Analyze your market to know your strengths, weaknesses, possible opportunities or threats, see who your main competitors are and what strategies they follow, research the interests of your potential customers, write content to attract them to your website and post frequently to gain their trust.
What is B2B content?
B2B content marketing is the creation and distribution of content designed to promote a company’s products or services to other businesses. The purpose of this content is to increase brand awareness, bring quality traffic, leads and sales for B2B companies.
In other words, B2B content marketing is the art of using content to expand your business’s audience, strengthen and develop brand affinity, and generate sales and leads by attracting other businesses. Forms of B2B content marketing include blogging, case studies, podcasting, e-books, infographics, newsletters, etc.
Statistics For B2B Content Marketing
- Over 60% of marketers measure the success of their content marketing strategy by sales.
- 60% of marketers report that content marketing generates demand and leads, 70% say content marketing helps educate audiences, and 60% say it helps build customer loyalty.
- 87% of B2B marketers prioritize audience information needs over an organization’s promotional messages.
- Content creation is the most outsourced content marketing activity among B2B marketers.
- 90% of marketers use a content marketing plan to continue investing the same amount in the channel in 2022.
- Social media, email, and an organization’s blog or website are the top three organic content distribution channels used by B2B marketers.
- The top three goals that marketers achieve through content marketing are generating brand awareness, building credibility and trust, and educating audiences.
- 96% of B2B content marketers use LinkedIn.
- Only 28% of B2B marketers do not use paid content distribution channels.
- 78% of B2B marketers do keyword research for SEO when creating content.
B2B Content Marketing vs. B2C Content Marketing
Given the length of the sales cycle, in B2B it is much longer and more time-consuming than the average B2C cycle where consumers see the product/service and, if they like it, buy it. When it comes to more expensive products/services, where the purchase requires the involvement of several parties, this process can take at least 4 months. The same is true for investments, where B2B content requires more financial effort than B2C.
What should B2B content look like?
- easy to read, remember and share
- valuable and unique
- professional
- get to the point as quickly as possible
- targeted
- is based on analysis
- be related to the general marketing strategy of the business
Why do you need a B2B content marketing strategy?
A content marketing strategy is a set of guidelines that help you get from point A to point B, it’s a plan designed to guide you towards your goals and keep you on the optimal path for your business.
Think of it like if you want to go hiking in the mountains and you want to fit into a time frame, you want to know what to expect on the trail so you are prepared with the necessary equipment and resources. For all this you need a little plan based on research about the location and the potential dangers you can encounter along the way.
What is a Documented B2B Content Marketing Strategy?
First of all, you need to answer the following 3 questions as realistically and concretely as possible:
Who are you writing content for?
It’s a question you should ask your potential clients, as some of them probably haven’t tried to research their customer base to identify the challenges they face before they start creating their strategy. So, they may create content that is interesting and very well written, but that doesn’t resonate with their target audience and as a result, although it reaches some people and gets views and clicks, there is no further engagement.
1. Establish and define your content marketing goals
Any content marketing strategy starts with setting SMART goals. Without clear goals and objectives, you will lack direction and likely lose more time or even important steps to complete projects. Take the time to think about what you want to achieve with your content, as this will influence the type of content you produce as well as how you measure your success.
7 tips to help you set your business goals more effectively:
“Think about the big picture, the overall goal you want to achieve.
“Pay attention to current data and trends to get a better idea of where you are at that moment, what’s possible, and how best to plan.
“Be as realistic as possible with your completion dates, with what you can achieve.
“Write down each goal so you have a record of them and how you want to achieve them.
“Plan your challenges, because nothing goes exactly according to your plan.
“Track your progress at least once a month.
“Communicate with your team and tell them about the challenges you’ve faced along the way or the milestones you’ve reached.
2. Identify your ideal audience and their needs
Before you can write useful content for your audience, you need to know as much as you can about them. One way to get to know the people who visit your site is by exploring your Google Analytics data, where you can see basic demographic information such as location, age, gender, valuable data about their interests and the topics they follow.
