B2B Thought Leadership Content Study Shows Impressive Results
by Emily Swet
The 2019 Edelman-LinkedIn B2B Thought Leadership Impact Study has been released, and here’s the key takeaway: thought leadership can be a veritable marketing goldmine. To make sure we’re all on the same page, thought leadership is trustworthy, authoritative content that taps into the talent and experience of your business. (For an example, check out our client Safety Products Group).
The study questioned over 1,200 business decision-makers on how they viewed thought leadership content. Turns out, thought leadership has a lot more influence on sales than marketers realize — and it’s growing. Take a look at the stats:
Thought leadership drives sales.
- 81% of decision-makers said thought leadership increased trust in vendor organizations.
- 60% of respondents said strong thought leadership led them directly to awarding business.
- 49% said thought leadership can command premium pricing.
- 47% of C-suite executives gave their contact info for thought leadership.
- 45% of respondents said thought leadership helps close deals.
But if poorly done, it drives risk.
Impressive, no doubt. But before you run to the nearest content mill, these stats offered a double-edged sword. Just as well-done content brought in impressive reactions, poorly executed pieces did just the opposite:
- 60% said they’d stop following a writer or organization if the content was poorly written.
- 46% said they decreased respect and admiration for such organizations.
- 29% said they’d decided not to award a piece of business on account of poor thought leadership.
Our two cents: you’d be remiss to shrug off thought leadership in your strategy. But if you can’t do it well, don’t do it without help.
Whether you’re in B2B sales or marketing, your goals are the same: bring in revenue. Thought leadership can be a heavy hitter in this capacity, but it’s not a job for the novice. Your content creators not only need to know your business inside and out but your verticals and audience as well. They’ll also need a solid content strategy in place. (If you don’t have one yet, this is a good place to start). If you want your thought leadership to have legs, it’s got to offer relevance, value, and trust. When you hit home with the right subscriber, they’ll share it with the decision-makers that count.
Continue ReadingHow to Make Your B2B Content Stand Out
by Emily Swet
The B2B content marketing landscape is like a riptide. It moves strong and fast and has the potential to sweep your marketing out to sea if you don’t have a plan in place. But your content needs to do more than stay afloat – it needs to stand out. Here are a few tips to make sure you do both:
Know the Basics.
Before you can think about standing out, make sure your team nails the following:
- Identifying the valuable organic keywords for your market.
- Creating standout content optimized for search, but written for a human.
- Leveraging that content with visuals and rich data.
- Using strong calls-to-action wherever relevant to bring leads in.
Create a Content Mission Statement.
An ambiguous goal results in ambiguous results. A clearly defined mission statement can help define your goals in the content marketing process. Knowing what you want your content to do helps you decide what to create, where to post it, and how to promote it. Here are two examples to get the ball rolling:
- “Our content will increase qualified leads by ___% annually by providing a resource on purchase decisions” or
- “Our content will establish our brand as a trusted authority in the field of ____”
Don’t Imitate Your Competitors.
It’s tempting to look at what the other guys are doing and hop on the bandwagon. Don’t. Instead, look at what your competitors are offering and analyze it. What customer needs aren’t being met? What questions can your brand answer that they don’t? And how is your brand voice different from theirs? And on that note…
Deliver What You Promise.
Your content must give your audience what they are looking for. If it doesn’t, scrap it. Even if you aren’t giving them the ol’ bait n’ switch, content that promises a deep dive and doesn’t deliver will leave your audience feeling duped and annoyed.
Be Authentic.
This one goes across the board. Customers are savvier than ever before and have comparison tools in their pockets. Be forthright and truthful to your brand in your voice, in your campaigns, and in your content, and your audience will respect your authenticity.
Analyze What Worked and What Didn’t.
Conduct A/B testing throughout your campaigns to determine what’s a success, and what isn’t. Once armed with that info, you can tweak your less successful campaigns to mirror what worked in others. You can test everything from headlines and visuals to ad placement, social channels, and call-to-action placement.
Don’t Rely Solely on Organic Reach.
Social channels continue to change their algorithms, making organic reach more difficult to rely on. Paid distribution is far more effective in connecting content to potential leads.
Whatever you choose, don’t wait too long. According to the Content Marketing Institute, 72% of B2B marketers say having a strategy in place has contributed to the success of their programs. The longer you wait to adopt a content strategy, the harder it will be to rise above the tide.
Continue ReadingB2B Myth of the Week: My Company Needs 3 Blog Posts a Week
by Emily Swet
The Myth: My Company Needs 3 Blog Posts a Week to Achieve Our Goals
The Truth: Your Blog Sweet Spot Is All About Quality, Not Quantity
You’ve decided it’s time to ramp up your content marketing strategy. Your first thought? We need blog posts, lots of them, stat! Right?
Well… yes and no. Your blog is the workhorse of your content marketing program. You need strong, informative content that entices and engages your audience. What you don’t need is a bunch of filler that leaves them unsatisfied, misled, or annoyed. How you find your magic blog post number is directly related to both. Just as it’s unwise to let your blog collect tumbleweeds, it’s also a poor strategy to flood your followers with dozens of useless posts.
So How Do You Find Your Sweet Spot? Start By Asking Yourself These 4 Questions:
- What are your resources? You’ll need a writer that understands how to write for SEO while still comfortably speaking to your company’s buyer personas. Most of all, you’ll need time: a well-researched, edited blog can take upwards of four hours to write. How much or how little budget dedicated to content is your first indicator of how frequently you can successfully post.
- What are your goals? Brand awareness. Brand loyalty. Customer engagement. You’ve got to know what goal you’re posting for and how to leverage it. But the core goal of every content program must be to resonate with your audience – which brings us to the next question.
- What does your audience want? If you’re in a fast-moving industry, short and sweet updates might work best – in which case, you’ll likely be able to post more often. If your pace is slower, lengthier info pieces posted less frequently may be more worthwhile. But more importantly, what kind of content does your audience crave? What are their pain points? A blog post that addresses these things is a thousand times more effective than a post filled with fluff.
- What is your competition doing? You don’t have to beat how often your competitors are posting. Instead, look at what they’re posting and see how you can differentiate your brand. How are you different? How are you better? Use competitive analysis to capitalize on your strengths.
If the value of your content is consistently high, publishing more often will likely bring more traffic. More posts mean more content to keep your readers happy and more indexed pages in search engines. However, if you find your resources are too limited to dedicate to several quality posts, once a week is sufficient to keep your audience tuned in to your brand. Content marketing is meant to entertain, educate, and provoke questions. It’s next-level marketing that readers actually want – but only if it’s done well.
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