In today's world, your prospects have little time or patience for unsolicited sales calls, spam emails, direct messages and other interruptive forms of marketing.
Your prospects would much rather conduct research on products and services in their own time and engage with your sales team when they are ready.
The reality is that in the digitally connected world, we live in, especially in B2B markets, your website often meets your prospects before you do.
The average buyer guides themselves through as much as 60% to 80% of the purchase decision process - reading blogs, eBooks, case studies, white papers and other marketing collateral - before even contacting a salesperson!
Why is content important for B2B lead generation?
Prior to the Internet, the only way someone could find out more about a business's product or service was to call up a business and ask. Back then they had to take the business' word that the product would work exactly as described!
But thanks to the World Wide Web, your prospects now have a seemingly infinite library of information, a library which they can use to identify their business problem(s) and research potential solutions, all without the biased input of your business' sales team.
In addition to using the Internet for research, social media platforms, such as LinkedIn, Facebook and Instagram, provide your prospects with the means to discuss and evaluate possible solutions with colleagues, associates and fellow professionals. Review sites and forums also operate in the same capacity.
Nowadays, your prospects want to make informed purchase decisions. They want to understand your business, what it does and how it's helped others in similar situations. Subsequently, it becomes your business' mission to clearly articulate what it does and how it can help those who arrive on your website!
Simple, by creating high-quality B2B content.
If you accept the fact that your website meets your prospects before you do, you'll also appreciate that it's also best placed to educate, inform and advise your target audience.
With this considered, ensuring your website is full of high-quality content, tailored to address your prospects' business challenges/pain points, is key to retaining and converting website visitors.
Through the regular production of high-quality content, such as blogs and web pages, you can not only increase awareness of your business online and establish it as an industry authority, but you can also target new, relevant keyword terms with your blogs and web pages, helping to drive more targeted traffic to your website.
But perhaps most importantly, your content serves as the means to develop profitable customer action, helping you to encourage prospects to engage with your business and choose it as the solution.
Any content you create should be based on your 'buyer personas' - a semi-fictional representation of your ideal customer based on research, educated guesses, and existing data on your current customers.
How can buyer personas support your content creation?
With a detailed buyer persona - or detailed buyer personas - you can create content assets that appeal to your target audience(s) at every stage of the buyer journey and flywheel process. If you are unsure of just what the flywheel is, you can find out more in this interview with Brian Halligan, HubSpot's CEO and co-founder.
As you build out your buyer personas, you will begin to understand the business challenges your ideal customers face. Using this information, you can then create high-quality content to address those problems and position your business - and its products - as the solution.
Then, you use the content you produce to nurture website visitors to a point of purchase (or a stage where they are ready to engage with your business). By producing content this way and aligning it with the buyer journey and flywheel stages, you can determine just how interested website visitors are and drive specific products and/or services.
What are the benefits of creating B2B content?
Outbound Marketing methods are quickly losing their effectiveness - and Inbound Marketing is far more cost-effective. Inbound leads cost 61% less on average than Outbound leads - and "properly" executed Inbound Marketing tactics are 10 times more effective for lead conversion when compared to Outbound methods.
As a B2B company, creating regular content offers numerous benefits if you're looking to expand your online presence and drive growth. Some of the key advantages include the ability to increase the amount of traffic to your website, to capture the attention of their ideal audience online, and to increase lead generation activity.
Let's look at these in more detail:
Increase the amount of traffic to your website
As every web page you create - including blog posts - has its own unique URL, it's an opportunity for you to create content that targets a specific key term or phrase that's relevant to your products and services.
For example, you might provide Inbound Marketing consultancy and your prospects might be having difficulty with Inbound Marketing and need help. In this case, you could create a blog entitled - "Five ways Inbound Marketing consultancy can help your business".
The blog targets the term "Inbound Marketing consultancy", ensuring it will show in Google when prospects search for the term "Inbound Marketing consultancy", and addresses the pain points of your prospects.
Capture the attention of your ideal audience online
Google loves fresh educational content optimized for search engines - and so do your prospects. The more high-quality content you produce that's optimized for search and answers the questions of your prospects, the greater your business' visibility and exposure online.
You can further increase your business' exposure online by promoting your content on social media, amplifying its reach and helping you to drive traffic from different channels to your website. All of this will help to raise your business profile and increase awareness of your brand.
