Content is Key in B2B Marketing – Tips How to Start

Content is Key in B2B Marketing – Tips How to Start:

Many companies once fanatically started a blog. Often the corporate communications department would write the posts on behalf of the CEO. CEO’s who wrote themselves often wrote blogs about their grandchildren and holidays, or just took less and less time to write. These company blogs are often not very successful. It was all about the company and not about what the reader or audience wants to hear. In this article I discuss content, why it’s important and how you can start with content marketing in a thoughtful way.

I can’t stress it enough, it is all about your audience. They determine what they want to read and what not. Advertising makes almost no sense anymore. Research shows that the higher educated the online reader, the less one is inclined to, for example click on Google ads. This is especially the case in business to business, ‘The smarter you are, the less you click.’

And so I come to ‘content marketing’. Content has already been used for years, especially in the form of white papers, particularly in the IT or technology sector. And with the rise of Social Media, content marketing suddenly got a whole new dimension.

You’re no longer getting away with just sending glossy corporate brochures to your prospects. You really have to start thinking about your audience and what you have to offer them. What’s in it for them? And that does not always seem easy. We are used to thinking inside-out over the years, thinking in brochures and product flyers.

Content Marketing: How to start? 1. Audience: Determine your target audience, create a descriptive profile of your buyer (a buyer persona) so you know where your audience is and what kind of information they are looking for. 2. Check the Needs: Think about what your target audience is most interested in, what information your audience needs. Use it as a tool in making the right content. 3. Scan options: You can package information in many ways, think of an article, a blog post on an industry blog, a video, a white paper, a customer testimonial. There are so many great ways to package content. Your starting point is that the content should not necessarily be about your product or service. It should fit the buyers’ needs. Make sure your message is consistent, only then you will be credible. 4. Spread your message: Your audience has preferences about how they want to receive information. Make sure that your information, be it an article or a video, is received as desired by your target group. And now is the perfect time to make use of Social Media. The Internet is a great channel to spread your information. But remember that there are also very good offline ways to combine your actions with. 5. Continue to monitor, measure and listen: The power of online sharing of information and participating in the discussion, is measuring and evaluating. Measure and analyze your visitors’ behavior, evaluate the figures and read the comments from your readers. By listening and reading what others say you can optimise the information to the needs of your audience. Look for input and feedback!

Cold feet

The best way is just to experiment. It is still a trial and error way of working (at least it is for me) when it comes to the use of Social Media. I would particularly advise you to read what others are writing or saying and learn from it. Participate in discussions or comment on blog posts of others. If you have a clear image of what you want, build a content marketing plan and take it from there. Just keep your audience and their needs in mind with everything that you do or write!