Content marketing is a top tactic for B2B organizations. 82% of marketers invest in content marketing and 67% of marketers say content helps bring more awareness to their products and generate more leads. If you are not focusing on content marketing, it is time to start. Whether you are kicking off efforts or need help evolving practices to see improved results, here are some content marketing ideas to elevate your content.
Think About the Content Experience
The content experience is critical in marketing. It is supported by the buyer’s journey, which is influential in how and what content gets created. From awareness to consideration to the decision stage, think about how a prospect should move through the journey and what content makes sense to distribute at each stage. Consider these content pieces at each step of the buyer’s journey for a strong content experience:
- Awareness Stage: A prospect is faced with a challenge in their organization and becomes aware of your product or service offering. This happens through a blog, paid advertisement, article, infographic or other ungated content asset available.
- Consideration Stage: A prospect moves into this stage when they are considering the options to resolve their challenge. In the consideration stage, content such as an eBook, white paper, video, guide or on-demand webinar, are ideal content pieces to support the content experience.
- Decision Stage: A prospect makes their decision in this stage. A case study, free trial and demo are content pieces to help solidify the prospect into becoming a customer. The decision stage is critical, so ensure the content at this stage highlights results and the full experience of what it is like working with your company and using your product.
Connect With Your Audience
Connecting with your audience is one of the top goals of content marketing. To connect with your audience, it is important to think about buyer persona characteristics, such as demographics, firmographics, psychographics and behavior. How old are they? What is their job title? How can your content connect to these elements? Discussing and addressing pain points is also an easy way to form a connection. If a prospect reads your content and relates to the same issues and finds some resolution in the information on how to address it, it goes a long way in building brand trust and loyalty.
Take Risks
Sometimes in B2B marketing, you have to take risks. Content marketing ideas that make the most impact on your audience come with a little bit of risk and creativity. If the content experience is less than exciting, prospects will likely drop off the buyer’s journey. If the content experience is interesting, it can bode well for your organization. Here are a few ideas on taking risks to uplevel your content:
- Experiment with different content formats. Sticking with content types that work with your audience is a solid approach. But, breaking out of your comfort zone can often be the most rewarding. If blogs and articles are your go-to content types, consider combining blogs with similar topics and creating a guide. Then, distribute the guide to your audience and gauge their reaction. Do not be afraid of failure. There are plenty of content types to test out.
- Be bold. Content needs to align with branding guidelines, but it is also important to push those limits. Consider using a non-primary brand color in a call to action within your content. Sometimes an unexpected color can attract attention and engagement. Remember to stay within brand guidelines.
- Consider changing the tone. A professional tone in content is a safe choice. But, having a more casual, laid-back attitude can sometimes improve engagement and help form a connection with your audience. If you find that the tone in your content is very monotone and comes off as boring, liven it up a bit. Add some metaphors, play on words or other language elements that may pleasantly surprise your audience.
Be Proactive
The business environment and economy are constantly changing, and this often impacts organizations, sometimes for worse and sometimes for better. Regardless, it is always good to be ahead of the game and showcase to your audience and industry that you are a knowledgeable source of information. For example, when the economy looms and is on the verge of a downturn, create content that addresses this. This shows that you are proactive and act as a resource for relevant information.
Stay Ahead of Competitors
Competition today is fiercer than ever before. There are countless organizations to compete with and sometimes it is difficult to be the trendsetter and differentiate from the competition. Powerful content can help you separate from competitors and be a leader in the industry. Here are a few ideas to uplevel your content marketing:
- Quality content. As artificial intelligence (AI) generated content is becoming more popular, creating quality content can set you apart. While AI creates content, the quality can be generic. High-quality content is rewarded by Google, which can help you boost traffic to your site and generate more leads.
- Storytelling. Reading content is like reading a story. It should be cohesive from beginning to end. Companies that do this excel at bringing in visitors to read their content. Master the art of storytelling for more effective, standout content.
- Thought leadership. Thought leadership content shows that your organization is a leader in the industry and an expert on specific topics. Showcasing this increases brand recognition and brand loyalty while building stronger relationships with prospects and customers.
- Consistency. Consistently producing content helps search engine rankings. If your team is producing content on a more regular basis than competitors, it boosts your chances of ranking on the first pages of search results, driving more traffic and leads to your website.
Looking for more content marketing strategies? Check out our online, on-demand Content Marketing Course. This course guides you through the creation of a content marketing strategy and gives you a read-to-execute plan to drive interest and leads. Register today.
