The Ultimate Guide to Content Marketing for B2B Companies

B2B content marketing involves using specific strategies to reach and sell products and services to other businesses through creating and distributing engaging content. Its strategies, types of content, and objectives differ significantly from B2C content marketing due to the differences in their target audiences and purchasing behaviours. A successful B2B content marketing strategy involves identifying the target audience, creating high-quality content, selecting the appropriate channels for distribution, measuring and tracking the results, and using various types of content, such as blogs, white papers, case studies, videos, podcasts, webinars, infographics, email marketing, and e-books.

The importance of content marketing cannot be overstated. It is more cost effective than traditional marketing, producing three times as many leads. Most businesses and organisations today use the content as part of their marketing plan.

Relevant, high-value content significantly influences how businesses make purchasing decisions. In this guide to content marketing for B2B companies, we dive into B2B content marketing and share more about strategies, types of content, and tips for developing a content marketing strategy.

B2B Content Marketing vs. B2C Content Marketing

B2B content marketing and B2C content marketing have significant differences, including target audience, types of content used, and the objectives of the content strategy applied. B2B content marketing focuses on attracting businesses to purchase products and services, while B2C content marketing focuses on individual customers. Purchasing decisions surrounding high dollar investments in the B2B sector are more complex vs. individual customers making a quick purchase decision for lower price point items for themselves.

Another important difference between B2B content marketing and B2C content marketing involves the types of content used in marketing strategies. For example, B2B content marketing includes blog posts, white papers, and E-books targeted to executives who may make buying decisions for companies. B2C content marketing relies on distribution channels like social media, where businesses can blast fast advertisements targeting relevant customers designed to promote impulse purchases using embedded links.

B2B Content Marketing Strategy

A marketing strategy is a well-informed plan for reaching a target audience and designed to convert their target audience into paying customers. B2B marketing strategies are long-term plans for achieving sales targets and establishing a company as a thought leader in their industry.

Successful content marketing strategists understand why they are creating content, who the content is intended to reach, and how the content will help those who come across it as they search for needed information. Content marketing does not always involve selling; however, it will always point the reader back to the originating company that published the content in order to build trust and potentially earn their business in the future.

Elements of an Effective Content Marketing Strategy

Target Audience

Understanding the target audience for content marketing is critical when developing a content marketing strategy. Extensive research into the target market will also yield valuable information about the best keywords to use when creating content for marketing campaigns.

Marketing Objectives

Clear objectives are essential for effective content marketing. Understanding the goal of a specific marketing campaign will empower content marketing teams to produce the best content for each campaign.

Create High-Quality Content

High-quality content includes any content that adds value to the reader. Regarding content marketing, other factors contributing to high-quality content include SEO optimisation using targeted keywords placed strategically throughout the well-written, easily readable text.

Content Distribution

Using tools such as an editorial calendar and multiple channels for distribution can strengthen marketing efforts. Using automation tools to schedule content posting helps streamline and simplify content marketing efforts.

Measure and Track Results

Measuring and tracking content marketing results is essential to an effective content marketing strategy. Establishing measurable key performance indicators and KPIs allows marketing teams to evaluate the effectiveness of marketing efforts and allocate resources to the marketing efforts producing the best results. Another benefit of tracking marketing metrics involves demonstrating a return on investment ROI. Tracking and measuring results empowers marketing teams to improve overall performance by providing a comprehensive view of marketing campaigns’ performance.

Types of Content Used in B2B Marketing

Successful B2B marketing efforts use various types of content across multiple channels. This strategy allows companies to reach wider audiences and establish thought leadership within a business sector or industry. For example, informative blogs may offer valuable insights and information about a topic, while case studies are often persuasive, offering a results-based conclusion about a product or service.

Several types of effective B2B content include:

• Blogs: blogs are a fast, effective way to share valuable information with a target audience. SEO-optimised blogs have a high potential of driving organic website traffic, potentially resulting in quality leads.
• White Papers: white papers are typically longer than blogs, often 6 – 8 pages. The content is research-based and intended to establish thought leadership.
• Case Studies: case studies are designed to showcase how a company can solve a problem, demonstrating the effectiveness of a company’s products or services.
• Videos: videos educate and engage potential customers in the B2B sector.
• Podcasts: Podcasts are audio programmes available for download or streaming. They feel similar to radio shows; however, they are never live. B2B podcasts are gaining popularity among business executives seeking business-related content.
• Webinars: online seminars, also known as webinars, are live or pre-recorded presentations from business experts. When used in B2B marketing, webinars are an effective way to generate leads as participants register by providing contact information.
• Infographics: visually appealing, informative content using diagrams, charts, graphs, or other combinations of images, text, and data.
• Email marketing: email campaigns are an effective way to share content and promote products, services, sales, or other information with a company’s email list.
• E-Books: e-books are effective for sharing more extensive, long-form content broken down into sections or chapters. Like white papers, e-books help companies establish thought leadership in their industry.
• Newsletters: often sent via email or linked on websites or social media posts, companies use newsletters weekly or monthly to provide information to a wide audience through an email newsletter subscription list.
• Social Media Campaigns: social media is a vital resource for content marketing today. Finding the right social media platform to use involves understanding on which platform a company’s target audience is active and then focusing content marketing efforts on that platform.

Tips for Effective Content Marketing

Understand Your Buyer’s Journey

The B2B buyer’s journey is the process a buyer goes through to learn about, evaluate and finally make a purchasing decision. Buyers today prefer to seek out information on their own. Each point of contact is part of their buyer’s journey. Therefore, companies must understand the journey buyers take. When a company understands the buyer’s journey, it will gain valuable insights into when and why customers choose to make a purchase or not.

Build Relationships

Engaging with customers through content marketing may include comments, direct messages, and creating an overall positive customer experience for each individual customer. Building relationships is crucial in B2B marketing because it helps develop brand loyalty and trust.

Automation

B2B marketing automation helps streamline workflows helping teams improve efficiency and effectiveness. In addition, automation tools help companies follow up with every new lead with an automated reply, then lead them through a customer journey that connects them with a live person.

SEO and Keywords

Search engine optimisation and keywords are vital components of B2B content marketing. Most business leaders begin their search for products and services online, using search engines to ask specific questions about solving their challenges. SEO and keywords help companies rank higher in search engine results giving them the best chance to capture new leads.

Algorithm Updates

The algorithm determines where a company appears in search engine results. The optimal ranking is as high as possible, preferably within the first one to three results. SEO algorithms are code written to scour the internet, rank sites, and share the results. It is important to stay up-to-date on algorithm changes because a change in ranking can affect visibility and valuable organic traffic to a company’s website.

Consistency is Key

Consistency helps establish trust, establishes thought leadership and builds brand awareness. Another significant effect of consistency in B2B content marketing is improved SEO. Consistent, high-quality content can result in increased rankings in search engine results.

Final Thoughts

In the past cold calling, sales calls, and product demonstrations were the go-to tactics for B2B marketing. Today cold calls have a shockingly low 2% success rate on average. In contrast, 52% of buyers today are more likely to purchase from sellers with content marketing resources available for them to read. These statistics confirm that information in the form of content marketing drives sales today, making B2B content marketing the most effective way to reach a wide audience and generate qualified leads.