How to Create a Great Blog for a B2B Audience
Target audiences are one of the most crucial elements of marketing. Business-to-business (B2B) marketing focuses on one-half of the marketing strategies that exist. In the digital space, marketing to a business is very different compared to marketing to customers. Because of this, specific marketing techniques exist to cater to your audience. Business-to-business (B2B) marketing is contrasted with business-to-consumer (B2C) marketing, where the primary target audience differs between each marketing strategy.
B2B marketing is catered towards a business or organization, while B2C marketing is geared towards the individual customer. Some marketers might also define B2B marketing as process-driven marketing, while B2C marketing focuses on an emotion-driven purchase influence. But the focus is that B2B marketing targets a company or the individuals purchasing on behalf of their company. Therefore, the primary customer is the company.
Because the target audience of B2B marketing is other organizations and companies, the main goal behind the marketing techniques used is to highlight the logic of the product to show companies the efficiency and expertise behind the product. This will further drive them to see the financial incentive of the product that they can apply to their organization. The difference with B2C marketing is that businesses are appealing to customers’ emotions to influence a purchase decision.
A key component of B2B marketing strategy is the B2b buyer’s journey. These are various stages that the buyer undergoes from initial exposure to the product to the decision stage that prompts them to make a purchase decision. The three stages that B2B buyers undergo are the awareness stage, the consideration stage, and the decision stage. For B2B blog posts, curating the right content is important for the initial stages of exposure to your business. This first stage is where your potential client is undergoing symptoms of a problem and are seeking to understand their issue with the possible solutions that exist. For a B2B marketer, understanding how these stages contribute to the success and visibility of their content is important.
Deciding on a relevant topic is only half of the challenge. Creating the actual content can easily become overwhelming because of the various avenues that can be taken when it comes to content creation. This is where “big rock” content can be applied. Big rock content is a strategy that allows marketers to take a broad topic that is then broken down into additional pieces and remarketed. The big rock is going to be a deep dive into the subject in the form of an eBook and will serve as an all-encompassing guide on the subject. Following this point, you can break down your big rock into bite-sized portions to serve as blog posts, infographics, webinars, etc. This allows the marketer to take ownership over the conversation strategically and clearly showing their expertise. Big rock content also shapes the pathway for the rest of the content that follows and makes it easier to navigate through the general topic that you are focusing on.
There is a clear incentive for B2B blogging because this strategy drives SEO, which leads to more traffic, and more sales. Having good quality posts that are informative of a problem and a potential solution, not only piques the interest of potential customers but also serves as a valuable resource that is shareable and timeless.
Here are some tips for your next B2B blog post:
Effective content marketing requires a comprehensive buyer persona. Knowing your audience and its demographic allows you to write compelling and relevant content that will pique their interest and eventually turn them into customers.
Develop a content marketing strategy that is comprehensive. Creating a purposeful plan that targets your buyer persona allows you to determine the frequency of your content that is optimized for search and conversions.
Create posts that are helpful to your niche. For example, if your business is an employee scheduling software, produce content that is relevant to managers by discussing tips for common issues that crop up in this area that can also be solved with your product. This creates actionable content that is helpful and applicable to the relevant topic and drives traffic to your website from the intended audience.
Use images to support your content. Consider applying any infographics or stock images that can add a valuable visual component to your blog post. A visual component will make text-centric content more digestible, especially if it is a useful infographic that translates your data. This can also be shared on other platforms, which will direct traffic back to your website.
Explore various platforms to share your posts once you have published them. Platforms like LinkedIn are a good channel to engage your audience because you can home in on your buyer persona, but so are platforms like Twitter.
The bedrock of effective blog posts for your B2B audience is the website itself. Invest in making your website a successful platform because it serves as the hub for all your hard work. Your website is the channel that will contain the information that you are putting out, which is why it is critical to ensure that it is a high-performance website. For new visitors, the accessible design will encourage them to become repeat visitors that can potentially evolve into consumers through the content that is being shared. The design of websites is often left on the backburner, yet it can set your website apart from your competitors and convey your expertise and professionalism. Remember to also consider the responsiveness of your design by making it accessible on a wide range of devices, including mobile phones.
Include a call-to-action that will prompt your readers to the next step. For example, direct them to sign up newsletter or connect with you on a social media platform so that they can get more of your content. Once your blog post has been published, remember to advertise your content effectively because this is a crucial part of your content marketing strategy. Some websites that you can consider for effective advertising are industry publications, social media platforms like LinkedIn, and tools like Google Ads. Distribute your content to as many relevant platforms to get the word out and draw in a wider audience.
