It’s no secret that content is king when it comes to marketing for b2b companies. But, what does this mean? What is a good b2b blog content strategy and what should you be blogging about and how often? The answer may not come as a surprise but the best practice of blog creation will always depend on your industry and target audience. In this post we’ll discuss:
- Where and how can I make use of the blog posts?
- What kind of content should you be creating in order to attract visitors to your website or blog?
- How do you write content so that it resonates with b2a buyers online?
- Should I focus on quantity or quality when writing blog posts for my company?
The blog as part of the overall B2B content strategy
No matter what your industry is, having a blog for b-to-b companies will be important to the success of the overall content and marketing strategy. It’s also fair to say that nowadays content powers the digital world.
You can’t just write about company news or products but you must find ways to weave this information into posts that are educational and interesting. For example, if you’re in banking then writing an article on how interest rates work isn’t going to attract many visitors unless there’s something new being said. Take it one step further by doing some research on recent changes at the Federal Reserve or perhaps interviewing someone working in financial services so they can share their personal experience with low-interest rates.
Ways to engage your audience with your blog posts
A B2B blog content strategy means that you strategically think about the content itself and the actual usage of the content for marketing purposes.
Always remember when using a b2b content marketing strategy, each part of the buyer cycle requires specific content. Blog posts or – content is often found in the higher stages of the buying cycle – the top of the funnel (or TOFU). This is the so-called consideration phase, which is a crucial part of the buyer’s journey where you offer your target audience information that considers your product or service as a viable resolution option to their problem.
In practice that means your targeted audience is trying to solve their problem, search for it on Google or social and find your blog posts – voila – they just have become aware of you! This reflects a truly inbound marketing approach and often initiates the buying cycle at the top of the funnel that hopefully will end in the closing of a new deal.
Another important use case of your b2b blog content should be used in the process of lead nurturing (which is part of marketing automation). For a full/end-to-end process of lead nurturing, a lot of content is badly needed (plus the content needs to be targeted for the particular buying persona).
In our experience, most of the companies do not have enough high-quality long-form content available to fill that 1-2 months lead nurturing workflow – and here the blog posts come into play. You can (and should) easily recycle your blog posts in that more middle of the funnel marketing activities in order to push the lead through the funnel/stages.
B2B blog content creation strategy
You’ve got a few options when it comes to blog content creation for b2b marketers. You can write your own blog posts, hire an agency or freelancer – or make use of one (or multiple) platforms such as guest blogging and other forms of branded content marketing like webinars and ebooks. There is no one-size-fits-all solution here. The important thing is that you create content and then distribute it to the right places to attract your target audience/audience.
Blog content planning
Since content marketing needs to be planned, consider these pillars to plan your B2B content around:
- Themes (for instance in B2B currently sustainability is a very popular content topic)
- Strategies & objectives (such as traffic gen vs. lead gen vs. demand gen)
- Channels & formats (you will need different formats based on what you want to achieve)
- Buyers journey/lifecycle stages (as mentioned above different personas need different topics and different lifecycle stages require different types of blog posts)
- Competitors/market (sometimes it does make sense to check on the marketing activities of your competitors; you can also find out what blog posts of your competitors are ranking and for what keywords in order to see what the market/the prospects are interested in)
It’s important that you plan your b2b blog posts carefully. You don’t want to have a lack of interesting content for all the stages/contexts – so make sure you create an editorial calendar and stick with it! Read here for the top 22 b2b blogging best practices
Get the content production process right
Ideally and in practice, it’s not just the marketing department involved in content production. There is a process in place incl. tasks, people who have the tasks assigned, deadlines, dependencies (on copywriters, designers, videographers, etc.), and other things that require proper project management. From our long experience, it’s vital to make use of something like Asana to get everyone aligned on the process.
Also, get the buy-in and involve potential internal content production teams as much as possible:
- Sales: they know the best what the market wants/what the prospects say
- Product: they can deliver valuable content when it comes to product-market-fit, technology updates, etc.
- Management: they know the overall market and should know more strategic topics that can be used in blog posts.
- Customer service/success: they know the best where the company can improve that best, which is obviously great content!
