Small business owners are looking to do more with less these days, which means taking on some of the marketing themselves. Even if they hire it out, it pays to know what makes an excellent B2B content marketing strategy for a small business as you work with a marketer to promote your store.

A B2B marketing strategy varies slightly from typical efforts because you target other businesses rather than the public. A B2B plan will be more specific to address the needs of other business owners, whereas a public strategy is more generalized. 

Read further to learn more about developing a B2B content marketing strategy.

The Concepts Remain the Same

The same concepts are used in any type of content marketing, whether it’s B2B or to the public consumer. Three core elements must be included: content distribution, user experience, and brand focus.

Differences in the strategies come in how those are implemented. This can be tricky if your business offers products to the general public and B2B. The secret to any great marketing strategy is to get to know your ideal customers and give them what they want.

Developing a B2B Content Strategy

You have a product or service, but you also need to determine the value of that to your business clients. A fundamental value is primarily what a B2B customer looks at, although some will also want total value.

The difference is in concrete versus abstract value. A fundamental value is saving time and money using your product or service. The total value is the complete experience, including how you treated them, how you made them feel about it, how you resolved their problem, and customer service during troubleshooting.

An essential aspect of B2B content marketing is addressing pain points. These are places where your business customers struggle and obstacles they must overcome. It could be they don’t understand how to operate your new tech, don’t understand how it can generate more revenue or a good ROI, or perhaps they feel they can’t afford it.

Understanding these things will help you meet their needs and help their businesses operate better.
Technical Aspects of Developing a B2B Content Strategy

Separate Content

Those who want to focus on B2B content marketing can separate it with a new page on your website and an easy-to-follow tab that takes businesses there. However, you can’t stop there.

You must also tailor your email campaigns and other communications to B2B instead of putting out one newsletter or email to both sets of customers. This is more work because you will need to do two sets with targeted solutions for both but you will see results from it.

Developing a Niche

You will need to show how you are different from the competition so your target audience will feel they are getting some as unique as their businesses are. This is where a market positioning strategy and niche marketing become critical.

To successfully navigate these elements, you first must identify how you can resolve their problem better than anyone else. Second, you must connect that to your brand.

The other aspect that must happen is to use multiple channels to develop a reputation for thought leadership. This means creating industry blogs, speaking at events, hosting webinars and podcasts, and syndicating articles through publications and social media.

Focus on Branding for B2B

Everyone talks about branding because it’s essential. Branding for B2B is different because you want to target specific elements that benefit other businesses rather than everything you have. You may use the same logo and mission statement, but how you use them will change.

You may create a separate slogan for business deals with your logo. How you package things may be different when you send things to your B2B customers.

Change the Content

The most significant changes in your B2B content marketing campaign will be in the content itself. Businesses have different needs and your content needs to address those needs in a targeted way.

Those selling to B2B customers should offer content that focuses on two things. First, it must demonstrate how your product or service saves money and time. Second, it must show how easy it is to use or have delivered.

Another way to create a successful B2B content marketing strategy is to publish user-generated content. That means featuring businesses that use you. One company did this, and the effort went viral. Business customers loved it because the company showcased 80 businesses and how they used their services.

Use Social Media

Businesses try to use social media but often don’t do this well because they don’t understand how to use it for B2B content marketing properly. You should be posting in several places regularly, and you may need to tailor your posts to B2B audiences on each platform.

Your content must be valuable but doesn’t necessarily have to be original. Posts can include the latest industry numbers, insights from other leaders, or a news article that would interest your target audience.

One of the most important things you should do on any social media platform is respond to comments and messages.

Final Thoughts

B2B work can be challenging because business clients expect a lot for what they spend. Your B2B content marketing strategy can be the one thing that shows them you can provide not only the product or service they need but an exceptional user experience. That will win them over as loyal customers.

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