We all know that content is king in marketing in these days. If you don't have great content, it really doesn't matter what cool channels you're using. But how do companies think about creating truly compelling content, especially if you're steeped in the world of traditional pitches, white papers, and promotions?

Scott Anderson, Vice President of Customer Communications for HP's Technology Solutions Group (which serves business customers) provided a great answer during a BtoB webinar today on how business technology buyers use media in the buying process.

According to Anderson, HP has made three major investments in content creation in the last two years:

• Build a new editorial team staffed especially by technology journalists, rather than marcom people. As he noted, journalists typically have both a more skeptical eye and better story telling skills 
• Organize a platform to enable HP's subject matter experts (engineers, consultants, etc.) to bring their own voices directly into the market (rather than being "translated" by the marcom staff) with blogs, forums, and other conversational contributions
• Create more opportunities for HP customers to share their own stories and ideas at events and online.

Has HP fully swept out the old and embraced the new? Of course not. You can easily find all manner of traditional features and functions promotional content from HP -- and not all of it is useless. According to buyer research presented by tech publisher CMP during today's webinar, many buyers do actually want to see the technical details, so long as it comes during the right phase in the buying process.

Most important, though, HP has taken three important steps forward in creating a more content-rich, content-driven, and conversational approach to the marketplace: Tell better stories, share expertise and knowledge in authentic ways, and help your customers talk to each other about the issues you care about most. Not a bad model.