How do you create buyer personas? Analyze customer data to uncover behavioral trends, talk to your sales team and ask them for feedback on the types of customers they’re talking to (what are their interests and passions, what social networks do they prefer), think about issues about who they have and how you can solve them, what you can do to make their lives easier (what their frustrations, frustrations, hopes and aspirations are) and segment your ideal customers.
- Segment your audience into subgroups based on consumer behavior.
- Decide if you will target all of your subgroups or focus on 1-2 specific segments.
- Tailor your content to the specific requirements of your target segments.
3. Research your niche competitors
Find out what makes your competitors successful, what they offer to their target audience, and think about what you could do better than the competition. Highlight what makes you unique when selling your goods/services to customers and build your USP (unique selling point) around your strengths.
4. Follow the stages of the buyer’s journey
Most B2B buyers do more than half of their research online before contacting a company’s sales team, so knowing what they’re looking for and what questions they have is critical to the success of your content.
5. Determine your brand voice and tone
Every successful brand has its own unique style and personality, and to create a distinct and memorable style, you need to start with your voice and tone, which are the backbone of your company’s personality. They help you create a strong and memorable brand that your audience will connect with and that you need to constantly work on because consistency is memorable.
6. Conduct a content audit
An extremely important step in building your B2B content marketing strategy is to conduct a content audit, meaning a more in-depth analysis of the content on your website. What does this analysis consist of?
- Find out what works and what your audience responds to.
- Learn what doesn’t work for your audience so you don’t do it again in the future.
- Avoid duplicate content on your site and optimize your crawl budget.
- Find gaps in the types of content you create and the topics you cover.
7. Set up an effective content creation process
- Define roles and responsibilities for your team: copywriter, editor, designer, data analyst, etc.
- Create a shareable summary of the template content that includes word count, objective, structure, etc.
- Develop clear branding and style guidelines that can be easily followed.
- Ensure that the content creation process is always realistic, actionable, repeatable and designed to streamline and accelerate content production without compromising quality.
8. Choose the right types of content for your business
To save time on planning and production and to focus all your attention on the messages you want to convey and what your audience needs, it is absolutely essential to determine the most suitable types of content for your business shows some among the most popular.
- Video: probably the most versatile content format. You can use and implement video at any stage of the buyer’s journey. TikTok is trending right now, but before you start using it, make sure your audience is there. Choose marketing channels based on data, not popularity.
- Blog: does not necessarily generate new customers. It is more effective for building brand awareness, website traffic and building website visitors’ trust in your brand. Blog posts should provide valuable content for your audience, inform, educate, answer their questions and address topics of interest.
9. Constantly develop new content ideas
Besides the fact that keyword research is the foundation of any website, it is equally important for creating relevant content that will bring you optimal results.
Choosing the right keywords can help you discover topics and themes of interest to your target audience, it’s a great way to come up with topics for podcasts, blog posts or webinars.
10. Measure your results
When it comes to quality B2B content, to know if you’re on track to hit the SMART goals you initially set, there are a few key metrics you need to measure, such as:
- Total conversions for recent posts (email subscribers, purchases, etc.)
- the number of shares on social networks, comments on blogs
- total views for recent posts
- the number of visits to your site from organic traffic
- keyword rankings (at least quarterly, but ideally monthly)
- the number of visits to your website from all channels
- Landing page conversion rate
- blog views per month
- number of leads coming from blogs etc.
Conclusions
Remember that you are selling to real people and they care about the whole experience, not just marketing and sales. In this modern age, you only win if you focus your approaches around the needs and preferences of your target audience.
Building a quality B2B content marketing strategy is always a work in progress because as you better understand your audience’s needs and as your market, or why not, your products/services change, your methods and strategy will evolve.
Focus on creating useful and relevant content and cultivating a sense of trust in your company, and don’t be afraid to look back and make changes if something isn’t working.
