The Ultimate Guide to B2B Content Marketing Strategy

B2B content marketing is different from B2C content marketing. You can’t apply B2C content marketing practices in your B2B content marketing strategy.

What distinguishes brands that succeed at B2B content marketing from those that don’t?

It’s not because one has better products or higher quality blog posts than the other, but simply because one has a comprehensive content strategy while the other doesn’t and simply wings it.

A popular misconception in the marketing world is that only B2C brands can have fun with creating content and really get successful at content marketing.

While it’s obvious that creating content targeted at individuals is easier and has a higher likelihood of success in comparison to creating content for businesses.

It doesn’t take from the fact that B2B brands can thrive and succeed with content marketing just as much as B2C brands if they develop an effective B2B content marketing strategy.

Therefore as a B2B brand, the only thing hindering you from achieving content marketing success is a lack of documented B2B content marketing strategy.

In this article, I am going to cover the importance of having a B2B content strategy. Also, you will learn how to simply create one for your B2B brand without getting worn out and successfully execute it.

Plan Your Approach to B2B Content Marketing

Making investment decisions as a business takes a lot more consideration compared to an individual.

Individuals can make impulsive decisions. They can just decide I am going to get those sneakers because it looks cute. 

Related: Ridiculously Easy Ways To Improve Content Marketing

Whereas business owners and marketers have to take calculative moves and only buy a product when they are convinced of it delivering high rates of ROI.

Therefore, your approach to developing a content strategy as a B2B brand should be more strategic and requires a detailed plan.

Importance of a B2B Content Marketing Strategy (With Example)

At this point, mentioning the importance and relevance of content marketing is becoming old news or makes you sound like a broken record.

I mean, the only reason you clicked on this article is that you are already convinced and ready to get started with content marketing for your B2B brand.

Here are some stats to consider:

• 69% of successful B2B marketers have a documented content marketing strategy.
• 40% of B2B marketers will spend more time/money on content in 2020.
• 75% of B2B top-performing content marketers use content marketing to successfully generate sales/revenue.

Related: Top B2B Marketing Stats

However, despite knowing the importance of content marketing, it’s surprising that most B2B marketers don’t take time to develop a strategy.

Let’s use the analogy of two brands to give you a picture of the difference between having a content strategy and not developing one.

We will call them brand A and brand B.

So brand A has decided to get started with content marketing as part of their overall marketing strategy, well that’s great news.

Then the digital marketing manager asks who has experience with writing since blog posts seem to be the in-thing. And Kala, who by the way is the product manager, volunteers that she would give it a shot and get entrusted with the task.

Kala does some random research on the type of content that will be befitting for their website, like the type of content their competitors put out. 

She manages to put together a blogpost, showcases it for a review, then she goes ahead and makes some edits based on the feedback she got and finally publishes it.

After the first published blog post, Kala didn’t get time to create another piece of content until a week later, because well Kala wasn’t primarily employed to create content for the company. 

Because Kala’s hands are full of work, the marketing manager decides to incorporate another employee called Tim to help Kala when she doesn’t have time. 

Due to this approach, brand A only gets to publish content thrice in a month at maximum. 

We see a lot of business blogs that only publish content once in a blue moon with no defined purpose except for the sake of just creating content.

And they lose hope and just conclude what’s the point of it all?

But it’s a different case with Brand B, just like brand A, they decide to get started with content marketing; however, unlike brand A they developed a well-researched content strategy.

They appointed a team to take care of these tasks, planned to detail, and as a result, became consistent with putting out content.

Furthermore, they also measured their efforts to make needed improvements.

This led to brand B generating more leads and increasing their brand exposure because they set goals that were part of their strategy.

Which brand do you aspire to be, brand A or brand B? It’s a no brainer: Brand B, however most brands today are like brand A.

To succeed at content marketing, you need a documented content marketing strategy.

Many marketers don’t take time to create a well researched and thought out strategy because it seems daunting and complicated.

However, the truth is it doesn’t have to be complicated, in fact, it should be simple and easy to follow.

Lack of a well-documented content strategy will lead to:

• Lack of consistency
• Unavailability of a clear road map
• Lack of direction
• Inability to measure success
• Creating the wrong content
• Failing at content marketing

While the availability of a documented strategy will lead to the ability to:

• Create high-quality content
• Promote the content to the right people
• Make Improvements
• Get a higher percentage of ROI
• Get creative and stand out 
• Achieving success in content marketing
• Rightful budget application
• Having a clear roadmap

RoadMap to Build Your B2B Content Marketing Strategy (Questions to Answer)

Here’s a roadmap on how to model brand B’s success and stay far away from becoming like brand A.

I will discuss the most-pressing questions and offer solutions step by step.

Let’s begin.

What Do You Intend to Achieve with B2B Content Marketing?

Every successful project or person has goals, without goals you have zero direction.

So what do you aim to achieve with your content marketing strategy?

