Content marketing for B2C businesses can be pretty straightforward: create the content, pick your platform, send it out into the world. But for B2B businesses it can be hard to know where to even start with content marketing. Should you just forget it and stick with traditional marketing? Should you be focusing solely on networking?
Used in combination with the other aspects of your digital and broader marketing strategy, careful planning and implementation of content marketing can help your business immensely. And, like all marketing, not all content marketing is equal. To make sure you’re getting the most out of your content marketing strategy, here’s 3 tips you need to know about B2B content marketing.
Content Marketing is About… Creating Content
The term “you have to be in it to win it” has never been more applicable. Content marketing is about laying all the breadcrumbs for your potential clients to find along their journey to you. And there’s no point in frantically creating a breadcrumb trail last minute – you’re going to get caught out.
It takes at least 6-8 touchpoints for a client to make their purchasing decision. If you’ve only put out one piece of content in 6 months before a big new launch, you’re seriously missing out on growing those touchpoints organically; particularly if you’re using a platform like LinkedIn to create brand identity.
Creating those touchpoints to affix your business in the back of your client’s mind before they’re ready to convert is a major factor of content marketing. Creating little breadcrumbs through multiple pieces of content before you’re in need of a new client, or before you’re launching a new service, can be vital in ensuring you have the income needed for your business.
These touch points, or breadcrumbs, can include:
- Personal LinkedIn content
- Personal LinkedIn engagement
- LinkedIn Business content
- Facebook or Instagram content
- Facebook Group management or engagement
- Email journeys
- Whitepapers or downloadable content
- Webinars
- Long or short form videos
- Blogs – both owned or guest pieces
- Photography
- SEO
- AdWords
- Paid social media advertising
- Webinars and podcasts
Strategically combining and utilising a mixture of these touchpoints can help to create brand recognition in clients well before you really need them to convert, making it an easy sell when they’re ready to engage with your goods or services.
Keep Your Strategy in Mind
It can be easy to forget your purpose in content marketing. When you first look into B2B content marketing for your own business, you should really start with thinking about what you want to achieve and how you want to achieve it. Looking at the pain points you are having at the moment is really key here.
Plus, keeping your overall strategy top of mind can really help when creating pieces of content. If you’re struggling with what content to create, using your strategy to refocus on your pain points can really help to create content that is strategic and purposeful.
It’s also important to not to forget the little things that make your content “strategic”. Sometimes it can seem like certain pieces of content have no strategic value – I mean, why would a company post about their team’s birthdays or big life events? But content like this plays a huge role in content strategy. If your key marketable difference from your competitors is how you treat your staff, or how warm and friendly your team are, you need to let the world know! Don’t just talk the talk, walk the walk! (And also talk about it). Plus, depending on the platforms you’re using, warm fluffy content can be used extra-strategically to boost the more promotional content that comes after it.
LinkedIn Can Be Your Best Friend – Or Not
I’m sure you’ve heard it all before – get LinkedIn, everyone is on LinkedIn, LinkedIn was amazing for my business. But before you buy into the LinkedIn bandwagon it’s important to take a step back and think about what platforms you should really be using for your business.
When we think of content marketing it’s really easy to just focus on the social media side – which sure can be incredibly effective for your strategy – and dismiss other aspects like SEO or email marketing. “But Kate,” I hear you say, “they fall into the digital marketing sphere!”. To which I would say – yeah, you’re right, but they can still play an important role in your content marketing strategy.
This blog for example is going to be used as part of our SEO strategy, targeting the keyword REDACTED 😉. But it will also play a part in other areas of our content marketing strategy, ensuring we have both consistent updates on the BeKonstructive website and content to spread and share across our social media channels.
Your strategy on where (and how) your content is published should take into account the audience you’re trying to reach. Creating a blog for your own website will ensure your content is always owned and controlled by you, but guest-posting on another site can bring in new audiences. Likewise, LinkedIn may not be the place for you to advertise to other businesses.
Are you wanting to be a thought leader within your professional community? LinkedIn should definitely be on your radar. But If your target market is small lifestyle business owners, Facebook and Facebook groups might be more effective for you and your business.
All in all, the target audiences for your B2B content marketing strategy should be what informs which platforms you use – not how well the platform worked for another business.
Make The Most of Your Content
Not all content is created equal. Keeping your strategy in mind when thinking about what and where to post really is one of the biggest tips we give to B2B businesses. But if you’re looking to create content marketing strategies that convert there is absolutely no way that can happen without actually creating content.
Whether you want to take the pressure of creating content off of your hands, need some strategic guidance, or just want someone to make sure you have a strategy in place, BeKonstructive Marketing’s content marketing services can help your business get a handle on B2B content marketing. To learn more or enquire about how we can help your business, get in touch by calling us on 0413 844 190.
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