A No Nonsense Guide To Building An Effective B2B Content Marketing Strategy

Need a way to reach your target customer without breaking the bank in 2024 and beyond?

With the competition in the B2B space getting tougher and marketing costs going through the roof, generating leads has always been one of the biggest challenges marketers face.

That’s where content marketing comes in.

In the days of yore (1996, to be precise), Bill Gates made a statement that will likely endure well beyond the shelf life of any Microsoft product: “Content is king.” It went on to become the darling of every marketing PowerPoint of the early aughts. Why? Because it’s true. Now, we aren’t super into gender stereotypes, so allow us to rephrase a bit: Content. Is. Ruler. Content has ruled inbound marketing since its inception, and it’s quickly asserting its domination over growth marketing, too. But it can’t rule alone. Content is most effective when paired with SEO and other marketing channels to deliver leads, conversions, and swift growth of traffic and revenue. If the content your B2B brand is pushing out feels more like a court jester than a ruler, you need an ironclad, growth-focused content strategy.

B2B content marketing is the practice of creating and distributing valuable content for the purpose of, among others:

• Attracting leads
• Raising brand awareness
• Establishing yourself as an authority.
• Moving leads through each stage of your sales funnel

But with many other brands pushing out content of their own, how can you make sure yours stands out?

That’s why you need to build an effective B2B content marketing strategy. 

With an effective content strategy, you can better position yourself, find content opportunities the competition isn’t leveraging, and bolster your credibility in the market. As a result, your content will outperform that of your competitors, resulting in you getting more business.

What Is Growth Marketing Content?

Growth marketing is a marketing discipline that focuses on optimizing marketing processes to fast-track growth by hyper-focusing on the most profitable niche markets. The goal of growth marketing is to achieve rapid but sustainable growth, particularly following a new launch of any kind, whether that be of a new brand or product line. 

Growth marketing entails more phases to the customer life cycle than conventional marketing, seeking to move prospects through awareness to the acquisition, activation (onboarding), retention, revenue, and referral. 

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Growth Marketing vs. Traditional Marketing

Growth marketing and conventional marketing have the same basic objectives and even include some of the same processes. However, growth marketing is oriented towards rapid but sustainable growth, particularly following a new launch of any kind — whether that be of a new brand or product line. In addition to this, growth marketing entails more phases of the customer life cycle than conventional marketing. 

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What Is a Content Growth Strategy?

You plan for everything, and like the Scouts, you’re always prepared. Going to the grocery store? Better make a list. Need an oil change? Get that appointment on the calendar. But if your approach to content is fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants, throw-some-words-and-images-at-the-wall-and-see-what-sticks, you’re not going to achieve the growth you want to see for your brand.

To revisit the grocery store analogy, what happens when you go shopping without a list? You spend too much, and you get a bunch of stuff you don’t need. You also usually forget the one thing you actually went to the store for. It’s a waste of time, unnecessarily expensive, and the outcome is a real letdown. When you create and push content without a growth strategy, the results are the same. But even worse, because you don’t get ice cream.

A solid content growth strategy is the grocery list that makes your trip to the store a success. You get everything you need, you don’t overspend, and you achieve more in less time because you’re prepared.

A content strategy is a plan that helps you reach your business goals through the creation and distribution of content. A content growth strategy, however, is a whole other tub of ice cream. The goal — growth — is already outlined, and every piece of content you create must contribute to that goal. The channels, personas, tactics, and other methods (like SEO or lead generation) you use should all drive toward that same goal. If it doesn’t grow, it’s gotta go.

3 Essential Components of a Winning Growth Marketing Plan

To create an effective growth marketing plan, there are three essential components you need to focus on:

• Goals
• Data
• Content Plan

Goals

In growth marketing, your goals should be phrased as learning outcomes. This means figuring out the perfect product-market fit and understanding the right value proposition to focus on. In conventional marketing, you would do most of your market research before you go to market. In growth marketing, this can only happen once you interact with the market and have some data to show how different market segments interact with your brand and products.

Data

Data is the backbone of growth marketing. Google Analytics data and social media insights are key sources of marketing data that can tell you what demographics are clicking through to your web pages, how long they spend on your website, and what areas of each web page they spend more time on. When looked at comprehensively, you will have an excellent idea of what market segment should form your beachhead market.

Content Plan

An effective content plan is crucial for growth marketing. It’s about creating hyper-focused content that meets the needs of your audience at every stage of the marketing funnel. To create effective content, you need to have a content marketing plan that leverages your knowledge of the market and creates meaningful engagement through effective content marketing.

Optimize your Growth Marketing Efforts

Identify Your Target Market: To make the most of growth marketing content, you need to identify your target market. Who are you trying to reach? What are their pain points? What motivates them to buy? By answering these questions, you can create hyper-focused content that resonates with your audience.

Create a Content Calendar: Creating a content calendar is a key component of your growth marketing plan. A content calendar helps you plan your content ahead of time, ensuring that you always have something fresh and relevant to share with your audience.

Optimize Your Content for SEO: Search engine optimization (SEO) is a critical component of any growth marketing content plan. By optimizing your content for SEO, you can improve your search engine rankings, making it easier for your audience to find you online.

Leverage Social Media: Social media is a powerful tool for growth marketing content. By leveraging social media, you can reach a wider audience and engage with them in a more personal and meaningful way. You can create content that is specifically tailored to each social media platform, maximizing your reach and engagement.

Measure Your Results: Measuring your results is essential to the success of your growth marketing content plan. By tracking your metrics, you can see what’s working and what’s not and adjust your strategy accordingly. Some key metrics to track include website traffic, social media engagement, and conversion rates.

Experiment and Iterate: Growth marketing is all about experimentation and iteration. It’s important to try new things and see what works best for your brand. By experimenting and iterating, you can refine your strategy over time, maximizing your results and achieving sustainable growth.

Putting It Altogether

Growth marketing content is the key to scaling your brand and achieving sustainable growth. By focusing on your goals, leveraging data, and creating an effective content plan, you can fast-track your growth and take your brand to the next level.

To make the most of your growth marketing content plan, identify your target market, create a content calendar, optimize your content for SEO, leverage social media, measure your results, and experiment and iterate over time. With these strategies in place, you can achieve rapid but sustainable growth and achieve long-term success for your brand.

HubSpot is a top tool for creating marketing campaigns, with excellent features for outreach and data analytics. You can also take your growth marketing plans to the next level by working with a Hubspot Agency Partner like First Page strategy. 

What Is B2B Content Marketing?

Content marketing is one of the fundamental building blocks of inbound marketing (and is critical to paid marketing as well). Content comprises pretty much any asset you create for your brand and its audience — whether it’s a blog, a downloadable guide, an infographic, a podcast, or even user-generated content …and the list goes on.

On a broad level, B2B and B2C content are the same in that they provide useful, relevant, and valuable information to the intended audience (more on how they’re different in just a bit). But with B2B marketing, the goals — and the tactics used to achieve them — are very nuanced and specific.

Most B2B brands in every industry from fintech to SaaS have some sort of content marketing strategy, and while they vary widely, most are working toward the same endgame.

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Content marketing helps you meet your B2B audience where they are, whether they’re just entering the awareness stage, have moved into consideration, or have arrived at the decision stage. Content plays a large role in getting them into your funnel, and it’s even more critical in moving them through it and nudging them toward conversion.

But to reach your goals and give your audience what they need to pull the trigger and become customers, you need to have an airtight strategy in place. For B2B, it takes a lot more than just creating some slick ads and a few social media posts.

It’ll take some in-depth research, a lot of time, and a willingness to test and experiment until you find what works. And you’ve got to be cool with trusting the process. We know it’s a lot, and that’s why we’re here to help.

B2B content marketing is the practice of strategically creating and distributing content targeted at B2B buyers. Its purpose is to: 

• Increase brand awareness
• Influence how your market thinks about a topic
• Drive traffic to your website and other properties
• Generate leads with high buying intent
• Boost sales

Common types of content used in B2B content marketing include blog posts, LinkedIn articles, podcasts, newsletters, infographics, and video content.

B2B Content Marketing vs. B2C Content Marketing

How different can they actually be, you ask? Pretty freaking different.

By now, you probably know that B2B and B2C share some things in common, but you’ve also realized how vastly different the processes, tactics, and goals can be.

Since B2C goes directly to the source, those brands tend to have a much shorter sales cycle. The processes happen faster, so the tactics used must be quick to implement. And B2C audiences aren’t looking just for products in their industry, so brands often cast a much wider net.

With B2B audiences, they need more time to make a decision and more information to do it. But they’re also more relationship-driven because they’ve had the time to evaluate brands and decide which best aligns with their needs and values. Check out content statistics if you want to learn about that.

While it’s impossible to say “B2B is always…” or “B2C is always…” we can certainly find some typical ways the two usually differ.

You’ll want to keep these differences in mind when creating your B2B content marketing strategy, but don’t get too bound to them. For example, understanding that B2B audiences value logic over emotion doesn’t mean you can’t appeal to their feelings. And some B2B audiences might be more engaged and motivated on social, even though that’s the “B2C spot.”

Bottom line: Stay flexible because your B2B buyers are, in the end, people. You just have to do your homework to understand what they need and how you can use content to assure them that your B2B brand can deliver.

Why Is Having A Content Strategy Important?

One mistake some brands make with content marketing is expecting results after publishing a couple of random posts a month.

To grow your business using content marketing, you must start with an effective content strategy before you begin producing anything, and that strategy must include a distribution plan for the content, so that it actually gets consumed.

Why is a content strategy important?

Ninety-one percent of B2B marketers use content marketing. Again, because it works. And when it comes to growth, there is no substitute. Content marketing reduces costs by more than half and triples your impact. What’s not to love?

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Yet, when it comes to content marketing, less than 40 percent of B2B marketers have a documented strategy. Another 40 percent say they have one, but it’s undocumented. That’s like you saying you’re not going to eat that ice cream you impulse bought.

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“Content marketing strategy” is the most searched phrase related to content marketing because (say it again with me) it works. In fact, the top-performing B2B brands are far more likely to report using an effective and documented content strategy.

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Content strategies work, and a content growth strategy will work to deliver the results you want to see, so your B2B brand can join the ranks of those top performers.

Makes Content Creation Easier

Your content strategy answers one of your most important content marketing questions — why you create content. Knowing why you are creating content for your brand makes it easier to create said content. Because you know what you want to achieve with your content, you’ll be in a better position to brainstorm relevant content ideas that will help you achieve your goals.

Besides helping you know what kind of content to create, a content strategy is also important as it leads to consistency in content volume and quality.

Improves Your Targeting

An essential aspect of developing a content strategy is researching your target audience. You’ll have to dig into your audience’s:

• Demographic data.
• Psychographic data.
• Firmographic data.

Gathering this data will help you create two essential profiles critical to successfully running a B2B content marketing strategy. The first is a buyer persona profile, which is the makeup of the individuals responsible for buying decisions in an organization. The second is the ideal customer profile (ICP) of brands you’re targeting. This is a detailed outline of the attributes that make up the accounts that are most likely to become your most valuable customers.

With accurate targeting, you’re more likely to get better results and grow your business faster and more effectively.

What Is a Content Cycle and What Does It Look Like?

Content cycles detail the process of optimizing your growth through a series of repeated actions. Repetition is a core tenant of growth marketing, allowing you to experiment, set processes, and perform them over and over again while your results compound. There are numerous content cycles out there, but the one we’re highlighting here is focused on using content to achieve growth.

The cycle begins with your content strategy. Here is where you start to experiment to find the channels, personas, and assets that will move the needle for your brand. Once the strategy is nailed down, you move onto content creation and distribution. This process is a mini-cycle all on its own — tweak the strategy, design new content, measure results, and do it all over again. While this is happening, the next phase in the larger content growth cycle kicks into gear — brand building. Continuously adding new content will work toward increasing domain authority and building your backlink profile, which will make it easier to push out additional content to the right audience. Finally, your content leads to increased traffic and increased revenue, allowing you to create stronger, better content…and the cycle continues.

What Goes Into a Content Growth Strategy

Content strategies vary from business to business, but they all share one thing in common: they are built around goals that matter to your brand. In the case of a growth-focused strategy, that goal is to increase traffic and revenue as quickly and seamlessly as possible.

To build a content growth strategy that drives results, be sure to include the following:

Mission Statement & Goals

Obvious, right? But here is where you flesh out those goals to be more than simply, “growth.” Consider your KPIs and most important business metrics. Which ones need a boost, and which ones will indicate that your brand is healthy and growing? Detail them here, and align them with your brand mission before putting a plan in place to regularly monitor progress and measure results.

Buyer Personas

Hopefully you’ve already conducted some persona analysis and have a good understanding of who your audience is and what they want to see. Don’t waste time delivering content designed to be all things to all people (it won’t be). Instead, craft content that answers your personas’ questions and brings relief to their pain points.

Data from Competitor Analysis

What are your competitors doing well, and what are areas of opportunity for you to move in with stronger, better content? Take a look at the competition’s blogs, social media accounts, and more to get a feel for their brand voice and content mix. For hard numbers, look to services like Ahrefs to see what keywords they’re ranking for and what content performs the best.

Content Audit Review

What content have you already created, and what’s the quality of it? Often, older content can be refreshed and repurposed, which saves you time and money and can also give you a boost in organic search. Set aside content for rewriting and reusing, then go through the rest to identify gaps and look for areas to build authority. Remember that blogs alone don’t cut it anymore. Your brand needs a variety of multimedia content to stay ahead of the competition. Be sure to include assets like ebooks, infographics, videos, podcasts, and more.

Realistic Road Map to Achieve Your Content Goals

Plot out a timeline that allows for planning, testing, execution, and analysis of your content strategy. A good content growth strategy isn’t going to happen overnight, so set your expectations according to a realistic timeframe. Generally, an annual content strategy will work for guiding you through seasonal campaigns and giving you enough to start measuring results. Any shorter, and the data you compile won’t offer a complete enough picture to make effective adjustments, and any longer is just unwieldy.

