According to the Content Marketing Institute, B2B content marketing is a strategic marketing approach that focuses on creating and distributing valuable, relevant and consistent content to attract and retain a specific target audience. This will ultimately drive sales and boost conversion.
A successful B2B content marketing strategy is one that achieves an organisation’s desired results through producing engaging content for its audience. This then keeps the brand at the top of their reader’s mind, when they decide to purchase a product or service.
Whether you’re a B2B technology company looking to invest in content marketing or you’re looking to further explore why content marketing is a staple point for B2B businesses, here are just five reasons why content marketing is so crucial.
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, we’ve seen an incredible shift in marketing technology within the B2B industry. This is predominantly because of the change in technology companies’ core messaging.
Prior to the pandemic, many businesses were focusing on a hard sell. However, 70% of B2B companies changed their core messaging in response to the pandemic.
In the Technology CMO Outlook Report, CopyHouse and other leading tech giants, including ServiceNow, ContentCal, and Adobe, discussed the importance of empathy in marketing, especially in the context of B2B technology companies.
When marketing technology in a B2B setting, marketers can lose sight of their target audience and focus on the business needs. However, it’s good to remember that behind a brand is a person who has needs and wants. Therefore, to correctly market towards them, you need to consider empathy.
“With companies cutting back, factories closing and employees across many industries getting furloughed, we had to be mindful of our marketing messages and lead with empathy.” - Maya Price, Marketing Director of SAP.
Therefore, investing in content marketing will help your technology business better connect with a brand through an individual by understanding their needs and wants and catering for them. Then, when they’re ready to convert from leads to buyers, your business will be first in mind.
Just like B2C consumers, B2B buyers also roam the internet in search of answers to their questions. The last thing they want is complex information that’s boring and or leaves them with more questions than answers.
A typical problem that technology brands face is producing content that flows smoothly and can be understood by their target audience.
That’s why it’s always good to remember that not everyone has the same level of understanding within technology as you or your brand. Although your products and services can make complete sense to you, for a non-tech-savvy individual, it can be extremely confusing and overwhelming.
So, you should invest in a content marketing service that can break down these barriers and help connect you with your audience. You need a content marketing agency that has a great understanding of your brand and its complexities, as well as an agency that can transform this complex information into easy to understand and digestible content for the public.
Did you know that 52% of buyers say they are definitely more likely to buy from a brand after reading its content?
By implementing a strong B2B content marketing strategy supported by sound SEO research, you can enhance the visibility of your business and become a thought leader within your sector.
For example, if you specialise in cryptocurrency and your products or services help buyers get the best value for money, you’ll be competing in an excessively crowded market. However, if you provide insights into cryptocurrency, what it is, its future, and so on, you will show your target audience that you’re the expert and can be trusted.
It also allows your content marketing strategy to include numerous keywords that can get you noticed on search engines and help your content rank higher. This will ultimately increase your organic traffic.
The average B2B buying cycle is 6 to 12 months. This is considerably longer than a B2C sale because B2B buyers are often less impulsive. In fact, the typical buying group for a complex B2B solution involves 6 to 10 decision-makers.
This means that B2B marketers have more difficulty in attracting their target audience, converting them into leads and transforming that lead into a sale.
There are three stages of the decision making process funnel where content marketing is an extremely helpful tool when trying to convert your audience:
Although a big assumption can be that the decision stage is the most crucial, in actual fact, the awareness and consideration stages are probably the most important stages of the purchasing process. Creating regular content for the top and mid-funnel will help your brand get noticed and stand out from the crowd. So when the buyer is in the decision stage, your brand is at the top of their mind.
Content marketing is also a good way of retaining clients. This is because excellent content marketing includes delivering personalised, segmented, and relevant content to new and existing customers. By keeping your current customers engaged and updated with great content, you’ll improve your long-term customer retention.
Although we’ve already touched on this reason, it’s crucial to understand just how effective content marketing can be in the B2B world. For example, 74% of companies found that content marketing increased lead generation, both in quality and quantity.
When you invest in content marketing you have the ability to increase your chances of being seen by your target audience and encourage them to move forward in their buying journey. Regardless of what stage of the funnel your potential customer is at, content marketing is what encourages them to move forward and trust your brand.
Unlike other marketing strategies, content marketing is effective in the long term because customers are always looking for answers and solutions to the problems keeping them up at night. This means that your single piece of content, if done correctly and is relevant to your target audience, will generate results for months and sometimes even years.
So ask yourself, can you really stand out from the crowd without content marketing?
.svg){kind=small}
