B2B Marketing is often misunderstood as a spiritless way of promoting your products and services. We don’t blame you if you feel like that too! Whenever people talk about how formal, serious and full of jargon any B2B marketing material seems and sounds, that’s because the impression has been created as such. Even though it offers less flexibility, quirkiness and experimentation as compared to B2C marketing, it’s not merely impossible to create attention grabbing content. A blend of creative and strategic approach takes care of promoting, advertising and popularizing your product. It shouldn't be that hard after all, provided you keep the professionalism alive with a hint of life to it instead of coming out to your audience as robotic.
That’s probably one of the reasons why most people associate B2B marketing with mundane tasks. Plus, even a lot of business owners believe B2B marketing is all about uninspiring stuff. In reality, B2B marketing is more of a creative and strategic process than a dull that a content strategist should nurture. Putting together the right message and finding the right audience can seem daunting at first, but just like anything, the more you practice, the better you'll become at it.
B2B marketing strategies need to be crafted in an exciting way that gets the core job done without making it feel like a burden on the marketer. B2b marketing involves the use of sales and advertising to deliver a message to a targeted group of potential customers.
What Is B2B Content Marketing?
B2B content marketing is the strategy of creating and distributing relevant and valuable content for business to business organizations to increase the awareness of your business, promote your brand, and build trust with customers.
B2B content marketing materials need to make sense for the business around the world. The best B2B content is not only shared and read by the masses, but also referred to and is seen as a credible resource for businessess, researchers, marketers as well as students around the world.
It is a digital marketing technique that is a great way to promote products and services with a plethora of content marketing options. Starting from blogs, emails, social media, ebooks, interviews; the options are wide and impactful.
What Sets Apart B2B From B2C Marketing?
When it comes to content marketing, it's no secret that B2B brands have a bit of a leg up on their B2C counterparts. The reason for this is that B2B companies have an actual product or service to sell, which means they can take a more direct approach to content marketing.
B2B on the other hand is a bit more challenging, as it's not as easy to tie the content back to a specific transaction, which is why companies like Amazon, Walmart, Alibaba, Club, Casper have had to get so creative with their strategies.B2B content marketing is different from B2C content marketing in two primary aspects:-
i) First, the content is most often employee-generated.
ii) Second, the content must meet the specific needs of the people they are trying to reach. For example, if you are reaching a group of marketing professionals, you would create content that is useful for them in their work. If you are targeting buyers in finance, you would create content that helps them make financial decisions.
Quick Checklist Of What Goes Into a Successful B2B Content Marketing Strategy
A successful B2B content marketing strategy doesn't need to be filled with a specific formula to be successful. It's more about understanding what the end goal is, and reaching that goal by finding the right content strategy.
Here is a quick checklist to help you pave a roadmap towards establishing a strong foundation of successful content marketing strategy:-i) Define the target audience and their intent ii) Learn what type of information they want from you
iii) Get your team, partners, and other stakeholders involved to maximize success
iv) Create content that meets the needs of the target audience
v) Create an action plan to create relevant, engaging, and useful content
vi) Make sure the content is optimized and personalized for SEO and performance
vii) Make sure the content is consistent
viii) Make sure the content is strategic
ix) Use tracking and analytics tools to see what's working and what isn't
x) Finally, Repeat all the steps mentioned above!
11 Content Formats That Every B2B Company Should Leverage
i) Case Studies
A case study is a real-world example that provides evidence supporting a solution or understanding of a problem. It is also referred to as a client story, but the name is not really important, the important thing is that you are able to describe the problem, the solution and the results.
In B2B marketing, case studies are used to showcase a product or service. The goal of a case study is to demonstrate that B2B marketing actually works like wonders. Case studies are used for social media, television commercials, in-store displays, and digital marketing.
Plus, case studies are very useful in teaching us about the good and the bad. The good is that case studies let us see other people's mistakes and their successes. The bad is that they can make us feel inadequate because we don't achieve the same level of success those people do. This can be a good thing, however, because it shows people what the level of success is so they know they are making progress and how to get to the next level.The way you choose the case study to affect you is entirely up to you. Some benefit greatly out of it while some only end up feeling doubtful about their processes. In order to be successful in your B2B marketing, make sure to get inspired and not disheartened.
ii) Whitepapers/eBooks
What are white papers and ebooks? What exactly is the difference between them? So, both are essentially marketing tools used to promote and advertise a product or service. However, they are used in different ways and used for different purposes.
White papers are basically a more in-depth version of an article used to explain a certain topic. They are used for research purposes as well as to give information and knowledge to a customer base.
A white paper is a valuable tool used to give information to your customers about your products. It can be used as a sales pitch because it's thorough and informative. You can also turn it into an eBook and distribute it to customers on your website. That way, people can read it on their own time, as opposed to a sales pitch where they're forced to listen to you.
