In this article, we will look at some of the best B2B content marketing tips that help you bring value to your B2B Target Audience so you can start building trust with them and becoming a thought leader in your industry.
Creating just content for your audience is not enough anymore as every day there is more and more content and data created with exponential growth.
As 90% of all data has been created in the last two years and according to EMC, there are 40 zettabytes (40 trillion gigabytes) of data in the world and it would take a person approximately 181 million years to download all the data from the internet according to Unicorn Insights.
So, with such a fast pace of generating new data and information, we cannot just rely on creating any content that is easily accessible across the internet in any form whether as a blog post, video, infographic, book, etc.
But to be able to create B2B Content Marketing that Brings Value to Your B2B Target Audience you must create unique content that stands out. And that is exactly what I am going to share with you in this article.
Let’s get started:
1. Focus only on What People Want from You
The first B2B content marketing tip that you should be focusing on is what your target audience really wants from you.
Nowadays, marketers produce content more for search engines rather than for their target audience and it is because if you follow SEO guidelines you can expect to:
- SEO can be primarily the source of your leads.
- SEO drives 1,000% more traffic than organic social media (BridgeEdge)
- SEO shows that an average of 14.6% close rate is achieved from SEO leads. (99firms)
- SEO can make more than 40% of a company’s annual revenue (semgeeks)
Therefore it is no wonder, that marketers are focusing mostly on SEO and forgetting about the target audience as reading all the amazing stats about B2B SEO makes you really want it to do that too.
But we cannot forget about our b2b target audience as they are the reason why we are producing content and they are the ones who can buy your product or services.
Because creating your b2b content marketing for your target audience will reflect their specific needs and more resonates with them, and it will make them feel you are understanding their problems and pains and therefore most likely you have a solution for them.
It will raise awareness by helping them understand what your company does and that you are the subject matter expert in the industry.
Also, you will be drawing their attention to your products or services that can provide help to their needs.
And to improve your messaging and understand what your target audience really wants from you there are 3 keys to do that:
Key #1: Solve Pain Points and Problems
The first key to focusing only on what people want from you is to focus on their pain points and a problem they are facing and how you can solve them with your b2b content marketing.
You must remember that whenever your potential customers are searching for your products and services they are searching for a solution to their problems and pain points that they are experiencing.
Whether it is in their private life or professional life they are always searching for a solution to their pains and problems.
Therefore, in running a business, you are responsible for solving your target audience’s problems and it is not their job.
And to show them that you are solving the pains and needs they have, you must address them within your content, whether it is on social media, email marketing, blogs, or landing pages.
Because nobody will be bothered to find out if you are solving this problem and pain or not. If the message is not clear that you are providing a solution to their problem, they will go somewhere else, where it is obviously stated.
According to Tony Haile, we have 15 seconds to grab the reader or user’s attention before we completely lose them.
Remember, people are more motivated to solve problems and reduce the pain than gain something and by addressing their pains and problems within your content you can motivate people to take the action faster.
According to the Loss Aversion Effect when people or organizations do rationalize the need for change, the motivation to invest to avoid a probable loss is twice as powerful as the motivation to spend to achieve a potential gain.
Therefore, writing your headlines and copies in a way that will solve problems or avoid future coming pains is more powerful than writing about your awesome features and capabilities, but do not forget about them, as we will get to them as well, because everything has its purpose. However, also, don’t forget the SEO aspects of headlines.
Key #2: Deliver Benefits and Values
The second key to focusing on what people want from you is to deliver the benefits of your product and services. Hey! I never said that people do not respond to benefits.
People are creatures that want everything, that means, they want to avoid the problem but also if they can gain at the same time, it is even better, right?
Therefore we want to avoid pain and to gain pleasure or benefits if we can and that is what motivates us to take action, without these two emotions barely anybody will take any action.
(Source)
And these also apply to businesses the same way as according to Status Quo Bias, people and businesses decide to do nothing or stick with the same answer until and unless people and organizations perceive a compelling and urgent reason to change, they will always be inclined to prefer to stick with the status quo.
So, with addressed pains and problems, there is still room for delivering the benefits of your products and services. Of course, we should help our prospects recognize the unique and relevant benefits that our services or products are offering.
As fundamentally, showing your values and benefits is the big key of every content marketing, and therefore promoting the positive gains of your products or services is an important aspect of focusing on what your prospects want.
Key #3: Add Features Very Last
And the last key to focusing on what your prospects want from you are bringing up the main features and capabilities that are included within your products or service.
Using features within your content marketing is as well a very important part of your content marketing, especially if you are claiming that your solutions are solving these kinds of problems and bringing these kinds of benefits to your customers.
According to Simon Sinek, we should be creating a value proposition with the golden circle model, why, how, and what.
(Source)
In the video, Mr. Simon Sinek explained the importance of why we should start with why move on to explain how and lastly what. And that is exactly what I am trying to explain here when focusing on what people want.
