B2B Content Marketing is the ability to use content to expand your company’s audience, strengthen and develop affinity with your brand and, most importantly, attract other companies that may be potential customers.
Unlike other types of strategies, B2B Content Marketing has to be useful above all else . That is, if the content is not actionable or applicable to the prospect’s job or company , the goal of creating valuable content is not being met.
The above does not mean that B2C Content Marketing is not useful, but it is not the only priority. In other words, in B2C, many pieces of content tend to seek entertainment or viralization to increase brand reputation, but not necessarily to seek potential customers or sales.
It does not mean that B2B Content Marketing has to be tedious or boring. On the contrary, the challenge of sharing business information requires creators capable of integrating utility, attraction and high quality, even better than in a B2C strategy.
What are the best practices of B2B Content Marketing?
1. Identify your ideal audience
One of the main mistakes when focusing on a B2B segment is forgetting that the decision makers are individual people. This goes beyond knowing who your Buyer Persona is and segmenting audiences according to the conversion funnel , it is about getting to know them better.
You may be thinking how difficult it will be to get such specialized data, but surely you have tools like Google Analytics that can help you obtain demographic data and interests of those who currently visit your site.
For example, in the following screenshot you can see an example in which it can be seen that the majority of visitors to a site dedicated to selling Residential Pipes are men between 25-34 years old.
This type of data is beginning to be useful but you can also help yourself with other sections such as Interests which, in addition to confirming if the right audience is reaching your site, helps you identify certain affinities with your product/services and start segmenting through this information.
Of course, this data is only a representative sample, but you can take advantage of actions such as interviews or Focus Group sessions to identify not only the interests of your prospects but also high-caliber information for your prospecting, for example, job position (this will helps to know what level of decision making you have in the purchase process), what are your fears, concerns or needs that you want to cover.
2. Sell a success story before your product
This goes hand in hand with point 1. It doesn’t matter if you are selling to a company, who is going to make the purchase decision is a human being . With this in mind, you will always think of creating digestible content that an employee can take to their manager or that a manager can share with an executive.
Creating engaging content requires very simple steps:
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- Identify which industries your prospects are from and the problems your product or service helps solve.
- Create a narrative about that solution that revolves around how you managed to change these people’s work lives.
- Accompany your content with a powerful Call to Action , which generates empathy with readers and makes them feel that their problems can also be solved.
Sharing a problem that could be solved by a product or service is a way to deliver B2B content focused on tangible value. With this you will achieve:
- Create content that is simple and easy to understand, but also attractive.
- Do not fall into a piece of self-promotion but into a narrative to help companies.
3. Choose the best format for B2B content marketing
The best format to create B2B content is one that is made up of three layers: text, images and video. Many content creators limit themselves to just using text, however, images and videos are just as important.
This does not always have to do with the quality of the information (because there may be pieces with great research behind them and that do not have visual elements), it is about making your article more convincing , that is, if I have three options on the web , but your content answers what I need with a better experience, the probability that they will choose you as a source of information increases exponentially.
Plus, it’s a great way to engage audience members who aren’t big fans of reading , and an even better way to break up the monotony of giant blocks of text.
4. Measure and promote
If the data you have about your content or your audience is few, it is normal that you have some stumbles when trying to reach your audience or generating content that is not attractive enough. However, as time goes by, you will have more data that will help you know which parts work better.
Once you identify the best-performing or high-value content by priority, launch, timing, etc. feel free to use advertising to amplify your reach.
As we are talking about B2B content, surely the first thing that comes to mind is to use Ads on Linkedin and yes, it is indeed the social network par excellence for the business sector, we ourselves have witnessed the good results of its segmentation. However, do not rule out the use of other means of advertising , remember that what we want is to get more attention because the more attention the more likely it is to convert.
5. Look for cross-collaboration
We are not referring specifically to creating link building (although it also helps), but to genuinely collaborate with companies in the sector in which your prospects work . Remember, we all look for references and a good reputation to accept new suppliers.
Increasing the exposure of your content is beneficial for everyone:
- By incorporating various brands or institutions in your communication, your prospects begin to perceive you as having a high level of knowledge of the sector.
- On the other hand, having your brand present in external media obviously helps you gain leadership and validate yourself within the market in which you compete.
As you saw, there are several elements to consider as a B2B Content Marketing professional. We hope that you have identified several highlights as creating content that is highly actionable, engaging, and focused on specific and profiled audiences. Make sure you’re using your content to tell compelling stories and not just bombard your audience with self-promotion.