You should always have your white paper available for customers, because even if they just take a quick glance at it, they'll be able to learn something. You need your white paper to be intriguing to your audience so that they want to learn more about your product. Make sure to write and present it in a way that doesn't seem like a sales pitch, but instead, is insightful and sounds like a storytelling technique people can seek benefits and results from.
E-books, also known as electronic books, are available in digital format so anyone can access them. e-books are a lot cheaper to produce than hardcopies, which means more affordable prices for consumers and the reduction of trees being cut down. In the same way, white papers are available in digital format so anyone can access them. They're great marketing tools to entice new customers to your product and also a way to keep your online content fresh.
iii) Videos
Videos can help companies or individuals to introduce their work to the public and generate interest in the ideas. People can relate to videos and find them more interesting than just reading about something. Marketing through videos can be used in a variety of ways, such as tutorials, product demonstration, or just a fun video to stay up-to-date.
Video marketing is a great way to advertise your product or business and it's worth considering. Altering your website to make it more appealing to customers and trying to get them to engage with your business. The role of videos is not limited to product promotion. It can be used to provide solutions to user queries. It can be used to educate the audiences about the features and other things related to your products.
It can also be used to build a trust in between the company and the customers by answering their queries and helping them whenever they need. Videos are capable of upping the content marketing game. It can be leveraged as a powerful tool to create a remarkable brand image of the company. By producing high quality videos, companies can gain the trust of their customers. The more the trust is, the more the number of customers is.
iv) Podcasts
Podcasts have been around for a while and have come to define what content creation is all about. Before that, you had the media broadcasting and then, the internet came along and it has changed the way people follow or consume content. Content creation has been turned into a little different kind of beast, with podcasts being just one kind. However, podcasts are not just made for entertainment, but they are a source of information.
So, what exactly is a podcast? And what's the role of podcasts in content creation? Let's get into it.
The role of podcasts within the realm of content creation is admittedly not given much importance as that written content, such as blogs, books, and articles. However, podcasts are still a great way to create content and to build your brand. Podcasts can target a specific topic which can allow you to be more detailed in your content if you have time restraints, like during a commute. If you are a business, you can create a podcast and talk about a particular issue that your audience faces or one of your solutions to your potential customer’s pain points. More often than not, your audience will talk about it with friends and family and your company's name will come up.
Podcasts are a great way to get interesting information from interesting people. When you're driving, you can listen to smart people talk about a variety of subjects. Podcasts are also great for just general passing time. They're interesting and you can listen to them with your family, friends, and even alone. It’s a content that can be absorbed to feed your mind with knowledge and at the same time for entertainment purposes!
v) Emailers
When you hear the word "marketing" what comes to mind? If you've ever owned a business, you know that marketing and advertising are vital to making sure that people know about your business. There are many different ways to market your business, though one of the most effective is email marketing.
Email marketing is an excellent way to get in touch with your customers. There are several techniques that you can implement to increase the effectiveness of your email marketing and one of those techniques is email automation.
At first, email marketing may seem like a cheap means of promoting your business. But it's one of the best mediums to promote your business and speak directly to your customers. Given you personalize and customise each of your emails, there is no way you will see no results. You can put in more effort on your email marketing campaign as it is a two-way communication platform.
You can have a dialogue with your customers, create a personal connection with them, and also increase the sales of your business. Email marketing is proven to be the most successful type of marketing in B2B companies.
B2B list email marketing is the most preferred and popular among all other forms of marketing. B2B lists email marketing have the potential to bring in the right kind of audience and help you make the desired sales.
vi) Webinars
Webinars are an important medium in business-to-business (B2B) marketing. Webinars are an interactive way to broadcast information to a large audience. Using a webinar, you can educate your clients, customers and target audience about your product offerings or services, and give them the opportunity to ask any questions they may have about it.
If you're a business owner, it’s one impactful strategy that you can get your hands on as not many business personalities use it to their advantage yet! When you leverage webinars, you leverage the full potential of B2B marketing strategy.
It works like a live interactive seminar that takes place over the Internet that allows the presenter and the participants to share information. It is typically used by large entities and businesses for promotion and lead generation. Webinars are similar to those of live videos that social media platforms are full of today. It is like giving a presentation in front of a live virtual audience to familiarize your offerings to the masses and the attendees. It is an effective marketing strategy that allows businesses to promote their products and services to a large audience at the same time.
vii) Checklists
Checklists are incredibly helpful for organizing and making sure you don't forget something. Imagine using this formula to help your audience in remembering what they should which is correlated to your brand.
For example- SEMRush uses a bunch of interesting checklists for their target audience who belong to the core domain of digital marketing but with varied specializations. For instance, SEMRush targets all their digital marketers, content creators and solopreneurs they will cater to the seo specialists, content writers, social media marketing managers etc.
