B2B content marketing and B2C marketing are entirely different beasts. the purpose is the same, however, in the case of B2B content marketing, the content absolutely has to be useful above everything else. It can be entertaining and funny too, but the utility is a critical feature.
For your business to be successful and keep up with changing times, your B2B marketing must be useful and meaningful and also distributed efficiently.
if your current content marketing strategy feels like it’s falling flat, or you’re just starting out with a new B2B business, the following B2B content marketing hacks could bring better results for less work.
Charlotte Chamberlain
Content Strategist at Tao Digital Marketing
Twitter: @taodigitalUK
LinkedIn: Charlotte Chamberlain
Don’t Underestimate Long-Tail, Zero Search Volume Keywords!
B2B content marketing is competitive – mixing popular, high-volume terms with hyper-focused, long-tail queries is by far the best strategy for pushing your website to the top of the SERPs.
Making ‘low hanging fruits’ a priority, alongside your main keyword strategy, will allow you to cover all bases in a format that is easy to read and follows a clear buyer journey, no matter what end of the funnel a reader is from.
This way, you’ll get better results and a wider, more extensive data set to utilize for your ongoing B2B marketing plan.
Jeremy Rivera
Founder of SEO Arcade
Twitter: @JeremyRiveraSEO
Linkedin: Jeremy Rivera
Recycle, Reduce, Reuse Your Content In Multiple Formats
If you make a connection with an expert known to your industry audience, a famous creator or speaker then you’re poised to get the biggest win by recording a video interview with them on your target topic. Then you can create a post with the transcript, turn key moments into quote graphics, transform the transcript into blog style content, chop up the interview into interesting clips for Insta, Tiktok, Facebook, Linkedin. By leveraging multiple content formats, you can take a single topical idea and make dozens of content pieces for different channels!
Nat Caesar
Owner & Head of Growth of Myndset
Use Internal Linking Strategically
Many content marketers tend to focus more on acquiring backlinks and underestimate the power of internal linking. Strategic internal linking brings better user experience, improves search rankings and contributes to the overall success of your content marketing efforts. Spend time doing a page-by-page analysis of your top performing posts and from there, link to the articles that need a boost. The transfer of link juice from these influential pages or posts can definitely bring keywords to higher rankings in the SERPs. In addition, executing tactical interlinking in your posts will keep your readers engaged as they switch from one valuable post to another. As a result, you build more trust and your audience starts to see you as an authority in what you preach!
Learn more: 20 Practical Content Marketing Tips for 2022
Jamie Cohen
Owner of Backlinks.io
LinkedIn: Jamie Cohen
You Don’t Always Have to Recreate the Wheel
If your B2B services are a smaller industry, don’t be afraid to steal winning content ideas from bigger industries. Industries with a ton of B2B services like SEO and Real Estate will have almost every content type covered. Use tools like Ahrefs and BuzzSumo to find which content types are working for them. Use these ideas as a starting point for content creation and fit the ideas to your audience. There is a decent chance that your audience has yet to see certain content types that could resonate with them.
Anoop Yersong
Head of Growth – Zonka Feedback
Twitter: @anoopyersong
LinkedIn: Anoop Yersong
Listen to Your Customers & Optimize Your 24×7 Sales Rep
Data is the new gold. And apart from the general web or in-product analytics, heat-maps and session recording tools, at the end of the day, it’s the customer who makes the final call.
Collecting, analyzing and taking action on the website feedback data can help you measure 360° customer experience and if done strategically, this can:
- Increase brand awareness through cluster pages like blogs and articles
- Increase customer acquisition on your conversion pages by improving copy
- Bring more leads in your sales pipeline from your pillar pages
- Streamline customer journey through easy-to-understand help articles
So, start making customer-centric changes in your website content strategy by taking feedback from your new and recurring visitors, high-intent prospects, as well as existing and past customers.
Back your analytics with customer feedback and drive results from your content marketing.
Learn More: 10 Creative Ways to Collect Feedback on Website
Justin Lubomirsky
SEO Manager for INFUSEmedia
LinkedIn: Justin Lubomirsky
Creating a Content Marketing Strategy That Converts!
Do research and proper market segmentation in order to address reader intent with the right set of keywords. Adapting B2B content marketing strategies for specific target markets is essential for driving results, no matter the size of the audience. Content marketing strategies help marketers make the most of their content and maintain a high ROI, while creating lasting equity for their brand.
Here are the 10 steps we recommend to create a Content Marketing Strategy That Converts:
- Keyword Research
- Content Goals
- Content Length
- Style Guide (Consistency)
- Content Map
- Pillar Pages
- Visual Content
- Writing and Revising
- Content Target Audience
- Promotion and Distribution
Alongside a detailed knowledge of your target audiences, these steps are imperative for taking full advantage of content’s potential and yielding the desired results.
