B2B Content Marketing That Should Be Followed

A Sneak Peek into B2B Content Marketing

Content marketing in B2B arena has seen many changes in the past few years.

Although many marketers know the differences between B2B content marketing and B2C content marketing, they often end up confused between the two when coming up with their B2B content marketing strategy.

Here are the four most important differences that play a defining role in laying the foundation stone of a business’ B2B content marketing strategy:

· Customers are looking for efficiency and expertise in B2B, whereas entertainment and deals in B2C.

· Target audiences should be small and focused in content marketing in B2B, whereas larger in B2C content marketing.

· Content should be more professional and deliver value in B2B, whereas more entertaining and personal in the case of B2C.

· Content marketing for B2B should be aiming at building long-term business relations, while in B2C, it should focus on building an emotional connection between the audience and the product.

What Are The Guiding Principles Of Developing a Result-Oriented Content Strategy?

To get started the right way and avoid mistakes that most marketers make in content marketing today, read the following guiding principles to ace your content marketing strategy.

· Understand your Target Audience

An integral first step—knowing who your target audience is, their needs, and expectations should form the base of your content marketing strategy.

· Know the What, Who, Where and When

Gain clarity about what kind of content you will be posting and who will be responsible for the content marketing (generally 2-5 people even in big companies). Then, simultaneously plan the platforms where you will be posting content and in how many days.

· Keep a Close Eye on Your Competitors

Being aware of your competitors is also an essential step in developing a holistic strategy for content marketing in B2B model. This should be observed regularly and not be just a one-time thing.

· Contemplate the Performance Indicators

Once you have carefully laid out the plan for everything, it is also important to have specific metrics in place to assess the current strategies’ performance.

It cannot be stressed enough how important it is to revisit, re-evaluate, and revise your content marketing strategies to keep up with the ever-changing trends of the market and maintain an edge over your competitors.

Why Should You Have a Documented B2B Content Marketing Strategy?

A documented B2B content marketing strategy should ideally include every single step that has been taken in implementing the content marketing strategy. It is an easy and reliable way of keeping close tabs on the progress that every step is bringing about in boosting results in B2B content marketing.

The research study titled 2020 B2B Benchmarks, Budgets and Trends- North America, from Content Marketing Institute and MarketingProfs, has presented several contributing factors for a successful B2B content marketing strategy.

One important factor in the research—having a documented B2B content marketing strategy. This graph clearly represents how the percentage of content marketers documenting their content marketing strategies is scaling up annually.

Useful Tips to Help You on Your B2B Content Marketing Journey

After pointing out the basics of content marketing in B2B, you should learn and implement as many tactics as you can for the simple reason that they will set your content marketing apart from the others in the field and will earn you impressive brand loyalty.

Set the background

Content marketing, in its most basic form, is a form of storytelling. Although it is largely followed in B2C content marketing, B2B marketers often underestimate its importance when setting up their B2B marketing strategies.

The story could be about the customer or, in B2B cases, even the executives, whom you are aiming to sell your services and products or generate a lead from.

Engage as much as possible

Engaging your audience is another key indicator of a successful B2B content marketing strategy.

Deliver content that solves the problems of businesses that you are trying to target. This will keep them hooked on your brand. It determines the state of your business relationships.

Be subtle in promoting your brand

Adding a CTA (call to action) is a smart idea when marketing with an aim to convert viewers into clients. However, if you wish to be an expert at B2B marketing then you should always make sure that they are subtle.

Prioritising customer’s informational needs over your business’ or brand’s promotion is the differentiating factor that can set you apart from the crowd.

The customer should feel like they are deriving real value out of your content and will want to confide in your brand over others.

Choose your distribution channels wisely

Make sure to conduct detailed research before deciding on a distribution channel. Factors like what sites your audiences generally use, where they spend the most time, etc., play prominent roles in deciding the channel.

However, having multiple distribution channels is the best idea when it comes to B2B content marketing.

Make the experience memorable

Ensuring that your product/services are making the user experience enjoyable is never enough. An ace B2B content marketer will work with as much dedication to make sure that the customer’s content marketing experience is just as enjoyable as the services itself, if not more.

Data shows that 83% of top performers agree that their organisation provides optimal experiences across all phases of the client journey.

Don’t shy away from collaborating

Collaborating with brands that are relevant to your audience can be a great way to boost your reputation. It will give an immediate idea to others that you are an active player in the game. Recognise the best players in the field by collaborating with them.

This is an underrated pro-tip, but it can surely yield great results in nurturing your subscribers/viewers and, later on, the conversion rate.

Don’t fall prey to monotony

Keep on experimenting and playing around with the kind of content that you deliver to your audience.

Use a suitable mixture of text, image and video to not let your readers scroll past your post. This can also be considered an essential part of the user experience; it has the power to make or break your brand.

Explore and exploit paid ads

Using targeted and well-curated paid ads to your advantage can be a cherry on the top of a perfect B2B content marketing strategy. A lot of B2B content marketing folks end up downplaying paid ads, aka, a boon of the digital age.

There are a plethora of platforms that can be used for promoting your brand in the form of paid ads. Do not make the rookie mistake of restricting your B2B content marketing only to a single platform like LinkedIn. 

Take advantage of any blog that you notice is doing very well among the target audience. Explore facebook communities that take an interest in the kinds of products and services you offer and publish your ads on them.

You will be surprised by the positive response you get from paid ads!

Conclusion

Content marketing in B2B model is a tricky road, but it has the power of bringing great deals your way.

A B2B content marketing strategy that delivers value to your audience while giving them a good user experience can be considered an ideal B2B content marketing strategy. However, there is no one “ideal” strategy, and you are free to experiment and find what suits your brand the best.

Outsourcing for content creation is the norm in B2B content marketing these days. Hiring high-quality freelancers, who can provide you with content based on your content needs and guidelines, is way more time saving and efficient.

Worried about where you will find such a talent pool?

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