Content Calendar

An editorial calendar gives you a roadmap to executing your strategy. It should detail topics, categories, keywords, and associated pillar pages so you’re ready to hit the ground running once your strategy is complete.

Content Promotion Channels

Where is your content going to be distributed? A blog is a great place to start, but what other avenues can you pursue? Content delivered through newsletters, social media, lead generation assets, and SEO should all be a part of your strategy. A mix of channels is important to capture leads in various locations.

Budget

Start sourcing writers and look for a balance between experience and rates that will deliver results without breaking the bank. Always leave more room in the budget than you think you’ll need (because you will always need more than you think), so you’ll have dollars allocated for unexpected expenses or additional content assets when needed.

The Best Content Types For B2B Brands

One of the most important elements of B2B content marketing is determining the types of content you’ll use to promote your business. Some of the best content types for B2B brands include:

Blog Posts

Blog posts are a centerpiece of content marketing. These are informative articles created to provide readers with information on topics they’re interested in. Blog posts are versatile and can be used to achieve different marketing goals such as:

• Raising brand awareness
• Boosting SEO
• Lead generation

You can create blog posts for different stages of your sales funnel to help ensure you meet prospects’ search intent at each stage.

White Papers

White papers are a type of long-form content used to persuade B2B buyers about the effectiveness of a particular workflow, strategy, or methodology – oftentimes, this is the methodology underlying your own product. They contain a mix of facts, research, and storytelling and offer more depth than blog posts. Because of this, you can gate them and offer full access to readers in exchange for their contact information. This makes them an excellent lead generation tool.

Tools, Templates, & Cheat Sheets

One important purpose of B2B content marketing is lead generation. And some of the best types of content to help you do that are downloadable assets like tools, templates, and cheat sheets. Because these make life easier for your target audience, they’ll readily sign up to receive them.

Webinars

Successful B2B content marketing is all about educating your audience enough to help them:

• Fully appreciate their problem
• Trust you as the solution provider

One type of content that can help you achieve this is webinars. Webinars have two main advantages. The first is that they’re interactive, resulting in higher engagement rates. The second is that they make it easy to break down complex topics and express yourself clearly. This is especially important if tacit knowledge is involved.

Podcasts

Podcasts are a great way of humanizing your brand. Done well, they’re also a great way to boost your brand awareness as you can leverage your guests’ audiences if you host your own podcast. You can also tap into your hosts’ audiences as a podcast guest. Besides boosting brand awareness, podcasting is also a great way to showcase your expertise. It’s also a really easy way to involve people from other organizations, or even your clients.

Case studies

A case study is a type of testimonial of how your product helped a particular customer solve their problem. Because people love stories, case studies are a powerful way of selling your product while connecting with your audience at the same time. However, as a B2B brand, case studies are a valuable content marketing asset as they are excellent for building trust. 

Original Research & reports

B2B buyers rely on facts to justify their decisions. That’s why you must publish original research and reports as much as possible – it helps an executive sell their purchase decision internally, to help streamline the buying process. Besides providing insights into your industry and how your tool helps players, original research and reports are excellent tools for building credibility. They’re also great backlink magnets.

Email

Email marketing is one marketing channel every B2B brand should leverage. With email, you can nurture your leads, promote your products, and keep your customers engaged so you’re always top of mind when they need a solution you provide. While the ROI of $36 for every $1 spent statistic is misleading in that it ignores the cost of building up an email list in the first place, it’s also an ideal channel since it’s owned land – you’ll never have to be at the mercy of a social media platform messing with your strategy.

Landing Pages (solutions pages)

Landing pages are an excellent B2B content marketing tool. They help turn casual readers into leads. 

How?

Create valuable content that you can use to point readers somewhere else — to a landing page with an irresistible offer. Make sure your landing page copy is expertly written and compelling enough to convince readers to take you up on your offer.

Video content

Video is one of the most popular B2B content marketing formats for one simple reason — it’s easy to consume. Video content is also engaging and interactive. For B2B marketers, the most significant advantage of video is that it’s versatile. You can use video format fo, among other things:

• Customer and expert interviews
• Case studies
• Product explainers
• How-to guides
• Customer onboarding 

Thanks to modern SaaS tools, creating high-quality videos is no longer time-consuming or expensive. Leveraging this content format can help you establish yourself as an authority and expert in your field. 

Demos

Product demos are an excellent way to nudge prospects to move from the decision stage of your sales funnel to the action stage. They are a great way to turn marketing qualified leads (MQLs) into sales qualified leads (SQLs).

Getting the right mix of content types is essential to the success of your content strategy. This is why conducting audience research is critical — it helps you know your target audience’s content preferences.

B2B Content Marketing Ideas That You Can Implement NOW 

Infographics — Information in Graphics? 

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Infographics just aren’t a way of presenting the content in a visually attractive manner — it’s also an intelligent way of using visuals to pursue an outstanding user experience. Let us explain. Ever seen a bunch of emojis on a customer feedback email/form that resemble happy, sad, and neutral faces? If you’ve ever tried answering any of those questions, you would know the ultimate ease they offer — to both navigate the emojis and consume all the information it offers.

Why is that? Simply because infographics put content into intelligent, easy to consume, and visually appealing ways that people love to receive. What more? It doesn’t require you to build a whole team from the ground up to get started. There are plenty of free templates available, such as Visme, that’ll help you create stunning data-driven content pieces in the form of infographics. 

Micro Content — Stay Small for Big Impact

No, it’s not new industry jargon. Micro content has been around for ages and lately hasn’t seen much appreciation, thanks to the prevalence of long-from content and consumers’ affinity towards video content. But micro content or short-form content is making a comeback.

It went out of scope earlier since it wasn’t always associated with providing SEO value. But look at LinkedIn! If that isn’t a great example of micro content, then nothing is. Some of the most successful content on LinkedIn is usually a quick 30-second video, a SlideShare of only five slides, or simply a post content of no more than 250 words. Bite-sized copy and videos are making a comeback — are you in?

Video Tutorials — “How to” Do That?

For any SaaS B2B business, how-tos are a big part of their product marketing — starting from educating the prospects on the products and services to trial demos. You could create a help center or a knowledge base with the content answering all kinds of how-tos, but it’s really the videos that have got the beat — quite literally. With 62 percent of marketers in the B2B tech sector saying creating content is their biggest challenge, video tutorials are a great form of content to include in your content initiatives. 

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While it sure is hard to create content that resonates with your buyer persona and also shows great organic growth for SEO, social channels, and business overall, video content provides necessary respite from getting stuck in the whirlwind of not always knowing the next best blog post to write or whitepaper to create. 

Webinars and Podcasts — User Onboarding Anyone?

It’s simple — your B2B content marketing strategy needs a webinar or a podcast…or both. On one hand, we’re proposing bite-sized content, and on the other hand, we’re also suggesting creating a webinar or a podcast and not shying away from the long format they provide. Why? Because no one strategy works for two brands and no two strategies work for one brand.

While podcasts offer opportunities to engage the audience that doesn’t mindlessly scroll through social media, webinars also help you repurpose a lot of content in different ways — and both offer unique ways to go super niche in your space and hyper-target your audience. Podcasts, such as the “Hypergrowth Podcast Network” by Drift, are also a way of giving you free access to some of the greatest leaders in your industry. 

Web Chats — Robotic or Humanistic? 

It’s not technically a piece of content, but web chats are becoming an essential part of the overarching content strategy. Gone are the days where web chats were only limited to the sales teams. Now everyone in marketing — content, lead generation, growth marketing, user experience, customer service, and sales — can glean wonderful insights from web chats about how well your content is aligned with sales enablement. Web chats are also faster than emailing or calling up customer care and are super convenient to use (or at least should be). HubSpot’s service hub offers amazing tools for chatting up your prospects and customers and resolving their queries in real time. 

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Don’t Miss Out on Content Marketing — You Can Begin Right Now

Although the best day was yesterday, it’s still not too late to begin a content marketing strategy now. Whether you’re starting from scratch or have been into content marketing for some time, you can always start implementing fresh ideas and strategies that align with your overall goal. Try podcasts and webinars if you think your audience might be interested in this type of content; create a microsite if you’re focusing on a particular topic, product, or service; or simply infuse videos, infographics, and web chats into your strategy to make your content and user experience richer. 

5 Key Content Marketing Metrics

When you open up Google Analytics, you’ll be greeted by countless stats and metrics relating to your website’s performance, user behavior, and more.

Not all of these analytics are essential, though. If you’re trying to determine the ROI of your inbound marketing efforts, here are the content marketing metrics that matter most.

1. Website Traffic

Your brand’s website is the key to your inbound marketing efforts. It’s where you house the content that draws in visitors and eventually converts them into customers.

One of the easiest ways to measure the effectiveness of your website is to monitor its traffic, including:

• Total visitors
• Traffic sources
• Session duration
• User engagement
• Changes in organic traffic

You can find where your visitors are coming from via Google Analytics by clicking Acquisitions > Overview.

Referral traffic, in particular, grants insight into which of your inbound marketing efforts generate the most value. Increases in referral traffic typically indicate that customers find value in your content and are interested in your brand. 

Use this data to adjust your marketing efforts to focus on the channels that are generating the most high-value visitors to your website.

2. Social Media Engagement

Social media is a necessary and effective tool for building brand awareness, increasing web traffic, and generating conversions.

To determine whether or not your social media campaigns are impactful, focus on user engagement, such as likes, shares, comments, etc. Twitter, for instance, even lets you click on individual tweets to see more detailed information about impressions and clicks.

When reviewing this information, keep the following questions in mind:

• Which platforms are most effective at reaching your target audience?
• What times during the day see the most engagement?
• What type of content is encouraging engagement (i.e., microblogs, stories, videos, infographics, etc.)?

It’s important to carefully plan your social media content to achieve targeted results and direct certain users to the content they will get the most value out of. For example, you may want to redirect Twitter users to your brand’s blog to get more information, while you might send LinkedIn referrals directly to a sales page.

3. Conversion Rate and Sales Tracking

One of the most important and informative content marketing metrics for determining ROI is your conversion rate. How many visitors are turning into leads, and how many leads are turning into paying customers?

Comparing sales and revenue to total website visitors is an easy way to tell if your inbound marketing efforts provide real value to potential customers.

Google Analytics also lets you create custom goals, which you can use to set and track sales goals. By doing this, you’ll be able to see what percentage of website visitors actually make a purchase.

You can also take a look at the path these visitors took through your website to get to the point of purchase, giving you valuable insights into which pages are successfully nurturing leads.

4. Bounce Rate

Bounce rate is a simple content marketing metric for evaluating the effectiveness of your landing pages and website content. Bounces are single-page viewing sessions, and your bounce rate is the total number of bounces divided by total visits.

High bounce rates can be attributed to a variety of factors:

• Low-quality landing pages
• Poor site navigation
• Low-value content
• Poor loading times (per HubSpot, after five seconds of loading, conversion rates drop by over 4 percent for each additional second)

Generally, high bounce rates indicate a poor user experience, while multiple page visits during a single session signifies a high-quality lead. Reducing bounce rates can help increase conversions and your inbound marketing ROI.

5. Email Engagement Rates

Your email list is one of the most valuable marketing materials you possess. Anyone who has opted in to your email list is a potential customer and can be guided toward conversions. An email marketing campaign is a great way to deliver high-quality, relevant content directly to existing and potential customers.

You can track email opens and clicks to see what type of content your audience is most interested in, and you can utilize this information to create valuable content that guides readers toward the next step of the sales funnel.

What Is the Content Marketing Matrix?

The Content Marketing Matrix was originally developed by Smart Insights to be used as a content mapping tool. It features four quadrants designating the desired outcome of the content type:

• Entertain
• Inspire
• Educate
• Convince

The horizontal axis goes from “Awareness” to “Purchase” and follows the typical content funnel model, with those near the awareness stage at the top of the funnel looking for TOFU content, those near consideration in the middle seeking MOFU content, and those near the purchase point having reached the decision stage, looking for BOFU content.

On the vertical axis, the matrix goes from “Emotional” at the top to “Rational” at the bottom, which indicates which content types promote these responses.

By plotting out your content on the matrix, you can see which areas you’ve got covered, and which need some love.

 

Why Do You Need a Content Matrix? 

Okay, so the content marketing matrix looks pretty cool, but what does it actually do? Let’s find out how it can help you boost your content marketing efforts:

Identify Gaps in Your Content Strategy 

The content matrix is a visual representation of your content library, so you can see where there are gaps and where you need to work to fill them in.

And, of course, it’s critical that you have a content strategy to get the results you want. In fact, those with a documented strategy were more successful overall, while those who felt their efforts were unsuccessful did not have a documented strategy.

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The content matrix can help you piece together your content strategy so you can get it documented and then will help reveal spaces where your content is lacking.

 

Improve Sales Enablement

To fully leverage your content marketing, you need to ensure you have content available at every stage of the funnel, for every purpose, and for every audience so your sales team has what they need at the ready.

It’s all part of an effective sales enablement strategy.

The content marketing matrix will give your sales enablement a lift by helping you find where in the funnel you’re missing content and where in the sales cycle your sales team might need extra support.

 

Capture Emails 

Email marketing is extremely effective when done right, but you have to get leads onto your email list for it to truly work for your brand. A content matrix can help you see where you need to bump up your content to target audiences and persuade them to sign up for your mailing list.

From there, you can also use it to plot out where you need to make contact with them via nurture emails and what type of content they need to contain. 

 

Find New Content Ideas

The content matrix is a fantastic brainstorming tool and will help you generate a ton of fresh content ideas. Once you get your content added to the matrix, you’ll see where you have an abundance of content and where it’s running dry. That will direct your brainstorming to the area in which you have the greatest need, saving you time and making your efforts more efficient.

 

Gain Clarity Around Unstructured Content 

Like structured data, using structured content allows you to quickly and easily update multiple pages or content assets. This standardized formatting ensures consistency, as well as a better user experience. The content matrix will help you figure out what your audience needs wherever they are on the matrix and allows you to make a plan to structure your content accordingly.

