Getting your content marketing strategy rolling forward with a new wave of momentum doesn’t have to be difficult. It’s too easy to get caught up with all the content you “need” to be producing, but thinking in those terms is just going to make it seem more like a job rather than what it should be: a unique way to engage with potential customers.
With that in mind, here are five keys to a winning B2B content marketing strategy:
KEY #1: Define your company’s brand
Launching a content marketing strategy is really about telling stories, and the central hero or protagonist of those stories is going to be your brand. As a result, you want to make sure that you are telling the “right” kinds of stories. Define who you are, what you stand for, and what the long-range vision of your company is.
KEY #2: Understand your target market
Selling a B2B product or service is ultimately much more of a niche than selling a B2C product or service. As a result, the types of broad-sectioned campaigns created by B2C marketers just don’t work as well in the B2B world. You have to really understand who buys your products and services – and why.
KEY #3: Set realistic goals and objectives
While the goal of any B2B content marketing strategy is ultimately to drive more sales, you can’t set up a strategy based around sales. Instead, most content marketing campaigns are set up around goals such as brand awareness, website traffic, email newsletter signups, or visits to a promotional landing page. For each of these goals, it’s possible to set specific metrics or key performance indicators (KPIs) that can guide the campaign.
KEY #4: Create content products
The best content you can create are the “content products” – webinars, e-books, case studies and video tutorials – that customers can use to learn more about you and your products. You can choose to charge for these products, but most companies simply give them away for free in exchange for an email address.
KEY #5: Make it a regular habit
You don’t need a formal content calendar for every day of the week or month, but you do need a regular commitment when it comes to content marketing. At the very least, you need some kind of dashboard to help you manage all the offers, tweets, blog postings, and updates you are sending out.
One solution here is the social media dashboard from Buffer, which routinely provides some of the best advice out there about how to manage a social media campaign as part of a broader content marketing strategy.
You can think of each of these keys as being part of a logical progression. First, you map out what you and your company stand for. Then, you come up with an audience for that message. Then, you outline your goals and objectives. Finally, you come up with a way to manage and measure the effectiveness of all this content.
Image: Designed by Freepik
Dane
Dane Cobain is a published author, freelance writer, book blogger, poet and (occasional) musician from High Wycombe, UK. Before going freelance, he worked as a social media marker, now specialising in writing about publishing, technology and marketing.