In case you hadn’t heard, content is king. Whether that’s on social media, YouTube, or any other medium, if you don’t have compelling content, whatever message you’re trying to convey is dead in the water. This applies to marketing, and naturally, B2B marketing as well.
To fully understand why, let’s look at it chronologically from the consumer journey perspective. That will take us from awareness through to long-term relationship building.
Customer Awareness:
Compelling content comes in many forms. One of the best ways is to create content that strikes a chord in its intended audience. In this case, let’s think about B2B buyers.
B2B buyers are looking for effective solutions to their unique problems. The right content will speak directly to those concerns and offer the information they need to make an informed decision. That means the best content you could create will show personal insights and your business’ ethos, thus increasing confidence in what you’re offering.
Customer Consideration
Now that you’ve got their attention, you need to keep it. That means showcasing your industry expertise, or whatever it is that makes you stand out from the crowd.
For this, think of content that not just hints at vague pain points they might be experiencing, but rather address them specifically. Then you can provide solutions, the more tailored the better. Plus, you can hit them with insights that move you into the position of a knowledge partner who can empathize with, and understand their needs.
It sounds like a lot, but the more fine-tuned and on-message your content marketing can be, the better the outcome.
Customer’s Decision
Next, it’s time to reel them in. When done correctly, your content marketing strategy builds trust and credibility with your audience. That means when it comes time to make their purchasing decision, you should be top-of-mind.
With proper tracking and retargeting you should be able to continue serving relevant content to customers who are at the buying stage of their journey. This content is less about an introduction, and more about an affirmation of what the consumer has come to believe about you—you’re trustworthy, reliable, offer a quality product or service, and you get them. Hit all those notes, and your leads will convert.
Long-Term Relationship Building
Finally, we move on to the retention phase. The only thing better than a first-time customer is a happy one who repeats.
Content marketing can help maintain relationships with consumers. It’s essentially a reminder of all the points that made them customers in the first place. It can garner loyalty and even have the added benefit of word-of-mouth recommendations for people who may not yet be in your customer pipeline.
Remember, it’s not just about the one-time sale. You’ve taken the time and effort to build a relationship with your customer and it doesn’t end when they hit the proverbial “buy now” button.
Content Marketing is Essential for SEO
Shifting gears a bit, let’s talk about the other essential element of a great content marketing campaign; great SEO. You can have every high-ranking key search term in the dictionary, but if your ad comes up and you don’t have the content to back it up, you’ve wasted your time.
Think of it like a bottle of wine at your local liquor store. The wine label is the SEO. It catches your eye and leads you to pick up the bottle. The content (before you get to the wine itself) is what’s printed on the label. I know, I know, it seems a bit backward to think of the label art as the SEO and the actual words on the bottle as the content marketing here but just go along with us for a moment.
When someone picks up that bottle, if they don’t like the content upon closer inspection, they’re just going to move on and forget about you. The most effective strategy combines great SEO with relevant content. It’s a logical combination that can lead to incredible outcomes when done correctly.
Content Marketing is Budget Friendly
First things first, when we say it’s budget-friendly, we mean that there’s the potential for a higher return on investment. With a proper plan in place and the right content marketing strategy set out, you can make sure you get the most out of your marketing dollars.
Budgets can range widely depending on the type of content you create. By coming up with and distributing articles, blogs, white papers, podcasts, or even webinars, B2B companies can attract and engage their target audience without relying on heavily paid advertising.
Another added benefit is the long-term value that comes with creating content marketing. Those materials can be used more than just once. They can be repurposed, edited, reskinned, you name it. That adds value to the original content marketing investment.
We’re not saying content marketing is free. Like many things, it incurs an upfront cost. When budgeted properly and implemented strategically, it can pay dividends via customer growth that far exceeds the initial spending.
All of this is to say that content marketing is key for B2B companies. With the right content and the right strategy, it can lead to more customers, happier customers, and a great ROI. Now you just need the right agency behind you to help create that great content, and we happen to know one. Hint: we literally wrote the article on it.