Follow these steps to build a content-marketing program for your B2B company that improves awareness, credibility and leads
When it comes to B2B marketing, content is king. However, many B2B companies aren't sure where to start - but it's actually quite straightforward. Essentially, it all starts with your target audience, and then you work backward to create a customized and effective content-marketing program. How can this be done? Below are the five steps to follow.
1. Know Your Audience
Surprisingly, many B2B companies haven't identified their target audience. Without this knowledge, you'll be moving forward in the dark. Therefore, it's imperative to know your audience, including what they care about, what their pain points are and how you can get their attention. Using this information, you can then build personas for each target group.
2. Craft a Strategic Roadmap
No matter what you're doing, if you want to do it well, you need to develop - and stick to - a comprehensive strategy. The same rings true with content marketing. If you don't have a strategic marketing roadmap set, you'll be spinning your content-marketing wheels and not seeing the desired results.
3. Create Relevant Content
Use your target-audience analysis to connect their challenges with the solutions provided by your products and services, and then undertake content creation around these areas. Make sure your content follows SEO, keyword and topic-pillar best practices so it actually reaches - and provides value to - your target audience.
4. Set Up a Content Infrastructure
You can produce all the content you want, but if it's not being housed on the right content-management technology platform, it won't meet your goals. By selecting the right content-management system (CMS) - such as HubSpot (the inventor of inbound marketing) - you can ensure that your content is getting the job done.
5. Review the Data and Optimize
Gone are the days of uploading content and hoping for the best. When you have a powerful CMS in place, you can see how your content is performing and understand what's working and what can be improved. This enables you to optimize the content so it gets in front of your target audience and inspires them to contact your company.
In Sum
B2B content marketing can be complex, and tools and tactics are constantly evolving, but following these five steps will ensure you're doing it well. Once your program is up and running, then it's all about consistent content creation. If you do this, you'll enhance visibility, credibility and lead generation so you can take your company to the next level.
If you need support in creating an effective B2B content-marketing program for your company, and then implementing it, contact us for more information.
To learn about how B2B content marketing can boost sales, click below:
