B2B Content Marketing

Achieve Goals in B2B with the Right Content

What is B2B Content Marketing?

Especially in the B2B sector, content marketing holds great importance. B2B content marketing refers to the creation and promotion of content specifically aimed at reaching B2B target audiences. The goal is primarily to enhance the visibility of one's company and use the created content to generate qualified leads.

B2B Content Marketing and the Customer Journey

While companies in the B2C sector typically interact with a vast number of customers, the B2B sector is characterized by a selected clientele and long-term customer relationships. Organic B2B content marketing is therefore shaped by the need not only to define an understanding of the target audience's needs and desires but also to deliver tailored (including SEO) content along the touchpoints of the Customer Journey.

Neglecting the Customer Journey in B2B content marketing is sometimes an oversight. Only marketers who understand at which points of the customer journey the right content needs to be placed for the target audience to be found by B2B prospects can reach and win B2B customers over the long term. In particular, organic visibility in the form of search engine optimization is a crucial factor. Target audiences searching for B2B services often turn to search engines like Google as the first step. Meaning: Companies that perform well with unique B2B SEO content are accessible to the potential target audience.

5 Key Steps in the B2B Content Marketing Process

Consequently, B2B content marketing builds on the development of a long-term content marketing strategy in close alignment with the touchpoints of the customer journey. Fundamental steps are undertaken—from defining B2B goals to conceptualizing an SEO strategy and through to the publication and continuous evaluation of content.

B2B Goal Setting

At the basis of B2B content creation is defining what goals the content marketing strategy aims to achieve. B2B content is always directed at a specific audience and ideally serves a purpose. Only by defining goals can the success of the strategy be measured later on.

Overarching goals often include lead generation to acquire new customers. At the same time, B2B content marketing also reflects a company's overall communication and language strength, allowing content to position the company and strengthen its brand. Additionally, improving relationships with existing customers and sharing expertise can be potential goals.

Target Audience Analysis

The second step involves conducting a professional target audience analysis. This is crucial for implementing the right approach to customer interaction. Key questions at this stage include:

• What problems (and questions) does my target audience have? 

• How does my service contribute to solving these problems? 

• What are the characteristics of the individuals within my target audience? 

• How does my target audience search for solutions to problems?

An in-depth target audience analysis is necessary to develop specific buyer personas in the next step. Buyer personas are abstract profiles of potential business customers that fit the target audience's pattern. The more extensive the service offered, the more complex the target audience. Typically, acquiring comprehensive services involves many decision-makers, such as buyers or executives, so various needs must be met simultaneously. In the B2B sector:

Only those who know their target audience in detail can provide ideally tailored content and choose the right content formats!

Developing an SEO Strategy

Content marketing is understood as a sub-discipline of a holistic SEO strategy. Besides technical aspects like load time, sitemap, or robots.txt, B2B SEO content marketing must be tailored to the special needs of the target audience.

In B2B SEO, it’s important to thoroughly understand customer wishes through intensive competition analyses, keyword, and topic research. This sector has many specifics that need to be highlighted and require a rethinking process with the conception of an SEO strategy. For example, purchase processes in B2B take significantly more time, so customer contacts must be maintained through trustworthiness and expertise. Consequently, the choice in B2B often falls on long-tail keywords, i.e., long specific search terms, as they often reflect the target audience's complex interests. Low search volumes should not be discouraging here if the search term encompasses a specific interest.

Another aspect is the choice of the right content formats. Whether a traditional whitepaper or dynamic video content on YouTube – the possibilities in B2B SEO are almost limitless here. While classic text content like guides is often found in B2B, innovative content ideas offer particularly great potential to stand out from the digital competition.

Creating an Editorial Plan

Following detailed strategic planning, the implementation follows in practice. From an agency perspective, there is a clear recommendation here: Successful B2B content marketing is about prioritizing quality over quantity. Blog articles and guides created half-heartedly are rarely successful.

