When it comes to B2B marketing, we all know content is king. Providing engaging, useful information is essential to motivating your sales leads to take the all-important next step — contact you about your products or services. After reading a number of content marketing blogs, something occurred to me. While the many arms of social media provide 101 ways to get your message out to your prospects, understanding how they prefer to receive and break down the information is critical to getting their attention in the first place, even before you can nurture them through the sales process.

In the 24/7 communications age we live in, everybody’s receiving too much information, too fast. As a B2B marketer, if you think you’re busy pushing information out there, imagine how little time a CEO or senior manager spends reading emails each day, particularly marketing emails. Their demanding schedules pretty much dictate how they communicate with others.

To successfully get on somebody’s radar, you first need to understand how they prefer to communicate and receive information. Whether you’re reaching out to your customers via email, IM, Twitter, a monthly newsletter, a webinar invite, or a simple old-fashion phone call (imagine that!), understanding the most effective way to reach your target audience is a critical step to building a closer relationship with your prospects and customers, and sets the stage for delivering great marketing content that actually gets read.

Understanding the differences in how your targeted CXOs, senior management, and IT managers communicate and receive information can help make your marketing efforts more efficient, and ultimately, generate better results. Once you’ve successfully figured that out, and the attention is on you, that’s when your awesome marketing content can shine.