“Content marketing is all the marketing that’s left.”
Do you agree with best-selling author Seth Godin’s statement?
He’s not alone in this belief. 70% of marketers reported having invested in content marketing in 2020.
B2B content marketing presents valuable opportunities to articulate the important elements of your company and how you solve problems.
By aligning your business’ DNA with content marketing goals, your company will stand out and attract more customers.
Use our three tips below to put together impactful content and make it a part of your company’s DNA.
3 B2B content marketing tips
1. How to put together your content strategy
Strong marketing efforts require a clear strategy. Content marketing is no different. Strong marketing efforts require significant research.
Define your buyer personas
Start by deep-diving into your target audience. The main focus of B2B content marketing is to provide solutions for your customer’s problems.
Getting to know your audience is critical. Data insights can show what your users want. Google Analytics is a reliable tool to get data and track your website’s performance metrics like:
- Audience: Demographics, interests, geographic location
- Acquisition: Traffic channels, new users, position rankings, clicks, click-through-rate (CTR)
- Behavior: Pageviews, average time on page, bounce rate
- Conversions: Product and sales performance
Build a customer journey map
Another powerful tool is content mapping. It helps determine how content can get delivered to the right people at the right times. How? Through studies of buyer personas and various lifecycle stages.
69% of successful B2B marketers agree that following a documented strategy is a best practice. Hard work pays off!
Set goals & assign responsibilities
Aside from focusing on your audience and company DNA, what else does a B2B content marketing strategy need? Every effort should tie back to measurable business goals.
Your strategy should also layout technology platforms, competitors’ analysis, team accountability, and content frequency.
2. How to write your content
From producing webinars to weekly blog posts, content marketing comes in different forms. If the amount of content opportunities feels daunting, focus on ideas that matter.
Crafting quality content requires dedication. Don’t waste your time on tactics that don’t perform.
Pay attention to analytics by monitoring and reporting numbers. Performance tracking is a good habit to adopt. In one study by Databox, about 37% of marketers monitor success weekly.
Publish content consistency
Writing engaging content can be a challenging task. In fact, Orbit Media finds that an average blog takes nearly 4 hours to complete. If time is a factor, consider outsourcing your content creation.
A 2020 report from the Content Marketing Institute states that 62% of companies outsource content marketing. The main reasons are time restraints, lack-of knowledge, or low to no in-house resources.
Hiring on-demand talent is a reasonable solution to help your company create content. You don’t have to deal with full-time employee expenses. Upwork has plenty of freelancer writers ready to work.
Regardless of who’s creating the copy, all published content should accurately represent your brand voice. Ensure quality by applying an editorial checklist and feedback from your team.
Diversify your content
Content diversification is another important aspect. Create an editorial calendar to ensure content assortment.
Think creatively about connecting to visitors so they can digest your information. According to Hubspot, 54% of audiences want to see videos from brands they support.
High-quality visuals are a unique way to break up long copy. Infographics act as a fun and creative medium for sharing data. SlideShare presentations are another outlet to consider.
Recycle old content
Rely on past performance data and keyword volume research to determine which articles are worth repurposing. Repurposed content has the potential to reach new audiences that missed it before.
Nearly 90% of B2B marketers feel that repurposing content is a better use of time than writing something new. Repurposing content will also reinforce important messaging and could improve your SEO rankings.
Here are some ways to recycle original content:
- Consolidate a well-received blog series into one informative eBook that visitors can download
- Design social media graphics around honest customer testimonials
- Create podcast material from articles
Download our free Case Studies & Marketing eBooks
3. How to distribute your content
It’s worth putting thought into how to best promote your content while developing marketing campaigns.
Choose the right channels
While getting the word out on many platforms increases the chances of content views by more eyes, don’t overdo it. Focus on promoting your content where your audience is actually present.
Always keep your target audience in mind while researching places to post. This also applies to groups on Facebook and LinkedIn or Twitter and Pinterest.
Look outside social media to influencers, guest posts, third-party articles, events, and conferences.
Publish your content on other sites
Sharing content on Medium is another proven distribution tactic. This online community acts as a tool for driving traffic. It hosts information-sharing threads for people with similar interests.
Build links
Optimization is another important focus. A wise and solid SEO strategy can help grow your website traffic and readership.
Take keywords seriously. Learn how to incorporate them into content and link building. If you’re unsure how to build links, we can run SEO link building campaigns for you.
Final thoughts
B2B content marketing has the potential to drive more website traffic and leads for your business. Content marketing requires steady attention, but the benefits are worth it.
Marketing trends change and competition remains fierce. Maintaining the course of publishing content that is valuable to your audience will push your brand and website up the ladder.
If your content marketing isn’t working out, our Growth Management team can partner with you. We’ll provide your company with a well-defined content marketing plan.