Even if the analyses conducted beforehand reveal a broad range of questions, search terms, and potential formats, companies should initially focus on the most demanded content. To plan the publication, it’s advisable to create a structured editorial plan.

The editorial plan records which topics are to be published at what time. Simultaneously, the planning defines which content formats are used and on what basis, such as the results of a previous keyword search, the content is created. Typically, a comprehensive editorial plan is compiled several months in advance. Potential trending topics should be considered and correctly placed over time.

Publication and Marketing

The success of a content marketing strategy not only depends on which content is published but also on how visible the published content is to the addressed target audience. Therefore, it can be sensible to specifically promote content post-publication.

Continuous Evaluation

Based on specific SEO KPIs, the performance of published content is evaluated. Through these evaluations, it can be determined which content needs optimization. Poor rankings typically indicate that the existing content is not sufficiently relevant in its current form compared to the competition. In such cases, it is important to re-evaluate search terms and possibly expand or modify content.

But be careful! An organic content marketing strategy requires time. While initial trends may become apparent after a few weeks, comprehensive results can take several months to materialize.

Content Formats in the B2B Sector

There is a wide range of content formats available for delivering content in B2B. Most companies choose classic formats frequently used in B2B:

• Blog articles 

• Whitepapers 

• Guides 

• Case Studies 

• E-Books

• Webinars

Generally, these are formats primarily designed to convey expertise. To fully exploit the potential of B2B content marketing, the B2B target audience should be fed with the right content along the touchpoints of the customer journey.

B2B SEO – Stand Out with Special Content!

Blog articles, whitepapers, and guides are true classics in B2B SEO. To differentiate yourself and further improve access to the B2B target audience, the marketing strategy should be fundamentally expanded.

In particular, social networks like TikTok, Instagram, or Facebook are proving to be effective in the era of new digital marketing. This gives traditional companies ample reason to think outside the box and explore the potential of B2B social media marketing.

Harness the Potential of B2B Social Media Marketing

Social media are one of the first contact points between companies and B2B target groups. The old argument that specific B2B groups aren't active on social networks mostly falls away today. All B2B areas meet digitally, from student workers to executives, most notably in specialized B2B networks like LinkedIn or Xing.

The possibilities of B2B social media marketing are diverse. To strengthen expertise through organic marketing, it can be worthwhile to prepare traditional website content like whitepapers, blog articles, webinars, or case studies for publication in social (B2B) networks. Naturally, social media also provide ideal conditions to spotlight one's brand. However, purely organic strategies can be challenging in B2B social media marketing—a combination of organic and paid advertising efforts has proven particularly effective in practice.

YouTube B2B - Benefits of YouTube Channel for Companies

As one of the largest search engines worldwide, YouTube ranks among the most popular social media platforms. At first glance, B2B marketing and YouTube may appear worlds apart. Yet YouTube is evolving and is now a relevant touchpoint for B2B. Older user groups beyond the youth age are active on the platform and are interesting for B2B.

But how can YouTube effectively complement B2B content marketing? YouTube can serve various purposes, such as generating organic leads. Objectives and synergies achieved through YouTube marketing, and especially YouTube SEO, are diverse: From acquiring new customers and increasing brand awareness to boosting traffic:

• A B2B video format could be explanatory videos. These can supplement existing content to illustrate complex B2B products or services and make them accessible to the target audience.

• Customer interviews are the social media counterpart to the classic case study: Here, you have the opportunity to reinforce a positive image of your products or services within the context of actual use. Satisfied customers simultaneously strengthen trust in the brand.

internetwarriors – Your B2B Marketing Agency in Berlin

As a 360° B2B marketing agency based in the heart of the capital, we offer you both competent consulting and operational support in all areas of B2B content marketing.
We see B2B content marketing as part of a holistic online marketing strategy. We accompany you through all disciplines of online marketing and work closely with you to develop an effective marketing concept to achieve your goals. Get in touch with us now!