The history of B2B marketing is not an illustrious one. Most companies have relied on simply pushing out information (in rather boring formats), advertising, or attending trade shows.
A lot of B2B companies struggle with content marketing. Having helped quite a few to succeed, I will be sharing some insights on how to get results from B2B content marketing.
Most novice marketers believe that B2B is about one-to-one engagement. Nothing could be further from the truth. Yes, it’s true that sending a promotional message to the correct audience will lead to an increase in sales of your business. In this approach, you have to be persuasive and compelling so that your audience remains engaged throughout.
But as everything evolves, it is seen that customers or buyers do a Google search to find and evaluate a firm than to check any sort of personal references.
In today’s online community, content marketing has become one of the most operative strategies for marketers. 88% of B2B marketers use content marketing for their marketing efforts, as do 76% of B2C marketers, according to research from Marketing Proofs and the Content Marketing Institute.
Let’s dig into 5 things you must know about this kind of marketing:
- Market research
It is the base of any modern marketing effort. You must know who will buy your products/services and for that, you have to do in-depth research of different brands, customer choices etc.
Detailed scientific studies will help you make more informed decisions.
To broaden your research, your company can survey to get to know what people like and hate, this kind of market research will give you an insight into how your processes are performing.
Hinge Marketing survey shows that systematic market research on clients and prospects have helped various businesses grow three to ten times faster.
2. Category – Driven Strategy
It is very important to narrow down your audience. It is called specialization or niche – targeting. It is a place where you can become an expert with very little competition by your side.
It makes your marketing efforts easier because people know at a glance what you do and distinguish you from the competition. Start beating your competition traffic with an effective inbound strategy.
3. A high-performance website
Whether it is an online or offline store, everyone has a website which is attractive and engaging. An information-rich website of your company is your way to success into the marketplace.
Potential clients will be visiting many websites online, so it becomes essential to have a website in the first place.
Another research says that 80% of the people look online for checking service providers.
4. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
SEO is the new generation technique to discover different sort of information. In this case, your content on the internet needs to optimized so when they search for something, your business pops up.
When people search for popular keywords on your niche, they can find your business. This is called on-site SEO as it communicates with search engines, which in turn produce more relevant results to searchers.
5. Social Media
Social Media promotions have become another popular method to promote your business. With simplified business tools, you can promote posts at a minimal rate.
Social Media referrals is another interesting way to gain customers for your business. In research, it is seen that 17% of referrals are made based on social media interactions.
Social Media accelerates your sales and helps you reach your target audience through various networks. You can also monitor through Social Media about what the audience is liking and connect to valuable contacts or influencers.
Finally, it is essential to keep working on these marketing strategies, being consistent helps you grow. The online world is evolving each day, your company must know to adapt to it and improve on it continuously.
Author Bio: Shriya Garg is the founder of ContentNinja – an inbound marketing firm and Hubspot partner in India, who always happens to go back to her roots as a finance professional. Being good with numbers, she loves educating her team members on personal finance, investment, and other things they don’t teach at school.
