Unfortunately, we must admit that a significant amount of B2B content marketing is subpar. Regrettably, the content tends to be uninteresting and unappealing. In some cases, it is even self-centered. (We must confess that we have also been guilty of this.) In the end, effective B2B content marketing is all about providing people with captivating, distinctive, and pertinent content, regardless of whether you are selling an exciting product or not.
If you want to find ways to give people high-value content that connects with your audience and helps you achieve your goals, you’ve come to the right place because luckily, with the right insights, that can still be accomplished. Do you want to know how?
B2B Content Marketing
B2B content marketing entails the creation of valuable content designed for businesses and companies in your industry or those who could profit from utilizing your products or services.
B2B content refers to content that is intended to contribute to the growth of a business, increase brand recognition, and retain customers. In contrast to B2C content marketing, which focuses on individual consumers, B2B marketers direct their messaging towards the target audience of businesses.
Tips to Create Better B2B Content Marketing
1. Ideate around pain points
When it comes to B2B, the typical objective is to offer a solution to a prevalent issue. Although you may believe that your content addresses this problem, we often discover that ineffective B2B content tends to talk about the problem indirectly rather than providing valuable insights, tips, or expertise to directly address it.
If you are uncertain about the pain points of your audience or finding it difficult to generate ideas to address them, conduct direct research.
- Talk to customers. A quick phone chat or email can yield more ideas than you might realize.
- Search forums. This is a great way to find out what people in your industry are talking about.
- Find out what people are asking. Use a tool like AnswerThePublic to find out what questions people have. (This is a particularly helpful tool to find ideas that can increase your SEO.)
After generating ideas, make sure to evaluate them by considering how they align with your personas to ensure that they are impactful and meaningful.
2. Know what you want people to do after they interact with your content
One of the most common mistakes made by B2B marketers is perceiving content as an independent element rather than an integral part of a larger ecosystem.
When creating any content, it is important to have a purpose in mind, ideally to guide people towards making a purchase. Therefore, there should always be a distinct action for users to take after engaging with your content, such as downloading an e-book or trying out a free demo.
- Know your content goals. Before you get into writing or design, you need to understand exactly what you’re trying to achieve—and how you can make it easier for people to take the step you want them to.
- Map your buyer’s journey. Content marketing is not the sale; it’s the start of the conversation. But to move people along, you need to deliver the right message at the right time. If you haven’t mapped your messaging for each stage, use our template to do it.
- Know your brand messaging. Use our free brand messaging template to clearly articulate your tagline, value prop, and key stories. The more your content reinforces your core brand story, the more the messaging will stick.
When going through the steps in your mind, rephrase the given text while keeping the meaning intact. Avoid adding new information and do not omit any details. Please ensure that all functionality is operational – this includes the newsletter signup, download links, and any other features. We have encountered numerous situations where a CTA that leads to a 404 error has resulted in a dead-end.
3. Choose the right format for your channel
With the availability of numerous content creation tools, you now have the opportunity to create a greater quantity and variety of content than ever before.
It is important to consider the format in which you deliver your message in order to have the greatest impact. Understanding how people will access and engage with your content is essential for making effective creative decisions.
- What type of platforms are you targeting?
- What types of content work best on those platforms?
- What type of content does your audience prefer to see?
If you’re uncertain about the type of content that is most effective for your audience, learn how to identify the optimal channel for your content and try out different creative formats as an experiment.
4. Thought leadership
Thought leadership is a crucial aspect of B2B content marketing, although it is widely used and discussed. Therefore, it is important to clarify the meaning of thought leadership.
Thought leadership is the presentation of an expert perspective on a specific subject through well-produced and well-researched content. This content aims to establish the credibility and authority of the speaker or writer, who is usually a CEO or high-ranking individual within a company possessing relevant credentials and experience.
Consider the implementation of a regular webinar series that extends invitations to leaders and influencers from your industry to serve as guest speakers.
5. Explainers
B2B content marketing involves providing helpful information, either from an industry viewpoint or with a focus on the customer (in this scenario, the business being the customer). Explaining common pain points or problems within your field, particularly those that your product or service can resolve, is an effective approach to B2B content marketing.
Explainer copy provides numerous benefits to your bottom line. Moreover, it can serve as a valuable piece of content for your sales team, enabling them to generate upsells and foster improved relationships with clients.
6. Industry compilations
For instance, giving concise or highly extensive sets of statistics relevant to your sector is a crucial element of every B2B content marketing plan.
- PR Statistics
- Social Media Marketing Statistics
- Influencer Marketing Statistics
It permits you to consolidate abundant information in a single location, in a way that is related and easy to understand. Additionally, it serves as a beneficial strategy for establishing relationships when seeking to capture the attention of influencers or thought leaders. By referring to a specific source or article, you can inform them and initiate a discussion.
7. Reports
To establish industry credibility, B2B marketers should create reports periodically – annually, bi-annually, or quarterly – based on their industry and available resources. These reports can be advantageous by offering something distinctive and unparalleled compared to competitors, whether it is a larger sample size or improved data analysis.
8. Guides and blog posts
B2B businesses can greatly benefit from content marketing in the form of a comprehensive guide or blog post that focuses on a specific topic or question relevant to their industry.
They can be utilized as a top-of-the-funnel content, which is effective for increasing brand visibility and expanding your email subscriber base. They are also a valuable supplement to webinars that cover the same topic, allowing you to generate interest on social media or through your blog by excerpting sections from a more comprehensive guide to engage readers.
Forecasts are consistently sought-after topics, like our Marketing Trends Guide that is released every year, examining the key trends to prioritize in the upcoming year. Utilizing SEO and other marketing channels, they prove to be an effective method for attracting readership.
Including evergreen SEO blogs in your content marketing strategy is a beneficial approach because these blogs can act as filler content on social media platforms and can be easily maintained and atomized, as they do not require constant updates.
9. Customer stories and testimonials
A positive customer experience that outlines the issues they had to resolve and how your product or service helped solve them can be a valuable tool for enticing potential clients and ultimately sealing the deal.
When you can tag the respective company, real-world applications for your tools can be showcased on social media. This can attract more interest through social media marketing, as the company’s social team may re-share.
10. Use cases and buyers guides
If customers who are exploring your products are unsure about their specific needs, it is important to offer them solid use cases when they are in browsing mode. These use cases should demonstrate all the reasons why they should choose your brand over your competitors.
These pieces of content are strategically crafted to encourage the next step in the buyer’s journey. It is important to understand that a prospective customer may utilize these materials to persuade members of their team with purchasing authority that investing time and money in this endeavor will be valuable.
11. Human emotion
The major complaint we have about 90% of B2B content is that it often overlooks the fact that there is a human being at the receiving end of the communication, even if the product being marketed is not the most attractive.
If your cloud-based innovation software solution ultimately assists in automating, innovating, and improving their lives, it is crucial to focus on their emotions and communicate with them in a relatable manner. This could involve empathizing with their shared frustrations or providing insider advice to simplify their lives. The key is to actively engage with them rather than simply talking to them.
- Watch your language. We see a lot of brands throwing around buzzwords and jargon, hoping to prove their expertise or impress their audience. While certain industry terms might demonstrate your insider status, we cringe at most marketing gibberish. (TBH, we hate this buzzspeak so much we made a fake marketing gibberish generator to make fun of it.)
- Add your personality. Adding a bit of humor, wit, or sincere emotion helps break down walls and better engage the people you’re trying to reach. In B2B, where relationships are the foundation of everything, demonstrating that familiarity and human voice from the jump is key.
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No matter the size of your team, content marketing involves numerous components. In order to enhance your outcomes, carefully scrutinize every aspect of your operation to pinpoint areas for enhancement.
- Strengthen your strategy. Use our content strategy toolkit to create a content plan that supports your goals and ensures your ideas will reach the right people.
- Focus on value. Try these additional tips to create B2B content that converts.
- Improve your infrastructure. See our tips to optimize your content creation process to help your team work smarter, not harder.