 

How Do You Use a Content Marketing Matrix?

At its core, a content matrix is an organizational and planning tool you can use in various ways. 

• Content Audit: Gain a clear picture of the content you already have to understand its purpose, its intended audience, and where it is in the funnel.
• Content Gap Analysis: Discover lapses in content, audiences that are being neglected, or messaging that is misaligned.
• Content Strategy: Plot out your content strategy visually so you can see where your content needs are covered and where it would help to add more.

To better understand how to use the content marketing matrix, we need to examine its structure.

Let’s take a closer look at each of the four quadrants:

 

Entertain 

This quadrant brings the fun. In this area, audiences are closer to the top-of-funnel awareness stage, where they’re often driven more by emotion. Content here should be lighter, more general, and definitely interactive, including:

• Contests and competitions
• Branded video content
• Listicles
• Quizzes and games
• Social media posts

 

Educate

Much of your audience will drift downwards from the “Entertain” quadrant into “Educate.” They’re still pretty close to the top of the funnel where they’re really becoming aware of your brand and forming a perception, but they’ve also gone from acting on emotions to becoming more rational. At this stage, you’ll want to keep your content broadly appealing but start to provide useful information:

• Blog articles
• Trend reports
• Infographics
• Useful guides
• Relevant press releases 

 

Inspire  

Back up to the top right corner of the matrix, we find “Inspire,” and that’s really the goal here. The point of this phase is to connect with the audience and, now that they’re familiar with your brand, appeal to their emotions once again. Relationships are key in this quadrant, so you’ll want to create content based on that:

• Influencer partnerships
• Celebrity sponsorships and endorsements
• Engagement in online forums
• Social interaction

 

Convince 

There isn’t really a linear path through the content matrix; it’s more of an up-and-down, back-and-forth. But when your audience gets to the “Convince” quadrant, that’s when you want to pull out the big guns. Here is where you put all your persuasive power into your content, backed with data, to make them certain you’re the right brand to choose. At this point, they’re near the bottom of the funnel and ready to make a purchase decision, so they’re thinking critically and rationally. Present them with content that appeals to that part of their brain:

• Webinars
• Case studies
• Whitepapers 
• Research reports
• Demos

How to Create a Content Marketing Matrix 

Ready to dive in and build your own content marketing matrix? We’re ready to guide you through it! Take our step-by-step approach outlined here, and get ready to optimize your content strategy and reap the rewards.

Understand the Content Marketing Matrix Axes 

So, we’ve talked about the different quadrants of the matrix, but you’ll also need to pay careful attention to the axes as well. 

The vertical axis goes from emotional to rational and highlights how your audience is feeling. This is a predictor of how they’ll interact and engage with your brand and determines what type of content they want to see.

The horizontal axis slides from awareness to action and follows the traditional stages of the buyer’s journey. At the left side, your audience is still at the top of the funnel, but they move across the axis as they go down the funnel until they arrive at the action or decision stage.

Understanding the audience’s needs, desires, and pain points wherever they are on the axes will help you provide them with content that delivers results.

Define Buyer Personas 

Knowing your buyer personas will help you understand what motivates and influences them. That will also help you figure out where they are on the axes and within each of the four quadrants so you can offer the content they want.

Remember that a buyer persona is not a target audience.

A target audience is a very broad group of people usually determined by demographic data. On the other hand, a buyer persona is much more specific and takes into consideration demographics, psychographics, and behavioral attributes.

Defining buyer personas will give you deeper insights into your audience so you can better understand, anticipate and meet their needs.

Understand the Buyer’s Pain Point

To truly give them relevant, useful content, you need to understand what keeps your buyer persona up at night. There are generally four types of pain points they may be feeling:

• Value: Are they concerned about the financial implications of either buying your service or product or not buying it?
• Time: Do they have worries about managing their time and staying productive?
• Process: Are they hoping to find ways to ease their lives, whether personally or professionally?
• Assistance: Do they want to have support in finding solutions to their problems?

Just keep this in mind: pain points are not the same thing as solutions. 

Depending on where your audience is on the matrix, they may not be ready for a solution. It’s more important that their pain points be heard and acknowledged by your brand.

Map Pain Points to Each Stage of the Funnel 

Now that you understand your audience’s issues and concerns, you can start aligning them with content that will eventually guide them toward the best solutions. To do that, you need to make sure that your content correlates with the appropriate funnel stage that addresses their biggest pain points.

Top of the Funnel 

This is often where your brand makes its first impression. At this stage, your audience doesn’t yet know who you are or what solutions you provide — in fact, they may not even know there’s a problem, to begin with. Here is where you provide very high-level information that engages and entertains them and slowly begins to educate them on the needs they may not even be aware of.

Middle of the Funnel

At this point, the audience knows who you are, and they know they have an issue that needs solving. But they also know they have a lot of options to choose from, and they’re just beginning their evaluation process. This is where you can start promoting your brand more heavily, expanding on the solutions you can provide. 

Bottom of the Funnel

The audience is much smaller at this point, but also far more motivated to buy. This is where you can really let your solutions shine and offer them content and deals that will help them convert. Typically, this is where demos, free trials, and freemiums come into play, along with webinars and case studies.

Post-purchase 

You might think that once a customer converts, your job is done. You might also be very, very wrong. The post-purchase stage is extremely important because it’s where customers become repeat customers, loyal customers, and referring customers, bringing others from their network into the fold. 

Use CTAs to Guide the Buyer Through Each Funnel Stage

Calls-to-action, or CTAs, are critically important to your content marketing strategy. But using the wrong one can end in disaster. Your CTAs should be broken down by content asset, funnel stage, and audience, and you can use the content marketing matrix to plot them out.

Create a specific version of the matrix just for CTAs, so you can see where they fall on the axes and within each quadrant. Then, you can map your CTAs to each piece of content you’re planning to offer to ensure they align with the funnel stage.  

Define Goals

What do you want to achieve with your content matrix? You may want a visual representation of your current content, or you may want to use it to plan out your content strategy and assets for the months ahead. However you’re going to use the matrix, make sure you document your goals. And make sure each one of them is SMART. 

Take an Inventory of Existing Content and Group by Personas

As we mentioned previously, you can use your content marketing matrix to conduct a content audit and get a big-picture perspective on where your brand stands. If you have a large amount of content, this is a great way to get a handle on it and begin organizing it. Or, if you feel you’re lacking in certain areas, this will give you a quick, visual way to see where those lapses are occurring. 

Once you’ve taken stock of your existing content, you can use the matrix to group them into personas, so you can better understand what pain points your content should be addressing and what types of content will be most likely to move them.

Explore New Content Formats 

If you’ve stuck by your blog for years now, it might be time to shake things up a bit by exploring different types of content (caveat: do NOT give up on your blog). Content lends itself so well to this type of experimentation, as it’s been proven that repurposing old content into different formats and distributing it on new channels is one of the most effective ways to utilize content marketing.

So, turn that blog into an infographic, or make that social post into a video. It’s a time-saver and a cost-saver, but best of all, it really works.

Create a User-Focused Topic Matrix

Instead of focusing on the content you think positions your brand in the best possible light — the content you want to create — focus on the content your audience wants to consume. 

Create a separate matrix to brainstorm topics for each buyer persona in each quadrant. Then, you can build pillars around each persona and create content that ties to each one. 

Also consider the content formats each buyer persona is most interested in and factor that in when planning out your content. For example, we know that video is most effective in the “Entertain” quadrant when the audience is nearer the emotional end of the spectrum. For your buyer persona in this area, you may want to plan to create some splashy, attention-grabbing, evocative video content. Remember that user-generated content (UGC) is also a part of creating a user-focused matrix.

Define Content Priorities 

Use your matrix to set your content marketing priorities so you know what to tackle and when. Visually, you should be able to see bare spots in your matrix where you’re lacking a certain type of content, so you can make it a priority to fill in the blank spaces.

You could also use this as a way to find and map out content that’s ready to be refreshed or updated — or anything that needs to be reformatted and upgraded. 

Create a Content Marketing Matrix Based on the Insights You’ve Gathered

Now that you’ve gone through all of these steps, you’re ready to build your content marketing matrix and even customize it to suit your needs. In a matrix, you can tailor everything from the quadrants to the axes and the content types, so you have a flexible tool to organize your strategy and achieve your content goals.

Feel free to use the standard content matrix, but experiment with changing things up. For instance, you can create one solely around buyer personas and list them as quadrants, with the axes being the funnel stages or the buyer’s journey. We’ve designed it to be personalized to suit your brand’s content needs.

Update Your Content Matrix When You Create New Assets 

You’ll want one version of your content matrix that’s continually updated to represent what’s “live” on your website and across your marketing channels. You can design other versions of your matrix to show different things (like content audits, old content that needs updating, etc.), but make sure there’s one living document you can constantly add to as you create new assets. 

Remember your ABCs 

It’s one of those old sayings every marketer has heard a million times before: Always. Be. Converting (we know startups are familiar with this). It’s good advice, especially for growth-focused brands. But when it comes to content marketing, conversions can be hard to measure because they won’t always be sales or revenue. You might find that a conversion in your content marketing strategy is actually a download of a piece of gated content or a newsletter signup or email subscription.

Whatever conversion means to you, make sure you’re tracking them all as you use your content matrix to plan out what you want to create. You can even create a matrix based around conversions so you can rank which types of content perform the best and fill in any gaps you find.

Where Can I Find a Content Marketing Matrix Template? 

This is a lot to put together on your own, but luckily you can find some great content marketing matrix templates to help you build one (or several) of your own.

Canva

Canva’s template is a great option if you’re familiar with the design platform. It’s easy to edit and you can move each individual asset to the quadrant you need. It’s also free with a basic Canva account.

Miro

Miro is an online whiteboard with tons of templates you can choose from for organizing, note-taking, and much more. The content planning matrix is a downloadable board template you can customize to your needs. It’s already set up with quadrants for buyer personas and an axis for funnel position.

Google Spreadsheet 

This is more of a DIY option if you want to build your content marketing matrix from scratch. You can use any of the Google Suite tools you like, but Google Sheets are most common. However, if you’re going for that visual representation of your content, you can also create something in Google Slides.

Content Marketing Matrix Examples 

Want to see the result of a content marketing matrix in action? We took some samples of recent video content (in this case, commercials) that were analyzed using a content matrix. We know that video content is continuing its meteoric rise, with 83% of marketers saying it’s becoming more important than ever. 

As we know from the content marketing matrix we included at the beginning of this article, video content typically falls in the “Entertain” quadrant, nearer the Awareness/Emotional segments of the axes. We can see in the examples below that they align with the content matrix, as they were created to raise brand awareness by appealing directly to the audience’s emotions (something we now know is more effective than appealing to their logic).

Wegmans

In 2021, this was ranked the top holiday ad in the U.S., and it’s easy to see why. It focuses on the one thing that unites us all — food. The emotional appeal was lighthearted, not at all sales-y, and definitely entertaining.

 Google

What sets this Google ad apart is that it wasn’t technically an ad — it’s just great video content. This branded video definitely appealed to the audience’s emotions, and although pretty much everyone is aware of Google, the video still fits nicely in the “Entertain” quadrant. Since it isn’t selling anything, it’s considered TOFU content.

Create a Content Marketing Matrix Designed to Convert Visitors 

Ultimately, you can do so many things with a content marketing matrix that will help you move your audience through the funnel toward conversion. You can customize it, replicate it, design your own or use a template. 

How To Create Your Own B2B Content Marketing Strategy

Ready to create your own B2B content marketing strategy?

Here are a few tips to help you ensure you succeed:

1. Create Specific Campaign Goals

The first step to creating an effective B2B content marketing strategy is to create specific goals and KPIs for your campaign. For example, do you want to:

• Rank on the first page of search engine results pages for your top 10 target keywords?
• Increase organic traffic to your site by 20%?
• Raise brand awareness on LinkedIn?
• Improve sales win rates by 5%?
• Earn backlinks and improve domain rating by 3 next quarter? 
• Increase inbound leads by 10% this year?

Defining your goals from the start is essential as it will inform the type of content you’ll focus on and the campaigns you’ll run. 

2. Define Your Ideal Client (User) Profile

To create an effective B2B content marketing strategy, you need to know and understand your target audience.

That’s why defining your ideal client profile is crucial.

An ideal client profile is a representation of who your perfect client is. It is built on research, data, and understanding the problems your target audience are struggling with.

Defining your ideal client helps you:

• Craft relevant and personalized messaging.
• Target them on the right platforms.
• Create content in their preferred formats.

3. Research

Effective content marketing, especially for B2B brands, relies on data. That’s why research must play a central role in developing your content strategy. Essential aspects you must research include keywords and user intent. This will help you ideate topics and create a content calendar to guide your content production.

Another important aspect of research you must carry out is to conduct a content audit on your website. A content audit involves analyzing the content on your website and taking note of:

• Content gaps
• Content performance

This will help ensure you create relevant content for each stage of your funnel.

4. Analyze Competitors

Another critical stage in creating an impactful B2B content marketing strategy is competitor analysis. Despite being the competition, your competitors can provide you with a wealth of knowledge you can use to create a winning B2B content marketing strategy. Examples of the insights you can get from your competitors include:

• The type of content and content formats your target audience enjoys.
• Effective content distribution channels.
• Competitors’ strengths and weaknesses.
• Possible backlink partners.

These insights (and more) will help you develop a content strategy that will help better position you and outperform your competitors.

5. Decide Buying Journey Stage & Content Type

The ultimate purpose of a B2B content marketing strategy is to help you drive sales.

That’s why you must fully understand your buyer journey and align your content to it.

A buyer’s journey is simply the stages your customers go through from being aware they have a problem through finally paying for your solution. Aligning your content strategy to your buyer journey will help you create content that meets your customers intent at each stage. It will also help ensure that your content successfully moves your customers seamlessly through the stages. The buyer’s journey in B2B is never linear, but it’s your job as the seller to reduce friction as much as possible.

6. Align With SEO Strategy

Your content must be seen by the right people if it is to produce results.

