If a piece of content falls in the forest, does anyone notice? Is anyone reading that content? Is that content a waste of time? What’s with all the questions? Successful content marketing gets great, high-quality content in front of the appropriate audience. Anyone who creates content for a business or a brand should always be asking, “Is my content reaching the right people?”
To get the best return on your content investment, it’s imperative that your B2B content marketing efforts are reaching the right folks. Who are the right folks? I thought we were done with questions! The right audience is your ideal, potential client and your existing customers. (Never forget how important keeping your existing clients is when you are looking for new clients.) There are several things you can do to make sure that your content marketing efforts are worthwhile (and they all involve questions to ask!).
Be Relevant to Your Audience
Before you put pen to paper or fingertips to the keyboard, ask yourself, “Is this piece relevant to my audience?” All pieces you create under a B2B content marketing strategy should be relevant and useful to your audience. It should cover information they care about. If a potential client doesn’t understand how a feature of your service benefits them, they sure as heck won’t care how it works. Put yourself in their shoes and focus on what actually matters to them.
Properly Optimize Your Content
A crucial question to answer before you distribute or publish any content is, “Have I properly optimized this content?” Keywords, particularly long-tail keywords, are the foundation of properly optimized content. While search engines are evaluating your content by looking at keywords, related keywords, and overall quality – your B2B content marketing pieces absolutely, hands down, must have keywords. Rather than removing keywords that you think sound awkward, focus on finding better ways to integrant them into the text. It can be done!
Share It Where Your Audience Is Located
You’ve created a relevant, optimized piece of content, now what? Share it where the people are hanging out. Before you start going crazy and sharing your content all over the place, ask yourself, “Is this a place where my ideal prospects and clients will see my content?” For example, if your potential clients go to Forbes.com more than TigerBeat.com, concentrate your efforts on pushing content to Forbes.com. For B2B content marketing strategies, the places to share and publish content will vary from where B2C companies are reaching their audience. Keep this in mind to streamline your content sharing efforts.
Get Social With It
Professionals are turning to social media more and more to connect with their colleagues, vendors, and clients. When sharing your content, be sure to consider the following question, “Am I hitting all the right social outlets?” Don’t forget to follow Will Smith’s advice and Get Social With It. (Ok, so he didn’t say that, but go with it.) It’s easy to move from one piece of great content to another and forget to share it on your social channels. Make a checklist to follow every time that you create B2B content marketing pieces.
Reaching the right audience with your content marketing pieces is essential to the overall success of your strategy. By properly preparing your pieces, tailoring them to your audience, and meeting your audience where they are located, you can improve the ROI of your B2B content marketing strategy.
