B2B (“Business to business”) sphere – provision of goods or services not to the final consumer, but in the format of enterprise to enterprise. Such sales require a special approach in the choice of marketing, PR and advertising tools to promote and establish new business contacts.
Successful sales in the B2B segment largely depends on the ability of the purchased product to increase the profits of the company and the excellent reputation of the supplier. Content strategy is designed to communicate and emphasize these characteristics.
Why do you need a content strategy in the B2B segment?
Product promotion in the market is built on communication. Content is the body of this communication. Its development in terms of strategy will allow regular creation, dissemination of information and measuring the effectiveness of communication nodes. As a consequence, expand your audience and increase sales and profits. Content strategy works in both online promotion and face-to-face customer interactions.
80% of B2B business owners cited content marketing as the driving force behind their sales, with more than 50% of marketing directors planning to increase their budget to implement a content strategy in the near future. Moreover, the customer’s attitude towards the company in 82% of cases improves immediately after reading the content on the company’s website.
Content strategy helps to increase customer loyalty. Loyalty is an important parameter. Statistically, an average company can lose up to half of its customers in just five years, while firms with high customer loyalty lose just 20% of their customers over the same time period.
Depending on the goals of marketing promotion, content can be modified, supplemented, responsive to changes in the market or in the mindset of customers. Quality built content builds trust with the end consumer. It pays for itself quickly and generates substantial profits.
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Main objectives of content strategy in B2B
Content strategy is formed based on goals. They require concretization.
Options for content strategy objectives:
- analyzing the values, needs, preferences of target consumers;
- creating an image of the enterprise, increasing its recognizability, forming a positive opinion;
- distribution of a new service or product;
- Increased customer flow;
- increasing sales.
An example of content in the B2B segment that works to increase loyalty – material from the Modulbank Case Blog
Defining the goal will help you understand:
- what the content should be, what nuances should be taken into account when developing it in detail;
- what the target audience is;
- how much content is needed and – accordingly – the number of employees to maintain the capacity;
- What additional opportunities or challenges arise;
- what stages of work are required and in what timeframe.
Content strategy in the B2B segment: stages of creation and promotion channels
Content development goes through several stages
- Define objectives and analyze the market with the target audience in mind.
- Content Plan Writing.
- Selection of authors, drafting of new or editing of existing texts (clips, photo and visual materials).
- Posting publications, communicating with clients, developing activities around published material.
- Analyzing the results.
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What channels to promote content through? Below we’ll talk about the most effective ones.
Corporate website and blog
An updated website with an active, interesting blog becomes an indispensable tool to attract and communicate with customers.
KOLORO blogs about business strategies, the latest market research, marketing tools and design. Thoughtful articles attract attention and become a source of important information.
KOLORO is engaged in the creation and promotion of websites. You can view the cases in the portfolio, tell us about your project – by contacting the manager in the upper right corner of the site.
Example of material on the KOLORO blog
Corporate E-mail newsletters as part of content strategy
The newsletter should include only content that is useful to the customer. It is best to find out in advance through a survey what materials the client needs and at what point it is more convenient to send them. Received in time and relevant content will not leave the client indifferent and will increase loyalty to the company, which does not clog the mail with the same boring catalogs.
Example: RBC sends its subscribers a report on key market events once a week.
Content strategy for social networks (special attention to narrow-profile ones)
Recent studies of user activity on the popular Facebook network show that more than half of the 105 million posts are reposts, with 29% of them using photos and 14% using videos. A website link will attract more attention if you accompany it with a video or image. Also, statistics state, the best customer interaction happens on Sunday. Strive to update your content on both weekdays and weekends.
Profile thematic sites or portals
Such resources increase visibility and help you find customers.
Example: Standart Register manufactures a variety of forms. In order to increase its customer base in the medical sector, the company started advertising on specialized medical websites, which increased its sales in this segment by up to 20%.
It is worth considering the dynamics of the promotion channels themselves. If your placement site is underperforming, you need to look for new channels that will increase your competitiveness.
What materials work best in B2B: an approach from companies that have put content strategies into action
User content – reviews and feedback
More than 70% of customers trust user reviews. The company’s products seem after reading the review more “alive”, in demand. Potential customers will definitely turn to the “Reviews” section on the company’s website to check their expectations with the evaluation of the services received or goods purchased.
