5 ways to leverage B2B content marketing (beyond just your website)
While it’s a hugely important benefit, a strong content marketing strategy for your B2B business isn’t only to help your website rank better for relevant keywords and attract your ideal customers. Content plays a critical role in both inbound and outbound marketing by building trust with your prospects and demonstrating that you are an authority in your area of expertise. High-quality content serves as a launching off point for your brand, driving widespread awareness and even guiding prospects lower into the sales funnel with content that speaks specifically to your product’s benefits and uses.
Here, we’ll dive into seven easy-to-implement ways to use content marketing beyond SEO.
1. Use content marketing analytics to better understand your customers
One of the most valuable things your website SEO analytics can provide is a peek into your prospects’ intentions when landing on your site organically. The deeper and more robust your website content, the more insightful of data you can glean from SEO analytics.
SEO tools like SEMrush or Ahrefs can give you a snapshot of nearly any and every angle your website may be showing up for prospects. If you limit website pages to merely product pages or case studies, you run the risk of missing thousands of site visitors who need exactly what you provide.
2. Social media and content marketing: A match made in SEO heaven
On-page SEO through website pages like blogs, product pages, and case studies is undeniably essential for strong SEO and organic web traffic. But what’s less talked about yet hugely important for your site to rank high on Google’s search results page is off-page SEO.
Social media is one method to earn traffic to your site by posts from your brand’s social accounts, influencers’ accounts and other pages that find your content valuable. In fact, Google’s own Quality Rater Guidelines heavily depend on a site’s reputation beyond its own pages to weight in on trustworthiness and authority. And it’s pretty hard to promote a brand’s ideas or thought leadership with no content to link to. So remember: your content strategy automatically accomplishes two wins at once — on-page and off-page SEO value.
3. Create a sales enablement content strategy
Sales enablement is exactly what it sounds like: enabling your sales team with the right materials, processes and information to bring an opportunity to close. Content can play a critical role in this process by providing not only valuable information about your products and services, but it can specifically address common objections. And it’s proven: sales teams equipped with the right resources and knowledge have seen 32% higher sales quota attainment.
What are the best types of sales enablement content that truly help close deals? Here’s a non-exhaustive list of the most common types of content for sales:
Sales decks
Sales slicks or product one-pagers
Call or email cadences
Buyer journey maps
Reports or eBooks
Explainer videos
FAQs
Case studies
4. Support tradeshow materials & drive conversation with content marketing
The question of what to display in a tradeshow booth is likely one that will remain unanswered until the end of time. But content marketing can help! Consider offering standout content that showcases your brand and thought leadership, such as an industry trends report.
A best practice to make the most of your presence at the show is to let event attendees know ahead of time exactly where they can find you at the conference and what groundbreaking data they can find in the new report you’ll be giving out at your booth. Beyond a report or ebook, things like case studies show social proof quickly and at a glance to those perusing your booth but may not know much about you, while product sheets show exactly what it is you offer.
5. Use content for an account-based marketing playbook
Account-based marketing, or ABM, is a business strategy that focuses on a set of specific target accounts within the market. Marketing to these accounts should be hyper-personal, with campaign messaging tailored specifically to their needs and pain points. Enter content marketing. Content can serve a critical purpose in speaking directly to the people at the accounts you’re targeting by offering ideas and solutions to their specific challenges.
Did you know companies that nurtured leads generate 50% more sales-ready leads that cost 33% less than non-nurtured leads? Content plays an essential part in lead nurturing, fostering authentic relationships through automated marketing when you’ve mapped the right account-based marketing content playbook.
The sales gift that keeps on giving
It’s clear: a strong and robust content marketing strategy is not a nice-to-have. It’s absolutely essential to a healthy sales pipeline and plays a role in virtually every phase of the buyers’ journey. Use content to spark interest, tell your story, build relationships and convert leads. Your sales team will thank you!
FutureProof Content Co. is a hassle-free content marketing service for sustainability tech companies. Whether you’re just starting out on your content strategy or you’re a seasoned professional, we have an offering to fit your needs. See our services.
