Content marketing is all about appealing to the correct audience. It doesn’t matter how good your content is, how often you post it or where you promote your material if you are not going after your targeted audience. Not all content is created equal, and the two most commonly targeted audiences in digital marketing are those between businesses and individual consumers and those between brands.
If you are a business looking to appeal to another business, organization or enterprise, B2B content marketing is the best way to stand out from the crowd of your competitors.
What is B2B Content Marketing?
Business-to-business (B2B) content marketing is the art of using content to boost brand authority, enlarge your audience, and appeal to potential consumers. Ultimately, the goal of a B2B content marketing solution is to improve customer relationships, generate leads and expand your conversions.
For the best results, this form of content marketing has to be actionable and useful. It can, however, be difficult for content writers explain complex concepts to a target audience while also educating them on the solution that your company provides. On top of that, your content needs to convince the reader to convert, which can be a high hurdle to clear.
Despite these challenges, successful content marketing is very important in B2B. As was shown in the 2020 Benchmarks, Budgets, and Trends report released by the Content Marketing Institute, B2B content marketing can pack a huge punch. Of those polled, 86% reported that B2B marketing improved their brand awareness, 79% said that their content was able to accurately educate their audience and 75% believe it bolstered their brand recognition and trust.
As with anything, it is pivotal to create a robust B2B content marketing strategy to ensure your efforts work for you, not against you. Here’s how.
How to Build a Comprehensive B2B Content Marketing Strategy
There are many variables to consider when creating a B2B content marketing strategy. These include the following:
1. Understanding Your Buyer’s Journey
In order to be actionable, your B2B content strategy needs to target consumers in all stages of the marketing funnel. Understanding the buyer’s journey is the most important thing you can do, as each stage will affect your marketing tactics in terms of the language used.
You can easily break the audience down into three categories; those at the awareness stage, at the consideration stage, and at the decision stage.
The Awareness Stage
At this stage, the consumer realizes they have, or may have, a problem they are required to solve. They do extensive research online to determine the solution to the problem, and ascertain what products and/or services they will need to fix it.
The Consideration Stage
The consideration stage is often referred to as the “middle” of the funnel. The prospective consumer has now identified their problem, and has a better idea of what solution they might want. Typically, they will be looking at different brands and starting to casually weigh their options.
The Decision Stage
At this point, the consumer knows exactly what they are going to do. They now face the challenge of whittling down their list of prospects and will soon be ready to convert.
2. Identifying Your Audience
This is not the same as deciding which stage of the marketing funnel your buyers occupy. This is when you determine exactly who your target audience is, and who would be the most likely to convert. In order to do so, ask yourself the following questions:
- Am I trying to appeal to large brands, small businesses or some area in between?
- How does my audience consume their content?
- What demographic tends to visit my website the most?
The answers to these questions will now help you plan out your content strategy.
3. Developing and Creating Content Consistently
You won’t know what content works best for you until it is written, published and consumed by your readers. So develop new content ideas and post them as often as you can.
This means utilizing email marketing blasts, social media posts, blog updates, paid search ads and maybe even revamping your website content. After a few months or so, you’ll possess data and analytics that will show you which marketing method works best for you.
6 Examples of B2B Content Marketing
Not sure where to start when it comes to your B2B content marketing? It can be helpful to familiarize yourself with B2B content marketing best practices. In addition, look at the successes others have had when brainstorming your strategy ideas. Below are content marketing examples where brands have successfully leveraged their content to create meaningful relationships with customers while driving leads.
1. AdvisorStream Leverages Licensed Content to Build Trust
AdvisorStream is an award-winning digital marketing platform that uses licensed content from reputable publications to help financial advisers turn clicks into conversions. As a way to build trust and credibility with their consumers, the company decided to harness the power of licensed financial news and content in its content marketing strategy.