The same technique can be applied to contribute towards value addition among the community who choose to follow you for the brand voice and values you hold.
viii) Newsletters
Newsletters are a recurring way to keep in touch with people who have subscribed to your news feed. Some companies use them to send out information on business deals, some use them to positively persuade their customers into buying from them again, and others use them to send out hilarious memes that make people laugh. Whatever you use them for, they're a fun way to continue relationships with customers and maybe even acquire some new ones! The purpose of newsletters is to inform and educate people about various topics.
A newsletter basically helps business owners reach out to targeted audiences. It informs readers about the products and services offered by a company. It also provides information about new products, upcoming events, and activities.
It is written by the organization's editor and is usually sent out to the members of the organization.
Newsletters are written to inform readers about different things happening within the organization, and they are often used in business as a promotional tool for a product or service offered by the business. A newsletter is often published on a regular basis, and the main goal is to keep the subscribers informed of what is happening within the organization.
viii) Blog Posts/Articles
Having a blog is a good way to gain more exposure for your business. A blog is an online journal that many people write for different purposes. Some of them include personal diaries, hobbyists, company newsletters, and communicators. Depending on the field of work, you can write articles that will reflect your knowledge about the company.
Hubspot can be one such example that does blogging pretty well. Anything and everything related to content marketing is something they have written about!
This can also be helpful when trying to gain traffic for the website and gain more viewers. Blogs can be more than a platform for personal expression; they can be a great tool for a wide range of business and marketing strategies. They can help with branding, building an audience, and even increasing the quality of your content.They are a great source for enhancing your credibility about a certain industry, sector and topic. It also proves phenomenal for SEO purposes which plays a crucial role in your digital marketing success. You can use blogs and articles to target the people that you need to reach, by targeting your groups and the keywords that they use to search queries which can be directly linkedin to your business. You can get them to your site without a hassle and last but not the least, by using blog posts and articles you can increase the amount of traffic that you bring into your site.
For one, the blog itself can be a great website for the company. It can be used to tell business information about the products or services the company provides. It can be used to let viewers know about the newest things the company is working on or where the company is located. Blogs can also give viewers a place to go to get answers to questions they have about products. This makes it easier for them to make their purchases. If customers are already familiar with the company's blog, they will be more apt to visit the company's website. This can give the company more traffic and better sales. Blogs are a great way for companies to reach out to their customers and share information with them.
For a B2B marketing strategy, blogging has become a vital tool. If you're a business of any size, you should have a blog. While many people still choose to have a personal blog, there's no reason not to take full advantage of the marketing potential of a business blog.
ix) Free Tools
There are tons of companies and entrepreneurs who make use of tools that give a sneak peak to its potential users to try the product first and then decide if they want to purchase the product or avail the service or not.
For example there are a lot of SaaS companies and businesses in general who provide a free trial or limited period offer to try a tool that can help businesses to streamline their processes.
For example- Neil Patel is a digital marketing guru who has a lot of free tools listed on his website that people enjoy using for free.
Similarly; Ahrefs, Buzzsumo, SemRush, Canva are some of the SaaS companies who offer their premium services for a limited period of time to only monetize it later when people become habitual of using their products. This works as a great foot-in-the-door technique for B2B companies who want to give a flavour of their offerings to their potential customers to only leave them wanting for more that comes with a price!
A Full Proof Content Marketing Strategy To Help You Get Started
One of the biggest reasons why businesses struggle to create great content is because they don't know who their audience or readers are and what they want. That's why you need to take a look at your target market and come up with strategies that will be effective for them.
One of the best ways to do that is to check out the competitors you're going against. What are they doing that's getting the best results? Are there any elements of their content that you can use on your own? This will give you a head start and you'll come up with the best strategies that your competition is too ignorant to figure out!In addition to this, there are several other factors that have to be present in order to have a successful B2B content marketing strategy.
And to begin with, there are a few questions you should be ready to answer:-
> Who are your target audience looking for?
> How do you plan to create content that meets their needs?
> What value does your content add to your target audience? Does it provide them with something that they want and need?
> What is the overall design outline of your content that will also have a say in how successful it ends up being.
> Lastly, maintain consistency through all channels to keep your brand voice intact.
Summing It Up
Marketers are always looking for the latest and greatest ways to fuel their sales and marketing strategies. The creation of a B2B content marketing strategy is a way to accomplish that on a regular basis.
B2B content marketing strategy is a great way to build and maintain relationships with your customers. It's a great way to keep your business top-of-mind with your customers. Read the full blog to learn how to build a B2B content marketing strategy that will keep your business relevant and active in your customers' minds.The most important thing to remember when creating a B2B content marketing strategy is to always keep your audience in mind. You want to make sure your content is timely. You also don’t want to create content that feels like an ad. The best way to do this is to figure out what your audience wants, always!