Increase your lead generation activity
Content is what allows you to generate leads. Without content for your website visitors to engage with, you are reliant on them clicking the "contact us" call-to-action which is typically only used by those ready to make a purchase (or your competitors looking to find out more about your business).
Blogs, for example, will help you to attract and engage with website visitors at the earlier stages of the buyer journey - typically those finding out more about their business problem and the potential solutions.
Then you have eBooks, case studies and white papers, for example, these content assets explore business challenges in a bit more detail or a specific business environment. The best practice is to gate these assets behind a form on a landing page, requiring website visitors to offer some of their details in exchange for the content asset. Using these assets you can generate leads and qualify them.
How to choose content for B2B lead generation
Generating leads is a critical part of any B2B marketing strategy. However, deciding on the kind of content you should be using to attract leads can be quite daunting. There are many different factors to consider when selecting the best type of content for your B2B lead generation efforts.
When creating content for lead generation, it's important to have a clear understanding of what kind of goals you're trying to achieve. Different types of content can be used depending on the specific purpose and target audience.
Many times, marketers tend to focus on the least difficult formats such as blog posts or social media posts for lead generation, but in some cases, more comprehensive formats may need to be employed.
Long-form content like e-books, webinars or podcasts require more effort but may lead to greater engagement and therefore better results for your lead generation campaign.
Here's a breakdown of various content types and how you can leverage them for B2B lead generation:
- Educational blog posts: Share insights, industry trends, and actionable advice through blog posts to attract and engage potential leads.
- Whitepapers and eBooks: Offer in-depth analysis or comprehensive guides on relevant topics to demonstrate thought leadership and collect contact details in exchange for these valuable resources.
- Webinars and virtual events: Host informative sessions on topics that matter to your audience, providing an opportunity for interaction and lead capture.
- Case studies: Showcase your success stories and the tangible benefits of your services, instilling trust and enticing potential customers.
- Videos: Create engaging video content explaining your products, services, or industry topics to capture attention and encourage shares and interactions.
- Infographics: Deliver key data and insights in a visually appealing and easily digestible format to generate interest and shares.
- Newsletters: Regular updates and curated content can help maintain ongoing engagement with potential leads and drive traffic back to your site.
When creating content for these platforms remember that not only must you provide valuable information through your content but also ensure that it's freely accessible so that potential customers can easily find and access it.
Lastly, always test different types of content regularly to see which type is having the best effects in terms of generating leads and attracting new customers.
How to build a lead-generating B2B content marketing strategy
Creating content that generates leads involves crafting and distributing content tailored to the needs of your target audience, as well as engaging them with valuable information regarding your product or service.
Content should be easily accessible and visible in order to make it easier for customers to discover. Additionally, it should be informative and provide solutions to common problems so that customers may learn more about what you have to offer.
When creating content for lead generation, it’s important to focus on the customer journey rather than making a hard sell of services or products.
Focus on providing useful information such as how-tos, research data, industry insights, top trends, etc., which can help create a better understanding among users about the benefits and value offered by your company or products.
Also consider different channels such as blog posts, podcasts, webinars videos, surveys etc., which can deliver reliable results quicker than creating singular pieces of content.
Furthermore, you should measure progress in terms of visitors-to-leads metrics regularly to determine which channels are working best for you.
Based on these findings you can adjust content strategies accordingly and exploit existing opportunities even further.
Check out our comprehensive guide on how to build a B2B content marketing strategy for more details on this process.
How Huble can help establish your business and brand as a thought leader in your industry
As a direct effect of producing high-quality, engaging, and thought-provoking content on a regular basis, your business will be seen as a source of expertise and thought leadership. Your customers and potential prospects will turn to your website when they need answers to the challenges your business solves.
Moreover, promoting your content on social media channels will help to raise the profiles of your spokespeople, positioning them as thought leaders and eventually "influencers" as their following grows.
At Huble, we offer marketing consultancy services and can help develop a B2B content strategy tailored to your business needs and even create the content itself, establishing you as an industry thought leader.
You may have heard of the benefits of content marketing before but I urge you - don't dive headfirst into the process without a plan. Speak with our team to learn more about how we can support your B2B content marketing endeavors and generate more leads for your business.
