In today’s highly crowded and globally scattered marketplace, reaching out physically to everyone who matters to your business is unmanageable and implausible. But at the same time, in the world of marketing, and especially when we talk about B2B marketing, professional networking is everything. This is why a strong B2B content marketing strategy is your best shot at roping in the ‘who’s who’ in your line of business.

The way audiences learn about a business has changed drastically with innovations in technology. The channels of communicating with your audience today go way beyond traditionally published content. Content about a business is floating all around us through digital, social, mobile, and other platforms. B2B content is, therefore, a means of expanding your market share as well as thought leadership. And a B2B content strategy will guide you in converting your content into a business advantage.

While the reasons for pursuing content marketing are many, the important question is – ‘What goes into making a strong B2B content marketing strategy?’. So, let’s take a look at the key elements:

Know your audience well

Be focused. You cannot waste time and resource on reaching out to just everyone who is present on a medium of communication. You must concentrate your marketing efforts on an audience that seems most promising for your business. Build a database of these prospects, either organically or with the help of a vendor. Also, simply knowing your audience won’t be of any good, what you really need is a deep understanding of your target audience. Create a profile of your potential clients to create content that is likely to interest them. Your content must come as a solution to the challenges your clients are facing.

Clear conversion goals

The whole idea behind B2B content marketing is to trigger action from your prospective or current clients and convert that action into profits for your business. Your B2B content marketing strategy should, therefore, revolve around the creation of small conversion goals all along the buyer journey. Set appropriate conversion goals for each phase of this journey. Your B2B content marketing strategy should help you define what exactly you expect the client to do, as soon as they finish reading your content.

Create suitable points of contact

Creating B2B content that’s relevant to the client’s immediate concerns and is influential enough to drive them into favorable action is one part. The other critical part of your B2B content marketing strategy is to decide how you will maintain contact with your prospect throughout their buying journey. Your content must shadow them at multiple points so that your brand remains fresh in their memory. You may want to contact them first, through mediums like emails, phone calls, tweets, or text messages. Or it could be the other way round, and they could contact your business via online forums, advertisements, or search engine queries. Whatever the route, staying in contact is absolutely important.

Be a storyteller

A long-term relationship with clients is the end goal for any business venture. And relationships are built only when your clients can relate to what your brand stands for. Storytelling has been one of the most powerful ways of conveying your message in a way that makes the listener connect not just logically but also emotionally. Such a connection is just great for your business. Moreover, your narrative of your brand is the single most distinguishing factor that sets you apart from all your competitors who may be offering the same products and services as you. It’s your golden chance to win them over!

Promote aggressively

Don’t limit your B2B content marketing strategy to content alone. What this means is that content marketing is not just about promoting content on a few blogs, or posting content links on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, or Google+ etc., or practicing a few SEO tricks. Be authentic, invite guest bloggers to write for your brand every now and then, engage with your audience on social media, be active on forums where other marketers share and discuss ideas, to grow your network and gain some limelight.

Measure and analyse

Lastly, but most importantly, you need to measure the impact your B2B content marketing strategy is actually making. Any strategy without measurement and analysis is like an arrow in the dark. You can learn from your mistakes or improve every passing day only if you measure your outcomes. You need to analyze the critical gaps, if any, and reconsider your B2B content marketing strategy in a new light. Measurement and analysis will help you perform against industry benchmarks and align closer with the demands of your clients.

B2B content marketing will witness newer trends in the coming years w.r.t. the content and the platforms for its distribution. The core concept, however, will strongly remain the same. The key elements mentioned above would, therefore, never cease to be effective. If you haven’t already, create a B2B content marketing strategy right away and don’t miss out on the key elements mentioned above!