Solving pains and problems is why your prospects are searching for you in the first place and why you are in the marketplace. What are the benefits and gains and how do they are benefiting from choosing your solution. Those two are the emotional part. And lastly is what, which represents the features, and the logical part of us.
Now when you take care of the emotional part of your prospect and he/she is listening and paying full attention as you clearly explain you can help them and they can benefit from you, but you need to back it up.
With features, you satisfy the logical part of their brain, as just by promising you can solve this and that without explaining what you are using to solve these, will make them doubt you.
Therefore, clearly explaining your features and how they are solving the problems and bringing benefits to your customers is the last and essential key to focusing only on what people/prospects want from you.
2. Go Deep and Do not Just Scratch the Surface
The next on our list of B2B content marketing tips is to share your real knowledge, go deep, and don’t just scratch the surface of the topic, as that is easy and everybody can do that and most freelancer writers do just that.
The problem in today’s educational and informational world is that many people want to be a famous expert in some topic, without investing the time and effort to become an expert.
Also according to the findings of the Association for Psychology Science, self-proclaimed experts are more vulnerable to the illusion of knowledge, and more likely they are to allege knowledge of completely made-up information and false facts, a phenomenon known as “overclaiming.”
And from my point of view, used to be, that if a person wanted to be called an expert it required 20 years of experience, having a degree from a prestigious school, a great resume, and being a keynote speaker on well-known business events.
And even though I hope and believe that school, resume, and being a keynote speaker do not show your real ability and expertise I seriously believe that a great deal of experience is required for a person to be called an expert.
But unfortunately, nowadays you can become an “expert” just by hitting the bio update button. Therefore, everyone is an expert in today’s world.
That is why on the internet you can find so much fluff and information without real value provided within and if you want to create b2b content marketing that brings value to your target audience, the topics need to be overlooked by experts with experience. No need to be written by experts but they should provide insights and guidance.
So, to stand out, and provide the value you need to go deep with your topics and deliver something that most could not. Do not worry to show your expertise as expertise build trust and trust builds a customer base.
3. Make Every Word Count
The next real issue I want to discuss, and another B2B content marketing tip is to make every word count without the fluff and $#!7 around.
Written content has fundamentally two parts of being successful content, the one part is SEO strategy and the other part is being valuable to people, which is acknowledged by Google and their algorithm is based on providing great value and great user experience.
But then you have SEO statistics like the ideal blog post length should be 2,100-2,400 words, according to HubSpot data. Or the average Google first page result contains 1,447 words according to Backlinko.
(Source)
(Source)
So, with statistics like this, many content marketers and writers are on the mission of writing long-ass articles where every word counts, but not in the right way.
Any information that can be shared with a short sentence of 10-15 words becomes information shared across two paragraphs just to increase the word count and hit the “ideal blog posts length”.
So, this is when a strong correlation happens between my advice Go Deep and Make Every Word Count so you can create B2B content marketing that brings value to your target audience quickly and efficiently.
Because fair enough, you want to have long articles, so be it, I believe in long articles too, (This article is around 3,500 words) but make sure every word in that article has the purpose, the meaning, and value and don’t unnecessarily prolong sentences just for sake of word count.
Instead, go deep, and provide more value, more insights, and more information because that is how you should increase your word count and make every word count.
4. Have a Clear Picture of Your B2B Buyer Journey
The next on our list of B2B content marketing tips is knowing your customer’s B2B buyer journey.
A buyer journey is fundamentally what we are doing at b2b marketing and how well is your buyer journey built will determine your b2b digital marketing success.
And the reason why knowing your B2B Buyer Journey is so important is that B2B buyers are over 70% through their buying journey before they engage a salesperson. (DemandBase) Failing to engage them in the research stages risks losing them as potential buyers. And according to Gartner reports, 83% of B2B buyers used digital channels even in the later stages of the buyer journey.
Therefore, having a clear picture of your B2B buyer journey will show how your prospects are moving around and what is their previous steps and what could be their next step.
(Source)
And even though according to Gartner B2B buyers are moving around from one stage to another stage, having a mapped b2b buyer journey will help you to fill up the content gaps that you are having within your content marketing.
And with a completed buyer journey, you as a marketer will much better understand what your buyers are doing, what they are researching, what they need, and how they are finding you. And this information will essentially provide answers on how you should structure your B2B content marketing and ultimately help you to create B2B content marketing that brings value to your B2B Target Audience.
BTW I have created a video on how you can plan your B2B Content Marketing, so you can check it out here.
5. Do not Sell Too Early but Sell
Another B2B content marketing tip to bring value to your b2b target audience comes down to the actual selling of your products or services because essentially you cannot help them if you do not sell them your solution.
Does it make sense?
Well, let me explain to you what I mean you cannot help them if you do not sell them first.
Your content has one purpose only and that is to sell, promote, or in any other way influence your prospects to buy your solution, and that is why we are creating content, to attract buyers.
And to effectively do that, you must create b2b content marketing that brings value or knowledge to your target audience and that’s what is this article about, but the actual real value comes from your solution and not your content.
