Top 5 Content Strategies for B2B Marketing

With rising number of ‘informed’ buyers and fierce online competition it is imperative for companies to come up with a content website engagement strategy that is smart and strategic at the same time. So, content needs to be used proactively and dynamically. By choosing to showcase relevant content, you can ensure that the visitor knows you are listening intently.

This means, every time a user hits your webpage, he/she should be able to choose from a variety of content. Personalized content may include videos, tutorials, e-books, newsletters, thought leadership content, case studies, success stories, offerings, landing pages, and so on.

Here are the top five content strategies you could use for B2B marketing.
1. Blogs
Did you know that 64% of B2B marketers regard blogging on company branded or managed logs as a highly effective tactic? The most important aspect of blogging is to post high quality blog posts often. It is imperative to have a well thought- out social optimization strategy for blogging.

2. Whitepaper
Did you know 65% rate whitepaper as being very influential over purchase decisions? Create whitepapers that contain multimedia elements. Have research teams to thoroughly scrutinize research data before drawing conclusions.

3. Infographic
Infographics are special because they are very engaging and relevant; thereby completely capturing the reader’s attention. They can be used as excellent link baits so it is important to ensure the information is accurate. Use attractive layouts, styles and visuals to build a persuasive info graphic.

4. E-Newsletter
E-newsletter has a very high impact quotient with readers. So, it is important to focus on providing high quality content to subscribers and present it in an interesting fashion.

5. Case Study/Testimonial
Considered as highly influential marketing collateral in purchasing decisions, case studies and testimonials must be a part of content strategy. Size and formats of case studies matter, it is essential to keep it less than five pages.

Lead generation is a common goal for marketing automation companies, especially content marketing strategies. In fact, 63% of companies in a Marketing Profs and Junta42 survey said lead generation was their third most important goal for content marketing.


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Top Lead Generation Techniques for B2B Marketing

Lead generation has come a long way from its cold calling days. Today B2B marketing is advanced and the marketer focuses his lead generation efforts only towards those who have an idea of the product or, have a need for the product or, are ready to buy their product. The credit to this intuitive and proactive selling must be credited to leading marketing automation tools that not only enhance B2B lead generation efforts but also provide the necessary analytics to track performances.
Here’s a list of the top lead generation techniques for B2B companies.

• Social Networking Campaigns

Buzz generation makes social media marketing work because it replicates a message, not through purchase of an ad, but through user to user contact. For B2B marketing, the message does not necessarily have to be about the product, but could be anything either relatively or remotely associated. Social media facilitates fans of a brand or company to promote it across multiple social media channels easily ad effortlessly. Facebook, LinkedIn ad Twitter are social networking sites that can be effectively used for lead generation.

• Webinars

Being an inbound marketing technique webinars have more potential to reach out to targeted customers than any other campaigns. Webinars are marketer’s way of saying that they have understood a problem area and are offering a suitable solution. By sharing information at the right time to the right set of people webinars enhance the entire lead generation and lead nurturing process by pushing only warm leads into the funnel. Leads generated out of webinar campaigns have seen faster deal closures and have remained loyal customers as well.

• Email marketing

Email marketing is one of the primary sources of lead generation for many B2B companies. When using email as a marketing automation tool, ensure every email has a call to action like ‘register now’ or ‘submit now’ which links directly to the event registration page. Such campaigns which are action oriented encourage the receiver to take an action, indirectly implying his level of interest and involvement in the solution you offer. Also, since the subject of such invitation is of interest to the person, the chances of him responding are much higher.

• Search Engine Optimization

The primary work of a search engine is to find relevant results for user-provided search terms. So in order to highlight a website link during those searches, B2B marketers need to optimize their web pages for higher visibility. SEO practices help to raise marketer’s webpage rankings compared to those of his competitors. Keyword optimization of website content and backlinks to landing pages are some of the SEO activities for lead generation.

• Website Content

Content marketing can be primarily used to address user issues and their priorities for buying. By offering the right content collateral to the buyer at the appropriate stages of buying a marketer can expect to drive more sales closures. Content within and outside a website should be synergized to engage the user at every touch point.

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Marketing Automation Solutions for B2B Marketers

Marketing Automation Solutions for B2B Marketers

The B2B buying process has undergone a sea change in the last decade or so. Access to product information, customer feedbacks, industry opinions etc. has made it easier to research on a company and how well it’s offering may fit the requirements of the buyer.

However, the overload of information many a times makes it difficult to choose. After all, it is not easy to choose from a list of vendors, who claim they are the best, offer the most revolutionary products and have a huge list of customers who would vouch for their professionalism and the abilities of their product.

Apart from clarity on the problem at hand it is important to understand how adaptive a B2B company and its resources would be to a solution. This will ensure that they will buy a solution which is least disruptive in a working environment and yet delivers all that it promises.

Marketing automation is a solution which assists marketing teams to find more qualitative leads and prioritize them, understand the needs and requirements of the leads, easing the process of nurturing them when not sales-ready and measure the return on the company’s marketing investment and marketing department’s contribution to the revenue generation process within the company.

While this is being done marketers need to strategically think and plan lead generation, nurturing and management campaigns and assist prospects in the decision making process through their buyer journey. Marketing automation ensures that marketers are able to track all those leads which were interested in checking out the product on the website, but left without sharing their info.

Add to that the other insights that marketing automation solutions provide, about the lead, like – their ‘company name’, ‘pages of interest’, 'intent’, ‘possible identity of the visitor’, etc. and marketers will have enough insight to proactively pursue a lead and pitch to him, than wait for him to get back.

So yes, there is definitely a higher chance of marketers closing in more sales, because marketers are introducing themselves and creating a mindshare among their leads at an early stage. So we could say that the top benefits of using an intuitive marketing automation platform would be that sales teams can assess whether the prospect can be converted into a business opportunity based on the interest areas on the website and the buying power of the prospect. This is because this information becomes key to Sales to carry on with their lead nurturing programs.

For marketing automation solutions to really work, companies require processes to be put in place, thoughtful resource allocation and an understanding between the sales and marketing on how they will manage the leads in the company’s sales funnel.

Therefore, the crux here is that marketers need a marketing automation solution only when there is an appropriate use for it.


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