Content marketing, as an idea, has been around for a while now in various forms since the sixteenth century in things like flyers and handbills. The idea has lasted so long because it still works; it’s simple to see why. Content marketing, as it exists it today, gained popularity in the late 90s with the exponential growth of the internet and has been expanded in recent years by the advent of social media. Some may question if the current form of content marketing for business to business (B2B) companies is antiquated; bluntly, it has not. If your B2B company has not gotten on board with content marketing at least at an elementary level, you are likely losing customers to your competitors. Have no doubt; they are actively working on upgrading their content to attract their target demographic better. What does that mean for your company? If you don’t want it to fall behind the competition, it is crucial to know why content marketing is still essential to your success. Here are some points on why your company should be focused on content marketing and the importance of each point.
Content Marketing Connects With Likely Customers
The foundation of content marketing is to know what kind of customer to which your B2B company is going to market. When you take on your B2B content marketing campaign, the first step is to recognize and identify who are your target customers; to do this, you should to build a customer profile for the kind of business to which you want to sell. You are more likely to reach your target when you realize who they are and what drives them. Research your best customers to understand why they continue to use your company and what they think are its best qualities. When you have finished your research, implement in your customer’s profile.
Content Marketing Allows Your B2B Company to Have Clear Goals
What is your company’s goal in undertaking a content marketing campaign? Is it to strengthen your brand? Are you looking to enhance your SEO (search engine optimization) results? Do you need to push more traffic to your company’s website? Perhaps you want to improve conversions of visitors to your site into real customers. Maybe it’s several reasons or all of the above. By undertaking a content marketing campaign, your goals will be more sharply defined and will give your marketing department the chance to focus its energy on those goals. A lack of Uncertainty will bring greater success.
Content Marketing Has Tools That Will Help to Reach Your Goals
There are numerous useful tools available today in content marketing. By themselves or in a combination, these tools can help to provide you with a clear edge over your competitors.
Website Content
Website content is the most fundamental part of today’s content marketing and is one of the most important components of content marketing. Having meaningful, appealing content will serve to send traffic to your website. Relevant keywords will help to reach the businesses you are targeting, but avoid packing keywords. If you are unfamiliar with keyword packing is, it is a method that uses multiple keywords in your content, part or all of which are irrelevant to the subject of the content to draw the attention of search engines. Search engines like as Google and Bing use signals to recognize keyword packing and will punish your site for the practice. Ensure that your content is fresh to bring return visits from potential customers. Blogging is an outstanding way to keep your content current. Your blog should focus on industry-related subjects that relate to the business you are targeting. If you are uncertain about what type of content to put on your website and in your blogs, you should examine the competition’s sites to understand what they are doing and use it as a benchmark for your site.
Last but not least, use strong calls to action on your website where they stand out.
Website Layout
Be sure that your company’s site uses rich, agreeable colors that are in line with your company’s branding. Videos and pictures are also useful in seizing a customer’s attention, be sure that the images are not too large and videos too lengthy to circumvent sluggish load times. The normal amount of time a customer will wait for a site to load is under three seconds. To reduce bounce rates, be sure that your site host can handle your website’s speed. Another point to keep in mind is that pictures and videos on your site shouldn’t break your company’s branding rules.
Don’t use a lot of technical jargon, but do use terms relevant to your industry or field understood by your target customers. Be sure all language on your site also meets with your company’s branding standards. Use professional appearing, easy to read fonts, avoid fantastical fonts such as comic sans.
Social Media
If your company does not take advantage of social media, it’s falling behind in the game. Social media is one of the biggest ways to connect with potential customers and drive traffic to your site. Just like your website, language, and imagery should comply with branding guidelines. It is wise to pick a social media platform that is likely to reach your target demographic.
Backlinking to a blog on your website or landing page from a social media post will improve your rankings on a search engine results pages (SERP). Search engines like Google and Bing take multiple links to a site in account when considering SERP rankings. When someone shares your social media post, it enhances your SERP results; the more shares of your site on social media, the better the results.
In Conclusion
If you use all the tools available in content marketing, and you know who your target customers are, results are destined to follow. Keep a close watch on analytics to discern what is effective and what isn’t and adjust as needed. It will take discipline and perseverance on your company’s part to yield results, but the effort will be worth it. Don’t let your B2B company lag in content marketing; get started today!
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