For that to happen, you need a robust B2B SEO strategy. Marrying your B2B content marketing strategy with an SEO strategy will ensure that you not only produce relevant and helpful content. But it will also help your content rank for relevant keywords.

If you lack a cohesive strategy for both production and optimization, your content marketing efforts will go to waste. A few critical SEO factors you must consider as you develop your content strategy include:

• Keeping your technical SEO on point. Publishing great content on a website that has technical issues is a waste of time. Your content either won’t rank or you’ll have high bounce rates. 
• How to build backlinks to each piece of content. Building backlinks to your content is critical as it helps boost page authority and rankings.
• Optimize for page experience. Google recently announced that user experience is a major ranking factor moving forward. Make sure your pages and content are designed to offer a positive experience.

So, as you make plans for content development, make sure to plan for optimization as well.

7. Find the Right CMS & Management Tools

An essential part of your content strategy is content publishing and management. 

That’s why you must carefully choose the right content management system (CMS) and other content production and management tools. An easy-to-use yet feature-rich CMS (WordPress, Webflow, and Hubspot, are some of the fan favorites) will make publishing, revising, and managing your content much easier. 

1. Schedule & Create

With all the bases covered, you can now move to the more exciting parts of your B2B content marketing strategy — content production.

For you to effectively and consistently produce quality content, you must schedule it in advance. This requires that you create a content calendar. Use insights from your research to inform your content calendar and ideate timely and relevant topics to fill your calendar. Once this is done, go ahead and create your content.

8. Promote & Distribute

One of the biggest mistakes many brands make is to sit on their laurels once they hit the publish button.

Hitting publish isn’t the end of content marketing — it’s actually the beginning.

Once a piece of content is live on your website, you must proactively promote and distribute it for it to reach your target audience. The first step to doing this is to determine where and how you’ll distribute and promote your content. To answer that question, you must know where your audience hangs out online. This includes social media, industry forums, your email list, and paid ads among others.

9. Analyze Results and Iterate Based on Performance

An essential step that mustn’t be left out of any B2B content marketing strategy is to track performance. This is essential as it will help you know which parts of your strategy are performing well and which aren’t. This enables you to create better iterations of your strategy and campaigns.

Digging deep into the analytics of your campaigns will also help you with attribution. You’ll be able to track specific actions to your campaigns and thus help with revenue attribution.

5 Examples Of B2B Content Marketing For Your Inspiration

Does content marketing really work for B2B brands?

Yes. It does. Let’s look at five brands that have used content marketing to grow their audience, business, and revenue.

1. Hubspot

Hubspot is one of the biggest CRM and marketing automation providers in the world. From the brands early days, they heavily relied on content marketing to raise brand awareness and generate leads. Part of their content strategy included creating a massive resource library that included, among others:

• Original research 
• Case studies
• Industry reports
• Tools 

One of Hubspot’s biggest strengths is it created hyper-targeted and personalized content for their buyer personas and for each stage of the sales funnel. Hubspot’s content strategy paid off handsomely as the company went from being a small startup to being worth billions in about 10 years. 

2. CB Insights

CB Insights is a brand that provides a business analytics platform and marketing intelligence. One of their most effective content marketing avenues is email — particularly their newsletter. Despite being in a “boring” industry (I mean, where’s the fun in data and analytics!?) they manage to create lighthearted content for their newsletter. And all the while, they’re able to educate their audience, provide relevant information, and establish themselves as an authority in the industry.

3. LeadPages

A well-known name in landing page circles, LeadPages is one of the fastest-growing website and landing page builders.

How did they manage to grow so fast?

LeadPages designed a content marketing strategy that includes:

• A blog focused on conversion optimization.
• Hosting weekly webinars to educate users.
• Running a marketing podcast.

Their content marketing strategy resulted in the brand cornering a good chunk of the market, boasting over 40,000 users and $18 million ARR. 

4. Vidyard

For a brand that sells video content production solutions, Vidyard can be expected to be on top of its content marketing game. They don’t disappoint. 

Vidyard’s target audience is made up of marketing and sales professionals. To attract and convert them, they create content revolving around those topics. Of course, being a video marketing platform, it can only be expected that they’d have a whole section of their blog dedicated to video guides. This helps kill two birds with one stone — educate their audience and prove the power of their product. As a result, Vidyard’s inbound lead generation helped the brand grow to over 160,000 users.

5. Caterpillar

Yes, we’re talking about the greatest maker of construction equipment.

Take a cue from Caterpillar and infuse some fun in your content. Being a big player in the construction and mining equipment industry, Caterpillar decided to showcase what their equipment can do. They designed a video content marketing campaign in which they had some of their equipment play giant Jenga.

Not only did the campaign generate a lot of buzz and brand awareness, but it also acted as a type of product demo. The campaign helped boost the brand’s authority while still being entertaining.

3 Content Strategy Goals To Learn From

”Goal” is a broad term. There’s a plethora of different metrics and targets you can strive for within the marketing realm.

On a more granular, day-to-day level, marketers usually think about goals in terms of page views, time on site, bounce rates, conversion rates, etc. While important, those types of KPIs are too narrow to produce an overarching strategic vision.

Instead, your content marketing strategy needs to be based on overall business goals. Does your organization need more qualified leads for the sales team? Is brand awareness a major priority? Maybe you’re striving to be an authoritative thought leader in your vertical? These are the types of goals that should form the core of your content strategy — and each one will require a different approach.

Content Goal #1 – Inbound Lead Generation

When thinking about content marketing, lead generation is often the first thing that comes to mind. If generating a sustainable source of inbound leads is an important priority for your overall sales and growth goals, then content will play a vital role.

To keep your sales pipeline full from inbound leads, your content strategy should be focused on the following areas:

SEO Content

This will often take the form of blog posts targeting specific keywords for organic search traffic. You’ll need to be methodical in your approach, tailoring topics and keywords so that you can start to rank for high value keywords, while also providing educational value to readers.

Likewise, you’ll want to produce content for prospects at every stage of the buyer’s journey, from people who are just exploring topics in your field of expertise to people who are actively searching for a solution like yours.

Suppose you’re selling sales automation software and your target customers are VPs of Sales. To attract early-stage prospects, you’ll want to produce content that addresses questions a VP of Sales might have before they begin looking for a solution. For example, you could publish blog posts related to sales strategy, automating outbound email sequences, or building pipeline.

Here’s a good piece of educational content by Salesloft is clearly designed for people in sales who are writing cold emails (their target audience). Not everyone who visits this page will be ready to talk with their sales team but that’s okay. The more people get value from their content, the more likely they will be to contact them when they are in buying mode.

At the same time, you may also want to attract prospects who are further along in the buyer’s journey (i.e. more sales qualified). Your content can still be SEO-focused, but your keyword selection should shift to product comparisons and direct search terms for your product/service. This might include keywords like, “sales tools,” “tools to automate outbound email,” and “best sales automation tools 2019.”

Searching “cold email outreach tool,” the first result is Mailshake.

How did they get there? They have incredibly detailed content around cold email related keywords. This puts them in a position to rank for highly coveted search results that will lead to much more sales qualified lead generation opportunities. Just look at the table of contents for one section of their “Cold Email Masterclass” page.

Depending on how early stage your company is and your domain authority, you may need to focus on more specific keywords that have lower monthly traffic, but are also slightly easier to rank for.

If you can produce high quality content for keywords that your competition has overlooked, you’ll find yourself quietly generating inbound organic leads in places they never thought to look (very important if you want to win against larger, bigger budget incumbents in your space).

This is exactly what we did early on at RevenueZen to rank #1 for “linkedin post examples” — above LinkedIn themselves.

This ranking alone, generates over 6,500 users every month and is a common resource consumed in our new business conversion paths.

Lead Magnets and Calls-To-Action

In order to convert your visitors into subscribers and inbound leads, you’ll need to utilize calls-to-action (CTAs) and signup forms. For example, you can include a form field within your blog posts to capture email subscribers. This would be coupled with a CTA that highlights the value of joining your email list.

Downloadable resources (lead magnets) are a powerful content format for generating new inbound leads. By gating your e-books and whitepapers with a signup form, you can collect valuable contact info for your marketing funnel, letting you convert leads into SQLs, demos, and pipeline in the future.

If you don’t have any lead magnets, then you are relying on a strategy of hoping your site visitors just happen to be in a buying cycle when they visit your site. In the B2B world, timing is everything. Most prospects who visit your site will not be ready to talk to a sales rep. If you don’t have a way to establish some sort of ongoing relationship with those prospects, then you’re losing sales pipeline from people who visit your site once and forget about you when they start looking at solutions.

If you’re huge, you can afford to rely on your brand awareness. When you’re small, you need to take advantage of every opportunity you get. You may only get one opportunity to connect with a prospect, so you need to make it count.

Here’s a great lead magnet example from Intercom, which requires a name and business email to download.

In fact, this lead magnet is so effective that I actually signed up for it when I was researching this post. THAT is the kind of content that you want. Something so hard to resist, that prospects know exactly what you’re doing (capturing their email address so you can sell/market to them) and they still want to give you their info.

A big mistake I see people make in the SaaS world is only including lead capture forms for people who are far along in their buyer’s journey. If the only place where someone can establish a relationship with your company is a demo signup form, then focus on building out content with a lower barrier to entry. This will let people connect with you long before they’re ready to buy, making it easier to stay top of mind with your prospects.

Content Goal #2 – Increasing Sales Win Rates

Many B2B content marketing strategies make increasing win rates and supporting their sales team a core part of their content market goals. The key here is to create influential content that your sales reps can and will use to close deals more effectively.

This goal is especially applicable to teams that already have a robust lead generation process in place. If your top of the funnel is already fairly full, your content priority should shift to increasing sales win rates. A surplus of leads isn’t worth much if you aren’t converting those leads into revenue.

Examples of content to increase win rates:

• Case studies
• Customer highlights
• Webinars
• Objection-handling collateral
• Infographics and easily shareable content

Typically, this kind of content needs to incorporate your sales team and customer voice much more than others. Have conversations with your sales reps to uncover common objections they’re hearing on the front lines. If you’re creating a case study, get the client involved to get their results and feedback.

Using Content to Nurture Leads

If you want to increase win rates, qualified leads, and generate more SQLs for your sales team, then you’ll need to shift your focus away from SEO and capturing contact info through lead magnets, instead favoring engagement and progressing leads through the buying process.

Lead nurturing, in this case, refers to using content to engage people who have already connected with your company in some way. Maybe you already have a large email list. Or, perhaps you have prospects that didn’t close, so your sales team put them back into the marketing funnel.

You can use middle and bottom-of-funnel content to engage those leads in order to move them forward in the sales process.

When creating middle and bottom-of-funnel content, you’ll want to keep both prospects and existing customers in mind. Content can be used to move prospects down the funnel, but it can also be used to cultivate stronger relationships with your current customers. This, in turn, will help increase the lifetime value of your client base.

Education

The primary goal of your middle and bottom-of-funnel content should be to inform and educate. Use your content channels to help your audience overcome pain points and discover solutions. Doing so will keep your brand in the spotlight and position you as a trusted authority. Then, when it’s time to buy, your prospects will already know you well and regard you as a leading option.

Moz’s video series, Whiteboard Friday, is a fantastic example of educational middle-of-funnel content.

This content does an incredible job of establishing Moz’s expertise in the world of SEO. With this kind of content, prospects will continue to engage with their company (beyond simply finding them via a Google search). If your content is so educational that your ideal prospects keep coming back to your site week after week, then you can be sure you’ll be on the shortlist of companies to buy from when the timing is right.

Objection Handling Content

Another aim for middle and bottom-of-funnel content can be to handle objections and business concerns that prospects often bring up to your sales team faces.

Talk to your sales team to determine the main objections they’re hearing from prospects. Then, create content that addresses those concerns. This will help you get in front of issues, resolving them before they even arise.

Objection-handling for our own sales process was part of the reason we created an article on the most common mistakes founders make with their B2B blog strategy. We see enough founders at startups make these common B2B content marketing mistakes, that we decided to address it in a blog post, giving us ample space to clarify the mistakes and solutions.

Your sales team only has a limited amount of time to address concerns that are brought up by prospects. In some cases, especially in more complex selling environments, your sales team may not even be around when objections are brought internally. With good content, you can fully take the time to address concerns that come up during the buying process in a format that is easily shareable and can be as long-form as you need.

This kind of content then becomes ammo that your sales team can use to increase win rates and close more deals.

Using Content to Align Sales and Marketing

To create content that matches the sales team’s challenges, you’ll need strong alignment between the sales and marketing departments.

Far too often, we see siloed marketing teams producing content based on what they think will work, without enough input from sales reps. This leads to dissonant collateral which is out of sync with the actual dialogues happening on the sales side.

The result?

Marketing teams wasting their valuable time and energy creating content that sales reps never end up using because it isn’t relevant enough to their sales process, or worse, because sales reps believe the content actually goes against the main selling points that they win deals on.

Sales/marketing alignment is rooted in communication. Fostering a collaborative culture with regular meetings will help ensure both teams are on the same page. And, when sales and marketing are aligned, the synergy will be reflected in your content.

“The new reality is that marketing needs to know more about sales, sales needs to know more about marketing, and we all need to know more about our customers.” – Jill Rowley

Content Goal #3 – Building Brand Authority

Building brand authority ties into several other business goals, including lead generation and increasing win rates.

The more people know and trust your company, the more leads you’ll generate through word-of-mouth. The more that prospects and customers view your company as a trusted expert in your space, the more happy they are to dedicate their budget towards your solutions. Likewise, you’ll have knock-on effects as your overall brand reputation rises, increasing your valuation and standing with investor (if you’re going that route).

To become an authority in your vertical, you’ll need to produce thought leadership content that’s both educational and insightful. The reason this goal is separate from lead nurturing is that it’s not necessarily about moving prospects through the funnel; it’s about showing off your expertise. Being perceived as an expert facilitates trust. Building trust always helps your sales process.

