Contact Information
Building a successful content marketing strategy takes consistent effort and years of effort. Many established B2B companies find themselves at a crossroads when their once-successful content strategies begin to falter, no longer delivering the results they used to.
This can be due to several factors. Businesses need to constantly adapt and evolve. This requires a strategic approach that involves regular audits, audience feedback, alignment with evolving business goals, and keeping a keen eye on performance metrics.
This guide draws from the successes and innovations of B2B industry leaders to offer a roadmap for revitalizing your B2B content marketing strategy.
Reassess and Refine Your Objectives
Periodically reassess your business objectives to ensure your content marketing strategy remains aligned with evolving company goals and market conditions. What worked yesterday might not work today, and what works today might not be effective tomorrow.
For B2B companies, the reassessment might reveal the need to pivot from broad, overarching goals like brand awareness to more nuanced and targeted objectives. This shift could involve:
- Customer Retention:
In a competitive landscape, keeping existing customers engaged and satisfied can be more cost-effective than acquiring new ones. Content strategies might shift to focus on customer success stories, in-depth tutorials, and advanced use-case scenarios that demonstrate ongoing value. - Account-Based Marketing (ABM) Strategies:
ABM is a targeted approach where marketing efforts are tailored to specific high-value accounts. This might involve creating personalized content that addresses the unique challenges and needs of these key accounts, aiming to nurture and deepen these strategic relationships. - Market Expansion:
Entering new geographic or industry markets requires a tailored content approach that considers local cultures, regulations, and market needs. Content must be localized or entirely reimagined to resonate with these new audiences.
As business objectives evolve, so must the Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) used to measure the success of your content strategy. Relying on outdated KPIs can provide a skewed view of your strategy’s effectiveness, potentially leading to misinformed decisions. Regularly updating your KPIs ensures that your content strategy is measured against metrics that accurately reflect your current business goals and market realities.
Example: ServiceNow’s Global Strategy
ServiceNow’s approach to global brand growth serves as a compelling example of how reassessing and refining business objectives can lead to significant strategic shifts in content marketing. By identifying the goal of expanding its brand presence globally, ServiceNow adopted a storytelling approach that resonated with diverse regional audiences. This strategy involved creating content that not only highlighted the universal applicability and benefits of its cloud computing platform but also acknowledged and addressed the specific needs and challenges of different markets.
The success of this approach underscores the importance of aligning content strategies with broader business objectives that are adaptable, forward-looking, and globally conscious.
Deep Dive into Audience Analysis
Advanced audience analysis involves understanding the specific needs, challenges, and decision-making processes of your target B2B audience. This advanced level of analysis must transcend basic demographic data, delving into the intricacies of industry trends, business challenges, organizational roles, and the specific decision-making processes that define the B2B landscape.
In B2B, purchasing decisions are often complex, involving multiple stakeholders with varying concerns and preferences. This complexity necessitates a granular approach to audience analysis, where understanding the unique challenges and informational needs of each decision-maker within the target organizations becomes paramount.
For instance, the content that resonates with a CTO might differ significantly from what appeals to a CFO or end-user, underscoring the need for content strategies that address the diverse perspectives within a single target account.
Conducting in-depth interviews and surveys with current clients, prospects, and even lost opportunities provides invaluable insights into the specific needs and pain points of your target audience.
Intent data, which tracks online behavior to gauge a user’s purchasing intent, offers a powerful tool for understanding the interests and research patterns of your target accounts. By analyzing intent data, B2B companies can identify which topics and solutions prospects are actively researching, enabling the creation of content that intercepts these research journeys with timely and relevant information.
Example – Slack’s “So Yeah, We Tried Slack…” Campaign
An exemplary case of deep audience understanding is Slack’s “So Yeah, We Tried Slack…” campaign, which adeptly showcased the diverse ways in which different teams and organizations use Slack to enhance communication and collaboration. By sharing real stories from various business segments, Slack effectively demonstrated the platform’s versatility and value proposition across a wide range of use cases.
This campaign highlighted the importance of grounding content strategies in genuine audience insights, showcasing how well-researched, audience-centric content can significantly boost relevance and engagement.
Comprehensive Content Audit and Gap Analysis
Conduct a thorough audit of your existing content to evaluate its alignment with current business objectives, audience needs, and performance metrics. Use this analysis to identify content gaps, particularly in areas critical to your target accounts or industry verticals.
A comprehensive content audit process involves meticulously evaluating every piece of content—be it blog posts, whitepapers, case studies, or videos—to gauge its current effectiveness, relevance to the target audience, and alignment with the company’s evolving business objectives. The ultimate goal is to identify high-performing content, uncover gaps in the content library, and pinpoint opportunities for content optimization, updating, and repurposing.