Let me explain it a bit further, let’s say you are sick and you are having some type of flu, so you go on the internet to find how to treat your flu and find this herb (the solution) and you will learn all kind of stuff, why it is helping against your flu, how it does that, and what it contains so powerful that it helps against your flu and brings such great benefits.
Did the content bring you value? Yes, you have found what you needed, the article provided the solution, the remedy to your pain, and also benefits if you keep taking it. Remember when I mentioned, in the beginning, to focus only on what people want from you? That is what I was talking about.
But let me go back to the question, did the content bring you value? Yes, and no, because you are still having the flu and unless you buy the herb (the solution) you will still have the problem and gain no benefit.
Therefore, the ultimate value comes from your solution and that is when the call to action (CTA), landing pages, and links to the products come and need to be provided to deliver the full value within your b2b content marketing, that’s why you need to be selling within your content.
But do not sell too early, as that’s one of the biggest B2B content marketing mistakes. First, you need to provide the value within the content, the why, how, what and all the information they need to make a decision, but then you need to direct your buyers to the product or landing page where you can get your solution.
Because if you will not do that, they will take the information you have so nicely provided and buy the product somewhere else which causes you to lose revenue.
So that is why you need to be selling within your b2b content marketing but not too early, as your b2b buyers need to perceive the value of your solution.
6. Be Data-Driven Marketing to Optimize B2B Content Marketing
The next B2B content marketing tip is to be data-driven marketing to improve your marketing results. Implementing AI content marketing can also play a significant role in making smarter data-driven decisions.
Data is one of the biggest commodities organizations can have to lead the business with smarter decisions and minimize errors, and that applies to marketing too.
Data onboarding is a smart and efficient way to make crucial marketing decisions based on information pulled out from numerous channels.
Unfortunately, according to Forrester marketers are overwhelmed by the amount of data and lack the ability or tools to effectively analyze and create actionable insights to optimize their marketing. Therefore many of them spend significant time cracking the secret language of data.
And in order of that 57% of marketers are incorrectly interpreting data and likely getting incorrect results. (Wharton)
But with proper b2b analytics tools, marketers can create data-driven marketing to improve their marketing results.
As such:
- Data-driven marketing increases ROI, with campaigns that leverage data-driven personalization reporting 5-8x ROI for their campaign spend. (invesp)
- Two out of three marketers state data-based decisions to be more effective than gut instincts. (adverity)
So to be a data-driven marketing organization CMOs are pushed to invest in analytics tools to improve targeting, spend optimization, and personalization of their marketing campaigns along with the integration of AI content marketing tools for better content creation.
Therefore, a huge value can be created with data and to create B2B content marketing that brings value to your b2b target audience, your organization must have switched from traditional reporting to modern business intelligence and Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning to be used to make smarter decisions.
BTW I have also talked about how you can optimize your B2B digital marketing. To learn more, check out this video.
7. Be Personalized with Your B2B Target Audience
Lastly in this article on B2B content marketing tips that I want to share with you is to be personalized with your B2B Target Audience.
As many emails are being unread and a big portion of the marketing budget (Around 26% of marketing budget) is used on paid marketing channels to drive leads and customers for business, CMOs want to ensure that money is not wasted.
So, to maximize marketing results, marketing leaders are investing in analytics tools to gain essential data to improve personalization.
Especially today, when prospects are more digitally-savvy than ever, and they do not tolerate non-personalized messages tailored specifically to their needs. Modern digitally savvy prospects expect brands to connect with them on their terms, at the right time and place whenever the prospect wants, which brings many challenges businesses must face to win the prospect.
Remember, value is perceived differently by each of your prospects, and what one can see as extremely valuable to their company, others might not see it in that way.
And therefore, according to Forrester, brands are spending on personalization to meet their prospects on their terms when and where they want it.
As with personalization businesses can win more deals (Salesforce), personalized transparent ads grow the revenue of the product by 38% (Harvard Business) and 80% of companies report seeing an uplift since implementing personalization. (Econsultancy)
Therefore, marketing personalization for your b2b content marketing to create value is not important or extremely important but, essential for your business, and blasting emails and generic advertisements is dead.
Conclusion
I hope these B2B content marketing tips and tricks will help you to provide the value your users are looking for, as today the way to go with your content marketing is to be unique and valuable to your users.
There is no template or theme on how you can create value for your target audience, and it not even should be, as your company is unique and offer a different set of unique values than your competitors. And these tips are just a way how you can describe them within your company and expertise.
Remember, if you will try to put yourself in the shoes of your prospects and follow their footsteps you will be able to create B2B Content Marketing that brings value to your B2B Target Audience.
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Also, check out our SEO hub page to find all our Content Marketing Resources.
Disclaimer
Some of my links are affiliate links, which means if you purchase something, I might get some small commission as a reward for reference. Of course, I am actively using all these services and products, and I only affiliate products or services I have full trust in their quality!