Invite your customers to leave a review or read reviews from other customers. This will increase repeat visits to the site by up to 20%.
Texterra testimonials page
Online communication
In a situation where you need an urgent answer or instant advice, online chat is used more than 70% of the time.
Charles Schwab, a large financial corporation, advises clients in every way possible, including online. The communications package developed allows operators to provide accurate information in the most customer-friendly manner.
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Charles Schwab Outdoor Advertising
Content strategy: the essence of usefulness
Successful platforms such as Kissmetrics, Moz or Zendesk use their websites’ blogs not only for promotional texts and sales, but also as an information resource. Materials are ranked by complexity or the user’s in-depth knowledge of a narrow topic. They are authored by industry experts. They share insights, useful tips, and effective solutions to industry issues.
This attracts customers to visit the site again and again, familiarize themselves with updates and look for solutions to their own problems exactly on the B2B partner’s site.
Here it is very important not just to use rewriting or combining material from other sources, but to show the level of expertise, exclusivity and uniqueness of each article or tip. When choosing themes, it is advisable to listen to user recommendations or requests.
You can learn from companies that operate in the B2C segment that have long ago learned how to present information clearly. For example, the DOC+ medical service maintains a blog where medical information is presented in a language that is as accessible as possible to the client. The complex terminology is explained here, only proven data is cited, and the tone of the articles does not suggest moralizing or mocking patients.
Screenshot from the DOC+ blog
Content strategy for a website: cases and tests
Tests, with a headline interesting to a corporate client or a case study that allows you to visually see the benefits of your product, will interest the buyer, increase the number of reposts in social networks and conversion.
For example, online sales platform Shopify regularly publishes cases of successful customers on its website, which attracts those who are not yet confident in their abilities and expands the user audience.
Video and photo materials
A useful webinar, a successful photo, or a detailed timeline users are sure to appreciate. When you post such content on social media, you increase the likelihood of reposts and further attract new customers.
Many banking organizations and financial corporations go out of their way to help customers by posting video courses from successful entrepreneurs or broadcasts that explain complex legal issues in simple language on their blogs.
Various online marathons of different orientations, video digests and tours of various sites thematic business podcasts are gaining popularity.
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B2B Academy presentation on the specifics of trademark registration
Content strategy for B2B: mistakes and pitfalls
Some of the major blunders and challenges that can be encountered during the development and implementation of updated content for B2B include:
Lack of content
It is worth emphasizing once again the importance of a well-thought-out content plan in advance, which will allow you to publish articles on a regular basis and respond to current infodumps.
Low quality content, focusing only on conversions or only on traffic
It’s important to combine content marketing and influencer marketing. For example, Fieldwire’s platform offers mobile apps for construction companies. By focusing on the products and techniques provided, the company did not pay enough attention to traffic. The content had to be revised based on research into its semantics, which brought the site to the top of the search engines.
Lack of feedback from the customer
The peculiarities of corporate interaction give a deceptive assurance that one company’s bond with another is quite strong. You should regularly update why the customer prefers your services or products, what kind of interaction they want to see, what product they are not interested in.
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Rejection of content strategy due to narrow interactions within the industry
A company can indeed produce products that are not interesting to a wide range of users and yet have proven themselves to the partners in the best possible way. However, even in this case it is important to maintain and increase prestige, which at any moment can become a key parameter in choosing one of two similar suppliers. Remember, reputation also works for profits as well as sales.
Developing a content strategy: conclusions
The use of content strategy, developed competently and taking into account the specifics of the B2B model, will not only attract new customers and successfully interact with regular partners, but will also strengthen the image of the company, bring its site to the top positions of search engines, increase confidence in the company and its profits.
Building a content strategy based on the company’s goals is the best step for attracting sufficient resources and conducting accurate bottom-line analytics.
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The most effective content plan tools in this case are original news and articles, interviews, and corporate newsletters. They should contain the kind of information that will interest the corporate client, not the end user of their products. Business to business should first and foremost be of interest to businesses, which means a guarantee of increased profits along with the purchase of your product.
KOLORO will help you develop a digital or offline promotion strategy. Contact a manager and tell them about your project. Our marketers know how to establish communication and increase the number of customers.
