5 tips for getting started with B2B content marketing
As with consumer marketing, B2B content marketing also has its own ever-changing practices. In a world of email marketing, social campaigns and lead generation it’s difficult to know where to start; so here’s a rundown of key strategies to get you started.
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Abandon the word ‘digital’
It may seem strange (and I’m already contradicting myself), but marketers really should abandon the word “digital”. Long have marketing and digital marketing been clearly divided and separated, often with different members of staff responsible for each. A successful B2B content marketing campaign should over-arch all means of communication, from email to events (face-to-face or online) to Twitter. The end goals and metrics for each should be aligned, wherever your audience happens to be.
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Start with insightful content
To attract an audience and rise above the noise online, you need to offer potential customers insights that they simply won’t get from your competition. Carefully crafted, genuinely insightful pieces of content will go down a storm as long as you’re sharing your expertise. By using a mixture of formats – including infographics (see example below), whitepapers and info-videos – you can provide value and generate leads.
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Be a tool in your customer’s box
Provide something that your customers can interact with on your website. A B2B website doesn’t have to be static and only contain content about your business and past work (although this can be very interesting for a potential customer!). Useful online tools – such as a calculator that works out the value of a particular product, or a calendar that helps your customers with their planning – can provide an extra hook to draw leads in further.
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Make use of your audience
Once you have an audience (even a small one) you can engage with them and learn from them. If someone sees a survey or a question relating to the industry they’re working in they’re quite likely to engage with it and answer. A simple Twitter poll can extract important data from your customer base as well as showing that you care about your customers’ opinions. You can then use that insight as content to share back with them.
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It’s not strictly business
Agreed: you’re a business and you’re speaking to professionals who work within your industry, but remember they’re human, just like the rest of us. Don’t make all of you content serious and all about you; a funny Tweet (see below) or a clever piece of April Fools content on LinkedIn there can help position you as a business with personality that will stick in people’s minds.
As a parting thought: why not approach B2B content marketing as the ultimate opportunity to demonstrate how amazing you are – as well as capture interesting data and insight from potential customers? If your marketing strategy covers all methods of communication and they’re heading in the same direction then you’re on track for a successful campaign.