Learn more: Definitive Guide to B2B Content Marketing
Sam Meenasian
Founder of Business Insurance USA
Create Content Marketing Partnerships
Creating content marketing partnerships is a great way to get your site more link juice, boost awareness, and grow your business. It is an underused tactic, but it can help you reach new frontiers. You can partner with promising potential brands and companies that don’t compete with your products but have overlapping audiences and a shared vision.
Partnerships with influencers in your niche are really effective as they can include your content on their social media posts or marketing newsletters. That will help you reach a new audience that can be interested in your new content and your brand.
Charles Brecque
Founder of Legislate
Twitter: @CharlesBrecque
LinkedIn: Charles Brecque
Hyper Tailored Content
Focusing part of your content marketing efforts on hyper tailored content is key to attracting prospects that are likely to be qualified and interested in your services. For example, someone searching for “CRM software with email automation and landing pages” is more likely to have a commercial intent than someone searching for “CRM”. Despite attracting a lower volume of visitors, hyper tailored content is worth the investment because these visitors are more likely to become real customers.
Nebojša Rakić
Founder of Get Results Link Building
LinkedIn: Nebojša Rakić
Research, Research, Research and Content That Brings Value
B2B content marketing doesn’t have to be a complex and endless back and forth between planning, execution and tracking of results. It can be much simpler, you just need two things to do it efficiently, and that is research and content that actually brings value to the readers. Starting with research, you need to get familiar with the needs and problems the business is facing, and then craft content that can actually help them implement your actionable advice in their strategy. Forget about stuffing your content with countless keywords and keyword synonyms – if your content doesn’t have any value when the fluff is removed, it simply won’t have any effect. Provide your readers with reliable advice without thinking about SEO when producing the content, and the results will follow!
Rifat Shibli
Senior Marketing Specialist at ShortDot
LinkedIn: Rifat Shibli
Be Human
The best content marketing hack is to humanize your content. Talk to your readers, understand their problems, and provide them with a solution.
SEO, link building, keyword research, etc are excellent ways to rank your content. However, all your efforts will go for naught if your content sounds robotic and fails to connect with the reader.
Therefore, the most important tip I can offer is to tailor your content to the readers you want to interact with it. Google will like your content if your readers do, and it will eventually perform better and increase the credibility of your business.
GnanaPrakash Rathinam
Founder of Clearout
LinkedIn: GnanaPrakash Rathinam
Make a content hub to catch Google’s attention and rank organically!
The concept of cluster content or topic clusters might initially seem confusing, but it is great to strengthen your content and SEO strategy.
Why does this strategy work?
The content cluster model has three main components: pillar pages, cluster content, and internal links. Organizing content in this way makes it easier for Google and online users to understand and navigate the content.
How do you build a good content cluster?
- Analyze your goals & conduct a thorough keyword research
- Perform a thorough content audit to find out if it will benefit your site’s performance
- Construct pillar pages that would bring all the content together
- Interlink all your content and pillar page
- Keep mining the content gaps and keep your clusters up-to-date.
If you are thinking about whether this strategy is for you or not, if you want to enhance your ranking and grow your brand organically, this is definitely for you.
Along with content cluster marketing, you should also focus on other strategies like co-marketing, social proof, social bookmarking, and more to grow your SaaS organically.
Learn more: A Complete Guide to Grow your SaaS Organically without Spending Anything on Marketing
Araks Nalbandyan
Director of Digital Marketing at 10Web.io
LinkedIn: Araks Nalbandyan
The Importance of Audio SEO
We cracked Google’s algorithm ?
Not really?, but we’ve found a loophole that boosts your rankings quickly and instantly. What we actually did was insert a voice recording of the article into the article, therefore, giving a signal to the search engine that it helps users to have multiple options to consume the content which is always a plus for Google, because if we take a look at recent updates, Google mainly focuses on user experience.
And here are some tips we have figured out in this process:
✅ Use AI reading tools to save time and human resources.
✅Don’t insert MP3 into your article, as it can slow down your website (you definitely know page speed is crucial for any website). There are different podcast/audio hosts that you can post audio there and then embed on your website.
✅Make sure not to have signs in the text after getting the AI audio version of the article.
Khaled Bentoumi
Founder of Data to Page
Twitter: @BentoumiTech
LinkedIn: Khaled Bentoumi
Lacking Ideas on Content to Create? Make a Glossary of Your Niche Terms
Creating a glossary of your niche terms to leverage search traffic is worth it. You’ll find that a great deal of your target audience tends to search for more information on terms they’re learning about.