To further bolster its content offerings, AdvisorStream partnered with NYTLicensing. The goal was to deliver high-quality, licensed content aimed specifically at their consumers’ business needs, while helping their audience boost their conversions.
Since creating and writing content can be a costly expense, working with NYTLicensing was the best option for AdvisorStream. It chose content from both The New York Times and the Harvard Business Review, for advisers to curate content according to their needs.
The use of licensed content helped AdvisorStream’s clients stand out as authoritative thought leaders amid the clutter and noise of other brands. From January to June 2020, AdvisorStream experienced a 200% increase in views from its licensed content and a 260% increase in lead captures from its platform.
2. Moz Educates Audiences Through Their Content
Moz is an SEO platform and set of digital marketing tools that helps businesses of all sizes boost their brand visibility online. Since business owners, not individual consumers, tend to be its biggest audience, Moz digital marketers have taken a unique approach to B2B technology content marketing.
Moz digital marketers have created an educational series, White Board Friday, that not only positions Moz as a thought leader in the SEO world, but also promotes its service offerings seamlessly. The series addresses various topics concerning the world of SEO, including new trends and how brands can make the most out of their content strategy. Additionally, Moz provides comprehensive training guides in the basics of SEO.
3. Hubspot Creates Informative Blog Articles
HubSpot is known in the digital marketing industry for creating the term “inbound marketing.” Their blog content strategy is relatively simple because their website is chock full of informative resources for small businesses at the top of the marketing funnel, where they can learn about the marketing problems they need to solve.
For those at the bottom of the funnel, who are a bit more experienced in digital marketing tactics and techniques, HubSpot offers a variety of unique resources including e-books, podcasts, case studies and quizzes, targeting specific audiences and addressing their concerns.
4. MarketingProfs Offers a Library of Free Resources
MarketingProfs is a fantastic resource for businesses of all sizes, as they focus on providing conferences and training to help teams drive better results through their marketing campaigns. Through their comprehensive and free library of materials, ranging from podcasts to blog posts, they do all the heavy lifting and compile a ton of information on tools of the trade for brands looking to ramp up their marketing efforts.
MarketingProfs is one of the biggest thought leaders in the marketing industry, and providing this access to free content helps it build long-lasting relationships with users.
5. Semrush Offers a Variety of Resources to Educate Audiences
Another SEO tool, Semrush, stands out among its competitors as an exceptional resource for marketers at all experience levels. It takes advantage of having some of the most holistic SEO reporting abilities available online, but understands that not every consumer coming to their website is an SEO analyst with tons of industry experience.
As a response, Semrush has developed a robust educational content strategy. They created a wide variety of free courses in not only how to use their product and offerings, but how users can understand and implement SEO tactics on their own. They cover topics such as technical SEO and keyword research, and provide certificates upon the completion of an exam.
What’s unique in their B2B blog content strategy is that many of these courses incorporate Semrush’s product, but don’t rely on it fully for the lesson. This tactic works especially well because not only can Semrush build great relationships with its consumers as an SEO thought leader, it can be a one-stop shop for businesses looking for SEO software.
6. AbbVie Promotes Its Corporate Culture
Your B2B content marketing strategy doesn’t have to solely rely on a discussion of your products and services. Content marketing can also be an opportunity for prospective clients to better get to know your employees and your company values. AbbVie, a biopharmaceutical company, has decided to use its content to promote its culture. Through its service Scientists Rock!, AbbVie is able to showcase the employees who make up the company, helping create a more human connection between the organization and its audience.
Final Thoughts: An Easier Way to Content Marketing with One License
As you can see, not all B2B content marketing strategies are created equal. They are all different no matter the industry, audience or marketing goals. They do have one thing in common: the ability to promote content that appeals, resonates and converts.
Licensed content from NYTLicensing will utilize customized marketing packages tailored to your specific content goals. Use world-acclaimed storytelling from The New York Times to streamline your B2B content creation process and watch your brand grow to new heights.
