What Kind Of Content Should My B2B Business Be Creating?
When your products or services are extremely niche, responding with highly targeted messaging is a must.
Marketing is an all-encompassing term that spans countless responsibilities. There’s social media, events, public relations, branding, PPC, SEO, and so much more. By now, we all know quick-fix marketing hacks aren’t sustainable. B2B professionals need to establish themselves as experts in their respective fields, and without content, it’s nearly impossible.
According to the Content Marketing Institute, content marketing is being utilized by more leading brands because “instead of pitching your products or services, you are providing truly relevant and useful content to your prospects and customers to help them solve their issues.”
But just because your industry seems complicated, it doesn’t mean your content marketing has to be. Read more to learn about what avenues are worth pursuing.
Blogs
A blog is an invaluable tool, no matter your industry. Why? It’s your company’s owned media. You can pitch stories to reporters and media outlets, but their editors have control over the final piece. Your blog, however, gives your marketing team total autonomy over the narrative. With the right contextual targeting and segmentation methods, your campaigns will give better results. Plus, since you control the website, you don’t need to worry about the piece disappearing if the third-party site shuts down for any reason.
Your own blog also allows you to be flexible and support an array of your business initiatives. When writing for another site, you’ll have to conform to their guidelines and standards. Not to mention, blog posts are great for SEO, establishing your brand voice, and providing content for your social media posts. The benefits come full-circle.
Video
In a recent UpCity survey, 56% of companies are implementing video marketing in 2022. In fact, many organizations are combining video and content marketing by enhancing blog content and landing pages with videos to reduce bounce rates and increase engagement. The fact that video content improves audience engagement shouldn’t be a surprise, especially given the skyrocketing popularity of TikTok. We’re not telling your staff to get in on the latest dance craze, but we are suggesting to consider opportunities for video in your marketing plan.
Popular video content in the B2B sphere are demonstrations, customer testimonials, and workplace culture videos. If a buyer is interested in your product or service, a video demonstration of how seamless your process can truly be will not only help engage them but can further draw in a qualified lead. If you’re still not convinced, this survey found that 53% of tech-focused B2B buyers rated video as the most useful type of content.
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Podcasts
Podcasts are another channel to direct customer testimonials and demonstrations. Similar to the blog, podcasting also has the flexibility to tackle different business initiatives with each episode. But remember that podcasts are for storytelling. This isn’t a platform for you to talk about how great your company is. That’s what advertisements are for.
Podcasts are highly popular with consumers these days, but doing it the right way takes a huge commitment. Although the engagement and results pay off for those who have the bandwidth and skills to maintain their podcast, you need to be honest about how much you can truly take on. If you’re toying with the idea of podcasting, ask yourself these questions from CMS Wire. If it’s not realistic, it’s best to continue the focus on social media, websites, and blogs.
Whitepapers
Writing whitepapers is no easy feat and can take months to research, write, design, and edit. Instead of a blog, what you’re putting together is a “persuasive, authoritative, in-depth report on a specific topic that presents a problem and provides a solution,” according to HubSpot. It’s hard to imagine something so in-depth and more serious to be engaging for audiences, but they’re great for building credibility and trust with readers.
Think of it this way: if your business isn’t knowledgeable enough in the industry it claims to be, you couldn’t construct this white paper. People further along in the customer buying cycle know this, and that’s why they choose to download them. That’s why whitepapers are great for lead generation. If you’re torn on how to make a dense project engaging for potential buyers, check out these creative examples from Search Engine Journal.
Infographics
Sometimes the people in need of your services the most don’t understand how it works—or why they need them. Breaking the data down into bite-sized visual pieces is a great way to help the many visual learners out there in a more easily consumable way. Especially with everything moving online, the more engaging visual content is, the better.
Infographics are great for breaking down problems and their potential solutions, which is why they’re a useful tool for enticing potential leads. According to Infographics Archive, people remember 65% of the information they see visually in comparison to 10% of information that they hear. That’s why visualized data is great for getting your point across during presentations, business plans, marketing strategies, and emphasizing blog posts or whitepapers. Stakeholders and prospective customers see the relevant data at a glance.
How to Promote
You have all this great content, and now it’s time to get it out there. How and where you promote your content pieces takes careful consideration to get the most out of your time and effort.
Social Media
Now that you have a new blog post or whitepaper, you also have content for social media posts. Not all channels are the same, however. Especially if you are in B2B marketing. According to Statista, 89% of B2B marketers use Facebook, and 81% use LinkedIn. That’s in comparison to 57% being on YouTube and 7% using TikTok.
Despite Facebook being at No. 1, Backlinko suggests prioritizing LinkedIn to share videos, blogs, whitepapers, and more. It’s unofficially the social network for B2B and it still has a high organic reach, unlike Facebook or Instagram, where staying visible can be challenging with constantly changing algorithms. But still, share content on those channels as well.
Newsletters
Good old-fashioned email still does the trick in the B2B world. People are more likely to engage with emails at work if they provide content useful to their job. Make sure to promote content in your email newsletter that goes out to clients and other subscribers. Remember that subscribers typically sign up because they are interested in the new content your business puts out. So give them what they signed up for!
It may seem cliche, but when it comes to successful B2B content marketing, “consistency is key.” You may not see desired results after one published blog post or podcast episode, but continue to nurture your strategy, and the hard work will pay off.
About the author
Rebecca helps keep all things content running at UpCity. Prior to joining, she was a magazine editor at an agency for several award-winning publications based in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area, and a content specialist for several brands within the SMB/B2B landscape. She also has significant experience in digital content creation, most notably targeting hunters and anglers (despite being a vegetarian) during her time at Gander Outdoors. Rebecca has also worked in PR, covering a diverse terrain of products and events, including the promotion of local musicians and music festivals and the latest craft beer offerings from local breweries.
