Best Practices for B2B Content Marketing Part 2
In the part 1 of this two-part series, we reviewed the importance and value of content marketing and two critical best practice areas: conducting comprehensive and insightful audience research and keeping up with content audits and overall governance. Now, let’s turn to two additional best practices areas of B2B content marketing: balancing content and lifting your content from ad hoc and siloed to strategic and business wide.
Produce Well-Balanced Content
Organizations don’t meet their business goals by just producing blog content or posting heavy sales blurbs on social media five times a week. This is where the art of content marketing really comes into play; content marketers must balance for multiple considerations and produce well-balanced content that meets audience needs and business priorities. When considering your content calendar, think about:
Balance for multiple stages of the user journey: make sure you’re appropriately producing content for ToFu, MoFu, and BoFu. Prioritize what you’re missing and what your current goals are (if you need more brand awareness, consider more ToFU—if you have good brand awareness and need ore conversions, then aim for heavier BoFu).
Balance for content types and length: The effectiveness of a content type varies by person and frequently by industry or funnel stage. Some people just want to scan info and only have 10 seconds to do it. Other people need to dive into details and want to spend substantial time with heavy, technical information. Some people in some industries need to see information visually. So, you must balance by content type (and match to target audience). Ideally, you’ll have short and long content, easily scannable pages, long technical whitepapers, videos, and infographics. Then test for what’s performing best and meets your business goals.
Balance for audiences: It’s rare that a business only focuses on one single type of person or demographic. Usually, businesses have multiple audiences and even multiple priority target audiences. So, understand your various audiences and match content amount to your business priorities. Think through industry and markets, geography, department, title, and age.
Balance for business priority/goals: This is critical for each of the above-mentioned areas and should be a top-level consideration for your content marketing. Ensure that your content production matches your business goals.
Make it Real
What this means is that essentially… create an established, documented strategy that takes your content marketing from ad hoc, short-sighed, and siloed to flushed out, long-term, and organization wide.
Understand distribution and reach – don’t write a piece of content purely for the sake of having a piece of content. You must plan what you’re doing with that content as well. Is it content that can attract audiences organically through search engines? Are you distributing it through social media? Can you make effective paid campaigns around it? Have a plan for what you’re doing with all your content.
Tie Strategy to Tactics with Goals and KPIs – Similarly, when you plan what you’re doing with your content, create documented goals that you’re hoping to achieve and KPIs for how to track whether it’s meeting those goals or not. This makes analysis of your content much easier and increases the likelihood that you’ll look at performance.
Document for Future – Another one that marketers are less likely to do (and should look to technical professionals as better examples). Marketing positions—heck even entire marketing departments—can see a lot of turnover, and this can make brand consistency and continuity difficult. You might think your content strategy, content marketing, and overall content production is clear—but it’s not going to be to anyone else unless it’s well documented and documented to be understandable without additional context or explanation.
Rely on SMEs and get business buy-in – I’ve saved perhaps the most important for last. And it might be one of the hardest. Content marketing will only work for the long-term and be sustainable and as effective as it could be if it goes beyond your marketing team. You need SMEs involved, so you’re using your resources, relying on authority, and ensuring your SMEs are invested in your content. Similarly, your leadership need to understand the strategy, priority, and effectiveness of content marketing to ensure you’re well-supported and well-funded. Lastly, this also means your entire organization has consistency and a unified brand voice and vision!
Have any questions, reach out to Cimarron Winter
Content marketing when backed with a thoughtful strategy and smart processes can truly be one of your most cost-effective marketing strategies. If you need support developing a cohesive content strategy, tackling audience research, or managing content marketing from top to bottom, Cimarron Winter can help. We have content marketing experts with years of experience that can help your meet your content and business goals.