HubSpot is one of the best examples of brand authority via content. You can’t look up anything related to inbound marketing without running into HubSpot. And being such a prolific source of information on the topic earns them massive credibility (alongside the benefits they get from inbound lead generation).

Startups, SMBs, and agencies in smaller niches have a similar opportunity.

If you have an innovative product or you’re doing something differently, use that to your advantage by positioning yourself as an authority on that topic/approach. Even if your strategy isn’t as SEO-focused as Hubspot, you still need to highlight your expertise in your field.

Building Trust in Your Brand Is Absolutely Critical

When you start getting into the more complex or enterprise B2B solutions/services world, trust becomes absolutely key to your growth strategy. If buyers don’t trust you, your company, your brand, and your team, they won’t work with you.

Most branding experts talk about brand as if it’s some pie-in-the-sky idea that will help your company … somehow … just trust them.

The reality is, brand authority, when done right, amplifies efforts at every stage of the funnel, from lead generation to win rates.

The more people trust you, the more likely they are to refer you to a friend, champion you to internal decision-makers during the sales process, and stick with you if your team ever makes a mistake.

THAT is brand authority … when you and your team are legitimate authorities in your space and everyone know it.

Sales Hacker spent years building its reputation and authority within the sales community, leading up to their acquisition by Outreach.io. How? Premier content written by experts and practitioners in the space.

Brand Authority, Referrals, and Technical Products

Are referrals an important source of new leads for your company?

If so, those referrals are going to be researching your brand. You’ll want to ensure they don’t just find a homepage explaining why they should buy from you. Instead, they should see thoughtful content that demonstrates a masterful knowledge of your industry. This will promote confidence in your product/service.

Likewise, if you sell a technical product, you should publish in-depth content written by talented engineers. Then, when a member of the prospect’s tech team checks out your company, your content will command respect. Or, even better, they might already be familiar with your brand because the tech community holds your content in high regard.

Aside from referrals and technical products, in most B2B sales processes, someone involved in the buying process will go to your website. When buyers go to research your company, what will they see?

If they find a ghost town of a website, even if it looks nice, it can be tough for them to recommend your products or services internally to their team. But if they visit your site and they see well-researched articles that clearly show that you know what you’re talking about, then you’re more likely to gain their trust, or at least get a stamp of approval.

3 Final Tips For Exceptional Content

Make Your Marketing Content Useful

To be useful, your marketing content must be backed by relevant data. In this day and age, no matter what your subject matter, there is data to support it. Make sure your marketing team is on top of research in your field.

Pay attention to the academics, journalists, and innovators who are ahead of the curve. When they publish, make sure you know about it. Subscribe to the right journals and newsletters.

Build repositories of useful data complete with compelling graphs and illustrations that help you drive home ideas. If you’re a SaaS company, you probably have plenty of extremely-useful first-party data from your own product. Ask your Product or Engineering team to give your marketers access to those repositories.

In essence, your marketing content should equip your buyers with what they need – knowledge that accurately and thoroughly informs their purchase decisions. This might mean you provide authentic reviews of how your products and services compare to those of competitors (without naming the competitors directly.)

Help your clients demonstrate due diligence and justify their choices. Focus on your differentiator. In what area does your brand truly shine?

(Example: Client Heartbeat – focuses on how their product saves their B2B customers’ time. They’ve learned that B2B buyers/users want products that do their heavy lifting for them, so they focus on features of their product that do just that – reduce the manual processes for client feedback surveys and data analysis.)

On that note, don’t ignore your own data. This is perhaps the most essential aspect of what is known as “inbound” marketing, marketing that targets people where they are at, focusing on their present state of mind and reaching them with solutions to problems you already know they have.

Google Analytics tells you who is visiting your content pages, their gender, age, organization, and many other useful demographics. With the help of your digital marketing service provider, follow these trends and develop greater awareness of your target audience and particularly how they evolve over time.

Make Your Marketing Content Unforgettable

A list of features will be forgotten as soon as a buyer has reviewed it. A story about how those features provided a superior user experience to someone they can relate to, however, won’t be.

For all humans, stories are the sturdiest framework for relevant information, which is why storytelling skills are essential to effective content marketing, including B2B content marketing.

Stories provide context and meaning. The setting and characters put the B2B buyer in the shoes of someone already using your products and services. This is where their emotions become more decisive because it is here that they get to test, experience, and discover how your products and services feel.

The plight of the characters provokes the emotions of the buyer. He or she begins to pay closer attention. They become invested in the character’s choices, particularly those involving your products and services. Because they relate to them on an emotional level, they remember the character’s problems and how the products and services alleviated them.

Later when they must consider purchases, those stories provide the needed framework for recalling the relevant features. They remember how they felt, not what they read.

To tell compelling stories, use email, video, buyer testimonials, humor, user-generated content, use-case videos, and employee testimonials. Don’t be afraid to illuminate problems – without a problem, a story has no purpose, and your products and services have no way to prove their value.

Make it entertaining: this means it can be inspirational, funny, or even nail-biting, that is, of course, until your brand is introduced as the solution to the problem, and everything is okay. 

Make Your Marketing Content Drive Business

Sow the seeds of new business in many places. In other words, don’t rely solely on organic distribution through social media to generate leads. Advertise online through Google AdWords and other search engines.

Optimize your rankings thereby enlisting a reputable SEO agency that can produce robust results strictly through white hat SEO. Publish your content in online magazines.

Invite students, business writers, and researchers to write case studies about what your brand has accomplished. Explore multiple media across sectors and industries and make use of them.

Above all, make lead generation and purchasing easy and painless. Steps (or clicks) on your website from content to closing should be few and effortless from start to finish.

Make certain that when a potential client reviews content, it’s obvious to him or her how to obtain further information, and most importantly, make a personal connection. They should be able to click once to your site and once more to chat with your online service representatives or at least send a query email to an account manager.

With off-site media, consider publishing abbreviated articles or clips from longer storytelling videos. These can be linked to their full versions on your site, which will draw traffic there. This provides an excellent way to track a client’s interest and convert leads because they are going from off-site media to your site, where the back-door data is completely accessible to you. Track this activity and use that data to inform how you publish content in the future. Rely on your digital marketing service provider to analyze that data and help set a strategic direction for your B2B content marketing.

In House Or Outsource?

If you’re anywhere near the tech or startup space you’re probably aware by now that you need to have a good B2B content marketing strategy, even if you’re unsure where to start. Don’t worry, you’re not alone: Only 37% of companies have a documented content marketing strategy.

Producing quality content takes time and, more importantly, a team. You’re busy though, and your team doesn’t have the know-how or bandwidth to commit to a full-bore content marketing push, even if you think it would be worth your time and money to invest in one.

So how do you get started with your B2B content marketing strategy? Here are a few low-impact ways to get your feet wet while still figuring it out.

B2B Content Marketing In-House

Believe it or not, this is still one of the best ways to start building a content marketing strategy. This is true even if your team doesn’t consist of professional writers. Consumers and potential business partners alike are searching for authenticity, and everything you create is going to ring more true if it comes from the actual experts at your company, even if it needs to be worked on by an editor before it goes to any public space.

That’s how we do it at RevenueZen, in fact: sure, there are marketers and professional writers on our team, but we tap people from other departments to put out content on their areas of expertise because they know what they’re talking about.

The problem here, of course, is that your team probably has other work to do, and writing even a short article can be a significant time-sink that might take away from other important tasks. Plus, even if they’re a good writer, you probably want someone with a marketing background and an editor’s eye to make sure that their content looks good and performs well in terms of organic search and SEO, and that adds another step to the process.

Ideally, if you want to go this route, you’re going to need someone to handle SEO, keyword research, writing, editing, CMS management, etc. This could be a single content manager or a VP of marketing, or a whole marketing team consisting of writers, search experts, copyeditors, and more.

Realistically, you’ll need at least two different people working on different parts of the content production process. If you’re just starting your B2B content marketing strategy, these are a lot of new hires to invest in, especially if you’re only doing a couple of pieces a week.

Outsourcing Your B2B Content Marketing Strategy

Another approach is outsourcing these tasks to a good B2B content marketing agency (like RevenueZen—wink, wink).

A good B2B content marketing agency will take your ideas and your passion and translate them into solid content with a minimal amount of effort from you. It’s going to cost you, of course, but building good content is surprisingly time-consuming, and while returns are worth it when those B2B inbound leads start rolling in, you simply might not be able to take the time away from mission-critical tasks to do it yourself.

A good agency will synthesize your areas of expertise, work with experts to craft the content, and turn it around with minimal input from you. For lean startups and small businesses, this is often way more practical than bringing these tasks in-house.

The advantage of outsourcing this type of work to a quality partner is that they can often create content that celebrates your strengths and highlights your accomplishments in ways you might never have thought of yourself.

Getting a fresh set of eyes on the work that you do can be a huge asset to your business, too — you’re often too close to the process to see a lot of what’s worth talking about.

You usually don’t have enough work for an in-house team when you’re just launching your B2B content marketing strategy. A quality partner can help give you the best mix of talented content experts for far less than the cost of one or two new full-time hires.

The Hybrid Approach

In most scenarios, you’ll actually do some combination of the above. You might even want to throw in some paid advertising, as well, using your team or an agency.

If you’re trying to feed your funnel and want to have a comprehensive content offering to show to potential clients, a full-court press like this is the best option. It is also the most expensive and the most time-consuming. You’ll need people on your team to manage it — and the resources for creators — both internally and externally.

Chances are good that if you’re just starting out and trying to stay lean, this isn’t going to be the most practical approach. It is something to aim for. You can adopt elements of a hybrid approach as you experiment with your content strategy — running paid ads temporarily, tapping someone internally to write a guest post, moving some marketing tasks onto one of your high-performers plate, etc.

You can also lean into the areas where you’re strongest — handling SEO or writing yourself, for example, while outsourcing other areas. Or maybe you’re a better strategist but don’t want to do all the busywork. Some of our clients with very little time still have fantastic ideas and unique insights on their industry to share. Our client tells our writers their stories and perspectives, then we do all the nitty-gritty writing and editing work. This is a big part of the LinkedIn selling strategy we run for founders.

The ROI on content marketing is solid and consistent. It’s something that your company is going to want to invest in as it grows, but it can take a while to see results and it often lacks the tactile returns of more traditional methods (at first, anyway).

It’s not something that you want to ignore though, and the sooner you start building out a content marketing strategy, the better off you’re going to be. The best time to start content marketing is 6 months ago.

Start exploring options internally. Reach out to potential partners.

Do your research now, and decide how you want to approach this critical part of your marketing efforts today.

23 Tips to Create a Content Strategy Optimized for Growth

Here’s where we get down to the nitty-gritty. These are our top tips for crafting a content growth strategy that will give your traffic and your revenue a major lift. These tips are relatively easy to DIY, but remember — it often pays to bring in an expert. If you get through the list and are feeling overwhelmed or just don’t know where to start — start with First Page. Our content experts understand growth marketing and can design a strategy that delivers results.

#1: Ask Who Is Reading Your Content and What Problem You’re Solving

Personas are an integral part of inbound marketing, and they’re just as important to growth marketing. Understanding who’s on the other side of the computer screen or mobile device is one of the first steps to strategically grow your brand through content.

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Understanding who your persona is, where they enter your funnel, and how they interact with your brand is critical to solving their pain points.

#2: Brainstorm Content Ideas and Prune the List Based on Your Content Goals

Brainstorming is a highly effective method for discovering out-of-the-box ideas that result in measurable growth. Gather up team members for a quick lightning session, or if you’re still remote, plan an e-storm. To reap the full rewards of brainstorming, keep these tips in mind:

• No judgment. Easier said than done, but naysayers will crush creativity quicker than anything, so stop it before it starts. Set clear boundaries and remind participants there are no bad ideas (there are, but you won’t get to that until later).
• Write everything down. We’ve all had that million-dollar flash of inspiration in the middle of the night, but when the alarm goes off, the idea has vanished. Don’t let that happen in your brainstorming session. Write ideas on whiteboards or smart boards or anywhere they can be seen (and spark new ideas) by participants.
• Set a time limit. Brainstorming sessions should be quick and snappy, not lasting more than 30 minutes. The goal is to get as many ideas in as short a time as possible. Don’t spend time analyzing or narrowing down choices at this point; the goal is quantity, not quality.
• Take a break, then come back. After the initial brainstorm, give everyone a brain break to process all the new ideas that were sparked. When you come back (not necessarily the same day, but not too far in the future), start narrowing the field to the ideas that are feasible, aligned with your strategy, and measurable. Build your shortlist from these ideas, and start incorporating them into your content growth strategy.

#3: Conduct Keyword Research

If you aren’t including thoroughly researched keywords into your content, you’re missing out on a lot of opportunities. Content combined with SEO contributes to tremendous organic growth — something paid marketing just can’t beat.

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If you aren’t an SEO expert, you can hire one, outsource to an SEO consultant or agency, or use tools like Ahrefs or Semrush.

#4: Collect Questions from Customer-Facing Teams

Your sales team and your customer service team are a goldmine of insight into your buyer persona. They interact with the type of people you want to reach literally every day. They know what makes them tick, they understand their likes and dislikes, and they are essentially a walking, talking FAQ for your persona. Tap into their first-hand knowledge and experience, and build a matrix of questions customers are asking that your content can answer.

#5: Create Content That Promotes Sharing

A “like” react or a laugh emoji just doesn’t cut it anymore when it comes to content engagement. To truly leverage the power of growth marketing, you have to create shareable content. And that means you have to have a viral marketing mindset. Keep in mind, that doesn’t always mean your content will actually go viral, but it does mean that you’ll be using viral marketing best practices to increase shareability and get your content in front of new eyes. Here’s what you need to know about creating content designed to go viral:

• It must be surprising, delightful, and/or shocking.
• It must offer value.
• It must be shareable with a single click.
• It must increase social currency.
• It must elicit intense emotion.
• It must utilize trending triggers from your industry.
  

