buzz justified?

When in the field, Content Marketing Secret Agents can spend weeks or months on a particular project.  Move too quickly and mistakes can be made, ruining an entire campaign. Or a premature withdrawal from an operation can compromise the full benefit of the effort.

That’s why patience is a virtue with content marketing operations. Experience tells us that patience and setting appropriate expectations are essential to gaining support and allowing a program to come to fruition.  Curt Porritt is a veteran B2B marketer who is the Senior Vice President of Marketing for MasterControl and he knows all about the value of patience and understanding human nature to get approval and get things done.

You have substantial experience in the tech industry and with your current role as the SVP of Marketing for MasterControl, how has your work with content marketing evolved? Is all the hype justified?

The world of content marketing is full of mystery and intrigue with companies leveraging every possible resource to achieve a competitive advantage.

In the fast changing world of digital marketing, no resource is more valued than the coveted “Content Marketing Secret Agent”.

These covert content operatives perform their customer segmentation, persona development and editorial planning in the dead of night while most marketers are asleep, snug in their beds. While the average content marketer dreams of page views and search engine rankings, Content Marketing Secret Agents are mapping the customer journey, crafting meaningful messages that pull prospects from awareness to measurable conversions.

Few have been able to crack the code of this elite group but if anyone could, it’s the content marketing smarties at TopRank Online Marketing. We’ve collected some of the best tips just for you.

Within the Content Marketing Secret Agent community there are a number of operatives that really go above and beyond in their efforts to make an impact in their work. I’m not talking about double agents or moonlighting mercenaries, but people who can see the full spectrum of impact from great content marketing. From concept and creative to strategy and tactics to measurement and conversions, a well-rounded perspective towards content marketing will undoubtedly harvest an abundance of useful secrets.

That’s what we have with Robert Rose, Chief Strategist for the Content Marketing Institute and Founder and Chief Troublemaker at Big Blue Moose. In this interview he covers content marketing goals, the role of search and measurement as well as some great examples of how companies are integrating content marketing with other channels.

There is no substitute for experience in the field when it comes to covert content marketing operations. Rest assured, your competitors are employing their best to achieve a content marketing advantage and for that reason it’s essential that we tap the experience of assets that have “been there, done that” to gain our own upper hand.

Thankfully, we have a content marketing pioneer, practitioner and thought leader in Ardath Albee, CEO of Marketing Interactions, speaker and author on our side. Pay attention to her Content Marketing Secret Agent advice and you may find yourself on the right side of content marketing ROI.

You have substantial experience in business and marketing and with your current role as CEO of your company Marketing Interactions, how has your work with content as a marketing asset evolved? What do you think about all the recent buzz about content?

You know, once a great secret spreads, you get all kinds of “wannabe” corporate marketing types creating what they think is great content. And you know what? Most corporate content is flat out boring.  It’s all about “me me me”.  The best Content Marketing secret agents understand that it’s not all about the brand, it’s about what the customer wants that matters most.

Well, say goodbye to boring corporate content because Julie Fleischer, Director, CRM Content Strategy & Integration at Kraft Foods, has some excellent advice to share in advance of her presentation at Content Marketing World.  Her content marketing mission has been a tough one, but she joined us for this debrief:

They say three’s a charm and that’s certainly true with the third installment of our series investigating the top content marketing “secret agents” that will be presenting at Content Marketing World next week. “Mums the word” might be tricky with this one, since the data is coming from secret agent Michael Brenner, Senior Director of Integrated Marketing and Content Strategy at SAP. Michael is also the author of B2B Marketing Insider, the co-founder of Business 2 Community and the founding editor for the SAP Business Innovation blog.

This highly decorated content marketing secret agent will now share his take on all the content marketing hype, his session on one of the most pressing issues facing many marketing organizations ”Content Marketing: How to Transform Your Organization/Culture for Content Success”, top content marketing tools and his tips on managing long term creation of quality content.

Here’s the second in our series of Content Marketing World interviews. This time we’ve uncovered a secret stash of worldly wisdom from one of the most sought after global content marketing experts, Pam Didner, Global Integrated Marketing Manager at Intel.  Pam will be presenting at Content Marketing World on managing global, multi-lingual content on a large scale that will be a must see session for anyone involved with content marketing internationally.

Let’s dive right into our interview with Pam where she shares her secrets on the evolution of content marketing, where it fits in the B2B marketing mix, her session on global content management and how large enterprise organizations can scale long term content creation. Enjoy! But shhhhh, remember: It’s a secret.

TopRank’s Online Marketing Blog has partnered with Joe Pulizzi and the upcoming Content Marketing World conference to help promote the event and sessions by doing a series of interviews and creating an eBook: “The Secrets of Content Marketing and the Undercover Agents Who Shared Them”.

Successful content marketing that works efficiently, effectively and that can scale is a very big secret for a lot of companies. This series of interview posts and the eBook will shine a light on what some of the top brands (Intel, Kraft, SAS, Cisco, Ricoh, Kelly Services, SAP and more) and thought leaders (Jason Falls, Joe Pulizzi, Robert Rose, Michael Stelzner, Ardath Albee, Ann Handley, Jim Kukral, Mark Schaefer and more) have up their sleeves (or on a microdot).