Central to many B2B content marketing plans is the goal to reach more prospective clients. But many companies don’t know what type of content is the right content to create that will reach a wider audience of potential customers. While every business is unique and target markets vary by industry, product, and service, we’ve determined 3 tips for business-to-business companies looking to create content that reaches more clients.
Benefits Not Features (Why Not What)
You’ve got an awesome product or service with exciting features, bells, whistles, and more. Features are a great way to distinguish your firm from competitors when a potential client is making a final decision, but it should never be the main focus of a B2B content marketing strategy centered on expanding reach. What your target audience really cares about is the benefits of your services or products. Before you write a piece of content ask, “How does this benefit my potential client?”
Typical benefits include time-savings, cost savings, better communication, faster delivery, higher quality, etc. Focusing on the benefits rather than the features ensures you are creating great, useful content that turns online searchers into potential clients and leads.
Content for Each Part of the Sales Funnel
There are four different stages in the B2B content marketing process and each should have its own content. The four stages are discovery (education), consideration (what can be), decision (credibility), and measurement (retention and upselling).
During the discovery phase, B2B content marketing efforts should focus on taking control of the conversation by telling prospects what questions to ask and how to evaluate the competition. This type of content is instrumental in reaching a new audience as your firm can create buying guides and answer elemental questions about your products and services.
The consideration phase calls for more emotionally connecting content, the “what can be” of your services and products. The right B2B content marketing pieces created for this stage of the sales funnel focus on the customer’s pain points and give a glimpse of how they can be addressed with your services. Content should include things like Before-and-Afters to create a clear visual of the future possibilities.
The next part of the sales funnel focuses on making a decision and all content should be highly personalized. Content pieces should include project schedules, service agreements, and payment terms. Many people don’t understand these items are part of a B2B content marketing strategy because they seem transactional. However, these content pieces build credibility and provide peace of mind to potential clients.
The final and ongoing phase of a strong content marketing strategy is measurement. After the sale and during the project, it’s important to produce and measure content that keeps the customer satisfied, turns them into an evangelist for your company, and possibly upsells them on other services. Gaining feedback is essential to determine where there are gaps in your content offerings and what you should create next to make the process as smooth as possible for your customers.
Your potential customers can be at various stages in the buying cycle. They may be on your newsletter distribution list but haven’t actually purchased anything. Or they may have just signed up at your lowest tier of services and are subscribing to your blog. Or they could be longtime customers that follow you on social media and are interested in new product or service offerings. By creating and sharing different types of content for each part of the sales funnel, you reach more clients with the right content to get them to convert.
Review Metrics to See What Works
Once you start creating content, even if it’s simply a monthly blog or weekly newsletter, it’s important to see what’s working. As a B2B web design and marketing firm, we rely heavily on metrics to inform our content marketing strategies. Metrics help to eliminate anecdotal information and tell us what is really working. You may think you’ve created a rockstar piece of content, but if the reception is abysmal, it’s time to try other avenues. For example, if you created an FAQ that gets a lot of traffic and feedback, you can use that information to craft upcoming blogs, guides, and newsletters as part of your B2B content marketing strategy.
Summary: The Right Content for Your Clients
Never forget that the content you create is not for you or your salespeople, it’s for your clients. While content marketing strategies vary across industries and from firm to firm, these 3 essential B2B content marketing tips ensure you are creating the right content to reach more potential clients.
