Great content for B2B marketing doesn’t have to be difficult

Creating great content can be a big workload but it doesn’t have to be so difficult. At CMFG Marketing Consultancy we are often working with clients to develop a coherent yet manageable content strategy and there are a few rules we employ to help make things easier.

1. Schedule: if you leave it to the last minute content will always be difficult. If you plan 6 – 12 months ahead, you’ll have time to develop content directly or through other resource you can bring on board.
   
   
2. Be flexible: The ideal content is often seen as seriously researched white papers. These can often be the best form of content but the reality is that often the resource to produce them consistently won’t exist within your organisation. So look to other sources; there is a huge range of content options out there. You can comment on other opinion pieces, summarise research, pull together a number of other articles looking at a particular topic (though do credit the original author!) utilise customer or web visitor comments, use supplier contributors or even demonstrate some of you successful case studies.
   
   
3. Leverage your content: Once you have gone to the effort of planning and creating your content, make sure you leverage it for maximum effect. Can it form part of your customer contact communication? Can you utilise it across a number of blogs? Is it added to your website? Have you used social media to sign post it and discuss it. A little can go a long way.

If you approach your content marketing strategy with these 3 underlying principals in mind, you’ll find your implementation becomes noticeably more achievable

Content is king for B2B marketing

It’s said that marketing is about wanting to make people buy. With large ticket and complex B2B products and services, that is truer than ever. The power balance in the B2B buying process has undergone a seismic shift. Customers now start their research around purchasing decisions far earlier than previously and the explosion of independent and informed customer and expert opinion available online has made that possible.  However the opinion of the company they are considering buying from is still critical, so the digital content you create to help educate your prospects is now a fundamental part of your sales process.  A recent survey “Content Marketing Trends” http://www.slideshare.net/hschulze/b2b-content-marketing-report showed that the number one reason for creating content online was its proven ability to increase in-bound lead generation. So the time has definitely come when content marketing strategy doesn’t form a peripheral part of your customer acquisition plans, it’s at the very foundation.