Analyze your market to know your strengths, weaknesses, possible opportunities or threats, see who your main competitors are and what strategies they follow, research the interests of your potential customers, write content to attract them to your website and post frequently to gain their trust.
What is B2B content?
B2B content marketing is the creation and distribution of content designed to promote a company’s products or services to other businesses. The purpose of this content is to increase brand awareness, bring quality traffic, leads and sales for B2B companies.
In other words, B2B content marketing is the art of using content to expand your business’s audience, strengthen and develop brand affinity, and generate sales and leads by attracting other businesses. Forms of B2B content marketing include blogging, case studies, podcasting, e-books, infographics, newsletters, etc.
Statistics For B2B Content Marketing
- Over 60% of marketers measure the success of their content marketing strategy by sales.
- 60% of marketers report that content marketing generates demand and leads, 70% say content marketing helps educate audiences, and 60% say it helps build customer loyalty.
- 87% of B2B marketers prioritize audience information needs over an organization’s promotional messages.
- Content creation is the most outsourced content marketing activity among B2B marketers.
- 90% of marketers use a content marketing plan to continue investing the same amount in the channel in 2022.
- Social media, email, and an organization’s blog or website are the top three organic content distribution channels used by B2B marketers.
- The top three goals that marketers achieve through content marketing are generating brand awareness, building credibility and trust, and educating audiences.
- 96% of B2B content marketers use LinkedIn.
- Only 28% of B2B marketers do not use paid content distribution channels.
- 78% of B2B marketers do keyword research for SEO when creating content.
B2B Content Marketing vs. B2C Content Marketing
Given the length of the sales cycle, in B2B it is much longer and more time-consuming than the average B2C cycle where consumers see the product/service and, if they like it, buy it. When it comes to more expensive products/services, where the purchase requires the involvement of several parties, this process can take at least 4 months. The same is true for investments, where B2B content requires more financial effort than B2C.
What should B2B content look like?
- easy to read, remember and share
- valuable and unique
- professional
- get to the point as quickly as possible
- targeted
- is based on analysis
- be related to the general marketing strategy of the business
Why do you need a B2B content marketing strategy?
A content marketing strategy is a set of guidelines that help you get from point A to point B, it’s a plan designed to guide you towards your goals and keep you on the optimal path for your business.
Think of it like if you want to go hiking in the mountains and you want to fit into a time frame, you want to know what to expect on the trail so you are prepared with the necessary equipment and resources. For all this you need a little plan based on research about the location and the potential dangers you can encounter along the way.
What is a Documented B2B Content Marketing Strategy?
First of all, you need to answer the following 3 questions as realistically and concretely as possible:
Who are you writing content for?
It’s a question you should ask your potential clients, as some of them probably haven’t tried to research their customer base to identify the challenges they face before they start creating their strategy. So, they may create content that is interesting and very well written, but that doesn’t resonate with their target audience and as a result, although it reaches some people and gets views and clicks, there is no further engagement.
1. Establish and define your content marketing goals
Any content marketing strategy starts with setting SMART goals. Without clear goals and objectives, you will lack direction and likely lose more time or even important steps to complete projects. Take the time to think about what you want to achieve with your content, as this will influence the type of content you produce as well as how you measure your success.
7 tips to help you set your business goals more effectively:
“Think about the big picture, the overall goal you want to achieve.
“Pay attention to current data and trends to get a better idea of where you are at that moment, what’s possible, and how best to plan.
“Be as realistic as possible with your completion dates, with what you can achieve.
“Write down each goal so you have a record of them and how you want to achieve them.
“Plan your challenges, because nothing goes exactly according to your plan.
“Track your progress at least once a month.
“Communicate with your team and tell them about the challenges you’ve faced along the way or the milestones you’ve reached.
2. Identify your ideal audience and their needs
Before you can write useful content for your audience, you need to know as much as you can about them. One way to get to know the people who visit your site is by exploring your Google Analytics data, where you can see basic demographic information such as location, age, gender, valuable data about their interests and the topics they follow.