The Benefits of a Content Audit
- Performance Trends:
Analyzing how each content piece performs in terms of engagement, lead generation, and conversion rates can reveal what topics, formats, and styles resonate most with your audience. This data-driven approach helps in fine-tuning your content strategy to focus on what works best. - Relevance:
As industries evolve, so do the interests and needs of your audience. A content audit helps ensure that all your content remains relevant and up-to-date with the latest industry trends, regulatory changes, and technological advancements. Outdated content can diminish your brand’s credibility and authority in your industry. - Repurposing Opportunities:
Often, valuable insights and information are buried in older content pieces that, with a bit of refreshing and repackaging, could offer significant value to new audience segments or be adapted for current trends. Repurposing content not only extends its lifecycle but also enhances its reach and effectiveness. - Identifying Content Gaps:
A thorough audit helps in identifying topics or areas critical to your target accounts or industry verticals that need to be adequately covered. Filling these content gaps ensures that your content library comprehensively addresses the needs and questions of your target audience.
Content that once engaged audiences and generated leads can often be revitalized with updated information, transformed into a different format, or targeted at a new audience segment. This not only maximizes the ROI of your content creation efforts but also reinforces your brand’s position as a thought leader by maintaining a consistently high-quality and relevant content library.
Example – HubSpot’s Proactive Content Maintenance Approach
HubSpot serves as a prime example of the benefits of regular content audits and proactive content maintenance. By periodically reviewing its extensive content library, HubSpot ensures that all content, especially evergreen pieces, remains accurate, relevant, and aligned with current marketing best practices. This ongoing effort to refresh and update content not only boosts SEO performance by keeping articles fresh for search engines but also reinforces HubSpot’s reputation as a reliable and authoritative source of marketing wisdom.
The commitment to maintaining a current and valuable content repository exemplifies the strategic advantage of integrating content audits into the regular marketing workflow.
Strategic Platform and Format Selection
Choosing the right platforms and content formats involves matching your content delivery to the preferences and behaviors of your B2B audience.
B2B content distribution should focus on platforms where industry conversations and professional networking thrive, such as LinkedIn or industry-specific forums.
The goal is to ensure that your content not only reaches your audience but also engages them in a meaningful way, fostering professional relationships and positioning your brand as a thought leader in your industry.
For B2B companies, the choice of platform is critical because it determines the context in which your content is consumed and the potential for engagement.
Platforms like LinkedIn, known for professional networking and industry discussions, offer an ideal environment for B2B content. Industry-specific forums and online communities provide additional avenues for reaching niche audiences with tailored content. These platforms facilitate targeted content distribution, enabling companies to insert their content into ongoing industry conversations and connect directly with professionals interested in their expertise.
B2B audiences often seek content that provides in-depth insights, practical solutions and thought leadership on industry-relevant topics. Formats such as whitepapers, case studies, webinars, and interactive tools are particularly effective because they offer detailed information and actionable insights that professionals value. These formats also lend themselves well to demonstrating your company’s expertise and the unique benefits of your solutions.
A common mistake in B2B content marketing is spreading efforts too thinly across multiple platforms without a clear strategy or focusing on platforms that do not align with the professional nature of the B2B audience.
Example – IBM’s Strategic Approach
IBM’s approach to Thought Leadership content serves as a benchmark for strategic platform and format alignment. By focusing on research reports and whitepapers on cutting-edge topics like AI and blockchain, IBM caters to the informational needs of professionals seeking deep dives into technology trends and innovations. Distributing this content through LinkedIn and industry-specific forums ensures that it reaches an audience of engaged professionals who are likely to benefit from and engage with the content. IBM’s strategy underscores the effectiveness of matching high-quality, in-depth content with platforms where it is most likely to be valued and consumed by the intended audience.
By focusing on platforms where your target audience actively seeks professional insights and choosing content formats that offer substantial value, B2B companies can enhance engagement, foster professional relationships, and solidify their position as industry leaders.
Align Content with the Buyer’s Journey
Aligning content with the B2B buyer’s journey recognizes the unique path B2B purchasers take from initial awareness to the final decision. This journey typically involves multiple stakeholders, each with their unique concerns and criteria for decision-making. By tailoring content to address the specific needs and questions at each stage of this journey, B2B companies can more effectively guide potential customers toward making a purchase decision.
The B2B buyer’s journey often comprises three main stages: Awareness, Consideration, and Decision.
- Awareness Stage: Potential customers recognize they have a problem or opportunity and begin searching for information.
- Consideration Stage: Buyers clearly define their problem or opportunity and start researching the available options to solve it.
- Decision Stage: The final stage where buyers choose a solution.
Each stage requires distinct content types to address the buyers’ evolving needs.
Tailoring Content for Each Stage:
- Awareness Stage Content:
At this stage, educational content that addresses industry-specific questions and common challenges works best. Blog posts, infographics, and introductory webinars can help attract attention and establish your brand as a thought leader. - Consideration Stage Content:
As buyers delve deeper into their options, they need more detailed information. Comparative whitepapers, case studies, and expert guides can help them understand different solutions and how they stack up against each other. - Decision Stage Content:
Here, buyers are looking for validation of their choice. Detailed case studies, product demos, and technical specifications can provide the reassurance and proof points needed to make a confident decision.
