In recent years, content marketing has been moving at the speed of light. With the development of technology and the internet, people are tired of old advertising and sales tactics. Now, people have the option to skip the ads and choose the brand they want to interact with. Buyers are attracted to a brand’s authenticity, transparency, and friendliness. So, if you want to win their money, you must win their hearts first.
Content marketing is a cost-effective and customer-focused strategy that supports long-term growth. According to statistics, successful B2B marketers spend 40% of their marketing budget on content marketing. Every B2B firm should have content marketing in their B2B business plan, and marketing professionals should be familiar with content marketing best practices. Unfortunately, many businesses skip the planning and jump right into creating content, which is not the right approach. Read this post to learn more about B2B content marketing, its importance, and the top ways to prepare a successful content strategy.
What is B2B Content Marketing?
According to Content the Marketing Institute, “content marketing is a strategic marketing approach focused on creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and retain a clearly-defined audience and, ultimately, to drive profitable customer action.”
This is a general definition that applies to B2B and B2C content. However, B2B content marketing involves a lengthy and complicated process as it may take weeks, months,or longer to nurture a prospect. B2B content marketing refers to using the content in written, video, audio, or other formats to promote a brand’s products and services. It is about informing the other businesses what you do and how it can benefit them. B2B marketers aim to create useful, authentic, engaging, and high-quality content to boost brand awareness and generate more leads. A strong content marketing strategy guides the customers through the path to purchase.
Why is Content Marketing Important for B2B Businesses?
Content marketing offers many benefits that help increase sales and contribute to business growth. Here are the top reasons to include B2B content marketing in your B2B marketing strategies.
1. Around 74% of B2B buyers study products/services online before making an offline purchase. You can attract B2B buyers with informative material highlighting your company’s knowledge and services. Either you provide what B2B buyers are looking for, or your competitors will.
2. Content marketing is not only more cost-efficient than other strategies but also more effective. Businesses that effectively plan and execute a content strategy experience more benefits and growth.
3. Content marketing enables you to communicate successfully with a range of customers. According to CMI and MarketingProfs, the popular and effective content formats that deliver expected results are – case studies, social media posts (excluding videos), e-books, and white papers.
4. Small firms with blogs get 126% more lead growth than small businesses without blogs. So, produce relevant, fresh, and authentic content consistently for your website to gain exposure.
How to Create a B2B Content Marketing Strategy?
According to B2B consultant experts, great content starts with a well-planned content strategy. It is a blueprint to align content ideas, objectives and efforts to gain traffic, generate leads and convert businesses into your clients. Here’s how you can create a winning B2B content marketing strategy from scratch.
Know Your Audience
You must educate yourself about your target market before you begin B2B content marketing. You can start by making a customer profile or persona for your ideal client. Then, gather information about buyers and their purchasing preferences to create a more accurate and detailed persona. In B2B content marketing, you may have to create a buyer persona of people responsible for making the purchasing decision. Finally, understand your target audience’s content requirements and expectations in order to develop the best approach and right content strategy.
Set Achievable Marketing Goals
When you are unclear about what you want to achieve, you might waste time posting irrelevant content. A content marketing strategy should serve a particular purpose. So, before you plan the strategy, you must set quantifiable, achievable, and clear goals for your campaign and individual content pieces.
Content Ideas
Now that you understand your target audience and goals, the next step is conducting research for content ideas. The different types of content formats that can work wonders for B2B marketers in different stages of the buyer’s journey are – blog posts, podcasts, articles, case studies, white papers, and more. You can also use tools to find trending topics relevant to your industry.
Choose a Distribution Platform
If you don’t promote your material wisely, producing excellent content won’t help you. It is said that “It’s not the best content that wins. It’s the best-promoted content that wins.”
There are numerous platforms available to efficiently distribute your content. So it’s your responsibility to determine which one suits you the most. According to statistics, 89% of B2B marketers use LinkedIn to generate leads. However, LinkedIn might not work for you. So, find out which platforms are most frequently used by your audience and use them wisely to share your content.
Improve Your Content Marketing Strategy with Company Expert’s Playbook Products
Do you want to establish yourself as the thought leader in your industry? If yes, you must have a content strategy that separates you from others. Here’s a list of Company Expert’s B2B playbook products that you should incorporate into your B2B content marketing strategy to stand out from the crowd.
1. Content Planning
It is an effective tool that aims to create the right content to help you become a thought leader in your B2B industry. You can use the playbook for content planning, creating compelling content, content pillar and solution-oriented content. It also helps ensure brand consistency and tone across your marketing.
2. Content Idea Generation
Writing engaging and effective content on trending, relevant topics is no more a daunting task with the content idea generation playbook. As the name suggests, this product will help you create interesting and engaging B2B blogs and articles that will resonate with your target market.
3. Content Repurposing
When you alter content to create other pieces of content, it is known as content repurposing. If you want to increase the utility value while reducing the cost of producing content, you can count on the content repurposing playbook. It provides a framework for content repurposing and addresses various questions like how to plan, develop, and optimize the existing content.
4. Developing Effective Case Studies
Case studies help you share your client’s success with your prospects to position your company as a trusted leader. Our playbook provides a 6-step guide to developing robust case studies that capture the reader’s attention, keep their interest, and elicit a call to action. Use our playbook to prepare a well-written case study to convert prospects into clients.
5. Editorial Guidelines
Every B2B firm must have editorial guidelines for its content writers. These will help them write blogs and articles that will strike the right tone and message with target clients and establish a consistent style for the firm. If you want to create or refresh the editorial guidelines for your firm, use our playbook. It contains five critical elements and walks you through a 4-step process to create consistent editorial guidelines.
Set Your B2B Business Up for Success with Company Expert
B2B content marketing helps increase traffic, generate leads, and earn revenue. With the right B2B content strategy, you can convince businesses to choose your products/services over your competitors. Whether you want to build a fresh content strategy or improve your existing content plan, Company Expert’s playbooks can take your content plan from dull to profitable. I
Company Expert is a reliable B2B consulting firm offering specialized services and playbooks to develop clear and compelling messages and strategies to position your firm as a trusted expert. We work daily to refine, adapt, and optimize approaches designed to accelerate the growth of professional service firms. Use our playbooks to create an effective content marketing strategy for your B2B firm.