How do you create buyer personas? Analyze customer data to uncover behavioral trends, talk to your sales team and ask them for feedback on the types of customers they’re talking to (what are their interests and passions, what social networks do they prefer), think about issues about who they have and how you can solve them, what you can do to make their lives easier (what their frustrations, frustrations, hopes and aspirations are) and segment your ideal customers.
- Segment your audience into subgroups based on consumer behavior.
- Decide if you will target all of your subgroups or focus on 1-2 specific segments.
- Tailor your content to the specific requirements of your target segments.
3. Research your niche competitors
Find out what makes your competitors successful, what they offer to their target audience, and think about what you could do better than the competition. Highlight what makes you unique when selling your goods/services to customers and build your USP (unique selling point) around your strengths.
4. Follow the stages of the buyer’s journey
Most B2B buyers do more than half of their research online before contacting a company’s sales team, so knowing what they’re looking for and what questions they have is critical to the success of your content.
5. Determine your brand voice and tone
Every successful brand has its own unique style and personality, and to create a distinct and memorable style, you need to start with your voice and tone, which are the backbone of your company’s personality. They help you create a strong and memorable brand that your audience will connect with and that you need to constantly work on because consistency is memorable.
6. Conduct a content audit
An extremely important step in building your B2B content marketing strategy is to conduct a content audit, meaning a more in-depth analysis of the content on your website. What does this analysis consist of?
- Find out what works and what your audience responds to.
- Learn what doesn’t work for your audience so you don’t do it again in the future.
- Avoid duplicate content on your site and optimize your crawl budget.
- Find gaps in the types of content you create and the topics you cover.
7. Set up an effective content creation process
- Define roles and responsibilities for your team: copywriter, editor, designer, data analyst, etc.
- Create a shareable summary of the template content that includes word count, objective, structure, etc.
- Develop clear branding and style guidelines that can be easily followed.
- Ensure that the content creation process is always realistic, actionable, repeatable and designed to streamline and accelerate content production without compromising quality.
8. Choose the right types of content for your business
To save time on planning and production and to focus all your attention on the messages you want to convey and what your audience needs, it is absolutely essential to determine the most suitable types of content for your business shows some among the most popular.
- Video: probably the most versatile content format. You can use and implement video at any stage of the buyer’s journey. TikTok is trending right now, but before you start using it, make sure your audience is there. Choose marketing channels based on data, not popularity.
- Blog: does not necessarily generate new customers. It is more effective for building brand awareness, website traffic and building website visitors’ trust in your brand. Blog posts should provide valuable content for your audience, inform, educate, answer their questions and address topics of interest.
9. Constantly develop new content ideas
Besides the fact that keyword research is the foundation of any website, it is equally important for creating relevant content that will bring you optimal results.
Choosing the right keywords can help you discover topics and themes of interest to your target audience, it’s a great way to come up with topics for podcasts, blog posts or webinars.
10. Measure your results
When it comes to quality B2B content, to know if you’re on track to hit the SMART goals you initially set, there are a few key metrics you need to measure, such as:
- Total conversions for recent posts (email subscribers, purchases, etc.)
- the number of shares on social networks, comments on blogs
- total views for recent posts
- the number of visits to your site from organic traffic
- keyword rankings (at least quarterly, but ideally monthly)
- the number of visits to your website from all channels
- Landing page conversion rate
- blog views per month
- number of leads coming from blogs etc.
Conclusions
Remember that you are selling to real people and they care about the whole experience, not just marketing and sales. In this modern age, you only win if you focus your approaches around the needs and preferences of your target audience.
Building a quality B2B content marketing strategy is always a work in progress because as you better understand your audience’s needs and as your market, or why not, your products/services change, your methods and strategy will evolve.
Focus on creating useful and relevant content and cultivating a sense of trust in your company, and don’t be afraid to look back and make changes if something isn’t working.