A frequent mistake in B2B content marketing is producing generic content that fails to address the specific needs of buyers at different journey stages. Content that is too broad or not targeted correctly can fail to engage potential customers effectively, resulting in missed opportunities to connect and convert.
Example – Cisco’s Strategic Content Marketing Strategy
Cisco’s content marketing strategy exemplifies the effective alignment of content with the buyer’s journey. By offering a diverse array of content formats tailored to each stage, Cisco successfully engages potential customers throughout their decision-making process.
For instance:
- Awareness Stage:
Cisco provides educational blog posts that discuss industry trends, challenges, and introductory insights into solutions, helping to inform and attract early-stage buyers. - Consideration Stage:
The company offers in-depth case studies and whitepapers that delve into how their solutions address specific industry challenges, aiding buyers in their research and comparison efforts. - Decision Stage:
Cisco presents technical documentation and detailed product demos for those in the final stages of decision-making, providing the detailed information needed to support a purchase decision.
This strategic approach not only positions Cisco as a trusted advisor but also ensures that its content effectively supports the sales cycle by addressing the right concerns at the right times. Through this alignment with the buyer’s journey, Cisco enhances its ability to convert prospects into customers by delivering valuable, stage-appropriate content that resonates with the complex needs of B2B buyers.
Implement Advanced Performance Metrics
Advanced metrics provide deeper insights into how content influences B2B sales cycles, customer retention, and account growth.
Beyond basic analytics, B2B companies should measure content performance using advanced metrics like engagement within target accounts, influence on deal progression, and content’s role in customer retention and upselling.
Relying solely on surface-level metrics like page views or likes, which don’t fully capture the impact of content on B2B sales cycles and customer relationships.
In the B2B, where sales cycles are longer and decision-making involves multiple stakeholders, the ability to gauge content’s effectiveness requires a sophisticated approach to metrics.
Advanced metrics consider engagement levels within specific target accounts, assess content’s influence on progressing deals, and evaluate its effectiveness in customer retention and facilitating upselling opportunities.
Advanced Metrics for B2B Content Marketing
- Account-Level Engagement:
This metric assesses how content resonates with specific target accounts, considering all interactions from various stakeholders within an account. It provides a holistic view of an account’s engagement, offering insights into how content fosters relationships with high-value accounts. - Content Influence on Deal Progression:
By tracking content interactions across different stages of the sales funnel, B2B companies can understand how content contributes to moving prospects closer to a purchase decision. This metric helps in identifying which content types are most effective at various sales stages. - Content’s Role in Customer Retention and Upselling:
Evaluating content’s impact on existing customers—through metrics like renewal rates, customer satisfaction scores, and upsell conversions—can reveal how content supports post-sale customer engagement and growth.
Surface-level metrics, while useful for gauging initial content reach and engagement, fall short of providing the depth of insight needed in B2B contexts. They fail to capture the subtleties of how content influences longer sales cycles, complex buying committees, and post-purchase satisfaction.
Example – Marketo Analytical Tool
By extending its analysis beyond initial engagement to examine content’s role in lead nurturing and conversion, Marketo gains actionable insights into content’s performance across the sales funnel. This approach allows customers to tailor their content strategy more effectively, ensuring that content serves as a powerful tool for guiding prospects through the buyer’s journey and strengthening customer relationships.
A sophisticated analytical tool like Marketo serves as a model for how B2B organizations can leverage content as a strategic asset, driving meaningful engagement, accelerating sales cycles, and fostering long-term customer loyalty.
By examining these examples from successful B2B brands, your company can gain valuable insights into revitalizing your content marketing strategy. Each example underscores the importance of strategic alignment with business objectives, deep audience understanding, content optimization, and advanced metrics to drive meaningful business outcomes.
In Conclusion:
As demonstrated by industry leaders like ServiceNow, Slack, Cisco, and Marketo, a successful strategy hinges on a deep understanding of your audience, a commitment to aligning content with the buyer’s journey, and the adoption of advanced performance metrics to gauge effectiveness. By reassessing business objectives to reflect current market realities, diving deep into audience analysis to uncover nuanced needs, conducting thorough content audits to identify opportunities for optimization, and strategically selecting platforms and formats, B2B companies can ensure their content resonates with their target audience and drives meaningful engagement.
By aligning content with the various stages of the buyer’s journey and leveraging advanced metrics to understand content’s impact on sales cycles and customer relationships, companies can fine-tune their strategies for maximum impact. The insights and strategies shared by these successful brands serve as a roadmap for B2B companies looking to breathe new life into their content marketing efforts. Embracing these principles will not only enhance the effectiveness of your content marketing strategy but also position your brand as a thought leader in your industry, fostering stronger connections with your audience and driving strategic business outcomes.
Reach out if you need help with your content marketing strategy.