B2B content marketing comes with a host of challenges. The niche technology, long buying cycles, and lack of low-competition, high-volume keywords can make it hard to gain traction. And yet, there are plenty of B2B teams using content to build revenue and strengthen their sales cycles, showing that content marketing can pay dividends for B2B companies.
In this post, we take a deep dive into proven strategies and tactics for creating a successful B2B content marketing campaign, and we’ll cover examples of companies that have successfully applied these methods.
Crucially, B2B content marketing may work with a strong focus on organic traffic generation through blog posts. Organic search is the lifeblood of B2B content marketing. By providing quality content, you can establish your company as a reliable and trustworthy resource. B2B content marketing plays the long game: When your company consistently comes up in searches and provides valuable solutions, people may eventually want to work with you.
Movement-First content to garner attention
One main goal of B2B content is to build credibility with key decision-makers. Movement-first content—thought-leadership—is a great way to get the attention of industry leaders.
Have fun and be creative. Movement first content is where you get to take contrarian perspectives, coin your own keywords, and define your own trends. The goal is to make it known that there is a better way to operate, and you are going to use your expertise to show others the way.
Thought-leadership content also humanizes the company. These pieces generally lean on personal experience and anecdotes, and they can be a perfect way to showcase yourself as a thoughtful and relatable person. Doing so can be a huge boon for hiring.
Nowadays, people don’t just want a paycheck; they also want to work for interesting companies that stand for something. Movement-first content can help you attract top talent and build your brand recognition.
Gated content to generate leads
Gated content—eBooks, downloadable templates, white papers—feeds the B2B sales funnel by capturing leads. Some folks have even started to create gated video content, and they are seeing tremendous results.
Gated content is a great way to identify individual customers’ specific pain points and define your future relationship with them based on that information. By tracking the open rates of the gated content and reaching out to engaged users with an email drip, the sales team can identify hot leads and open a more direct sales process.
Partner with Industry Publications to Reach Relevant Audiences
Top B2B content marketers are always thinking of ways to reach relevant audiences without relying solely on search traffic. One way to reach interested audiences is to target established, industry-accepted channels for distribution. Find out where industry decision-makers go for their information and then build relationships with those distributors.
B2B distribution channels could include the following:
- Industry publications per sector
- Industry platforms
- Niche forums or threads
Don’t underestimate Organic Traffic
While product-focused or innovation-focused keywords may be little searched, related keywords focusing on problems and pain points may still be available for your brand. Often, content marketing is about focusing on the long tail—put in the work now, and it can pay dividends down the road.
Webinars
Webinars are online events or presentations held live on the Internet. They allow organizers to interact remotely with their audience via video. Webinars have extremely high conversion rates and are considered the best content format to drive qualified leads. An average of two to five percent of attendees will commit to purchase during a webinar while between 20 and 40 percent of attendees become leads.
Research Reports
Research reports are aggregate data and summaries gathered from surveys, market research, market analysis, and qualitative research. It is usually used in STEM and big data-related industries. Research reports help to synthesize a wide array of data into actionable insights and conclusions.
Conclusion
There are thousands of B2B industries that seem too complex or too niche for content marketing. In reality, content can still be used to generate leads and customers—it just requires a different strategy to create and distribute content in the right way.