Like Simon Sinek has said, you should always start with why?

Remember that every business is different, the goal that worked for a fellow competitor might not work for you. Therefore, you have to set goals that are particular to your business needs.

So what actions do you want your audience to take after consuming your content? Which content goals is more befitting to complement your overall marketing goals?

Answering these questions will give you needed insights.

Here are goals you can set for content marketing:

• Becoming a go-to resource for your audience.
• Establishing your brand authority
• Attracting new audiences
• Improving your organic search presence
• Generating new leads
• Illustrating the need for your products for their businesses
• Increasing brand awareness
• Ranking on the first SERP of Google

Now, these goals are a bit abstract and don’t give you specific actions to take. Therefore, the next step is to break these goals down into more specific and measurable goals.

For example, the goal of becoming a go-to resource brand can be broken down into creating 20 pieces of high-quality content that aren’t found easily on the web. And having a resource page that answers most of your audience questions.

Also, the goal of generating new leads can be broken down into generating 30 new leads from say July 1 to August 31.

Finally, the goal of increasing brand awareness can be translated to increasing website traffic by 30%.

Breaking down your goals will lead you to use possible metrics to measure your success.

For example, Leadpages, a B2B brand that helps other businesses create landing pages has established itself as a go-to resource brand with its abundance of educational materials. 

Such as free blogs, courses, eBooks, infographics, case studies, and even a podcast. You should focus on creating pillar content which covers a topic comprehensively. Google loves pillar content and ranks them higher in the search results. 

Who Are You Creating Content For And Why Should They Read It?

Content is useless if no one is going to read it or find it useful. So who’s your audience and what type of content is your audience searching for?

The best way to answer these questions is by creating buyer personas. Your buyer personas should be as detailed as possible.

Buyer personas prevent you from making assumptions or doing guesswork, with them you make decisions based on real facts and practicalities.

Here are ways and questions to ask to help create buyer personas:

• Get insights from your customer service employees
• Interview customers
• Carry out surveys
• What are their pain points?
• Which tools do they find useful?
• Which tool do they find difficult to use?
• Which type of content are they more interested in?
• What are their business goals?
• What are they willing to invest their money in?

For example, Freshbooks, a cloud accounting software brand that helps business owners manage their finances, knows that their audience is small business owners.

Therefore, most of their content is geared towards small business owners trying to grow their business, and be savvy with their finances.

As you can see from the image above, they published blog posts and e-books designed for small businesses.

Related: PosterMyWall: Easy Design Tool For B2B

What Process Do Your Prospective B2B Customers Follow?

This is all about the journey of your buyers, mapping out their journey will help you streamline your content for each of the buyer’s journey stages. 

That is:

• The awareness stage(Top funnel)
• The consideration stage and(Middle funnel) 
• The decision stage(The bottom funnel)

The Awareness Stage

This is where you create content that answers your customer’s queries. 

This content is educational, it enlightens your audience on their problems and how to overcome the obstacles preventing them from advancing further.

Examples of awareness stage content include: blog posts, whitepapers, infographics, case studies, reports, e-books, videos

For example, Adam, a small business owner, is trying to make the right moves to grow his business including investing in the right tools. So he comes across a blog post from Freshbooks titled “7 Mistakes to Avoid to Ensure Small Business Success”. 

In the article, the third mistake mentioned is refusing to leverage the right technology. The point highlighted the benefit of using cloud accounting software with a link leading to a post on why it’s beneficial to switch to cloud accounting.

Now, this is Adam becoming aware of the Importance of cloud accounting to run his business whilst getting familiar with Freshbooks.

Which leads us to the next stage:

The Consideration Stage

After being enlightened on their problems, they will then want to take practical steps to solve their problems.

The content you should create for this stage will involve solution-based ways and practical actions on how to solve their pain points.

Make sure the solutions you are outlining in your content is related to the benefits of your products. In this stage, you are not explicitly telling them to use your products; that’s for the next stage. 

Instead, you are subtly guiding them towards becoming convinced that your products are the right ones for them.

Examples of consideration stage content include Case studies, product comparisons, free trials, or samples.

Let’s go back to Adam, so he decided to evaluate if Freshbooks is going to be beneficial for his business. 

He came across a case study on how Freshbooks helped a business owner just like him seamlessly run her business on a daily basis. 

This case study has given Adam a vivid and practical example of what Freshbooks can do for his business. So what’s next for Adam and his relationship with Freshbooks?

The content on these two stages has made Adam establish trust with Freshbooks.

Which brings us to the next stage:

The Decision Making Stage

The buyer now has insights on the approach to tackle their business challenges and how your products are beneficial for the growth of their business.

Related: Biggest B2B Marketing Challenges

It’s now time for them to take that nerve-wracking decision to either invest in your products or not.

The content for this stage will be directly all about your product features and benefits, illustrating why it’s the perfect product for their business needs.

