In my last blog I looked at Social media and the value it has to a company that is in a B2B market. In this blog I will look at what media we need to create and why we need to create it at each stage of a buying funnel that a consumer will go through in order to purchase your product or service. This is called “content marketing”.
Quite often you hear the argument that people look at a lot of the case studies that are used as great examples of digital marketing but ask “how does this apply to my business, when my business is a B2B (business to business)” due to the examples being used coming from business that sell to the consumers (B2C). There’s a lot of resistance in the B2B world about how to use digital marketing, as B2B companies are generally slower moving than typical B2Cs. However, digital marketing can be very simple for a B2B once they get the correct mind-set of what they are trying to achieve. This ties into how we think about content marketing. Traditionally you see an awful lot of businesses using digital marketing to try and push out sales messages, for example, looking to send out information on special offers, new products or services. Odden, L. (2012) says “B2B firms often experience much longer sales cycles involving the creation of more content that serves to educate and nurture prospects into qualified leads and customers”. This gives us two elements we really need to think about when content marketing:
- How do I engage with my audience when they are not ready to purchase my product/service, or are not already aware of it?
- How do I engage with people in the active research stage of product/service purchase? Depending on the product or service this can be days or years between research and purchase.
For the first point we need to focus on our key element of content marketing. We need to look at what content we can provide that will service and engage with a B2B audience no matter what stage they are at in a purchase cycle. Didner, P. (2014) suggest examples such as best practice guides, videos, podcasts etc. We need to prove that our business is providing value to that individual/business when they are at the top of the sales funnel, driving traffic to our website even when they aren’t at the point of purchase.
For the second point we need to find ways to engage with people over that period of time when the consumer is ready to purchase. You need to answer questions the consumer has surrounding the product or service, for example, how it works and how it could be integrated within their business. The purchase doesn’t always have to happen online, but the primary objective of the digital marketing strategy in a B2B environment is how can we drive that call? How can we drive that lead generation?
We have to identify the buying stages of our own customers, creating content to tick the boxes of what people need at each stage. Ideally you then need to maximise the content marketing at the top stages of the sales funnel. We do this by going through the process of creating content, optimising it for search engines, engaging with it through social media and finally we are measuring that primary objective of generating a lead using online analytics tools. The example of the sales funnel below by Stonham, M (2011) is a good indication of the process that buyers go through when purchasing a product and content marketing in a B2B environment can be and should be used over the period of the first three elements.
Content and digital marketing as a whole is important for B2B companies, but it’s not about broadcasting sales messages. It’s about engaging around the right content and demonstrating knowledge and place in the market. Pulizzi, J (2014) says it’s about providing the right content to help people make informed buying decisions and the tracking what works and what doesn’t then iterating around that process.
In conclusion, B2B companies need to take a step back and ask themselves how can they apply it, how does it fit in with the user journey and how does the content I’m producing provide value to the audience, not only when they are looking to purchase the product or service, but when they are only potential consumers?
References
Didner, P (2014). Global Content Marketing: How to Create Great Content, Reach More Customers, and Build a Worldwide Marketing Strategy that Works. New York: McGraw Hill Education. p4.
Odden, L (2012). Optimize: How to Attract and Engage More Customers by Integrating SEO, Social Media, and Content Marketing. London: John Wiley & Sons. p17.
Pulizzi, J (2014). Epic Content Marketing: How to Tell a Different Story, Break Through the Clutter, and Win More Customers by Marketing Less. New York: McGraw Hill Education. p10.
Stonham, M. (2011). The Sales Funnel – what’s all the excitement about?. Available: http://www.wurlwind.co.uk/the-sales-funnel-whats-all-the-excitement-about/. Last accessed 30th Jan 2016.