Content Marketing for B2B Companies

Content marketing is one of the primary marketing techniques used by B2B focused companies - and for good reason. 

In this article, we’re looking at why it works so well and how your B2B company can benefit from it too. From goal setting to strategy, distribution and tips, this comprehensive overview has all you need to know to get started with or boost your content marketing.

Content Marketing and B2Bs

Let’s define content marketing - it is a marketing technique that involves the creation and distribution of valuable content designed to attract, acquire and engage your target audiences. This content can take various forms, but we’ll get into that a little later on. When it comes to B2B businesses, there are the defining characteristics when it comes to communication through content, namely:

• You have a concentrated target audience, so having a deep understanding of them is crucial in order to appeal to their needs.
• B2Bs work with longer buyer cycles, so this should be taken into account, with content facilitating this journey.
• Your audience seeks valuable solutions that make business sense, which needs to be communicated.
• B2Bs by nature are relationship-based, which should be reflected in your content strategy. Ensure you meet them where they are, and build long lasting, personal relationships with them.
• Your content offering needs to satisfy your customers' requirement for high levels of expertise and efficiency.
• Content marketing is highly effective for lead generation. This should be utilised by your team of marketers to ensure that you are able to generate, secure, nurture, convert leads.

Goals of B2B Content Marketing

Most B2B businesses focus on top sales funnel goals. This leads to creating content that is geared towards creating brand awareness, education and the establishment of credibility. However, in order to truly take advantage of this marketing technique, there needs to be a broader set of goals. This takes these fundamental goals and grows them by seeking to create lasting impressions and loyalty. Therefore other goals to include are the building of your subscription base, the ability to generate revenue and fostering loyalty among your customers.

Content Marketing Strategy for B2B Companies

Content marketing is steadily growing across various B2B industries. When building a strategy with the above goals in mind, it is clear that customer relationships and results should be the driving force. When it comes to content, one needs to think about the long term. This is due to the fact that it can take time to create content and with the right optimisation, it can also take some time before the content begins to reach its peak performance levels. With that being said, it is important to measure the success of what you are publishing and distributing. As you begin to flesh out the strategy, you should have an in-depth understanding of your buyer personas and create content that is available to them at all stages of the sales funnel. The content should appeal to their needs before your sales objectives, as this marketing technique is all about sharing value, not punting. With that, it should also be in line with your brand position, and you’ll need to have a clearly defined brand image and voice.

Many B2B businesses have a centralised team to handle all of the content relating to their business. This ensures that the content produced is done so by content professionals, whether it is done by a full time person or team internally or an externally outsourced one. This team will need to set a strategy, ensure that they follow it and measure all of the relevant analytics in order to improve the strategy going forward.

Content Distribution

When your content is shared, you should work on optimising it (with SEO) for organic reach, as well as amplify it with paid distribution (with SEM and paid ads on social media, for example).Content can refer to a wide range of things, including: emails, website, blog, social media, eBooks, webinars, podcasts, case studies, templates, banner ads, premium content and offers.

Certain aspects of this can be automated for your convenience, and there are various non-owned channels that you can consider sharing your content with too. These include influencers, guest posts, speaking at events, sponsorships, partner emails and native advertising.  Also consider using professional social media platforms such as LinkedIn as a channel for content distribution.  Not just for the sales or marketing teams to distribute but for the organization as a whole in order to leverage wider networks.  LinkedIn still provides some of the most generous organic visibility amongst all social media platforms and businesses should be looking to take advantage of this.

Tips for improving your B2Bs Content Marketing

• Improve the quality of your content - hire professional writers who can focus on creating insightful and educational content for your business.
• Improve your distribution with scheduling and platform reevaluation
• Improve your measuring capabilities and use this information to improve
• Improve the understanding of your audience
• Improve the data capturing of your audience - consider the advantages of using gated content for example
• Sell stories, not products
• Ensure the customer experience is optimal when consuming your content
• Expand your content creation with multimedia offerings
• Collaborate with partners and industry heavyweights
• Utilise more paid distribution and optimise your content for these channels (specifically for lead generation)
• Increase your content marketing in order to improve your number of leads for less.
• Consider the use of marketing automation platforms such as HubSpot that can reduce the manual marketing work required, allowing your team to focus on strategy.

Work with experts

There you have it - the goals, strategy, distribution and tips needed for successful B2B content marketing. Nexa can help you with all of your content marketing. From content writing to videography, our team is ready to take your B2B to the next level.  

Get in touch with us to get started.