Exploring Content Marketing for Increased Engagement

Content marketing has emerged as one of the most powerful marketing tactics for B2B technology companies as traditional advertising methods have become more ineffective. We will be exploring how content marketing for B2B lead generation is a surefire way to build engagement with your audiences.

What is Content Marketing?

Yes, we are banging the drum about content marketing! If you have any doubt, content marketing is the ‘inbound marketing’ practice of creating and distributing valuable and relevant content to attract and engage your target audience.

The goal of content is not to explicitly promote a product or service, but rather to build trust, establish authority and foster relationships between your company and your audiences.

Is Content Marketing Important for B2B?

YES!

But don’t just take our word for it. Here are a few reasons why your content marketing is essential to your lead generation strategy, especially within a B2B environment.

Establishing Thought Leadership

To establish yourself as a thought leader, an effective tactic is to create valuable and engaging content. B2B buyers will seek solutions to their challenges, usually online. By sharing your valuable and engaging content, you create trust and knowledge, which will contribute positively to converting leads.

Providing Educational Content

As discussed in our earlier blog, ‘How to plan your SEO content marketing strategy’ – Providing educational content forms part of the sales funnel. This is especially true as 94% of B2B buyers conduct research before making a purchase decision (Demand Gen Report).

This educational-led content provides valuable information and solutions to your potential customers and positions you as a trusted advisor.

Supporting the Sales Funnel

B2B sales cycles are often longer and involve multiple decision-makers which can become a blocker. Your content marketing strategy should provide relevant content at the various stages of the sales funnel, as this will help nurture your leads by keeping them engaged throughout their journey. This will provide decision-makers with all the information they require to make an informed purchasing decision.

Targeting Specific Audiences

B2B businesses often have specific target audiences, such as industry niches, job roles or company sizes. Your content marketing strategy should include creating content that specifically caters to these target audiences. This ensures you are delivering the right message to the right audience using the right tool!

Supporting Relationship Building

Many B2B sales are built on relationships and trust. Your content marketing efforts allow you to foster relationships with potential customers by consistently providing value through your content. Building relationships with your prospects through content marketing helps establish trust, which can lead to long-term customer loyalty!

Driving Organic Traffic

We have said this before, but we will say it again! Your content marketing should always aim to drive organic traffic to your website through search engine optimisation (SEO) strategies. We have written various in-depth articles covering the importance of SEO in your content marketing strategy. You may find these to be useful:

How to write content with SEO in mind

How to plan your SEO content marketing strategy

By creating high-quality and keyword-rich content, you can improve your search engine rankings, attract more organic traffic and generate qualified leads who are actively searching for solutions related to your products or services.

All B2B businesses should leverage their content marketing as it is a powerful strategy to attract, engage and convert leads into prospects and ultimately into loyal customers!

Mastering the Basics of Creating Killer Content

Here are some enhanced basics to keep in mind when crafting content that resonates with your target audience and drives lead generation.

Know Your Audience

Understanding your target audience is the foundation of creating killer content. Conduct thorough research to identify their needs, preferences and pain points. Use this knowledge to tailor your content and speak directly to your audience, thereby encouraging them to take action.

Focus on Quality, Informative, Valuable Content

Quality, not quantity, should always be a top priority when creating content for lead generation.  Ensure that your content is well-researched, accurate and free from errors. Invest in visually appealing designs, engaging visuals and user-friendly formatting to enhance the readability and aesthetics of your content.

High-quality content reflects positively on your brand and encourages potential customers to trust and engage with your business.

Offer Unique Insights

To create killer content, it is crucial to provide unique insights that add value to your audience. Avoid regurgitating generic information that can be easily found elsewhere. Instead, offer fresh perspectives, unique research findings or exclusive data that sets your content apart from your competitors.

Tell A Story

Storytelling is a technique for capturing your audience's attention and creating a memorable impact. Incorporate storytelling techniques into your content to make it more engaging and relatable. Share personal experiences, real-life instances or case studies that elicit emotion and connect with your audience on a deeper level. A compelling story can make your content more memorable and drive lead generation.

High-Quality Blog Posts

Blogging is a popular form of content marketing that allows you to create informative and engaging content regularly. By publishing high-quality, valuable and engaging blog posts that address your target audience's pain points and interests, you can attract organic traffic from search engines and social media. Within the blog posts, you can embed calls to action (CTAs) that direct users to relevant landing pages where they can opt-in and provide their contact information. We have written an Essential guide to a better CTA which you may find useful.

Incorporate Multimedia Elements

Diversify your content by incorporating multimedia elements such as images, videos and infographics. Multimedia elements can enhance your content's visual appeal and interactivity, making it more engaging and shareable. Visuals can also help convey complex concepts or data more easily, increasing your content's effectiveness.

Include Clear Calls-To-Action (CTAs)

Every piece of content should include a clear CTA that guides your audience toward the desired action. Whether it's subscribing to a newsletter, downloading a free resource or requesting a consultation, include CTAs that are prominent, compelling and easy to follow.

A strong CTA will encourage your audience to take your ideal next step and become a prospect for your business.

Optimise for Search Engines

Optimising your content for search engines is essential for driving organic traffic to your website and generating leads. Conduct keyword research to identify relevant keywords and incorporate them naturally into your content. Optimise your content titles, headings, meta descriptions and URLs for SEO to improve your search engine rankings.

This will increase the visibility of your content and attract more potential customers to your website.

Compelling Landing Pages

Create landing pages with enticing headlines and persuasive CTAs that prompt users to provide their email addresses or other contact details in exchange for access to premium content, such as eBooks, whitepapers or webinars. This is called gated content. By offering valuable content, you can attract potential customers and collect their information to nurture that contact through to conversion.

Social Media Content

Social media platforms (in particular, LinkedIn) provide an opportunity to connect and engage with your target audience on a personal level. You can build relationships and nurture leads by sharing valuable content, engaging in conversations and responding to comments and messages. Social media posts can also include links to your landing pages or blog posts, encouraging users to click through and provide their information to access gated resources.

Implementing Email Marketing

Email marketing is a powerful tool for lead nurturing and conversion. Once businesses have captured leads through their marketing efforts, they can use email marketing campaigns to further engage and nurture those leads and clients. By sending targeted and personalised emails that provide value, businesses can build relationships, establish trust and ultimately convert leads into customers. Don’t send generic bland emails by mass, send emails that users will want to receive, personalised to the user and their business needs.

Analyse and Optimise

Regularly analyse the performance of your content to identify what's working and what's not. Monitor key metrics such as engagement page visits, dwell time, form fills and conversion rates. Use this data to optimise your content strategy and make data-driven decisions to continuously improve your content's effectiveness.

Conclusion – Content Is Still King!

Content marketing has become a vital element in today's digital marketing landscape. By providing value to your target audience through highly relevant and engaging content, you can establish yourself as a thought leader and build trust with your audience.

Not sure where to begin? We can offer you a free audit of your website to help you understand how your content is performing today and how it could be improved in the future.