You can build your 2020 B2B content marketing strategy by examining the past year and understanding which plans achieved their objectives and which did not. It is an excellent opportunity to increase current processes and drive even more goals with some effective trends.
More than 24% of marketing teams don’t use a strategic approach to content marketing but 69% of the “most successful” content marketers have a documented strategy.
After establishing your buyer persona and offering them relevant content — suitable for each stage of the sales funnel —, you can generate leads, achieve more results, and improve brand awareness: this is the primary objective for 55% of content marketers.
However, this is also the most critical challenge for 42% of them. Keep reading to know what to do for your B2B content marketing strategy!
1. Content marketing is still vital for lead generation
91% of B2B marketers use content marketing to reach their customers. In 2020, if you update the strategy to produce in different formats, you could have more results with them.
Videos, for example, can be more influential during the customer’s journeys. To assist the 70% of buyers that are watching videos before purchasing, 45% of marketers are planning to add YouTube and 41% Facebook Video to their strategies, according to the State of Marketing Report.
Nevertheless, the value of written content should be encouraged, especially content over 1000 words — it is more convincing to audiences that require valuable insights about their researches.
Ebooks and white papers are useful examples of long-form content: more than 79% of leads share them with their network.
The only problem regarding the production of this form of content is to make it valuable. To do this, you can use an editorial calendar and make sure that your whole team is well-prepared, creating drafts, avoiding distractions, and planning the right format and subject for each lead funnels stage. You can also hire freelancers or specialized companies to create quality content.
2. The oldest and brand new email marketing strategy
Email marketing is an extension of the content marketing strategy and an essential part of the marketing mix: it has been used for years to build communication between companies, their customers, and potential buyers.
They can be transactional (automatic messages to validate customers’ actions), promotional (to give advantages for active customers or to attract them), and relational.
The relational one is a type of email marketing that connects the customers and the company’s brand, enhancing the relationship with their audience and creating a great contact base with potential buyers.
The success of an email marketing strategy — 83% of marketers use email to keep in touch with their customers — begins with a well-built contact list. The company can obtain an email address from:
- institutional website;
- CTAs in blog posts;
- landing pages;
- pop-ups, which must appear at the appropriate time.
In 2020, the newness in the email marketing strategy is personalization — triggered emails having 50% higher open rates than others, for example. So, to bring more return and engagement, the company must show knowledge of their customer’s pains and expectations.
Besides, they have to create a friendly email design. Make sure that you will develop a stronger relationship because the strategy will take time and constant effort.
3. Increasing your B2B social media strategy
The 3.48 billion social media users are increasingly familiar with digital platforms and tools — they use it to communicate, order food, share transportation, make a complaint, etc. Social media is growing and being incorporated into everyone’s life.
In 2020, social media will be vital for many digital communication strategies. However, some B2B companies overlook their importance because they operate in long sales cycles. They are wrong: it is necessary to find the best channel to engage your target audience.
LinkedIn, for example, is an excellent social media channel to start when we are talking about B2B marketers: more than 80% of 590 million users become potential leads. Besides this, LinkedIn has:
- 60 million senior-level influencers;
- 40 million decision-makers;
- 10.7 million opinion leaders.
You can also use other social media channels, such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, according to the main characteristics of your target audience (age, for example).
One of the many benefits of connecting with your customers on social media channels is the low cost of marketing strategies — with the right content, you can create an organic campaign to leverage your results, out payments.
Besides this, it is efficient in delivering measurables and you can see the results quickly.
You must know that social media channels are continually changing. So, to succeed in the long-term, your strategy must be associated with providing relevant content and kept up with and adapted to all of these changes.
4. Focus on interactive content
Digital media can be an excellent asset for B2B content marketers: 86% of buyers prefer interactive content they can access on-demand.
They have more fun, can learn faster, and are easier to attract with interactive infographics, ebooks, white papers, calculators, etc.
Consumers will even spend up to 20 minutes watching a brand’s video. Interactive content keeps growing: 89% of marketers are using videos in their content strategy, publishing between one and two digital media per month.
Technology is always evolving and making interactive content marketing easier: there are tools and platforms to engage companies’ audiences with exciting and high-quality content.
ION Interactive, for example, can repurpose and scale static content into more engaging interactive content.
But how? Which content scales the best? Into what kinds of experiences? And how does that align with the customer journey? Different types of interactive content work better for different stages of the journey.
With ION solutions such as Landing Page Self Assessment, Solution Finder, Interactive Content Idea Generator, and many more evaluation tools, you can use interactivity to evaluate your digital marketing and learn more about interactive content experiences.
What do you think about searching for an ideal tool for your digital marketing strategy?
