The demand for quality content continues to grow, and the B2B market is no exception. According to CMI, nearly 90% of content marketers prioritize the audience’s information needs over the company’s advertising and promotional messages. And they do it right!
The business community has a much higher percentage of people looking for information, inspiration, and knowledge that you can share through your content marketing strategy. What tools to use for this? We understand in our material.
1) Email Content
Whatever you say, any civilized b2b business is tied to e-mail. It accounts for the vast majority of communications and the accompanying content flow. So, not using email as a channel for disseminating information is, at the very least, short-sighted.
From the point of view of technologies and techniques used, business mailings are not much different from mass mailings. The difference lies in the fact that letters for business partners and clients are based on logic, while client letters are based on emotions. Otherwise, planning, content, testing, automation, and analytics are all inherent in business mailings. Newsletter templates are often used for this purpose in business promotion.
2) Blog
A blog in B2B is not a series of short posts or an Instagram account where you can get by with a picture on
the occasion of a holiday or the question “How are you?”. A corporate blog assumes that you will write a lot and diligently.
Long content tends to attract less attention than short posts. But this is in the short term. Over time, small posts lose relevance, and useful guides and guides attract traffic again and again. Therefore, if possible, it is better to lengthen the content, not with empty words, but with information on the topic and high-quality photos.
By the way, about the topics. There are no special restrictions on them, the main thing is the value for the audience and expertise. It is advisable to write not only about what you or your boss want. After all, the purpose of a business blog is to recognize the company, educate the audience and answer their questions. It is better to create a database with “evergreen” content that is not subject to seasonality and will be relevant for a long time. Business blog design ideas are to help you.
3) White Papers
The white paper certainly has its strengths, the most important of which is a deep examination of the issue. For those who don’t know what I’m talking about, white papers are electronic documents with a deep dive into a specific topic, created with a certain degree of academicism.
As a rule, to access the White Paper, the authors are asked to provide contact information. And this is logical because such content is much more valuable than blog posts. And then – Win-Win: you share marketing information about yourself (name, email), and insights are opened to you.
4) E-books
In execution, e-books are very similar to White Papers, but unlike white books, they are not as academic: less text, more graphics. On the other hand, eBooks are more about explaining some processes or providing guidance for action. These can be more detailed educational blog posts, such as how the product/service helps you reach your goals.
5) Cases
The main value of case studies is that they clearly show how and in what way your company was able to help in solving a client’s problem. If it worked, then, for sure, it will work with you: the case puts the reader in the place of the client, and in the process of studying you appear before him in the form of a reliable partner.
A classic case scenario includes a task/challenge, a proposed solution, and final results. The format in this case is not of fundamental importance, whether it is a website page or a PDF.
6) Webinars
Content marketing is far from just textual information, videos and presentations also count. A webinar is a live (or pre-recorded) presentation distributed through online platforms, websites, or social media.
3 key benefits of webinars, in my opinion:
- the ability to track interest in the webinar (who registers, how fast)
- the ability to collect ideas for content during the webinar through questions from the audience
- communication with interested viewers after the broadcast
7) Video
Video content in business can be in the form of interviews, customer testimonials, product descriptions, tutorials, video infographics, and more. The possibilities are almost endless. The same cases – can also be implemented in video format.
It so happened that presentation videos are widespread on the market: videos lasting about 10 minutes, telling about the organization from the moment of its foundation to the present day.
The mass audience is not particularly interested in this format. But to potential partners or visitors to the exhibition – it is quite likely. Especially if the video is made with high quality and taste. Even if you shoot on an iPhone and use macOS and need to edit MOV files today is not a big deal thanks to modern and easy-to-use video editors.
For a wider audience, you can start a YouTube channel and shoot small thematic videos with useful content directly or indirectly related to your business.
8) Podcasts
The popularity of podcasts is growing and conquering new platforms. Even within music services like Spotify, you can find entire categories of themed podcasts.
Who listens to these podcasts? Quite active and busy people, professionals. And if you want to reach such a target audience, it’s worth a try.
9) Infographic
Using graphic design tools, infographics collect a large amount of data, testimonials, quotes, fun facts, or processes in one file. This is its key advantage: compactness and efficiency of data transfer. After all, time is one of the most important resources in business. In addition, infographics are successfully distributed on social networks and can be used in email campaigns.
10) Presentations
Suppose you are speaking at an important conference or trade show. The presentation was seen by the right number of people and a certain percentage of them are ready to contact you for services. But first, they want to learn more about the topic of the speech or consolidate knowledge. So why not host your presentation on SlideShare, your own site, or some cloud storage to have and give access to your content from anywhere and at any time?
In addition, by making your slides available to the public, you greatly increase the engagement of your audience and the number of potential customers who may come across your content during a normal web search.
Summing Up
Each case is unique. It is far from a fact that every type of content named in this article will be relevant to your business niche. And vice versa, one will definitely shoot. To know for sure, it’s best to think about market research and content planning first. And for this, it is better to turn to professionals. The rest is a matter of testing and optimizing along the way.
