Content marketing for B2B firms includes a wide range of types designed to resonate with buyers of different backgrounds and functions throughout the purchasing journey. The best content marketing pieces have a clear audience and a specific purpose.
In this post, we look at 5 great B2B content marketing examples and what makes them stand out.
HubSpot’s Case Study
Case studies are a great asset for attracting and nurturing inbound leads for B2B firms. While HubSpot, a marketing automation platform provider, has a broad range of content materials for prospects and leads, the case studies they create are excellent.
Here is an example of a case study HubSpot created:
https://www.hubspot.com/case-studies/airstream
What makes this case study great? A few things.
First, it’s ungated, so anyone visiting the website can read the case study in its entirety and see how HubSpot has helped Airstream generate more leads.
Second, the case study mentions HubSpot’s client by name and includes clear metrics and specific data. While anonymous case studies are still useful, branded case studies tend to have more credibility since it’s easy to fact-check and shows how actual companies are using the platform.
Third, it tells a story about what Airstream wanted to accomplish, the challenges of accomplishing that goal, and how exactly HubSpot helped them along the journey. Plus, it has some cool photos of admittedly cool trailers.
IVEMSA’s Fast Facts on Mexican Manufacturing
Downloadable content offers run the gamut from guides to checklists to white papers to example summaries and costs. As a provider of shelter services for US firms looking to expand to Mexico, IVEMSA crafts an array of content to educate firms about the process of setting up operations and what to expect. Their resource center has a range of downloadable content offers, but they did a particularly great job creating a few “Fast Facts” to provide potential clients with the data needed to make decisions on expanding operations to Mexico.
Here is an example of Fast Facts on The Mexican Manufacturing Advantage:
https://www.ivemsa.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/IVEMSA_MXAdvantage_052418.pdf
What makes this content offer great? Let’s take a look.
First, while they have a few content offers that are gated, this particular piece is ungated. Since it’s more of an introductory piece for leaders considering manufacturing in Mexico, it shows a high-level look at what they can expect cost-wise.
Second, it’s a mix of actual costs, benefits, explanations, and quotes from current clients.
Third, it’s branded and discusses how IVEMSA fits into the strategy to move or expand operations to Mexico. Even though it’s ungated, it provides clear contact information to the end user so they can get in touch with IVEMSA if they need more information.
Semrush’s Blog on 12 SEO Tips
When most marketers think of B2B content marketing pieces, they first think of blogs. Blog posts are often central to a content strategy often as a way to showcase thought leadership, share opinions, educate buyers about products or services, and provide summaries of other larger content pieces. The audience for Semrush’s SEO platform likely varies from seasoned SEO experts to more generalist B2B marketers.
Here is an example of a blog post on Essential SEO Tips:
https://www.semrush.com/blog/seo-tips/
What makes this B2B content marketing piece excellent? Several things make this piece stand out:
First, it’s clearly organized AND includes a clickable table of contents on the left side of the blog that is stationary while you scroll through the blog. This enables the user to click around to different sections and get a high-level idea of what the article includes.
Second, the visuals included demonstrate the points and help to break up the text into chunks.
Third, it’s long-form content that provides actionable tips for B2B marketers while also interlinking to other relevant articles and content pieces on Semrush’s website.
Haskell&White’s Video Presentation
Buyers and prospects want to consume content in a variety of ways, with video being at the top of the list. While many firms don’t have the capacity or resources to produce high-end live videos, presentations with voiceovers are a great way to put together videos your website visitors can easily watch. CPA firm, Haskell&White, elected to tackle the complex topics impacting the clients and industries they serve with recorded presentations.
Here is an example of a recorded video presentation on waste reduction:
https://www.hwcpa.com/content_library/time-to-improve-profit-in-your-business-by-waste-reduction/
This is an engaging piece of content for a few reasons:
First, it doesn’t take a professional videographer to record, edit, and post. B2B content marketers often get overwhelmed thinking about video, but not every video needs to be hyper-polished, TV-quality recordings. In fact, the popularity of video-focused apps has made audiences more comfortable with less formal videos.
Second, the presentation includes a combination of summary text, charts, and graphs. The mix of visuals keeps users engaged throughout the nine-minute video.
Third, the video is attributed to the speaker, who can also be found on the Executive Team page. This makes the content shared in the video more trustworthy as a viewer can research more about Patrick’s background and experience.
AdRoll’s “State Of” Report
When it comes to B2B content creation, producing “The State Of” reports is often time-consuming and requires a good investment of resources. Based on the quality of data they include, they tend to be high-value content to end-users. Retargeting ad platform provider, AdRoll, has a lot of data to work with and does a great job sharing data via various forms of content.
In this example, AdRoll shares the State of Digital Marketing Report:
https://www.adroll.com/state-of-digital-marketing-report
What makes this a winning content piece? Let’s explore:
First, it starts off with what’s in it for the reader, “to help marketers understand overall marketing trends and offer ideas to further improve marketing ROI.” Knowing what the reader gets out of it right away shows that AdRoll understands the reader’s needs.
Second, it dives into the data right away while also providing a handy table of contents on the left side so visitors can jump to the data they need.
Third, the data is broken up with nice visuals and quick summaries but also includes ideas to consider and an FAQ. Anything that is titled “The State Of” should be comprehensive and include more than just data, but data interpretation and takeaways, much like this piece does.
