The 3 Step Strategy for B2B Content Marketing

There are broadly two benefits you can hope to get from content marketing for your B2B business:

• Get to know who could be your potential targets so that you can reach out to them for business opportunities
• Establish a brand and credibility for your business, so that relevant people can recall you when they need your services or products.

When your B2B marketing process is mature, it may also help you to boost your lead generation efforts. Blogs, webinars, social media, white papers, mobile apps, and newsletters, guest articles on third-party websites of repute, research reports and online presentations are some

Content marketing can be effective if planned with due understanding of customer needs and psychology and by deploying the right tools and media to deliver the content. With so many content marketing tools and media available, the critical question that organizations face is how to make a selection among these tools and media and decide on the most relevant content for the target audience.

An effective content strategy would make an optimum use of the various content tools and delivery media so that the efforts translate into high quality leads which converts into business. Below are some tips that would serve as a useful guide for you in planning your content market strategy.

1) Define your target audience and design the content accordingly

The most important step is perhaps defining your target audience. There are broadly three ways to look at your target audience – in terms of the organization size, job function and seniority level of the people in the organization.

For instance, if you are an investment banker, your target audience would be business development people, Chief Financial Officers and other senior people including the CEO and Chairman. After you have decided on your target audience, you must create content that these people are most likely to be interested in.

2) Decide the most appropriate content for the target audience?

You need to ensure that the content you design attracts the attention of the relevant audience. Besides, it should also convey to the audience your strength and capabilities. You should try to tailor the content to address their specific needs.

The content that you publish is going to represent your organization to your potential customers, and hence to retain or establish credibility ensure that the same is well drafted and flawless. The content should not only be designed for consumption, but should also provoke thoughts, which creates an opportunity for you to work together. It is best to target a niche when designing your content. A niche is important, because you need to position yourself so that customers get the confidence in your capabilities.

Some examples of content can include:

• Educational or entertaining blog posts
• Pictures or graphics (shared on the blog and/or social media)
• Videos (shared on blog, social media and video sharing sites)
• White papers or presentations (promoted on blog and/or sites like slideshare)
• Video, audio or written interviews (blog, video sharing sites, podcasts)

3) Choose the right way to deliver the content

After drafting the message of the content, you also need to decide the most effective delivery mode. Think whether you should publish it as visual content / video / presentation or as a text article. In this modern age, remember that the content you publish gets stale in a short period of time, so you need to publish new content continually. It is best to have a dedicated resource to handle the task. 

You need to think about the variety of media to deliver content to your target audience. The media to be used would depend on the type of content that you are looking to publish and the audience for your content. If you are looking to reach senior management, you can think of a newsletter, online presentation or research reports.

If your target is the middle management in a particular vertical (say manufacturing of chemicals), you may leverage LinkedIn, which is the most popular among all social media for B2B content marketing. Creating groups on LinkedIn network and publishing relevant posts as updates on the group can help you connect with people who would be interested in your content. Besides, you can also publish articles on third party sites of repute to help you build mass awareness and a brand.

By sharing targeted and high quality content on industry blogs and social media groups, you can grab the eyeballs of the most relevant customers. By providing a link to your company blog or a landing page on your website, you can drive the visitors to the top or middle of your funnel and create opportunities for lead generation.  

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Social Media is Key to B2B Content Marketing

91% of B2B marketers now use social media as a content marketing tool.

B2B marketers are distributing their content on social networks more than ever before. A recent study conducted by the Content Marketing Institute and Marketing Profs confirms that content marketing remains a top priority for  B2B marketers, with the vast majority leveraging the practice as part of their marketing strategy. But many are uncertain about how to successfully employ the many tactics available to them.

Content marketing is the art of communicating with your customers and prospects without selling. It is non-interruptive — instead of directly advertising your products or services, you are communicating with your target audience by sharing valuable, free information. The core of this content strategy is the belief that buyers will be driven to do business with you if you provide valuable information to them on an ongoing basis.

If you have a website, a blog, or maintain a presence on Facebook, Twitter, or other social networks, you are a publisher. You need to think like one, and build a digital content marketing strategy that leverages what you create — blog posts, website articles, images, and multimedia like videos, slideshows, and infographics — to enhance consumer engagement and conversion rates.

This is the first in a series of posts about how to use content to market online and via social media. As an introduction to this topic, here are some interesting statistics from the 2013 B2B Content Marketing Benchmarks, Budgets and Trends – North America:

More B2B marketers are using content marketing to achieve organizational goals:

Brand awareness, customer acquisition, and lead generation are the top B2B content marketing goals:

87% of B2B marketers use social media to distribute content — it is now the most popular content marketing tactic:

B2B marketers are using an average of 5 social distribution channels.

LinkedIn is the top social network when it comes to B2B content marketing. It’s interesting to note that Pinterest is now being used by more than 25% of B2B marketers

63% of B2B content marketers say that producing enough content is now their biggest challenge:

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