There are a lot of buzzwords still being thrown around at the moment and they have been for a couple of years now – mostly around the ideas of Content Marketing and Social Media Marketing. Many evangelists will tell you to concentrate on one over the other. Well let me tell you – without content you have no social media marketing. Social Media marketing requires you to share content. Without content you can’t be social.
Content marketing comes first and in a highly competitive business environment I cannot stress this enough – Without high quality content produced for your audience your business is not likely to survive. Without engaging your audience and adding absolute value you are just treading water until your current clients leave you to go to your competitor who is adding value.
In making these statements I am not trying to stress you out or scare you, I am just trying to make you understand the importance of B2B content marketing. I am trying to help you. This article contains 5 tips that are essential in B2B Content Marketing. Obviously these tips don’t guarantee success but they greatly increase your chances.
1. Make Content Someone’s Responsibility – Content doesn’t just happen. Someone has to produce great content for your business whilst also sharing and curating other great content from across the Internet. You may not hire a full time content person now but many larger businesses already are and you may want to look at it into the future. Content is not just the written word too – it could be infographics or videos. It can be blog posts , it can be white papers. You should also make sure that you never underestimate the power of the email newsletter.
2. Have a strategy and set some goals – You can’t just create content and hope for the best. You need to create goals for your content marketing. Some example goals might be increased brand awareness and loyalty, increased education and increased engagement from customers.
3. Utilise more tactics to spread your content – Tactics to share your content may be blog posts, articles, eBooks, infographics and email newsletters. These are just a few of the many tactics available to you. A huge growth tactic in recent times has been Slideshare and online presentations.
4. Be social. Social media is here to stay – There are a number of social media platforms out there. Not all of them may suit your business but it’s probably worth looking at the big ones. Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn are great avenues to share your content and increase engagement.
5. Quality and Quantity are Both Important – You need to satisfy two markets with content – you need to turn prospects into new customers and you need to retain those customers that you already have. New prospects and existing customers have an insatiable need for content. They have questions and it is your responsibility to answer any questions that they may have. Your content needs to answer all of the Frequently Asked Questions an existing customer might have to keep them happy. Your content needs to satisfy prospects of your expertise in your field and drive purchasing decisions. Beware the curse of crap content though – you cannot put something out there that nobody wants to read.
The team at Greenlight Communications is well skilled in the art of B2B Content Marketing – we can help you come up with a plan and we can help you execute this plan. If you need help do not hesitate to get in contact today.