In the B2B world, as long as you can connect and interact with your target audience, you have the opportunity to make your brand stand out. However, the pandemic made it a lot more difficult to get people’s attention (which is understandable under the circumstances).
This shift reinforced the importance of having a reliable content marketing strategy. According to the B2B Content Marketing Benchmarks, Budgets, and Trends: Insights for 2022 report, around 58% of respondents say their company’s content marketing strategy is more focused than it was pre-pandemic.
There is also a change in approach as marketers focus more on brand personalization and awareness in an effort to show the business’s empathetic side. If you’re not sure what this means, we listed the top three content marketing emerging trends every business should understand.
#1: More Focus on Content Relevance
Most companies out there have some type of blog and keep up with publishing consistency. However, there is another factor that matters here – relevance.
According to a recent survey, B2B decision-makers read, on average, around 13 pieces of content on the vendor’s website/blog before making a buying decision.
Therefore, the content you create can be the deciding factor in whether you get a contract or not. This is a huge realization and makes you want to be more careful when choosing your writers or video creators.
In fact, the best B2B content marketing courses will teach you just that – how to select writers that will create value for your brand, not just quantity. Of course, you’ll also have access to B2B specific strategies designed for different companies by experts in the field, which is an extremely useful resource to have.
#2: Increased Brand Awareness
You have a better chance of attracting organic traffic to your content if you turn the focus on the customer’s needs and away from your company’s performance and successes. On a side note, you shouldn’t remove company news and PR-style content from your marketing strategy, just make sure it’s truly interesting for the readers.
Data shows that educational content (teaching readers about your products, services, and more), real images of your team (as opposed to stock images), and a good call-to-action strategy are some of the most important elements of a solid brand awareness campaign. Also, long-form content such as guides and lists that provide value to the reader is more powerful nowadays.
Overall, in order to attract quality leads, B2B content marketing strategies should focus more on creating value for the reader and less on consistency and trying to look professional. After all, the decision-makers are people and they will want to understand the value your brand can create for their company.
#3: Openness toward Marketing Automation
A good lead generation campaign will provide you with a list of contacts that have some sort of interest in collaborating with your company. However, this can be difficult to create without the use of automation.
Plus, marketing automation is extremely helpful in the first stages of a reach-out campaign where you want to spread awareness and pique the leads’ interest. The use of automation makes it easy to personalize your message and make sure each lead gets access to content that fits their industry and needs.
Wrap Up
Today’s B2B content marketing needs to be more empathetic and custom-focused to be worthy of decision-makers’ attention. After all, your B2B audience is made of humans, not just members of buying committees and links in the decision-making chain.
For this, brands have to focus more on relevance and create awareness before they can even think about a sales pitch. Luckily, you can do this through proper content marketing that’s focused outward, in the direction of your customers.
