A content marketing strategy can have a positive impact on your bottom line, but that’s only if it is executed correctly.
At some point, you have got advice such as, ‘if you post several 500-word blog posts every day, your website will rank higher on search engines like Google because it shows you are active.’ But, is this really the case? The answer is; No.
You will find out why at the end of this post since I will outline common mistakes you need to avoid to ensure your B2B content marketing strategy delivers positive Return-On-Investment (ROI).
Table of Contents
What is B2B Content Marketing?
What is a B2B Content Marketing Strategy?
What are the Common B2B Content Marketing Strategy Mistakes?
1. Failing to Document Your Strategy
2. Developing a Strategy that Focuses on Just Distributing Content
3. Failing to Consistently Execute your Plan
4. Overemphasizing the Production of Awareness Content
5. Failing to Track the ROI of Your Content Marketing Strategy
6. Prioritizing Quantity over Quality
How Can I Create a Successful B2B Content Strategy?
What is the Difference Between B2B Content Marketing and B2C Content Marketing?
What are the Examples of Successful B2B Content Marketing Strategies?
a). Hubspot
b). Deloitte
c). Airbnb
What is B2B Content Marketing?
Business-to-Business (B2B) content marketing is an umbrella term for;
A social media post talking about your company culture
A thought-leadership insight about emerging industry trends
A webinar focused on providing valuable information about an interesting topic in your industry
A ‘How to’ blog post to help your audience address a specific problem
A whitepaper about the prospects of a given market
An email newsletter providing tips and important reminders for your current clients
Therefore, content marketing involves giving your target consumers valuable and thoughtful information (not ads) that helps them solve a specific problem.
What is a B2B Content Marketing Strategy?
The success of your B2B content marketing activities depends on developing and distributing useful, high-authority content to a specific target audience. A B2B content strategy is the plan that gives your marketing activities;
Direction
Justifies the investment
Ensures you can measure the results
What are the Common B2B Content Marketing Strategy Mistakes?
1. Failing to Document Your Strategy
It can seem to be an inconvenience to stop and actually document your content marketing strategy. But, having it all mapped out ‘in your mind’ is counterproductive, not only for you but also for your team. Your content marketing activities are likely to fall short if you do not have a real-life copy to evaluate, modify, and share with your team. Why? Because, without a documented content strategy, it is difficult for you or your team to align your content with intended or set goals.
2. Developing a Strategy that Focuses on Just Distributing Content
Content marketing does not start and end with just producing blog posts or posting company news updates on social media. It is important that your B2B content marketing strategy is a reflection of that. Regardless of whether you post on your blog every day, there are additional factors that you need to consider on top of that.
Your content strategy should outline;
The types of content you will be distributing- blog posts, infographics, case studies, whitepapers?
Clear Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for the content your produce
The purpose of each content asset you create
The content production pipeline to clearly define whether it will be created in-house or outsourced
The automation tools you will use to optimize your content
The categories of content that may need promotion
How exactly you will repurpose your already-created content assets.
See why posting 500-word blog articles every day is not the key to having a successful content marketing strategy?
3. Failing to Consistently Execute your Plan
Crafting a content strategy is not enough. What makes the difference is the consistency with which you execute. There are a lot of cases where businesses get a few months into executing a content marketing strategy then seek to change it because it has not delivered instant impact. But the reality is, content strategies need patience and ample time to deliver real tangible impact. A goal-oriented mindset is vital.
4. Overemphasizing the Production of Awareness Content
Most B2B enterprises often double down on creating long-form SEO-focused blog posts and pillar pages covering the product or service features to gain inbound website traffic. But, too much awareness content means you are continuously luring in new audiences, but lacking the content assets that will move them to the next stage of your marketing funnel.
27% of B2B consumers are self-guided nowadays, being aware of the questions they want to be answered is central to the success of your B2B content marketing strategy. You need to figure out how to create content that fits into every stage of your sales funnel which comprises four main stages;
Awareness: When the buyer is showing a need to solve a problem and is looking for additional information to clearly understand the problem
Consideration and evaluation: the buyer is now aware of what the problem is, and is committed to learning about different ways the problem can be solved
Purchase: The buyer has settled on a solution strategy and is putting together a list of products or vendors that can solve their problem. The buyer is ready to make a final purchase decision.
However, a B2B content marketing sales funnel can include additional steps and typically it comprises of;
Awareness: The buyer is looking for information about a problem
Interest: The buyer analyzes the product and checks reviews about its effectiveness
Consideration: the buyer prepares a research report and shares information about the product with other relevant stakeholders
Intent; the buyer requests a product demo
Evaluation; the buyer asks for a proposal or the contract
Purchase: The buyer concludes the transaction
5. Failing to Track the ROI of Your Content Marketing Strategy
There is a chance you have also used the - ‘I will throw them up the wall and see what sticks,'- approach to determining whether your content marketing activities are successful or not. Of course, gauging the success of your content marketing strategy is not easy, but it is extremely important. Why? Because you need to set specific goals and benchmarks to be able to track the ROI of your content marketing strategy.
