5 Things You Should Know About B2B Content Marketing

5 Facts About B2B Content Marketing

B2B companies have much to gain from effective B2B content marketing, but only a handful of marketers say they’ve been able to measure the ROI of their efforts.

Content marketing isn’t just a great way to contact customers. It’s also an effective lead-generation tactic to help you generate high volumes of sales-ready leads at lower costs.

Many companies that have established B2B content marketing programs haven’t yet figured out how to measure their efforts’ ROI.

What’s wrong with the old B2B Content Marketing approach?

Traditional approaches are no longer working for B2B marketers. While 79% of respondents said they incorporate some form of content marketing into their overall strategy, only 15 percent say they can tie this kind of marketing back to specific revenue goals, even though marketers know quality is more important than quantity when it comes to inbound marketing.

Most companies with a content strategy in place say they’re still trying to figure out how to measure the results best, which reflects a general unfamiliarity with B2B content marketing overall.

Here are five facts on why this might be—and how you can take steps toward better accountability and results:

1) You’re not using the right metrics.

If you’re measuring website traffic as your key performance indicator (KPI), you’re probably not seeing much return on your investment. It’s usually too easy for people to click around and find what they need quickly, even if it means going outside your site.

B2B Content Marketing involves developing an ongoing dialogue with consumers and prospects that ultimately leads to sales opportunities and revenue streams—so look at which activities lead to which results.

For example, are people downloading eBooks or visiting your thought leadership pages? Are you seeing more inbound links because of the content you publish? How are all these activities helping your SEO? Remember that it’s not about how many people visit your site but what they do while there that matters most.

2) You’re looking at the wrong analytics.

The numbers will only tell you so much. To understand what’s going on with your content, ask yourself questions like:

What context is each person reading this piece of content consuming? Does someone who reads an eBook come back for another one later on? If so, did they buy something during their second visit? Did any visitors share the eBook with anyone they know? How do you know?

What is the person consuming this content likely to think about when they’re done reading it? I.e., is it geared toward awareness, interest, or consideration? What stage are they in their buyer’s journey?

How does this content compare to what people have read on your site? Is there a common thread among those who download multiple pieces of content compared with those who only download one before exiting the site?

3) You haven’t targeted the right keywords.

Marketers often try to optimize their sites for too many keyword phrases. Content marketers will often try to optimize for every keyword they can think of. When there isn’t a real focus for your content, it can be hard to justify the cost of B2B content marketing because it seems to spread out, and it’s not working.

To do this well, you need to understand your buyer personas and what keywords they’re likely to use in their searches. Then determine which phrases will be most effective for you to target—and try to rank for a few of the most valuable ones.

4) Your site structure isn’t optimized for search engines or visitors.

Your site should have an intuitive web design that’s easy for people to navigate quickly, so you should plan the architecture from both a human perspective and a search engine perspective. In other words: Make it easy for your prospects and customers to get around, but also make sure Google can crawl your pages easily and find all the content-rich nooks and crannies.

5) You’re not publishing enough great content.

You might be wondering how you can publish more content if you don’t have time to do it, but it’s a myth that B2B content marketing continuously requires a lot of new pieces of creative work. Instead, you should focus on curating the best external content and pulling the most valuable ideas from existing sources into your unique mix—and then repackage those ideas in ways that are right for your audience.

Remember: It’s really about delivering the right information at the right time to the people who need it most as they go through their buyer journey. If you understand this and what motivates prospects at every stage along their journey, you’ll have a much better chance of success.