Content marketing for b2b is the secret sauce for turbocharging your business growth and captivating your customers.
But as much as we all love content marketing and its benefits, it’s not a ‘one size fits all’ marketing cure-all, guaranteed to land hundreds of hot leads for everyone. Content marketing for b2b businesses is an investment, in resources and a long-term strategy that must be combined with short-term lead generation strategies.
If you’ve thinking of dabbling in content marketing for b2b, read on to see if your business could benefit from a content-driven approach.
5 signs your business needs content marketing for b2b
1. Your sales process is complicated or involves multiple touches
Content marketing for b2b is often a great solution for companies with high-involvement purchases. The challenge here for marketers is to stay relevant through all stages of the b2b buyer's journey.
Your point of contact may not be the final decision-maker, often meaning your proposal has to jump through different levels of management before a final decision is made.
A good way to combat this? Turn your contact into a brand and product advocate with relevant content that answers questions that they may need to field from HR, Accounts, IT, their CEO or other business stakeholders.
2. Your buyers do a lot of research before buying your product or service
If your buyers leave no stone unturned before committing to a purchase, content marketing could well be the magic ingredient to winning clients. Good content marketing will not only answer your buyers’ questions, it will speak directly to their pain points, no matter what stage of the process they’re in.
Your sales team will love you because they won’t be weighed down with constant questions from dud leads, freeing them up to concentrate on the qualified leads with better conversion rates.
3. You regularly develop case studies
Great! You are already in the swing of content marketing for b2b, even if you didn’t know it.
Case studies are traditionally popular b2b marketing tools and still have a respectable place in content marketing. What’s more you can use the same process to develop additional pieces of content to form your editorial calendar.
Remember to start by nutting out a clear direction and strategy for your content, then review your case studies by picking out the themes that can be leveraged into other forms of content like a blog, video or infographic.
4. You get interested leads but they aren’t ready to buy
Content marketing allows you to capture leads and feed them into a lead nurture program.
In theory, your nurture program should then move your prospects along the sales funnel with just the right amount of relevant content, combined with light marketing messages.
All being well, by the time they pick up the phone to your sales team, your lead has gone from cold to warm to hot and ready to buy (or close to it!).
5. You have a fair understanding of your market and their pain points
Understanding your customer is a great foundation for a successful content marketing strategy.
A strong understanding of your audience and their pain points helps you develop content that sets off light bulbs for your customers.
It’s these light bulbs that trigger your customers to pick up the phone and start talking to your sales guys. If you need help defining your customer, read our blog on buyer personas.
Sound like you?
Great! Give it a go: when content marketing for b2b is done well, it can be a powerhouse b2b marketing tool for gaining and retaining customers.
Brand chemistry is a b2b marketing agency winning your customers' hearts and minds through inbound, brand, content, lead generation and digital strategy. Our marketing specialists achieve stellar results with the latest lead generation techniques.