When you set clear goals, your content production process has a purpose. This means the content you produce is aligned with your business objectives, which can be;
Generating new leads
Achieve top ranking on Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs) to drive organic traffic to your website
Earn backlinks to your website
Raise brand awareness
Trigger social engagement
With such content marketing objectives, you can monitor metrics such as;
the number of social referrals
the quality of leads your campaigns generate
overall engagement with your brand
lead conversion rates, or
the time a client spends on different sections of your website
By tracking these metrics, you not only understand the bigger picture, which is the effectiveness of your content marketing strategy but also how individual content assets are performing. You can easily determine;
which ones can be repurposed
which ones need to be promoted
those that need reduced investment due to poor performance
It is as simple as; if you are not tracking the ROI of your content marketing campaigns, you are missing out on content opportunities that could get you closer to your desired outcomes.
6. Prioritizing Quantity over Quality
Not too long ago, ‘keyword stuffing’- the practice of filling shallow content with keywords was all you needed to rank high on SERPs. Times have changed. Your clients demand more from you, so do popular search engine platforms such as Google, Yahoo, Bing, and DuckDuckGo.
If your strategy is not focused on delivering thoughtful, useful, and engaging content, you give your competitors an edge due to missed business generation opportunities. Take time to produce high-quality content or outsource from a specialist who can consistently provide this service. Well-curated, reliable content is the key to unlocking the potential of content marketing for your business.
How Can I Create a Successful B2B Content Strategy?
An effective B2B content marketing strategy should;
Reflect your company’s goals and the needs of your users
Be based on a clear understanding of how your audience personas think and speak about a specific subject
Emphasize the use of simple language in the content you create to make it easy for your audience to understand your message
Focus on delivering thoughtful and practical content
Ensure your content production process is agile to capitalize on new opportunities
Ensure the content you produce is accessible and beneficial to your target audience
Guarantee that your content sticks to a clear style guide in terms of both language and design, and is distributed consistently.
Make sure your content is easily findable by emphasizing the use of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) techniques
Help determine the overall design and structure of your website
What is the Difference Between B2B Content Marketing and B2C Content Marketing?
B2B Content focuses on education. users engage with this kind of content to learn more about a subject, discover new things they can apply in their profession, and make better choices. B2C content is focused on capturing your audience’s attention and entertain them at the same time, although in some niches it can be educational as well.
Common B2C content marketing strategies rely on assets such as;
Fun facts
Product recommendations,
Entertaining videos
Quizzes
In contrast, common B2B Content marketing strategies use assets such as;
Whitepapers
Case studies
Research reports
Long-form SEO-friendly blog content
Product demos
But this does not mean B2B content needs to be boring. It is important to ensure it connects with your audience and increases their engagement with your brand.
What are the Examples of Successful B2B Content Marketing Strategies?
a). Hubspot
Hubspot is one of the top brands when it comes to enterprise-level inbound marketing automation solutions. But Hubspot’s brand visibility is down to the production and distribution of highly valuable marketing resources, a majority of which are freely available. Blog posts, case studies, e-books, guides, certification courses, name it.
Hubspot’s content marketing strategy brings traffic right through the gate and eventually moves those leads through a sales funnel that turns them into paying customers. In 2020 Hubspot’s numbers looked like this;
30.2 million website visitors per month
1.9 million Facebook followers
+31.56% revenue growth on the previous year
b). Deloitte
Deloitte is renowned for high-level research reports, coupled with other solutions such as management consulting, tax management, and audit support. It comes as no surprise that their content strategy is centered on speaking to enterprise-level executives, with the Business Chemistry System a clear illustration of this. The research-based system evaluates C-Suite executives’ leadership style and provides resources to help them grow their expertise.
The fact that they have been running it for 10 years means it is still delivering, right? Well, a huge number of professionals globally admit that they have used it to enhance their skillset. Its success is tied to;
The delivery of highly personalized content to 4 specific business leaders’ personas.
It generates additional content opportunities through repurposing some of the insights gathered into other content marketing assets such as podcasts, large-scale surveys, webcasts, and blog articles
In 2020, Deloitte had
7.7 Million website visitors per month
1.5 million followers on Facebook
c). Airbnb
Airbnb is a unique case, not only because of its rapid growth but also because it can be considered either a business-to-consumer (B2C) or business-to-business (B2B) enterprise. Airbnb’s strategy to create Airbnbmag, a full print magazine featuring authentic stories from members of the Airbnb community, stands out for the uniqueness of the approach. We live in a digital age, and a print magazine is not the first thing that comes to mind when you think of marketing in this age.
The magazine has been featured on high authority sites such as the New York Times, Mashable, Business Insider, just to name a few. The success of this strategy is tied to the fact that;
It relies on original user-generated content that helps position the brand as community-driven and less corporate.
It is time and cost-efficient if you consider the human and financial resources Airbnb would need to produce 120 pages of content.
If you would like to discuss more about building a successful content marketing strategy for your B2B brand, feel free to get in touch with me today.
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