#6: Include a CTA to Join Your Email List

CTAs are tiny little nuggets of joy for growth marketers. They can take many formats, including boxes, buttons, pop-ups, or scroll bars, but they must be attention-grabbing, valuable, and easily clickable. Creating a CTA that asks readers to sign up for your email list gives you important data, but it also gives you multiple connection points. You can create nurture campaigns, promote a newsletter, or offer exclusive gated content only to subscribers. This will get your content in front of your audience more frequently for a sustained period of time, increasing brand awareness and placing you top of mind.

#7: Optimize Your Content for Search

SEO is about so much more than just keywords. Optimization includes everything from technical and onsite SEO to link building and URLs.

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Remember when creating optimized content to avoid black hat SEO techniques like keyword stuffing and paid links.

#8: Hire an Outreach Manager to Build Links and Find Content Placement Opportunities

Link building is critical to optimizing your content and getting it in front of as many readers as possible. Guest posting is one way to extend your brand’s reach and helps you build your backlink profile. You can also use resources like HARO to find expert feedback you can incorporate in your content to leverage linking opportunities. It’s a lot to manage on your own, so hiring or contracting with an outreach manager will save you time and ensure you find the best places to share your content and build links.

#9: Regularly Update Existing Content

Search engines crawl your site looking for a number of factors that will eventually determine your ranking. One of those factors is the freshness of your content. A vast library of content isn’t going to move the needle on growth if it’s all old content. But before you burn that library, instead look for opportunities to rewrite and repurpose updated content. Current dates and refreshed copy go a long way in garnering the favor of search engine algorithms. And, bonus, it’s a quick and inexpensive way to leverage the content you already have to drive results.

#10: Create High-Quality Content Consistently

One measly blog a month isn’t going to move any needles. In fact, with the fast and furious rush of content hitting the internet these days, one post a week isn’t going to cut it, either. Large companies should plan on posting optimized blogs four to five times per week if they want to drive organic traffic.

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Push your content out on a regular basis, whether that’s on particular days or a particular number of posts each week. Be sure to leverage your content calendar to make sure you stay on track and keep on top of regular, frequent posting.

#11: Attract Signups with a Free Tool

The content you offer must be valuable, timely, and relevant. And if you’re going to gate that content, it had better be worth the price. Even free tools come with a cost to readers, who have to pony up their personal information to get access to an exclusive download. Make sure that what you’re offering feels like a fair exchange. Some free tools you might consider offering include:

• Calculators
• Templated spreadsheets
• Apps and games
• A downloadable toolkit
• A free tool related to your primary service
  

#12: Publish Original Research to Build Authority and Drive Inbound Links

Primary data can be hard to find amidst a sea of attributed studies and second-hand analysis. Conducting and publishing your own primary research is a high-value commodity within your industry. Content creators always want to link directly to the source, and if the source is you, you’ll find your backlink profile growing by leaps and bounds. Keep in mind that conducting research can be time-consuming and costly, so look for ways to get good data in a quick and efficient manner, like sending out a survey to your mailing list. Typeform is a great tool to create cost-effective and engaging surveys. It also makes analysis and insights easy to gather and share.

#13: Use Engaging Graphics to Keep Your Readers on Your Page

Visual content is on the rise, growing by more than 10 percent YOY. Marketers are finding incredible value and new growth streams in incorporating more visual content. In fact, in a survey, nearly half of marketers said visual content was vitally important to their content strategy. Even more surprising, 0 percent said it wasn’t important at all.

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In the same survey, 88 percent of marketers said they now use visuals in more than half of the content they distribute. It’s time for your brand to get on the visual bandwagon.

#14: Find Your Best Content Channels

You want to ensure you’re pushing out content to the places your audiences already are. A mix of channels is key to extending your reach, but a simple multichannel approach is no longer enough. Effective growth marketing requires an omni-channel content strategy.

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Omni-channel marketing doesn’t just deliver content pieces across various channels — it delivers unified, seamlessly integrated content across all the channels your audience uses when making a buying decision.

#15: Blogging Is Saturated: Explore Multiple Formats

A blog is a powerful tool for B2B brands looking to achieve growth, but it isn’t the only tool. To create a robust content growth strategy that delivers results, you need to think outside the blog.

Videos

Eighty-seven percent of marketers are using video content, largely in part because it is shown to increase revenue 49 percent faster. And over the last six years, there’s been a 50 percent increase in the number of marketers who say video content delivers on ROI.

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Video content is easier and cheaper to produce than ever before. Top formats include explainer videos, testimonials, and presentation videos.

Podcasts

Radio might be dead, but podcasts are alive and well. Already, podcast listening this year has hit a record high, topping 15 billion hours halfway through the year, and it’s estimated that in the next two to three years, there will be 100 million podcast listeners in the U.S. alone. Podcasts offer low-cost ad opportunities that can generate significant revenue, but creating one yourself is an excellent way to boost organic traffic and get your brand in front of a whole new audience.

Share-Worthy infographics

As mentioned previously, visual content is skyrocketing, and it’s a crucial part of your content growth strategy. The most popular visual content element? The infographic.

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Infographics are highly shareable and offer valuable info at a glance. Pinterest is one of the top places to share infographics, with how-tos and data-driven pieces being the most popular choices.

Ebooks

The publishing world used to be a pretty exclusive circle that was nearly impossible to break into. Now, books can be published online at no cost, sold as a revenue generator or distributed as high-value downloadable content. Ebooks have little overhead attached, but they do take time. Shorter ebooks, however, are a great way to leverage gated content and give your audience something that goes in-depth to answer their questions and solve their pain points.

Social Media

If you aren’t marketing on social media, are you even marketing at all? With an audience of 420 billion users, social media is one of the quickest and most efficient ways to broadcast your brand. Your social media strategy should be inextricably tied to your overall content strategy. Research platforms to better understand users and demographics, and find out where your persona hangs out. Whether you deliver content organically or via paid ads or boosted posts, leveraging the power of social media is a quick and cost-efficient way to grow your brand.

Templates

B2B audiences love a good template. Pre-packaged, downloadable templates offer great value and set your brand up as a helpful and trusted resource. Templates can include anything from tracking spreadsheets to worksheets to emails and more.

Case Studies

Case studies are critical to a B2B content growth strategy. Potential buyers hear a lot about how great your brand is (from you, of course), but they don’t want to take your word for it. Case studies allow your audience to get a sneak peek into what it’s like to be a customer, and show them the results and experience they can expect to have with your service. Case studies can also take a variety of forms, including highly visual content, videos, testimonials, and more.

#16: Have a Content Distribution Plan to Reach Your Audience Where They Are

Remember — omni-channel is where it’s at. Your audience is likely on social media, on their phones, watching streaming services, reading industry blogs, and hanging around elsewhere in the digital space. Your strategy should include a distribution plan to make sure your content hits all the channels your audience is known to frequent. But even more important, the omni-channel approach means that content should be consistent and unified in messaging, delivering a seamless experience, no matter where your audience is connecting with it.

#17: Create Roundup Posts

Roundup posts allow you to leverage existing content (your own or others’) and package it into a one-stop-information-shop for your readers. Roundups most often include links to blog posts on a single topic, but can also include a roundup of tools, resources, books, etc. To create a roundup post that brings in traffic, start by browsing Quora to find the questions your potential buyers are asking (you can do this by typing your primary keywords into the search). Narrow the topic, and start looking for blogs or other content to be part of your roundup. Look for content that is high-quality, well-written, and comes from a trusted source or leader in the industry.

#18: Embrace Storytelling

For a long time now, B2B brands have lived in the realm of data, statistics, and hard numbers, which is great for tracking metrics, budget forecasting, and proof of performance. But it also works against some brands, taking away their humanity and making them feel unrelatable. Enter storytelling. Storytelling is a marketing tactic that’s pretty self-explanatory. It positions your brand as a relatable, human narrative that draws in the audience and makes them want to know more about you. Effective storytelling should include:

• Emotional and evocative content
• A relationship-based approach
• Content centered around your brand mission and values
• A clear narrative that has a beginning, middle, and end
• CTAs that are inspiring and motivating
  

#19: Stop Writing Crummy Headlines

You wrote a great piece of content, but why isn’t it getting any clicks? Maybe the headline is the problem. Sure, it’s tempting to cram headlines with keywords and make them broad enough to apply to every reader in your persona, but that’s not going to drive growth. Best practices for creating headlines that work include:

• Punchy copy that elicits an emotional response
• Urgency to let your readers know they NEED to click NOW
• Focus on one primary keyword
• Use of FOMO — if they don’t read this, they’ll be left in the dark
• Focus on niche audience rather than the entire persona
• A/B testing of headlines to find out which ones work

#20: Focus on Conversion After Capturing Interest

You don’t put the cart before the horse, so why put conversions before capture? Lead capture is an important piece of your content strategy, and when implemented correctly, will lead to more conversions. But once you’ve got leads who are interested in your brand, what do you do with them? You offer them high-quality content that addresses their pain points and solves their challenges.

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From there, you can shift your focus to growing conversions and measuring ROI — which, with an effective lead gen and content strategy, can more than double your return.

#21: Find a Unique Angle for Each Piece of Content

Your audience doesn’t want to read the same thing over and over again, and it’s going to take more than tweaking a few bits of copy to make your content seem fresh. Search out different angles for your content that answer a wide variety of questions your persona wants to ask. Focus on niches within your audience, and let your content speak directly to them. Take a good look at your content — have you posted the same blog topic five times, with slightly different headlines? You need a new angle. Buyers in your persona share a lot of common traits, wants, and needs, but remember that they are all individuals. Your content should be nuanced, fresh, and varied — just like they are.

#22: Determine Your Content Success Metrics

If you’re planning to achieve growth with your content strategy, you’ve got to be able to measure it. There are numerous ways to set up and track your success metrics, but if you’re wondering where to start, the first step is to take a look at the goals you’ve outlined in your content growth strategy.

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#23: Analyze Content Performance and Tweak Where Necessary

Once you’ve selected your metrics, keep a close eye on them so you know when and where you need to make adjustments. If your content isn’t delivering the growth you want to see, you’ll need to go back to your strategy and find places to make changes and test new approaches.

4 Content Strategy Examples to Inspire Your Next Campaign

Want to see great content in action? You’ve come to the right place. Remember that you don’t have to design and execute a winning content growth strategy on your own. There are experts (hint, hint ←) who can help. Here, we’ve compiled examples of how some of the biggest brands are leveraging a killer content strategy to achieve unprecedented growth, including a couple of our own clients.

Triple the Revenue, Quadruple the Traffic

Our client (who shall remain nameless) came to us shortly after firing an SEO agency that wasn’t delivering the desired results. We worked with them to design a strategy that encompassed content, SEO, social media, and lead generation, delivering eight blog posts per month, seven landing pages, extensive link building, and regular social posting. The results speak for themselves:

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To break it down, that’s a 300 percent increase in revenue and 400 percent organic traffic growth. And after five years, we’re still going strong. This shows that this kind of growth is not only achievable — it’s sustainable.

What’s in a Name? Crazy Growth, That’s What

The name says it all. Our client, Revenued, came to us under a different name with an outdated brand. We pitched the idea of a total refresh that would bring the direct-to-consumer loan product — you guessed it — more revenue. But the name was just a start. We designed a growth-focused strategy built around a content-generating website.

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The results? With a combined focus on SEO and content, we were able to increase Revenued’s keyword growth by 800 percent and get them to position six on the first page of Google. So, what’s in a name? When it comes to First Page Strategy…a lot!

Content Growth Case Study: HubSpot

HubSpot is the leading expert in inbound marketing, and when it comes to content, they know what they’re talking about. They’ve long been a pioneer in content marketing strategy, and it’s evident in the tactics they use for their own brand. One such tactic is including a piece of upgraded content for every blog they publish.

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Content upgrades are a powerful way to grow qualified leads. First, ungated content like blogs hit visitors as they enter the top of the funnel. Then, they are offered a content upgrade in exchange for their email address. Because they’ve already seen that HubSpot is giving away great content for free, building trust and authority, they’re more likely to give up their information in exchange for a high-value asset.

Content Growth Case Study: Canva

Canva is a design platform marketed to people who aren’t necessarily graphic designers. They offer a freemium product and upgrades to pro packages that offer users more functionality and access to a wider library of stock images, video, and design assets. They are the leader in their industry, largely due to their strategic approach to content and SEO. Canva’s product marketing is a study in best practices and high growth, but one of their biggest wins happened when they revamped their content and blog strategy, gaining a 226 percent increase in traffic in just 60 days.

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How did they do it? Actually, they used a lot of the tactics we’ve listed here, some of which include:

• Lengthening blog posts to cover more content
• Using storytelling to create a more emotional and human brand
• Incorporating a mix of content types, like lists, interviews, and long-form feature articles
• Free, gated resources for download

Ultimately, this was just one strategy Canva used to achieve unprecedented growth, and believe it or not, your brand can do it, too.

Conclusion: The Best Content Growth Strategy Is Fueled By User Insight

Growing your brand with a killer content strategy isn’t as simple as pushing out more content to the masses. It requires a nuanced approach that dives deep into your buyer persona to understand the questions they’re asking and the pain points they’re looking to solve.

NEW: 16 Expert B2B Content Marketing Tips to Help You Grow

We asked 16 industry experts their biggest advice when it comes to increasing the effectiveness of a B2B content marketing strategy. Here’s what they say to focus on:

1. Look for Co-Branding Opportunities
2. Research SEO Topic Clusters
3. Revamp Old Content to Optimize SEO
4. Prove to Google You’re the Expert
5. Publish Content in Trade Publications
6. Collaborate With Your Sales Team
7. Be Passionate About Your Work
8. Do Your Keyword Research
9. Make Sure Your Content Leads Readers Toward a Solution
10. Spend as Much on Distribution as on Content Creation
11. Integrate Case Studies and Third-Party Reviews
12. Focus On Revenue Metrics
13. Create Social Proof and Use It in Your Content
14. Rely on a People-First Content Strategy
15. Review Your Competitors’ Strategies
16. Find Unique Perspectives to Tell an Interesting Story

Let’s break these down a bit further and see exactly what the experts think.

