“Sorry the booked event is canceled due to COVID-19 precautions” does this happened to you too?
With the conferences and shows canceled due to global pandemic, we should understand the content marketing is very prominent and every business should implement it strategically.
Many businesses who yet have not adopted content marketing have found themselves between the rock and a hard place. Due to the pandemic world went virtual/digital and are finding digital marketing the most viable source of generating qualified leads.
So, don’t cancel the events instead go digital with smart content marketing strategies. We will learn more about content marketing strategies in our next blog, till then let’s know about Content marketing and how useful it is to the B2B industry.
What Is Content Marketing?
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The definition of B2B content marketing in simple terms is engaging, educating, informing, and nurturing the prospects and turning them into qualified leads (Sales qualified or Marketing qualified).
We use many tools like caller ID, spam detectors to filter out the unsolicited sales calls also we filter out the cold pitches from the brands we are less interested in.
Since all buyers make use of organic search to filter the desired information on the web, so search optimized content is the best way to get discovered and yes, to be considered by the customer or prospect.
When buyers search on the web and you get your business discovered it is the best channel for B2B marketing.
But how will you get yourself found on the web? The answer is …Optimizing your Content.
In this blog, let us learn more about –
- Importance of B2B content marketing
- How much time you should spend to get effective B2B content marketing
- How content marketing helps buyers
So, let’s get started with the B2B content marketing mantras
1. Why B2B Content Marketing Is Important For Your Business?
When people research on the web they think they are ‘JUST RESEARCHING’ but they are getting influenced to buy our product.
Only if you do your ‘content Marketing’ properly.
When people are researching on the web, they tend to think they are educating themselves, but the truth is we are selling them our product and services through online information aka ‘content marketing’ which is intentionally produced to engage buyers in each stage of their buyer’s journey.
It could be any content like white papers, E-books, webinars, blogs, service pages and more.
We all know, the first stage to buy any product from buying a needle to buying an air jet engine, everything is searched on the web first.
According to the research, 71% of buyers make use of the internet daily to make business purchase decisions.
Jim Lecinski, managing director US Sales at Google, says “For B2B marketers treat the web like a giant call center”.
And this is the magic of ‘content marketing’.
Must Read: Best content marketing tools
2. How Much Time Is Needed To Make Effective Content Marketing?
Evaluate yourself – is the answer to the question.
It all starts with your way of researching on the web. Spend dedicated time to read articles. Grasp the style of content.
Evaluate the ranked pages –
- Is the content outdated?
- The keyword you will be using are they well researched?
- Are the ranked pages fresh to the content and have relevance?
So, to be precise, it all depends upon your way of evaluating the content which is ranked at the top.
3. How Content Marketing Can Influence The Buyer’s Journey?
As mentioned earlier the buyers take decisions based on online information. Hence it is extremely important that brands should influence a buyer’s journey by providing educational content at every stage of the buyer’s journey.
On the platforms like ‘Quora’ be active by responding with great and valuable content. This will help you in lead nurturing stage. If brands do it perfectly, your product or services may be considered by the buyer. This way the brands need not go for a sales pitch the power of smart content will do the rest.
There are 3 stages of the buyer’s journey
| Buyer’s Journey Stages | Aim of Content |
| Awareness | Attract potential customers |
| Consideration | Engagement |
| Decision making | Convert |
You should understand the importance of the buyer’s journey and related content to influence them, this way your chances of winning the content marketing game increases.
Summary:
The content marketing industry is the game-changer of today’s B2B marketing world. Due to the pandemic the event gatherings, Conferences have stopped and this is affecting your business, but if you do robust content marketing and show your presence online you are the winner in the B2B marketing world.
So, do not forget to follow us for our next blog update.
Must Read: How To Embed Content Marketing And SEO For More Traffic And Leads?
Vikas Bhatt is the Co-Founder of ONLY B2B, a premium B2B lead generation company that specializes in helping businesses achieve their growth objectives through targeted marketing & sales campaigns. With 10+ years of experience in the industry, Vikas has a deep understanding of the challenges faced by businesses today and has developed a unique approach to lead generation that has helped clients across a range of industries around the globe. As a thought leader in the B2B marketing community, ONLY B2B specializes in demand generation, content syndication, database services and more.
