For B2B companies, content marketing is essential for generating leads, engaging with potential customers, and building brand awareness. However, many businesses struggle to create compelling content that engages their target audience.
According to the Content Marketing Institute, more than half of B2B marketers expect to increase their budgets in video–events (digital, in-person, hybrid), owned digital content and paid media. These tactics are essential in reaching audiences during there by your journey. Here are three ways to improve your B2B content marketing strategy.
Produce higher-quality content
When creating content, it’s easy to fall back on familiar ideas and reuse what you’ve done in the past. However, if you continue producing low-quality articles, your audience will get tired of seeing more of the same thing, and you’ll have a hard time ranking that content in Google.
Instead of just restating the same themes and types of assets, try to publish different kinds of content: short-form videos, infographics, podcasts, dynamic case studies, and data-driven reports. Try to create something that hasn’t already been done before. If you need inspiration, check out what competitors are doing or what your customers like to consume.
While many people believe that content marketing is all about ‘telling’ people how great your product is, your sales team is already doing that. Content marketing is all about ‘selling’ people on the importance of your product and why they need it in their lives.
The best way to do this is by offering tips and advice to help them solve their problems. Make sure you add valuable information that can’t be found elsewhere, such as FAQs or a glossary of terms.
A common mistake among B2B marketers is forgetting to add a call-to-action in their content. If you want people to act, you have to tell them precisely what they need to do for it to succeed.
Increase the frequency of your content publishing
According to eMarketer, B2B marketers who published more than 41 pieces of content per month generated twice the number of leads compared with those who published less than four blog posts.
The best way to optimize your content for search engines is by publishing consistently. Put out new articles at least once a week on topics related to your business. For example, if you run a tech support blog, make yourself known as an industry expert by publishing articles on different tech-related topics at least once a month.
It’s not enough to only publish content; you have to optimize it so that search engines can find it. Before posting anything, use keywords in your title and include links to your website. Then, use social media to drive traffic to your website and let search engines find you.
Publishing on social media sites like LinkedIn and Twitter is also an important tactic. Many buyers use these social media channels to find out more about products, services, and technology. They are also seeking validation from their peers.
Create buyer personas
Creating a buyer persona of your ideal customer helps you craft content that speaks directly to who they are and what they care about. It isn’t easy to create an effective content marketing strategy if you don’t know who you are reaching.
For example, suppose you are a fitness company trying to reach fitness enthusiasts, women between the ages of 24 and 36, who only buy organic groceries. In that case, you will want to make sure that your content matches what they are interested in.
Similarly, if you’re a technology company that builds firewall security products, you are trying to reach highly technical engineers. You need to create content that is valuable to what they are doing every day. This means giving them the tools and the resources to help them solve their technology problems.
It’s important to remember that not all people in your audience are the same. Whereas some might want case studies, others may be more interested in videos or infographics. Create different content for each group to resonate with everyone you are trying to reach.
By increasing your high-quality content output, frequency of publications, and persona knowledge, you’ll have a greater chance at improving your content marketing strategy.
Remember, if you’re looking to improve your content strategy, focus on increasing the quality of the content that you are publishing. This might require asking for an additional budget to make that happen, but it will be well worth it in the end.
Also, revisit the frequency of publishing your content on your blogs and social media channels. There will always be a delicate balance between providing helpful and relevant content to the audience and content that appears to be spammy. We want to create content for the sake of creating content. It must have a purpose.
And lastly, building a buyer persona informed by accurate data will give you the insight to create content in the channels where your audience spends the most time.