Look for Co-Branding Opportunities

No matter how impressive your product or service is, the reality is customers need an entire suite of solutions beyond just yours, and this is why exploring co-branded marketing opportunities with complementary brands can extend your reach and boost B2B content. 

Simply looking at your offerings in a vacuum can limit your reach and decrease your marketing strategy effectiveness.

However, by identifying other solutions that your customer typically needs and partnering with the brands that provide them as co-branded sponsorships, blog posts, and webinars, you ensure your brand is top of mind for the right customers so that when they need your particular offering, your brand stays top of mind. 

In looking beyond your solutions and searching for co-branding opportunities, you can effectively boost your B2B marketing strategy.

Greg Gillman, Chief Revenue Officer, MuteSix

Research SEO Topic Clusters

It’s one of the biggest factors in the content strategies I create for my clients: SEO topic clusters. It means you do keyword research, cluster the keywords that fit together, and form a category aka cluster. Per keyword, you decide which of your pages is most important.

Let’s say you sell fruit trees. Your page with your apple trees is just as important as the page with your lemon trees, but they need different keywords. So “apple tree” is a topic cluster and the keywords “buy apple tree”, “what apple tree in dry climate”, and “apple tree in city garden” are keywords that belong to this cluster. 

For these, create high-quality blog articles that link to each other AND to your important “apple tree” page. They do NOT link to anything Lemon Tree related.

With this method, you make it clear to the search engine crawlers what your pages are about and which page is most important for that topic. Do this and you will receive much more organic traffic on this page!

Josien Nation, Freelance SEO Specialist, Freelance SEO Specialist – Josien Nation

Revamp Old Content to Optimize SEO

You’ve spent a lot of time working on content for your B2B strategy and not all of it has performed well in organic search results. The good news is, you can increase the effectiveness of that content by revamping it. 

Take some time (in Google Search Console) to see what words it IS ranking for or where it’s showing up in the SERPs. Then adjust some headers, add in a few more paragraphs based on what you found, and let Google crawl again. As you revamp content, it’s likely your placement will increase and drive more traffic!

Logan Mallory, Vice President of Marketing, Motivosity

Prove to Google You’re the Expert

One of the key ingredients to ranking in Google’s Organic search results is to prove your in-depth knowledge on a particular topic to rank. Your one page of content to ‘hit’ your keyword is not enough. Google knows semantically related keywords/topics so we have to ensure we cover many facets and appropriate interlink between these pages.

My big tip is to use a tool like answerthepublic.com (for free) which when you put in a phrase/term gives you an array of questions (who, what, where, when, why how,) besides prepositions and comparison questions/statements. 

Your dream would be to incorporate most of this into content on your website. You will see the 100+ questions and then decide how to break these subject matters up and distribute them across multiple pages of content on your website.

Remember Google’s job is to deliver the best answers to people’s questions (even if the user writes a statement) so be comprehensive with your answers.

Daniel Kamen, Managing Director & Founder, Serial Scaling

Publish Content in Trade Publications

I’ve had significant results amplifying the effectiveness of B2B content marketing by publishing articles in niche trade publications on behalf of my clients. 

For example, I have an energy-related client. In the digital publicity work that I do, my team and I reach out to many online publications. Many of these are industry blogs. 

While the traffic isn’t huge, the audience is well-targeted. Decision-makers who might buy their product read these publications, and that translates into substantial leads.In their case, we target energy-related, supply chain, and other publications that are relevant to their product. 

Of course, you need to produce great content or pitch a story to a writer that’s relevant and engaging. Then, we give them an interesting reason to link back to the company website, which raises its authority. Try this tactic to amp up your B2B content marketing strategy.

Dennis Consorte, Digital Marketing & Leadership Consultant, Snackable Solutions

Collaborate With Your Sales Team

While direct contact with customers is very important, I’ve also learned that your sales team is a great source of customer insights. These are the people who spend the most time with customers. They hear first-hand what problems customers are trying to solve with your product or service and how they communicate those problems. They can tell you the lingo customers are using. 

A sales team can also give you insights into how customers perceive your product or service. There may be certain objections that your sales team addresses regularly or, conversely, a specific feature that always resonates with customers. Salespeople can also tell you what content will engage customers and what will fall flat.

Pam Georgiana, Freelance Writer & Content Creator, Pam Georgiana

Be Passionate About Your Work

I’ve been in the business world for a long time, and I’ve seen a lot of different content marketing strategies. But the one tip that I always tell people is to be passionate about their content.

 If you’re not passionate about what you’re writing, then it’s going to show. And that will not help your business. People want to see that you’re excited about what you’re doing. They want to see that you’re engaged with your work.

When you’re passionate about your work, it shows in your content. You’ll be more likely to put more thought into it. And that thoughtfulness will come across to your readers.

Passionate content is also more unique. When you’re enthusiastic about your topic, you’re more likely to find new and interesting ways to write about it. And that can make your content stand out from the rest.

So, if you want to be more effective in your content marketing, be passionate about your work. It’ll show in your writing, and it’ll make your content more memorable and unique.

Benjamin Basic, Content Writer, Fast Food Menu Prices

Do Your Keyword Research

Regardless of your industry or the size of your business, keyword research is essential to increasing your B2B Content Marketing Strategy. 

Keywords are everywhere, whether directly in the content or searching social platforms, if your keyword strategy isn’t on point, your content marketing strategy will not be effective. 

You should aim for keywords with a high search rate but with low difficulty. Pull together silos for particular subjects, build your content out from there and market it using the same keywords.

Matt Jackson, Consultant, Matt Jackson

Make Sure Your Content Leads Readers Toward a Solution

Too many companies get excited about content marketing and write about all things in their industry, thinking they’re covering the “top of the funnel”. 

However, if your content doesn’t lead customers into a journey where your product or service is at the bottom of that funnel, you could be in trouble—or attracting the wrong types of buyers. 

It starts with the problem you’re solving, who has that problem and then building out the full buyer persona to know what people are asking when they’re problem-aware, solution-aware, and product-aware. If you do this right, you’ll see conversion in your efforts!

Ali Schwanke, CEO & B2B Marketing Strategist, Simple Strat

Spend as Much on Distribution as on Content Creation

The biggest tip I have to increase the effectiveness of B2B content marketing is to ensure that you match the dollars you spend on content creation with content distribution. The biggest mistake I see made, repeatedly (even at Fortune 500 companies) is not spending to get the content out.

At one major company, for example, we took our best piece of content (in terms of organic success) and tested a huge spend on it—versus spending behind other good content. There was a 6x return on this investment in terms of overall reach. More importantly, we saw an uptick in traffic back to the website.

Too often, the work is spent on creating brilliant content, with the “Field of Dreams” thinking—if you make it, they will come. In the content world, that’s not always the case. So planning a full-scale distribution strategy will maximize your spending on content.

Janet Granger, CEO, Marketing Strategist, Mentor, & Coach, Two Beagles

Integrate Case Studies and Third-Party Reviews

Our biggest tip is to integrate the use of case studies and third-party verified reviews—such as the ones from Clutch—into all stages of your content marketing plan. Use these sprinkled into your content itself on blogs and articles targeting top, middle, and bottom-of-funnel topics.

We also like to use case studies or review excerpts in our advertising campaigns here at our eCommerce agency, especially those retargeting website visitors who have been checkout out our service or blog pages. 

These strategies mean that whenever a prospect eventually speaks with your team on a call, they’ve already got a baseline level of trust and a belief that you can deliver excellent results in your market.

Ryan Turner, Founder, Ecommerce Intelligence

Focus On Revenue Metrics

Metrics like page views, search rankings, and sessions only matter where they translate to revenue wins. 

To make your content marketing as effective as possible, start by measuring which content performs best in closed-won deals, and then work backward up the funnel from there.

For example, did one ebook show up again and again in closed-won deals for the last quarter? You know it’s an effective down-funnel, so optimize it for higher-funnel metrics—increase the number of people who are seeing it and filling out the form.

Jenna Thomas, Senior Manager & Content Marketing, OneTrust

Create Social Proof and Use It in Your Content

Social proof is a very effective tool for content marketing. Use testimonials and reviews from satisfied customers to incorporate your audience’s voices into your marketing materials. 

This helps build trust with potential buyers and makes them more likely to purchase your products or services.

Joe Kevens, Founder & Director of Demand Gen, B2B SaaS Reviews

Rely on a People-First Content Strategy

Avoid a search engine-first approach—while SEO is a helpful strategy, content created solely for search engines tends to strongly correlate with content that viewers find unsatisfying. 

Be mindful of whether you’re developing content for search engines or human readers, or are simply summarizing what others have said instead of sharing fresh insights. 

These questions will help you differentiate and create better, more relevant content for your audiences.

Chirayu Akotiya, Global Head of Marketing, Leena AI

Research Your Competitors’ Strategies

Of course, there are several competitors in your B2B content marketing—some even use the same strategy to make their content more useful. 

So, I recommend you audit your competitors and find out what type of strategies they’re using, their keywords, their audience, and which channels they’re using to promote their content. 

Researching your competitors may give you a clear image of the content. Besides that, you can find what part of the information you’re lacking—later you can fill these gaps.

Matt Magnante, Director of Content & SEO, Fitness Volt

Find Unique Perspectives to Tell an Interesting Story

My biggest tip for boosting a B2B content marketing strategy is to find unique perspectives. Everyone talks about “storytelling” in marketing, but few do it because it’s hard! 

Not only do you need to know your prospect’s motivations, where they are in the sales cycle, and what they want to achieve, but the B2B content that makes an impact is interesting and brings fresh perspectives, whether that’s via data, anecdotes from SMEs, or tactical “how to’s.” This requires planning and creating a solid brief for every piece of content.

Jennifer Phillips April, Copywriter & Content Strategist, Write Words Marketing

20 Tactics to Create a Repeatable B2B Content Marketing Strategy

Ready to jump in and start creating your B2B content plan? We’ve got you covered. Here’s our top 20 list so you can get rolling right away.

#1: Develop Buyer Personas to Identify Your Audience

Your buyer persona isn’t the same as your target audience. A target audience is a little more general and usually based on demographics. For instance, you might know you’re targeting primarily C-suite level positions and six-figure incomes in the fintech industry. That will help you narrow the field, but it doesn’t drill down to your most motivated buyer.

Your buyer persona, on the other hand, is an in-depth look at your ideal buyer and includes psychographics and behavioral attributes. So, your C-level Fintech exec may also be primarily men who give to charitable organizations, spend their disposable income on professional sporting events, are likely to own a boat, and have grown children.

This in-depth understanding will help you create content that speaks directly to this buyer and supplies the information he needs to make a purchase decision.

But how do you craft a persona specifically for a B2B buyer?

Remember that the more information you can gather, the better off you’ll be. And if you need some help, you can download the FPS buyer persona template. It’s free, it’s easy to use, and it works!

#2: Conduct a Content Audit

It’s difficult to understand where you want to go with your content if you don’t understand where you are right now. Putting together a content audit framework now will allow you to track and manage the content you have and the content you plan to create so you can quickly check the status whenever you need.

To begin, create an inventory of all your existing content, then organize it with tags so you can filter down to what you’re looking for. You’ll probably want to tag content by:

• Date: Is it evergreen content, or is it tied to a specific time/occasion?
• Funnel: Is the topic TOFU, MOFU, or BOFU, and where should it occur in the buyer’s journey?
• Assets: Does the content include infographics, videos, etc.?
• SEO: Is the content optimized, and does it have keywords outlined, meta descriptions, alt text, and title tags?

For a little extra mojo, you can combine your SEO and content audits into one so you’re keeping tabs from both ends.

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Your SEO/content audit will enable you to check your content’s performance, but it will also give you a map for managing your content into the future.

If you want to find ways to identify gaps in your content strategy, it helps to use a content marketing matrix, or to plot your content on a visual content marketing funnel.

#3: Use Micro-Targeting to Narrow Your Focus

Having your B2B buyer persona is a great start in getting your content in front of the right audience, but it’s possible to drill down even further through micro-targeting.

Micro-targeting ensures you’re meeting your persona where they are, with the message they need/want to see.

To really take advantage of micro-targeting, you’ll want to dive into the long-tail keywords your audience is searching. Long-tail keywords are very specific phrases that indicate high search intent (so the searcher is usually further in the funnel and closer to conversion). If your content can fulfill that search intent, you’re golden.

Use an SEO tool to find likely keywords for your audience, and start narrowing from there until you’ve found your micro-target.

#4: Understand the sales funnel

You likely already know the different stages of your sales funnel, which typically looks something like this:

But you also need to understand how to create content that aligns with each stage of the funnel and speaks to the appropriate audience. For example, you don’t want to push out an in-depth how-to guide to someone just entering the awareness stage — they’ll be overwhelmed and confused because they’re still at the top of the funnel.

When it comes down to it, you’ll need to decide which mix of funnel-specific content works for your brand and your goals.

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As you can see, most B2B marketers focus their energy on top of the funnel (TOFU) content. But that leaves a lot of room for audiences in the middle, especially at the bottom of the funnel, which could be when they need that extra shove from your content to push them toward conversion.

#5: Create a Content Style Guide

Content marketing can be overwhelming. That’s because everything is content, and there are endless ways you can create, repurpose, and distribute it to your audience. The strategy you’re building now will be your roadmap, but you’ll also want to have a style guide.

A content style guide is your point of reference for creating consistent, effective, and on-brand content. A great style guide will contain all the grammar and formatting to keep your content high-quality, but it will also have helpful info on your brand voice and tone.

Your style guide can be a living document in that you can update it as your brand and content needs evolve. You may also want to include information on branding, like logo usage, color pallets, etc. That way, if you need to bring in extra help for content creation, you’re giving them a head start.

#6: Set Goals for B2B Content Marketing

Content marketing is extremely popular because it can cover a wide range of marketing goals. It contributes to everything from raising brand awareness to increasing conversions.

Overall, content is the top way of getting your B2B brand’s name out to your audience.

