How to create your B2B Content Marketing Strategy: 7 Easy Steps

Remember how they said every cloud has a silver lining? The only good thing that has come out of this covid situation is the rise in new businesses. The world is online now. Social Media has right about everything – big brands, small businesses, portals for online shopping, media visibility, and promotions! So it has become easy to identify your target audience, anticipate their needs and create a demand for the product. However, a B2B Content marketing strategy differs largely from a B2C marketing strategy because the content for B2C is directly tailored to entice the customer into wanting their product.

Why should you choose a B2B marketing strategy?

B2B marketing content tends to be more informational and straightforward. Consumers don’t consider the return on investment (ROI) on daily purchases. However, for a business, every decision is of utmost importance. B2B Marketing Content is directly aimed at individuals in executive positions.

So how does one get the right B2B Content Marketing Strategy?

Fear not – here are seven easy steps that will help you pave your path in the business world, whether you’re starting or looking to rebuild.

1.           The brand is a mindset.

         More often than so, people confuse their brand with their product! Your product is a tangible item with attributes and features, but your brand is a piece of real estate you occupy in a person’s mind and the related impressions it leaves behind. Be very sure of who you are as a brand and what you stand for!

As Joe Pulizzi says, “Stop writing about everything. So many brands create content and try to cover everything instead of focusing on a core niche that they can position themselves as an expert. No one cares about your special recipe. Find your niche, and then go even more niche.”

Like we discussed before, B2B Content Marketing Strategy needs to be straightforward, so be sure to set measurable business objectives, then lay out the framework for how your B2B marketing strategy will achieve them. It doesn’t need to be formal and strict, just to the point.

2.    Know your Place

         When working on a B2B Content Marketing Strategy, be sure of how you position your brand. Be it positioning by benefit (e.g. White bright teeth – Pepsodent, Fresh breath – Close up, Taste – Colgate salt), or positioning by time/usage (e.g. Dessert usage – milkmaid, child’s cold at night – Vicks vaporub) or positioning by competition (e.g. Pepsi vs coke, iPhone vs Samsung), Position by price/quality (ICICI prudential ad and also the wheel detergent or Rin soap which always focuses on the value addition and price- Rin Bar @ Rs 5/-), or even positioning by cultural symbols (e.g. Examples would be Humara Bajaj, Tata Tea, Ronald McDonald, India gate Basmati Rice, etc.)

3.   Get linked into this pizazz!

         When it comes to B2B content marketing, Linkedin is the only social media platform you need to focus on! Yes, many businesses are on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter, but if you want to work professionally with them, the networking still mostly happens on LinkedIn. B2B marketers love LinkedIn — and for a good reason.

•     The platform drives 80% of B2B social media leads.
•   Companies such as HubSpot use LinkedIn to republish blog posts, maximizing the number of people reading and sharing their teams’ ideas.
•   LinkedIn provides a perfect venue for publishing insightful, shareable content that’s tailored to your network. You can also drive readers to other content you or colleagues have published by linking to them in your article.
• LinkedIn advertising can generate qualified traffic to landing pages that invite your audience to sign up for more articles and information.

Companies such as Microsoft have taken the content opportunities on LinkedIn and run with them, and marketers at all levels would be wise to follow suit.

Bill Gates publishes as a LinkedIn Influencer, and the company regularly shares blog posts relevant to industry insiders and the general public. Microsoft starts conversations with readers and keeps them coming back for new insights.

   4.    A BM(without the W)

         Account-Based Marketing (ABM) is truly where B2B marketing and sales teams can align around quality over quantity as it pertains to leads. For B2B Marketers, this is a “must-have” strategy.

ABM further allows the B2B Content Marketing Strategy to focus on your ideal customer, target accounts, and what the marketing-to-sales handoff should look like from the consumer’s perspective?

In short, ABM helps to align B2B content marketing spend with revenue potential. Marketers can also use LinkedIn Account Targeting to engage the right companies and professionals on the LinkedIn platform.

5.    Get the best content.

B2B buyers rely more on content than research now, instead of creating content just for the sake of it. It’s better to follow a strict campaign and marketing strategy, as it will look good for the B2B buyers and enhance brand loyalty, name awareness, and perceived quality, giving you an overall edge and strengthening your brand equity.

For instance, when dealing with a Tata’s or Ambani’s company – you wouldn’t doubt their business integrity and quality of efforts, products, and ROI, would you?

6.    Where do I get the content!?

Creating a B2B Content Marketing Strategy can be stressful at the very least! Luckily you don’t have to go at it alone! Collaborating with colleagues from marketing, branding, and PR can help you brainstorm the best ideas and shape your endeavors’ future.

It’s important to have a visionary on the team – imagine having a thinker and a doer on your team! Hiring freelancers is also a good idea considering they bring a fresh set of eyes to the table and foster creativity, inspiring new ideas! And lastly, you can always outsource to agencies for your design and SEO needs.

7.    Post Campaign evaluation & follow-ups

With great power comes great responsibility. Now that companies rely more on marketing to attract the right buyers and engage them throughout their journey, marketers are expected to prove their worth.

The final step to create an efficient B2B Content Marketing strategy is to take the feedback, analyze what works for your brand the best and know which opinion to discard. This is the time to measure your worth and improve your content. By substantiating that their marketing efforts pay off — ultimately by contributing to revenue goals — B2B marketers can confidently report the ROI of their programs and request larger budgets.

Creating a content strategy takes a lot of time and work upfront. It can seem like an overwhelming task, but if you take up the job one step at a time, soon enough you will have a full content marketing strategy in your hand making every detail worth it. You can also hire a content marketing agency for the same This strategy is a map for your company to move forward and keep an eye on your end goal to become successful.