How to use content creation services to boost your B2B marketing
B2B companies must consistently publish content to remain engaged with their audience and generate new leads. Yet, only 22% of businesses have an in-house content marketing team. Most companies outsource content creation services because these are affordable and easy to scale.
84% of businesses and organisations have a content marketing strategy, yet, only 24% achieve significant success. In other words, most B2B content fails to hit KPIs and drive targeted results.
The problem is failing to generate content that resonates with prospects and attracts new leads.
This article explores how content creation services can increase your ROI and drive your desired results. At the end of this article, you will learn:
- Ten ways to use content to boost B2B Marketing
- Benefits you stand to gain when you do content right
How to use content creation services to boost B2B marketing
Only 19% of businesses reported successful content marketing in 2021. To drive optimal results, implement the following tips to improve your content.
1. Use in-depth research to create content tailored to your prospects
In-depth research is necessary for long-form content like blogs, white papers, and case studies. Your team must align content with the needs of your prospects, and it has to solve specific problems for them.
Once you stop offering solutions with your blogs, many ideal customers will not engage with your company. After all, businesses are hiring you because they want to get rid of a problem.
2. Be aware of the differences between B2B and B2C content
B2B and B2C content differ in the following ways:
- target audience
- buying journey
- type of content
While B2C content targets a single person to get a sales conversion, B2B content usually tries to convert a whole business team. You want to convince the decision-makers in a business that you are offering the right solution to their problem.
Second, the buying journey of prospects differs for B2B and B2C. It takes a few hours to days to persuade a single customer to place an order on a site. For B2B, the buying journey takes several months and involves meetings and contracts. For B2B, higher stakes and risks are involved.
B2B target personas respond well to thought leadership pieces, long-form blog posts, and podcasts.
When you know the differences between B2B and B2C content, you know what to expect or demand from a content creation service.
3. Don’t abandon emotion
Even though B2B content must be valuable to a prospect, don’t take emotion off the table. Personalise your content, make them engaging, and tell stories.
A sale occurs when your business connects with a prospect and establishes a relationship.
While sales conversion starts with being valuable and proposing solutions to specific issues, it is aided and sped up by engaging content.
4. Use case studies to tell engaging stories
Case studies are valuable content assets that B2B companies use to prove their solutions work. Use them to tell engaging stories and generate more leads.
Don’t forget we are in the B2B landscape. You have to include details like statistical data and screenshots.
Finally, just because it’s B2B doesn’t mean it has to be boring. After all, you tell a story about how your company solved a pressing problem. Write a compelling intro and keep the stakes high for the study.
5. Target buyer personas
Buyer personas are mockups of your ideal customers – for instance, a marketing manager or the head of recruiting at a company.
Produce content specific for certain buyer personas to:
- Create personable and engaging content
- Understand their stage of awareness
Buyer personas allow you to see what content resonates most with prospects.
For instance, a buyer at the solution-aware stage already knows about existing solutions. At this stage, your job is to differentiate your solution from others in the market.
6. Create different kinds of content
When you hire a content creation service, don’t just order one form of content. Experiment with creating different content types to see how your audience engages with them and how they work together.
One form of content can lead a prospect to discover others. For instance, someone may see your LinkedIn ad and click through to a blog post or a podcast. From there, they look for a whitepaper or a case study. Then, they call your sales team or sign up for a demo.
Different types of content serve as touch points along a prospect’s journey.
Plus, creating different types of social content is helpful for social validation.
7. Create content about relevant business news
Creating content around current happenings in your industry helps you to garner popularity and increase leads. The key is to have a lead generation and nurturing system in place.
So, when you publish trendy content pieces, you can use an email offer to capture new leads to have a chance to convert them into clients.
8. Keep your marketing goals and KPIs in mind
Don’t forget the reason why you are hiring content creation services. If you want to generate more leads or drive awareness about your product, make that clear from the beginning of the contract.
Knowing your marketing goals helps you tailor content to drive better results. No need to publish “Your Product vs Product B” blog posts if you only want to drive awareness about yours.
Tailoring your content to your marketing goals helps you save time and money while generating good results.
9. Work with what you have. Use data and feedback.
Learn directly from your audience what resonates with them and what doesn’t.
Find the types of content your readers engage with the most and share more often. Send short surveys and polls to your email list to learn what content they want to get from you.
Share the data with the content service you hired. Some agencies are also willing to carry out data collation for you.
10. Involve your team
A good content creation service efficiently researches your company and your audience to determine what content pieces are most likely to work. But there’s only so much they can do.
When you hire an agency, involve the key members of your team. There are hidden secrets and data that particular team members have about how clients react to specific messaging strategies.
When you pull in several team members, the content agency is more likely to get all the information and data it needs.
Benefits of effective B2B content creation
When you create effective B2B content, your business can:
- Supercharge lead generation and close more sales
- Grow and control brand image
- Increase bottom lines and consistently hit KPIs
- Connect better with clients and increase retention rates
- Increase content ROI.
Hire the right content agency for your b2b company
While content creation services make producing content easy and scalable for B2B firms, it has to be done effectively to drive the desired results.
virtualROI has helped dozens of Telco and IT firms to develop working B2B content marketing strategies. We have worked with companies across Europe, Africa, and the Middle East.
Feel free to reach out today.