You can create tutorial videos on how a buyer can use one of your products to arrive at an aspired goal. Or a step by a step blog post on how to use a certain product feature. 

At this point, it will be easier for this buyer to go for your products because you have built trust from the content created for the previous stages.

Examples of decision stage content include Free trials, testimonials, live demos, product, and pricing comparisons.

Back to our example, after reading the case study, Adam is greatly convinced on using Freshbooks, there’s a free trial available which pushed Adam to try the tool.

So it’s important to map out the route of your prospective buyers and create content that answers all their questions at every stage of the journey.

How Are You Going to Generate B2B Content Ideas On a Consistent Basis?

This is a common nightmare for B2B marketers, we all know that it’s important to be consistent, the real question is how?

Research from Zazzle Media revealed that 60% of people find it hard to produce content consistently.

Don’t worry, there are a lot of ways to never run out of ideas.

• Hold a brainstorming session with the marketing team
• Use Google trends to get topic ideas from what people are searching
• Strategically research what your competitors are putting out
• Use Google people also ask section for terms related to your brand
• Keyword research
• Check out the FAQ section on your website
• Ask your customer service employees about the regular questions they get
• Look out on online question forums like Reddit and quora

When you have got content ideas, it’s important you select the ones that are relevant to your buyer personas because certain topics might be trending in your industry but they are not for your audience.

How Can You Use LinkedIn to Fuel Your B2B Content Marketing Efforts?

LinkedIn is a goldmine for B2B brands, it is the #1 channel B2B marketers use to distribute content at 94%.

Also, LinkedIn makes up more than 50% of all social traffic to B2B websites & blogs and 97% of B2B marketers utilize it for their content marketing efforts.

Therefore it’s important to develop a content framework for LinkedIn as part of your B2B content marketing strategy.

Here are tips for creating the right content on LinkedIn:

• Brands’ personal stories get a lot of traction.
• LinkedIn users love it when you highlight your employee’s breakthroughs, any special achievement, or how they got their jobs in your company.
• Use the LinkedIn pulse to publish high-quality article pieces on LinkedIn.
• Occasionally share motivational posts.
• How-to & list posts perform the best on LinkedIn.
• Posts split into 5, 7, or 9 headings perform the best.
• Articles with titles between 40-49 characters perform the best on LinkedIn.
• Articles without video perform better than those with video. It is best to upload videos natively on LinkedIn.

How Will You Develop An SEO Strategy?

It is a crime to talk about B2B content marketing without mentioning SEO.

You should prioritize SEO as part of your strategy to increase your organic web traffic which undoubtedly is the best way to get discovered. Also, you shouldn’t forget link building because link is one of the best B2B SEO tactics to boost organic visibilty.

Here are simple steps to follow to get started with SEO:

• Make Keyword research in your industry.
• Then select keywords you want to rank for relevant to your audience.
• Optimize your content to rank for those keywords.
• Use Yoast SEO to help you optimize your content.
• Look at the content on the SERPs that currently rank for those keywords and see how you can make yours better.
• Utilize high performing link building strategies.

These steps are just a scratch on the surface for SEO, but it undoubtedly puts you steps ahead and makes your content easily discoverable. 

How Will You Discover Which Types of Content to Create?

Depending on your buyer persona, which type of content does your audience enjoy or are more likely to consume?

Are they more interested in blog posts or do they prefer industry reports? 

However, this doesn’t mean you should limit yourself to a certain type of content, instead you should know what you should give more attention to.

It’s better to diversify your content types and experiment with different formats.

Types of Content to create are:

• Blog posts
• Videos
• Infographics
• Case Studies
• Newsletters
• Whitepapers or ebooks
• Podcasts
• Webinars

What Will Be Your Metrics to Measure Your B2B Content Marketing Progress?

The final piece of the puzzle for your simple content marketing strategy is measuring and tracking your content marketing efforts.

If you don’t track your progress, you won’t be able to see what’s working and what’s not. You need to develop metrics based on your goals.

For example, if your goal is to increase organic website traffic, a metric can be a number of organic website visits or if the goal is to generate more leads a metric to track is the landing page conversion rates.

You can use tools like Google Analytics or Kissmetrics to see how your content marketing efforts are performing.

Conclusion

Developing a well-documented B2B content marketing strategy puts you 10 steps ahead of most of your competitors who don’t.

And the exciting part is that it doesn’t have to be tedious or overwhelming, you simply need to get practical answers to some questions and follow some steps.

Begin by setting goals then knowing your audience by creating buyer personas, and mapping out your buyer’s journey.

Additionally, set a system for generating ideas on a consistent basis, then develop a LinkedIn content framework and an SEO strategy.

Finally, discover the type of content your brand needs to create, and measure your content marketing progress and success to see results.

Phew! You see, it wasn’t overwhelming at all, the outlined steps are not complicated, simply get started with one at a time.

Therefore get started with strategy creation without any further hesitation.