What is the best content for B2B marketers? This is a tricky question because there is not one answer. Every business in the B2B space is unique and each offers slightly different ways to go about marketing online. For those who are not experts in the online world, it can be confusing as to what the right content is, and how to go about creating it.
To put it simply, the best content for any marketer is content that is targeted to a specific audience in which it adds value, and is easy to find. Content marketing is one of the key components to online success, and the best way to drive visitors and increase sales online.
The Difference Between B2B and B2C Content
The major difference between content marketing for B2B brands compared to B2C brands is that B2C content can be based on almost anything that applies to your brand or industry, or sometimes, not relevant. This means you can publish content that’s off-topic, or primarily entertaining. B2B content should focus more on offering value and be insightful and useful. If the reader cannot apply the actionable elements of your content to their own work or business, it’s missed the mark (Wordstream). But with B2C content marketing, you can create connections with your audience in other ways. The issue with emphasising that B2B content must offer value must be useful and must have actionable insights that drive the reader to convert means that often, B2B content doesn’t engage the reader. It can challenge for B2B brand to combine creative, engaging techniques with informative, insightful content. This takes practice and some insight into your target audiences.
How to Approach Creating Successful B2B Content
- Understand Who you Target Audience Is
Content marketing, when implemented correctly, can not only help boost your site’s search engine rankings but also build brand recognition, credibility, and trust among your target audience. However, you must establish who your target audience is. The first step in understanding this is, and more about their needs, is to use your Google Analytics account. Google Analytics will provide information on the age, gender, and interests of users that have interacted with your brand online. From this, you can draw conclusions about your ideal audience and create content that applies to them. It should answer a need or solve a problem, and then persuade the reader to take action. This is the most important formula for creating successful B2B marketing content online.
2. Understand What Channels They Use
One of the most common pitfalls for new, online business owners is not knowing who their target audience is, and therefore content is not aligned with the needs of their prospects. How your target audience will view your content should also be considered. The best content in the world won’t help you if no one knows about your online presence. Social media outlets, such as LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter, are great places to meet new customers and promote your products and services. Unfortunately, until recently, many marketers have ignored these platforms altogether. By creating interesting content, and distributing it on the channels with which your target audience is most likely to interact with, you can achieve the two primary goals associated with content marketing; building your brand and increasing your online presence.
3.Get Creative, but Stay Relevant
Using different distribution channels gives B2B brands the opportunity to get creative with content formats. Formats such as blogs and articles work well when associated with your website, but for channels such as Facbeook, visual content drives engagement. This means that B2B brands can test different content types. Offering value and driving action can be achieved visually, and is sometimes the preferred method; 90% of information transmitted to the brain is visual, and visuals are processed in the brain at 60,000 times the speed of text (Visual Teaching Alliance), so this is often a better way for B2B brands to illustrate complicated processes without losing the readers’ attention. This also gives B2B brands the chance to stand out against the competition. Getting creative with visual, easy to digest content that represents tangible value that employees present to decision makers is a winning formula (Neil Patel).
4. Make the Content Easy to Find
Finally, it’s important that marketers understand how to optimize their online presence for search engines. Whichever channel you choose to publish content, it’s important not to forget search engine optimisation (SEO). There are several aspects and considerations in SEO, but one of the most important areas of focus should be on site SEO. If your website, or platform, is not SEO optimised, our built around the needs of your users, then the content within won’t be shown in Google’s SERP.
Final Thoughts
B2B content, more so than B2C, must be carefully written to ensure that the reader understands the intended message, and the value of this intended message. Your content must be informative and relevant, and it also needs to be shared widely. All brands should focus on creating the most viral content possible, but, should focus on driving qualified traffic to your site. In today’s business climate, many online marketers are struggling to create effective content, but the above elements are critical to your online success.
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by Listencat