It’s a good idea to include a glossary with regularly updated terminology of your market or field. For example, Ahrefs has a glossary involving all SEO terms, which is a commonly trusted platform by marketers around the world. The provision of these terms allows for ranking on different keywords while enhancing the reputation amongst users and readers; giving them a positive first impression of the brand or website.
Integrating well-managed glossaries on websites has the potential to have your visitors come back for more!
Lito James
Founder of MassivePeak.com
Twitter: @litojames_
LinkedIn: Lito James
The Powerful Techniques in Content Marketing
Storytelling is an ancient art form that has been around for centuries. It is the power of a story to connect with people on an emotional level and inspire them to take action.
In today’s content marketing world, storytelling is being used more and more as a way to engage audiences and tell their stories. The use of storytelling in content marketing has grown exponentially in recent years because it is such a powerful tool for engaging customers.
When you think about the purpose of any piece of content, it should be to get your reader to take some sort of action: sign up for your newsletter, purchase a product, or share the article on social media.
Stories are one of the most powerful tools you can use when crafting any piece of content because they drive your message and make it.
With this in mind,
A well-designed landing page + great stories + CTA’s (Hook, Story, Offer method) converts more..
So, Get a landing page and write a story 🙂
Learn More: 13 Best Landing Page Builders [Free+Paid]
Nathan Vander Heyden
Lead Strategist at ContentMethod
Twitter: @vdhnat
LinkedIn: Nathan Vander Heyden
Match Intent. Resonate. Show off.
It’s not easy to write content that converts. Sometimes, every single new post feels like going back to the drawing board.
The truth is, you just need a template that works. I call it the “Intent – Resonate – Show Off” framework.
1- Match Intent
From the get-go, the searcher needs to understand that this article will, indeed, answer their question.
Don’t beat around the bush: keep it short and use bold to draw attention.
2- Resonate
And I don’t mean “you need to know your audience.” For this article specifically, what is it that the reader has a problem with? How does that affect their daily life? How do they feel?
They need to think, “this guy/gal gets me.”
3- Show off
Why would the searcher buy from you after reading the article? How does your product/service tie into your piece of content—and keyword?
Give them a reason to click that “book a call” or “start a trial” button.
Learn more: How to Convert Blog Traffic Into Customers
Christopher R. Kahan
Senior Business Development Manager of iDevAffiliate
Twitter: @KAHANTNT
LinkedIn: Christopher R. Kahan
Focus on Trends, Innovation and White Spots
No matter how competitive your niche might be, there is always a chance to spot a topic that has not yet been thoroughly revealed or requires latest / updated info. Articles like that will be popular (extra traffic and potential leads over cross-marketing) and harvest inbound backlinks steadily. Question is how to find the topic. Hack here is to employ the following tools:
- Technical traffic analysis tools like Ahrefs > Organic Traffic > Top Pages
- Quora: Analysis of questions related to your niche
- Google Trends: Good for both worldwide and local requests
- Analysis of existing article with few examples, case studies and proofs that your expertise could provide
Once the right article topic is discovered, do your best to make it rich in graphics, links to trustworthy resources and live examples.
Learn more: Typical Commission Rates in Affiliate Marketing Across 10 Top Busiest Industries
Adam Bukauskas
Founder of Wise Move
Twitter: @WiseMoveSA
LinkedIn: Adam Bukauskas
Invest in Quality Content That Drives Brand Awareness
Spend money wisely on content that drives brand awareness. I believe in investing in guest posts and advertorials with the right partners. Quality oriver quantity as always and branded keywords that help customers recognize you in the long run.
Build your foundation on well-established outlets and support it with guest posts and local advertorials.
Don’t be afraid to spend money when it comes to brand awareness.
Santiago Safdie
Growth Marketing Leader at InvGate
Twitter: @InvGate
LinkedIn: Santiago Safdie
Professionally Outline Your Content and Use as Many Tools as Necessary
Do not be afraid to immerse yourself in conventional structures and formats, be guided mostly by SEO rules. Follow the rules of design and functionality imposed on the page.
In turn, alongside the internet there is a huge variety of artificial intelligence tools and resources that help position your content, always with a final look, since google penalizes content artificially created by an artificial tool.
Finally, educate yourself 24/7, learn about the niche or industry you work in, so new ideas and project triggers will emerge.
Learn more: Tips for creating better knowledge articles
Conclusion
The growth of your B2B company and sales of your products depends on how well you market. The competition is fierce but the B2B content marketing hacks above could give you that all important lead.
