All companies aiming to reach their audience in the B2B sector need to know the 2022 trends in B2B content marketing.
Essential for acquiring qualified traffic to your company website and generating leads, B2B content marketing is evolving and your editorial strategy must evolve too to attract prospects!
What is B2B content marketing?
Content marketing is the creation of digital content for a target audience. Among the most used marketing content are blog posts, infographics, videos, podcasts, white papers, case studies…
In a B2B context, content marketing targets a specific audience: the companies and professionals in your industry. Depending on your goals, content marketing can increase traffic to your website, improve your brand awareness, or boost your SEO.
B2B content marketing, an effective acquisition channel
The B2B content marketing is one of the main inbound marketing tools, a marketing technique that attracts leads without having to go find them.
Not only is B2B content marketing excellent for your web traffic, but the results of a high-performing content strategy go far beyond that.
Specifically, the strategy will allow you to:
- To achieve a better ranking for your site in search engines and increase your visibility in the SERP.
- To attract more qualified visitors and therefore more potential customers.
- To establish a relationship of trust between professional partners and your brand.
- To retain your customers and turn them into ambassadors.
- To position yourself as an expert in your field and, by extension, stand out from the competition.
- To sustainably increase your revenue.
- To generate qualified leads.
2022 trends in B2B content marketing
But to achieve such results, your editorial strategy must follow the trends.
In 2022, the marketing actions to prioritize are:
Infographics
Easy to share and remember, infographics are an excellent marketing medium for distributing your professional content. With polished design and relevant information, you can reach a wide B2B audience. Don’t hesitate to illustrate your digital content with figures and charts, always related to your industry, of course.
E-books
The e-book is the perfect format to demonstrate your expertise. Share your know-how, your market knowledge, detail the strengths of your offering… In short, whatever topic you choose, it must be relevant to your audience. Remember to offer your premium content in exchange for your visitors’ contact details to grow your database. A prospect who gives their personal information to download your e-book is likely to become a future customer!
Video
Video is the ideal format to introduce your teams, demonstrate your products or services, share interviews, etc. Videos are very popular online, both in B2C and B2B. They create a direct connection with your viewer and build trust conducive to sales. Pay attention to video quality; it must convey a professional image. Take care with sound, lighting, and image quality.
Case study
The case study is a tool specific to B2B marketing, and it would be a shame to miss out on such a powerful digital communication asset! A case study lets you demonstrate all the benefits your offering will provide to a future buyer: cost savings, revenue generated thanks to purchasing your product… For even more impact, don’t hesitate to show your offering’s advantages in action. The featured client will feel valued and you’ll gain credibility with your audience.
The landing page
The landing page (or splash page) is an important element in a B2B content marketing strategy. It generates many leads, as well as meetings, sales, and registrations for corporate events…
To capture a lead after a visit, build attractive landing pages with a catchy headline, a high-quality visual, and a compelling CTA.
Finally, be sure to follow up on that lead quickly while the prospect still remembers your sales message. The faster a lead is handled, the higher the chances of converting.
How to succeed with your B2B content marketing strategy?
Here are some tips to succeed with your marketing strategy:
Identify your target
Entrepreneurs, executives, business owners, managers… You need to identify your marketing target, their industry, their pain points, expectations, and needs. To create the most accurate buyer persona profiles, use Google Analytics. The tool provides various reports (geographic report, interests report, etc.) that collect data about your audiences.
Create high-value content
If you want to convert prospects, you must share relevant content tailored to your B2B audience. Thanks to your persona profile, you’ll more easily find topics and themes that will interest your professional readers. Start by researching the best keywords, prioritizing long-tail keywords to attract a qualified audience.
Then create personalized content aligned with the different stages of the purchase journey. For example:
- Case studies to attract your visitors.
- White papers to convert.
- Blog posts to turn your leads into customers.
- High-quality newsletters to retain your new customers.
Set up an editorial calendar
Try to schedule content writing far enough in advance so you don’t fall behind. To help determine the ideal number of monthly posts, know that your content output will depend on the strategy you implement.
If, for example, you want to increase your conversion rate, plan a few additional articles. If your competitors publish 10 articles per month, publish 12 (and of higher quality). In B2B, studies have shown that publishing between 6 and 10 articles per month generates twice as many leads.
Also consider keeping a small reserve of marketing content in case a competitor launches a campaign or to cope with changes in company behavior (widespread use of digital tools, for example).
Analyze the performance of your B2B content marketing
Whatever your industry, know that it’s pointless to put in place a commercial strategy, however efficient, without analyzing its results. The same applies in digital marketing. Analyze your key metrics such as bounce rate, number of likes, or reading time, and adjust your strategy if necessary.
Promote your content
Don’t hesitate to use all web marketing strategies to promote your content: organic search (SEO), paid search (SEA), social media marketing, backlink acquisition, marketing automation…
B2B content marketing, which distribution channel?
Creating quality content is one thing, but to be read you must choose the right communication channels.
The blog
The blog is the main driver of traffic to your site and the most effective way to convert your B2B targets. Create a niche blog and publish fresh content regularly. Ideally vary formats: tutorials, long informative articles, snackable content… Also remember to optimize your different content pieces for organic search if you want to rank well in search engines.
Social media posts
Needless to say, everything goes through social media today! You must publish regularly on online platforms to increase your visibility. Join conversations and share professional posts from your targets to get noticed. In B2B, the network to prioritize is LinkedIn, but don’t underestimate the influence of Facebook and Instagram.
Our tip for achieving your B2B objectives
You now have all the elements necessary to create high-performing B2B content marketing campaigns.
You can see that the differences between B2B and B2C content marketing are slight, but the stakes are often very different, sometimes with costly contracts on the line.
Don't forget that in business-to-business, to reach a very specific audience your content must be as personalized as possible. The key to the success of your digital marketing strategy relies on quality content. For this, outsource B2B content creation to our professional web copywriters !
