B2B marketers need to use content marketing as a valuable tool for business development, to expand brand awareness, build trust and credibility, win customer loyalty, and increase a company’s sales potential (just to name a few reasons). How can you be sure your content is of high enough quality that it will be seen by your target audience?
What is a content marketing strategy?
A solid plan that tells you why, what, when, and how you are creating content, and ensures your teammates are on the same page throughout the entire content marketing journey
- It is a step-by-step guide that helps you identify your goals, determine the type of content you need, define distribution channels, and work out a B2B content marketing checklist
Choose a content management system
A content marketing calendar will help you keep track of your content, and what, when, and where it should be published
- Consider a CMS system to create, manage, and track your content
- Make sure it provides you with a clear picture of all the tasks, timelines, and schedules you need
Why is a content strategy important?
A documented strategy will help avoid disappointment
- Disorganized work and misunderstandings within a team
- Wasted time and resources creating content that nobody sees
- Inability to track, estimate, and evaluate weekly/monthly/quarterly/annual results for further performance improvement
Define your brand identity, content type, and format
Assessing the strengths and weaknesses of you and your competitors will give you a better understanding of what makes your product unique.
- Provide the right content format for where your customers are in their buying journey
- Top of the funnel (TOFU): Blog posts, “how to” guides, infographics, checklists, ebooks, and video tutorials
- Middle-of-the-funnel (MOFU): Lead nurturing content, such as product overviews, tutorials, and webinars
- Bottom of funnel (BOFU): Customer-generated and case-oriented content that includes case studies, customer reviews, etc.
Define your goals
The SMART goals framework (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Timely) can help you set goals that will keep you on track
- Specific
- Goals should always be clear; avoid being vague.
- Mention specific goals that are measurable and measurable
- Attainable
- Relevant
- Time bound
Define your distribution channels
Select distribution channels that are based on your business goals, content marketing goals, and the platforms where you will best reach your target audience.
- Don’t copy the same narrative and publish it on multiple platforms. Repurpose your content in the form of photos or infographics for Instagram, short messages with a link to your landing page or blog for Twitter, and consistent articles for your website.
Your content marketing plan should meet the needs of your company
Having an organized plan is a must if you don’t want to be generating a lot of inefficient content and hoping that it will attract new leads
- Developing a high-quality strategy that meets your business objectives can certainly be a time-consuming task, but in the end, the results will pay off in the long run
Define your target audience
Identify your audience by their interests, hobbies, demographics, age, gender, occupation, etc.
- Create content that will smoothly guide them through each stage of the content marketing funnel, delivering the right message at the right time
- The RACE framework helps you document the actions your company should take to attract, engage, and convert clients
Conduct a content audit
Assess your content strategy from various angles to determine how it’s performing
- Determine what’s working, what’s missing, and how you can make improvements
- Choose ways to track your content’s performance
- Analytics tools can be used to assess the performance of your content