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Let’s say you’re a B2B startup. Brand awareness is probably at the top of your to-do list, and content marketing will help you achieve that goal. However, just because brand awareness is the most common goal, don’t think it’s the only one that matters. Your goals for your brand (whether it’s traffic, revenue, etc.) will guide your content goals and will shape your strategy and the tactics you use to get there.

#7: Find Blog Topic Ideas

When it comes to content, we always encourage marketers to “think outside the blog.” Blogs are pretty standard fare in content marketing, and they can feel tired after a while. However, blogs are most brands’ first and top choice when it comes to content — and for good reason.

People want content…and that includes your audience. A high-quality blog that’s regularly updated is one of the best ways to deliver it.

But for some marketers, the sticking point is coming up with ideas for fresh, relevant blog content on an ongoing basis. You’ll need to commit some time to brainstorm and ensure you’re exploring ideas for all stages of the sales funnel.

And when you need a little extra help, check out some idea generators online, like this one from HubSpot.

All you have to do is enter a handful of words you’d like your content to include, and the generator will serve up at least a week’s worth of blog titles.

We suggest using your primary keywords in the search and seeing what the generator comes up with. They won’t all be winners, but it’s a quick and effective way to spark creativity when needed.

Here are some other ways to rev your creative engine and start cranking out effective and interesting blog ideas:

Competitor Research

This is probably one of the best ways to get blog ideas — check out what the competition is writing about. The trick here is making sure that whatever content you create is more in-depth, higher quality, and delivers more to the audience than the competitor you’re trying to beat.

Keyword Research

Use your SEO tool to explore keywords related to those you’re already ranking for or those you want to rank for. Look into long-tail keywords and dive into search intent. Make sure all the blogs you’re creating are optimized for search.

Leadership Content

B2B audiences really love thought leader content. They want information and data, but they want it from a reliable and trusted source. Take a look at what’s trending in thought leadership across your industry — check LinkedIn, and follow influencers and leaders in your market space.

Data from Audience Survey

Go straight to the source to find out what content they want to see on your blog. Poll your existing audience of readers and customers, and see what they like — and don’t like — about your blog. Compile your findings and use that as a starting point to guide your editorial calendar.

#8: Determine Your Messaging

Once you’ve got ideas for topics and know what you want to say, you’ll need to figure out how you want to say it. That’s where messaging comes into play.

Messaging will be influenced by your content style guide, and it should align with your buyer persona and where you want to hit them on the buyer’s journey. It’s important that you understand the types of messaging your buyers will respond to — and the types that are a big turnoff.

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For B2B audiences, you’ll want to incorporate a lot of data and info into your messages and limit the over-the-top sales pitches. Also, remember that lots of information doesn’t necessarily mean lots of copy — keep the text short and sweet so your true message shines.

#9: Publish Original Research

Just like thought leadership, B2B audiences are crazy about original research. They can’t get enough of the data, and they won’t forget if your brand is the one to give it to them. In fact, while they can be time-consuming, conducting research studies is a highly effective way to generate great content.

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And there’s an added bonus. Publishing your first-party research will also help you build your backlink portfolio and give your industry authority a big boost.

#10: Create Content That Solves Problems

Raring to go on your content marketing strategy? Slow your roll, because you can’t just start cranking out content for the sake of having more content. Yes, you’ll want to build a backlog of great content assets you can reuse and repurpose across channels. But the key here is that the content must be relevant and appropriate for the audience you want it to reach.

Ultimately, every piece of content you create must fulfill one purpose — solve the reader’s problem.

To do that, you’ve got to understand their biggest pain point.

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B2B buyers love data and details, but what they really need is a solution. When coming up with blog topics or brainstorming new content pieces, “What does this solve?” should always be your first question.

#11: Use Gated Content as an Email Magnet

Gated content includes assets that require information from your audience before they can access it. It’s a great way to move leads through your funnel, but surprisingly, a lot of B2B marketers tend to steer clear of it.

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Gated content must be high quality and extremely valuable if you want your audience to give up their personal information for it. It can’t be something they can get anywhere else.

Once you develop a gated content asset, you can use that to build your email list and then go on to create an automated nurture campaign. Remember that your audience wants information, exclusivity, and quality, so be sure that’s what you always deliver.

Here are some ideas of gated content assets you can create to offer maximum value:

Templates

Templates are relatively simple to create, but they offer a lot of functionality to your audience. Just make sure the template you create is easy to use and offers something they can’t get easily anywhere else.

Calculators

Calculators are handy tools that B2B buyers love to download. You can develop an app or go a simpler route and build a calculator inside a spreadsheet. Just make sure your calculator functions correctly and works quickly and efficiently to save them time.

Downloadable Plans

Similar to templates, downloadable plans serve a clear and specific purpose and solve a problem that’s extremely relevant to your audience. It serves as a helpful aid to them while also keeping your brand top of mind.

#12: Use an Editorial Calendar

Once you’ve brainstormed all these fabulous content ideas, what are you supposed to do with them? Don’t just jot them down on a notepad or toss them in a Google Doc — instead, create an editorial calendar so you can track and manage your planned content month by month.

You’ll find plenty of templates and tools for editorial calendars online, like this one from HubSpot.

You’ll want your editorial calendar to include the following information:

• Topic and title
• Target keywords
• Buyer persona
• CTA
• Additional content assets (downloads, infographics, videos, etc.)
• Due date and publish date

You can add more information, like funnel position, internal links, author, and so on.

#13: Diversify Content Formats

Diversity is one of the most important elements of your B2B content marketing strategy. You can’t just write a great blog and call it good enough. You need to switch up your content formats to satisfy your different buyer personas at every sales funnel stage.

Wondering what’s most popular for B2B buyers?

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Here’s the great thing about content: one idea can be repurposed and pushed out in a variety of formats, across numerous channels. So once you nail down those amazing ideas, the possibilities are endless. Here are some of the top content formats you can explore:

White Papers and Ebooks

B2B audiences love these longer-format content pieces. And you don’t have to be a published author to write an ebook — it can be as simple as creating an in-depth document and offering it as a PDF download.

Videos

As noted above, video continues to be the top-performing content format, and we don’t see that changing anytime soon. Video content is much easier (and more cost-effective) to produce these days, so it isn’t difficult to ramp up your YouTube efforts or create your own video library.

Webinars

Webinars continue to be a top pick among B2B buyers who love getting information and data first-hand. You can approach webinars in a couple ways. You can pre-record and offer it to a broad audience so they can watch on their own schedule, or you can create a live webinar and build a sense of urgency, exclusivity, and FOMO. We say — why not both? Hold the live event, then offer it as a download for anyone who signed up but couldn’t attend.

Checklists

Downloadable checklists are helpful little nuggets of content that provide a sense of satisfaction to your audience — because who doesn’t love checking something off their list? They’re also easy to create and can serve a variety of purposes.

Podcasts

Podcasts are skyrocketing in popularity, especially among B2B audiences. You can produce your own podcast without too much technical skill (though you’ll likely want some help for a more professional sound). But if that isn’t an option, you can look for opportunities to appear on existing industry podcasts.

Case Studies

Case studies are extremely effective with the B2B crowd and are one of the top ways to convey hard data, facts, and figures. Case studies show buyers you understand where they are in their buying process and that you’ve provided other solutions for real clients just like them.

Newsletters

Newsletters are a great way to acquire and nurture leads through the funnel. But to be effective, your newsletter must provide them with really compelling content. Make sure your newsletter offers exclusive information they can’t get anywhere else so they have a reason to continue subscribing and opening.

Promote Content

When it comes to content and effectiveness, it’s not always just about what you’re putting out there but where you’re putting it.

Explore different options for promoting your content, both organically and paid. You might find some content performs better on certain social media platforms, or some content is more successful with a retargeting ad behind it.

Don’t be afraid to experiment. Run some paid campaigns when budget allows, and try out new organic/inbound approaches when possible. Also, always remember to optimize every single content piece for search. SEO ensures your brand will get found, and it’s most powerful when combined with amazing content.

Email Marketing

Email marketing is a perfect way to nurture your leads through the sales funnel. Plus, since most of your email marketing will be automated, you can take a hands-off approach while resting assured that your audience is receiving the messaging they need to get them closer to conversion.

Paid Promotion

There’s power in paid advertising. It’s one of the most effective ways to get your brand out to your audience, and when you begin a paid campaign, you’ll see the results right away. One thing to keep in mind — paid only works as long as you’re shelling out the dollars, so when your budget is gone, so are your results.

Social Media

The key to most marketing is being where your audience is. And where they are is very often on social media. You’ll need to experiment to find which platform is most effective for your brand, but typically, LinkedIn is your best bet for B2B audiences.

Reddit

Online forums offer another fantastic option for brands to listen in on their target audience and interact with their ideal buyers. Reddit is among the most popular, but you’ll probably want to explore others, like Quora, as well. Forums like these are a great way to connect with people and get first-hand feedback on your brand, industry, and product. Plus, now that they offer paid ads, you can ensure your brand will be seen by your target audience.

Digital PR

Digital PR is a lot like traditional PR, but instead of focusing on earned media in the print or broadcast realm, the focus is on earning placement in the digital space. Digital PR often looks more “newsy” and leaves an impression on B2B audiences as it builds trust and authority.

#14: Influencer Partnerships and Collaborations

Nearly any brand can benefit from an influencer partnership these days. And as the number of influencers increases, it’s easier than ever to find someone who has an established relationship with the audience you want to reach.

For B2B brands, you’ll probably want to seek out a micro-influencer with a strong foothold in your industry.

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As the influencer market becomes more saturated though, it’s important to take your time and invest careful consideration in choosing the right influencer with whom to partner. Look for someone with an audience that’s most aligned with your buyer persona(s), has a great reputation, and provides strong thought leadership content.

#15: Build Backlinks

Backlinks are so critical to your brand performance. They can help you rank better in search results, build authority, and solidify your reputation in your industry. The content you create is a make-or-break factor in how many backlinks you acquire and their quality.

Overall, longer content gives you greater opportunity to generate maximum backlinks.

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When building your backlink portfolio, outreach is important. Look for industry blogs where you’d like your content to appear, then create an engaging and attention-grabbing email to connect with them and request a placement. You can even incentivize the request by offering to donate to a charity or giving them a backlink on a guest post you’ve written on another site.

#16: Segment Retargeting Ads

Retargeting ads are highly effective at increasing conversions because they serve up content in which the audience has already shown an interest. Overall, while people have a general distaste for paid ads, they don’t mind retargeting all that much.

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Retargeting is a powerful way to reach your audience, but you’ll want to make sure that you get the segmentation exactly right. You might have more success if you break down retargeting ads by product (so those who have already visited a product page see the ad) or by funnel stage (so those who have visited a bottom of the funnel page see a particular ad).

#17: Use Paid Ads to Promote Conversion Assets

As we’ve mentioned, paid advertising is a fast way to drive real, tangible results. Many marketers only think of paid campaigns to promote their products and sales, but it’s also a great way to promote a high-converting piece of content. There are many ways to promote content through paid ads, including:

• Paid social media posts
• Display ads
• Search ads
• Reddit ads

But we’ve got to give the same warning we always make when it comes to paid advertising — once your money dries up, the results do, too. Fortunately, there’s a solution: Pair paid ads with organic marketing tactics to generate both short-term revenue and long-term sustainable growth.

#18: Organize Content in a Topic Cluster Format

The topic cluster model is great for many reasons: It helps you organize your website so you know exactly what content lives where, but it also ensures your visitors have an easier time finding what they’re looking for.

In the topic cluster model, you’ll choose several relevant clusters to your industry and brand (and speak to your buyer personas). You’ll create a pillar page for each cluster, where all of the info on that topic will be easily accessible. Other supporting pages can then be linked to the pillar page.

This is helpful to your audience, who now have a way to find the exact information they need easily and effectively. But it also helps you track performance and understand which clusters are most successful and which content needs some work.

#19: Measure Results

Of course, you’ll want to be keeping tabs on your performance as you launch your B2B content marketing strategy. Watching the metrics will help you know when a content piece isn’t hitting the mark and when to adapt your messaging or offer to suit your audience.

Here’s a list of some of the main metrics you should be keeping an eye on:

Remember that when it comes to content marketing, you can’t base everything on sales alone. You’ll need to look at the behavior of your leads/customers, how involved and engaged they are, and how successful your content pieces are.

#20: Use Content Marketing Tools to Automate Tasks

You know that saying about working smarter, not harder? Well, it’s pretty easy to overthink content marketing, but if you find you’re getting in over your head, seek out trusted tools to pick up the slack and do some of the heavy lifting when it comes to content creation and distribution. Automate simple, repetitive (tedious, boring) tasks so that you can stay focused on strategy instead. Here are some of our top picks:

Frase

Frase uses AI to craft everything from content briefs to copy that’s optimized for search. The goal isn’t for the robots to kick writers out of a job (this writer hopes, anyway) but to boost your content marketing strategy. You’ll still need to give content a human touch, but if you want to ensure your content is optimized to rank well and align with your strategy, this is a great place to start.

Marketmuse

If you don’t have a vast team of writers or dozens of hours of spare time to put into researching each content piece, Marketmuse could be the solution you’ve been looking for. This AI-powered tool will get the research done and ensure you’ve got exactly what you need to build content that’s optimized, organized, and ready to rank.

Semrush

This extremely powerful and well-respected SEO tool also has a content marketing platform. It’s a great choice if you already know your way around Semrush SEO, and it offers one of the most powerful content marketing analytics tools available. Semrush content will help you research keywords, brainstorm ideas, and measure your content’s potential so you have an idea of how it will perform.

Big Takeaway

Whether you’re a fledgling business or an established one, you need to build an effective content marketing strategy. It’s a critical component of your digital marketing that will help you put your business right in front of your target audience. This will help:

• Establish yourself as an expert and authority in your industry.
• Drive your inbound marketing results.
• Boost signups, sales, and any other marketing and sales goals you may have.

Content marketing is one of the most impactful yet cost-effective ways of reaching your target audience. But for it to work, you must build an effective B2B content marketing strategy.