Cyberspace is vast and complex, and reaching your target market requires you to be as creative and unique as possible. With today’s growing and cutthroat digital marketing competition, an innovative strategy is necessary for your business to stay afloat.
Today, roughly 93% of the most successful companies do content marketing to one degree or another. In a world where much of the pre-purchase research is done online, what you post certainly matters. Of course, the degree to which your content is effective is another thing altogether. Today we look at ways you can make the most out of your content marketing. These strategies will let you maximize your investment of time, money, and effort on content.
Many B2B companies like to follow “successful”, viral online trends to stay ahead of their competition. Or, at least be “in”. Now, there’s certainly nothing wrong with that. However, what matters more is that you’re also providing content that your audience wants to see. The best way to find out what that is is to listen to what your audience is talking about. This can be in the engagement they have on your existing content or even what they tell your sales teams. This is a sure way to increase your marketing ROI.
That said, it also pays to try out new things. If, for example, you tend to focus on long-form content, you might want to mix things up with some videos or even infographics. Sure, other mediums might take longer to produce and create. But, you never know when you have a winner until you try. Besides, a little bit of variety might be highly appreciated by your audience. Just make sure that the substance focuses on what your own audience needs to read and see. By prioritizing the informational needs of your audience, you will be able to create content that they are willing to consume thereby enhancing your potential for sales.
It is also wise to show your audience that you are able to solve their problems and that they need you to improve their lives. According to Grow and Convert, ‘SaaS content needs to discuss your product. Generally, this means including one or more sections in the structure of an article where we’ll focus on the product, how it solves customer pain points, how it’s different from competitor solutions, etc.’
There are currently over 3.78 billion social media users across the globe as of 2021. That’s an increase of 5% from last year. What that means is that, if your B2B business doesn’t have any form of social media presence, you’re losing out. Of course, the primary consideration when selecting which social media platform to establish yourself on depends entirely on where your audience is. For B2B businesses, this is likely to be LinkedIn but you might be surprised at where your audience is.
About 50% of the population has a social media account, and you need to know where your target customers hang out. Posting content on an irrelevant platform will waste time and effort and show that you’re out of touch with your market. Ask yourself some questions, and create a feasibility study. This way, you’re channeling all your resources in the appropriate way. Engaging in social media doesn’t mean that you have to be in all of them. Choose at least three, and focus all your efforts in them instead of spreading yourself too thin.
Social media is useful because it can serve as a platform to project your content to more people. Be it your blog posts, videos, infographics, webinars, etc. One key to success in marketing ROI is consistency. If you can schedule a specific content type for a specific day, all the better. This lets people tune in to your social media to consume media that they enjoy. Consistency also establishes a sense of authority and dependability. Both of which you want to develop in your potential customers, and existing ones too.
Apart from actually getting your content out there via socials, you can actually entice your audience to your content on your website via Search Engine Optimization. While the actual work is far too complicated to talk about in a few paragraphs, it's basically all about using critical keywords. Or, key phrases in your content to draw in the people who are searching for them. Naturally, you go for those relating to your line of business and the products and services you offer.
The whole idea, really, is to make sure that when your audience and potential customers search for answers that they find you. The key to being successful in this marketing ROI regard is actually to hire an SEO expert or specialist. SEO is so important to a company in these modern times that they require a focus all on their own. It’s a worthwhile investment, however, as being top of the search rankings makes you top-of-mind.
Finally, it’s worth noting that one simple way to stand out and maximize your ROI from your content marketing is to veer away from hard-sell content. People nowadays are constantly seeing advertising on a daily basis. Thereby, many have now become very resistant to sales talk. What people nowadays look for are stories. They want to see the practical real-world applications of your products and services. They want to see how you impact other businesses.
Following this, you should consider content like whitepapers and case studies that focus on precisely these things. The idea here is to prove, essentially, that your offerings actually work. Now, again, you can diversify the mediums you use to present your content. Frame these as videos and sharable infographics or even ebooks. These are very effective as sales tools as people don’t feel being sold to at all. Thus, easily increasing your marketing ROI.
Apply these four strategies and you can be confident that all the time, money, and effort you put into your content marketing will be worthwhile. Just make sure that you check your analytics to find what works and what doesn’t.
Author: Nat Parkes is Vice President of Sales in the APAC region for Internal Results. He’s been responsible for nurturing and expanding the company’s relationships with B2B clients in the region as well as managing our global sales strategies. Nat has been pivotal in growing Internal Results presence in the region.
