In the recent Online Marketing Summit in San Diego, Joe Pulizzi (Junta42 and co-author of Get Content, Get Customers) was presenting to a group of about 300 people.  Joe asked the audience to raise their hands if they were doing content marketing for their lead generation programs today.  Out of the 300, only 4 hands went up.

I estimated it was about 1.5%.  This is a particularly shocking statistics, because OMS attendees tend to be savvy marketers.  But even savvy marketer aren’t getting content marketing, so their sales lead generation programs are not working.

When I posted a Tweet about this, I got an answer from Joe (He’s @juntajoe on Twitter, in case you wish to follow him.  I’m @fearlesscomp if you wish to follow me)

“It’s more like 2% have “documented” content strategies. Most are doing content marketing, it’s just all over the place.”

Why should you care about content marketing and what Joe has to say?  Are you responsible for fiscal results?  Do you care about revenue?  If so, this matters.

A recent study by Genius and DemandGen Report found that over 9 out 10 B2B buyers consume content (white papers, eBooks, case studies, etc.) during their buying process.  Buyers found the best content was personalized to them — their title, their industry, their buying stage, their concerns, etc.

The ramifications for you are simple and profound.  If you don’t have great content, you are in danger of losing out 90% of your prospective business. In touch economic times, who can afford that?

“How do I go about developing a content strategy?”  I feel certain that’s the question you’re asking right now.

The first thing I suggest is that you learn about content marketing.  A great free event is happening at noon ET on March 11, 2010.  Joe Pulizzi is doing a webinar with Find New Customers to share ideas, teach and answer questions.  You want to sign up — even if you cannot attend live, because you’ll be able to watch on demand.

In order to sign up for the webinar, click on Content Marketing with Joe Pulizzi.

What are you doing in content marketing? This blog is about you and your concerns, so we always welcome comments and respond to every one.

What do you think? We love comments and people who share.

Jeff Ogden is President of Find New Customers “Lead Generation Made Simple” Check out the online show every Friday at 11am ET, “Laugh and Learn with the Fearless Competitor.” Find New Customers is one of few lead generation companies in New York.

Find New Customers helps companies like yours (with 50 to 5,000 employees and complex products) implement lead generation programs to improve the way you find and acquire high quality sales leads using best practices in online lead generation. Quality leads matter. In fact, a recent study found that sales teams with fewer, high quality sales leads closed more than sales teams with more leads of dubious quality.

If you wish to do sales lead generation online, contact the B2B lead generation experts at Find New Customers using the form below.