This is exactly where many companies fail – they do not have internal content production capabilities, no plan, no content, and then wonder why their b2b blog strategy is failing.
Resources for developing your own blog content strategy
As mentioned above blog content can be used for various purposes. The most important one probably is the inbound traffic generation at the top of the funnel awareness phase.
Here you need to consider that b2b is nowadays all about content marketing and literally everyone is b2b blogging. There is so much content being produced that some ask if content marketing still has an impact; on the other hand, some say that “content marketing is the only marketing left”.
Get that best-converting organic traffic for your posts
Either way, if you want to be found on Google you have to rank with keywords/blog posts your business audience is interested in. The amount of content marketers and the type of competition you’re facing in B2B makes the ranking of course at times very difficult – which means as a small business (SMB) it is recommended to go for low competition but high-quality keywords. To do so will be crucial for your success and I have seen enough b2b blog content strategies failing because they were not ranking and did not deliver that highly sought-after organic traffic through Google.
This keyword difficulty is probably too high for small businesses
This long-tail keyword difficulty is more suitable for small businesses
Utilize tools for your strategy
Small businesses will need for most of the b2b blog content production external help; the best platforms to find them are Upwork, Fiver, or Facebook groups.
The best tools to use internally for creating content are: 1) Canva (for graphics and/or featured images), SEMRush/Ahrefs (for finding keywords you have the chance ranking for in Google, 3) Jarvis (= AI-powered blog marketing copy for speeding up the actual writing).
Please consider consistency!
Keeping your blog updated and relevant will help you attract more traffic, convert them into potential new customers for filling out the funnels of this page. You need to put the time into planning it up because marketing is an important part of any company’s success story- don’t forget that!
You can have the best business blog content strategy ever but if you don’t update it constantly, you will not see any success. So please- be consistent: we recommend at least 2-3 high-quality blog posts per week and you will see positive results in 3 months’ time at the latest.
Consistently sharing posts is important
Believe it or not, consistency is the key to success on social media and search. People are more likely to take notice of your posts if they see that you’re posting regularly and publicly-not just for an audience but also in order to show off what progress has been made since previous weeks/months too!
Also promote your articles through email, social media channels, and online communities. Share it on Facebook. Linkedin and Twitter once you have posted to increase the visibility of that specific article or blog post. You can also participate in discussions about related topics with other bloggers who cover the same material by leaving insightful comments for them as well!
And lastly – don’t be afraid that people aren’t linking back immediately- most will catch up soon enough!
Should I focus on quantity or quality when writing B2B posts?
Quality over quantity is always better. You should focus more on quality than you do with publishing, because if your work isn’t good enough then people won’t care anyway and will just move onto another blog to read about their interests–and that would leave spots free for other writers who are passionate about what they write!
I am not saying don’t post often; however, make sure each piece of content meets high standards before releasing so as not to disappoint anyone reading it.
Blogging may be a time-consuming commitment, but the payoff is worth it. Studies have shown that blogs are much more likely than other content formats to gain an audience and keep them interested in your work! Be realistic about when you can realistically blog consistently or focus on quality over quantity when posting new material online – this will help ensure longevity for any successful blogging endeavor.
Examples of good small business b2b blogs
Leaders in Heels
The Leaders in Heels blog is a place for female leaders, entrepreneurs, and executives to find inspiration. Keyshia Gospos interviews successful women from all around the world who share their stories with success while also providing actionable advice about how you can make your own dreams come true!
The Women’s Leadership Podcast features inspiring conversations with notable names such as Angela Ahrendts (Apple), Ginni Rometty(IBM) Sheryl Sandberg(Facebook).
CorpNet
CorpNet is an online platform for entrepreneurs to share their business strategies, tips, and tricks. CorpNet Founder Nellie Akalp shares her insights on the site that cover everything from legal entity basics all way up through step-by-step guides about starting your own company in any industry.
Freakonomics Blog
The Freakonomics blog takes a look at economic behavior from all angles, whether that’s through interviews with industry leaders or more of the unconventional solutions to everyday problems. You can read about everything from how taxi drivers determine prices for rides and why people lie on their CVs to the connection between autism and dairy consumption.
