A Quick Guide to B2B Content Marketing

It’s no secret by now that content marketing is becoming one of the most popular and effective ways to draw business to companies. Many businesses who are directly targeting customers are using content marketing to their advantage, whether that means consistently posting to social media, creating informational videos, or inviting their audiences to read their blogs. However, B2B content marketing hasn’t gotten quite as much attention. Still, it’s more than worth it to develop a B2B content marketing strategy if you haven’t already.

Defining B2B Marketing

What is B2B content marketing in the first place? To begin, we can define content marketing in its own right: creating and distributing content in an attempt to increase traffic, brand awareness, industry authority, and conversion rates. While traditional content marketing for B2C purposes involves businesses reaching out to customers, B2B content marketing is aimed at business-to-business companies. While the format and types of content that you produce may be different than B2C companies, the main goal remains the same.

Identifying Your Target Audience

Before you can begin developing a B2B content marketing strategy, it’s important to identify the audience you want to target. B2C companies can navigate this step pretty easily; they essentially want to advertise to anyone who may be interested in their products. For B2B companies, however, narrowing your target audience can be a bit trickier.

Your content marketing strategy will not be focused on companies at large. Instead, your content needs to be aimed toward the decision-makers in the businesses that you serve. You’ll want to look for the people making the purchasing decisions for the companies that you’re working with, then you want to explain to them why your product or service can help their business succeed.

Choosing Your B2B Marketing Strategy

Once you’ve identified your target audience, it’s time to choose a strategy. There are several different ways that you can go about B2B marketing, and you may have to do a bit of trial and error to decide what works best.

Since you’ve already figured out who you’re marketing to, you can now determine your brand positioning. According to HubSpot, “This statement is the who, when, why and how of your brand identity – or the way your brand is perceived through the eyes of the customer.” How are you going to make your brand stand out in the mind of your potential customers, and how are you going to prove that your solutions are better than those of the competition?

Speaking of the competition, it can be helpful to look toward your competitors to see how they are handling their B2B content marketing strategies. You might see how your product offerings, sales tactics, and social media presences differ. By analyzing your own positioning against your competitors, you can discover your own advantages and your opponents’ weaknesses.

Exploring Various Marketing Channels

As we mentioned earlier, the format of your content will likely be different than what you may see from a B2C company. Still, with the same basic foundation, you can create engaging and thought-provoking content to bring in leads and conversions.

As we can see from the findings of the Content Marketing Institute above, some of the most common types of content in the B2B world include social media content, blog posts, and email newsletters.

When we think of social media, we typically head straight to the consumer, but social media marketing is surprisingly effective in B2B content marketing as well. Even though it social media may not directly impact the number of leads you bring in, it can be an incredible tool for humanizing your operations and increasing brand awareness and engagement. Be sure to post consistently and engage back with those who comment on your posts.

Blogging is also an excellent way to get right to the core of issues that impact the B2B community. Through your blog, you have the opportunity to address trending topics and consistent issues within your niche, offering unique insights that only your company can provide. While you’re blogging, you want to ensure that your content is relevant to your audience. The B2B market is focused on valuable information over entertainment in many cases, so fluff pieces won’t belong on your blog.

Email is a part of our everyday lives both in and out of work, but this content marketing channel is especially effective in the B2B world. Emails encourage potential customers to engage and learn more about the potential benefits of working with your company. To create effective emails, make sure your subject lines are interesting enough to get clicks, then back it up with interesting and relevant content within the email itself. You’ll also want to include a call to action at the end, but stick to just one CTA. Too many requests for action can be a turnoff.

Creating Relevant Content Ideas

No matter what kind of content you create, you’ll want to make sure that it’s relevant to your audience. To do this, it’s important to consider both evergreen topics in your industry as well as trending pieces that will get attention in the moment.

Think about some of the most common questions you have received from past customers before they converted. Alternatively, do you notice that your social media posts are receiving the same feedback or questions over and over again? These topics may be good ideas to address in your content marketing strategy.

Of course, you can also provide insight on the trends in your industry. Where you find this information will vary depending on what vertical you are in, but staying on top of the latest news is a great way to show your dedication to your industry as well as your authority as an industry leader.

Work with WriterArmy to Perfect Your B2B Content Marketing Strategy

Whether you are brand new to the world of B2B content marketing or you simply need to refresh your strategy, you may want to outsource digital marketing services. WriterArmy can help. We are an award-winning content creation and marketing agency that has spent the last decade working with global customers to create and perfect their strategies. Our team has experience in virtually all of today’s most in-demand sectors and can work directly with you to understand your unique goals and expectations for your B2B content marketing strategy.

To learn more about all of the content marketing services offered by WriterArmy, contact us today for a free quote!