If you want to succeed in B2B content marketing, you’ll need to adapt to today’s competitive realities by considering six key trends for outsized performance for B2B marketers.
Field sales are quickly becoming a thing of the past. Since Covid-19 came on very quickly, companies have been trying to adapt due to being unable to meet their prospects and customers in person. So, they quickly started using Zoom and other remote-based communications.
This blog will describe how the B2B world has changed and how content marketing strategies have adapted, providing six different trends to follow and succeed in your business.
Key factors that changed the B2B world
There are three crucial factors that have contributed to a significant change in the B2B world. You have to quickly find ways to adapt to these changes and keep succeeding in your businesses.
Web presence is key to your marketing success
This phenomenon is not limited to small B2B purchases. The website was always the focal point of communications before Covid.
Before the pandemic, the website may have been a supporting entity part of an overall communication mix. Now, it is the focal point, and other forms of communication support it.
Big-ticket for B2B purchases are happening remotely and through digital self-service
These purchases are generally defined as 50,000 dollars or more.
While the vast majority of big-ticket items are still happening in person, a growing percentage of those, especially between 50,000 and a half million, is happening remotely.
As a B2B marketer, you’ve got to tell your story, provide your value proposition and critical differentiators on your site, and do so concisely. You have to stand over the crowd, which will get the point across to your website’s target audience.
The content of your website is crucial for your brand presence and domain authority
If you have a poorly constructed website and are not focused on taking that customer through the buying journey, you will rapidly see its deceleration and an increase in your competition’s sales and higher domain authority.
6 key trends for content marketing success
1. Crafting longer content: Blog posts are getting longer
Only very long-form content is driving results for marketers. So, if you are writing blog posts that are <600 words, don’t waste your time. You have to show up in the search engines and have a chance at achieving a top-10 listing.
In one SEMrush study, articles with at least 3,000 words generated 3x more traffic, 4x more shares, and 3.5x more backlinks than short-form articles. You’ve got to have content and write 1,500 words at a minimum (or, better yet, between 2,500 and 3,000 words).
Another important factor for crafting longer content is updating older blog posts, making them longer and more valuable to their target audience by refreshing them with new thinking and adding more images.
2. Increasing content publication frequency
Long blog posts need to be published weekly to generate results. In a competitive industry, you need to post more frequently. Expect to post 2–3 times weekly to gain market share. Depending on where you’re in the industry and how competitive it is, you may post anywhere from 2 to 5 times a week.
3. Adding more images
Something very important to consider is that people read and comprehend content differently. For example, some people are visual, others are auditory, and others simply want to read.
Many companies thought it would be sufficient to include an image at the top of the blog post or article, and they felt that their work was done. However, the reality is that adding one image for every 250–300 words of content is optimal for generating better results in the SERPs.
When you create your content, it is crucial not to build it in a model style but to instead incorporate different elements that appeal to further learning or concept absorption for the readers. For example, integrating more images into your content gives you a better ranking performance, better user engagement, and more sales for your company.
4. Incorporating structured data
Incorporating structured data is crucial since it improves your content and gives it better visibility. Incorporating structured data can be known as Google taking elements of your content and adding code around it.
Featured snippets create a new distribution channel for your content. They always appear on the first page of specific search results and are often above the fold so that the search engines know that this is a structured snippet that can appear in other parts of the SERPs.
5. Increasing content promotion
To increase content promotion, you should attempt to look inward first; you should look to start controlling and owning your media versus trying to focus on paid media by considering the following recommendations:
- Try guest posting: Public relations, speaking events, and guest posting have become the three most important ways to increase promotion. The most successful content marketers use these tactics more frequently than most other companies.
- Expand your LinkedIn presence: LinkedIn outperforms all other social media for B2B. As your budget becomes increasingly constrained due to competition and inflation, you will need to focus your social media programs on LinkedIn at the expense of other venues.
6. Owning distribution
Our “employee advocacy program” is a capability within our managed service. This program allows you to build your corporation and community.
Starting an Employee Advocacy Program (EAP) provides two significant opportunities.
- Your employees can become your distribution channel, leveraging their brand to promote your company, driving thought leadership, introducing your company to new prospects, and reducing overall marketing costs.
- You can build a corporate-owned community. Companies that establish online communities for their customers and prospects set themselves apart from the competition.
Another thing you need to do is take advantage of the social network and group capability. For example, you can create groups focusing on the business and discuss the issues their prospective audience faces.
In summary
In 2022, focus on the basic blocking and tackling tasks that you need to follow, increasing the word length of your content, incorporating images, and publishing more frequently.
Also, make sure you have content that targets your audience in a segmented fashion, resonating with that audience in search engines.
Do those things consistently, and you will have results this year. Be ready for a very strong 2023. Tempesta Media can help you out with the process. To know all about our content marketing solution managed service, don’t hesitate to contact us today.
