"What do you do," the American Business Media asked, "in the face of pseudo-science dressed up as the real McCoy, inventive media promotions that win lots of crisp headlines but add little substance to the debate, and a sense of media sophistication completely foreign to your nose-to-the-grindstone audience?"

You turn to a seasoned content producer who knows the audience, knows the issue and can communicate it cleanly, meaningfully and powerfully. Here's what that looked like when Mike Smith guided Alpharma's 10-year For the Record project to accolades from the business press association as A Case Study in Effective Content: For the Record.

Effective content marketing is about telling, not selling. It takes the spirit of an editor to be able to step back and look at the world through your customer's eyes first, yours second. And it's the only way to make content customers care enough in order to turn your brand into a center of expertise and insight about issues important to your customers. See just how far a good story can take you by listening as Mike Smith deconstructs the media coverage of antibiotics in agriculture with Ohio Farm Bureau Radio's Joe Cornely.

When you nurture an authentic relationship with your content audience--when you approach them as consumers of information first; sales prospects, second--then you move toward the goal of making your brand the center of expertise and insight about issues important to them. See how this unfolds by listening as Mike Smith discusses the issue of biotech food-ingredient labeling on behalf of his content sponsor with ag radio host and commentator Trent Loos.

You want search-engine optimization? Shortcuts and tricks don't get you to page one. The tools of quality content do. Here's how, using only the tools of his craft, Mike Smith rocketed his rational defense of one controversial farming practice to the front page of the search engines on gestation crates. What's that kind of quality-driven content worth to an industry? Priceless.