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Maximize Your B2B Content Marketing ROI

Improve Customer Retention with a Content Marketing Plan for B2B

By
Sanjoli Arora
B2B Content Marketing Hero Image

Content marketing for businesses-to-businesses (B2B) is much different from B2C. One can easily get lost in the complexities of the marketing techniques and strategies that go into successfully executing B2B content marketing.

We've created this comprehensive guide on B2B content marketing. You will discover the best tactics and strategies for maximum impact on your content marketing strategy and tips & tricks to help you get the most out of your content.

Content marketing can help your business increase visibility on search engine results page (SERP) rankings while simultaneously nurturing customer relationships. It is essential to any successful marketing plan as it allows you to connect with potential buyers and existing customers.

Whether you're just starting or a seasoned content marketer, this guide has everything you need to make your B2B content marketing efforts successful.

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B2B Content Marketing Explained

A content marketing strategy enables B2B companies to reach and engage their target audience effectively. B2B content marketing involves creating and sharing content, such as blog posts, videos, whitepapers, and infographics, to engage and build relationships with potential customers.

B2B content marketing is an effective way to attract more customers and increase brand recognition.

When done correctly, B2B content marketing can help companies build credibility and trust with their target audience. It also allows them to showcase their expertise and demonstrate thought leadership.

Benefits of B2B Content Marketing

Content marketing allows you to connect with B2B buyers on their terms. According to a study by Demand Gen, 71% of B2B respondents read a blog while on their purchasing journey. Hence creating valuable content for your readers is the need of the hour.

By creating quality content, you can bring your brand in front of your customers by offering valuable information when they are looking for it. B2B content marketing handles much legwork for finding, attracting, and generating prospects.

Here are some of the most crucial advantages of B2B content marketing and why they are so vital for your company.

1. Increase Website Traffic: The more engaging and authoritative content you provide, the more likely you generate organic traffic. But it's more than just creating a ton of B2B content.

2. Higher Leads: You may increase lead generation by concentrating on your products or services' benefits to your readers.

For example, white papers, infographics, and ebooks are excellent 'lead magnets.' Your sales team collects contact information from' warm' leads by requiring prospects to fill out a form to access the gated content.

3. Improved Sales Potential: Businesses prefer to buy from authoritative and trustworthy organizations. Implementing a successful content strategy for your B2B audience builds authority and confidence in your brand and products. Therefore raising the likelihood of converting a prospect into a customer.

4. Increased Brand Awareness: Your reach and engagement determine your brand worth. Communicating your brand and its values to as many prospects within your targeted category as possible keeps it at the forefront of their minds.

Social network platforms are excellent tools for brand exposure. Your followers are loyal to your brand for a reason. You can create compelling and informative social media strategies to promote new releases, blog posts, landing sites, demos, events, webinars, and offers, among other things. The more exposure and awareness, the greater the possibility of conversion.

B2B v/s B2C Content Marketing

B2B and B2C companies operate on distinct business models and serve different clients. As a result, there are several differences in how each approaches content marketing.

You must be aware of the differences to make content marketing work well for your B2B business.

Factor B2B Content Marketing B2C Content Marketing
Target Audience Decision makers of a business or enterprise, such as the CEO, VP, or Head of departments. Targets the end consumers of a product or service.
Goals Aims to drive leads and sales by providing insights into a product or service. Aims to increase brand awareness and create an emotional connection with the consumer.
Tactic Focuses on delivering valuable, informative content about the product/service and building authority/trustworthiness. Focused on building brand awareness, how consumers feel, and why it is superior to rivals.
Writing Style Formal writing style, following grammar rules to make the content easier to read and understand. Informal writing style that allows more creativity and personality to shine.
User Journey Linear journey. Awareness - Consideration - Decision making. Non-linear journey with 2 goals - increase brand awareness and build customer connection.
Content Distribution Channels Website, Email, Forums, Social Media Organic Search, Paid Advertising, Social Media
Budget Higher budget as a greater focus on reaching a more targeted audience and converting leads. More cost-effective due to its focus on brand building and reaching a large audience.

Types of B2B Content

Different types of content cater to various stages of the buyer’s journey, helping you build relationships, establish credibility, and ultimately drive sales. Let's explore some of the key types of B2B content and how they can work for you.

1. Blog Posts

Think of blog posts as the backbone of your B2B content strategy. They’re your go-to for sharing insights, industry news, and practical tips. Regularly updating your blog helps you stay relevant in search engines and keeps your audience informed. Whether you’re discussing the latest industry trends, providing how-to guides, or sharing your thoughts on recent developments, blogs are a great way to showcase your expertise and keep your audience coming back for more.

2. Whitepapers and E-books

Whitepapers and e-books are perfect for when you need to dive deep into a topic. They’re detailed, research-driven documents that provide valuable insights and analysis. These resources are excellent for prospects who are in the consideration stage and looking for detailed information to help them make a decision. Plus, they’re great lead magnets—offering a valuable e-book in exchange for contact details is a classic but effective tactic.

3. Case Studies

There's nothing quite like a good success story to demonstrate your value. Case studies provide concrete examples of how your products or services have solved real problems for your clients. By highlighting successful projects and tangible results, case studies help build trust and show potential customers that you can deliver on your promises. They're essentially proof that your solutions work.

4. Infographics

Infographics are a fantastic way to make complex information digestible and engaging. They combine visuals and data to tell a story or explain a process in a clear and concise way. Infographics are highly shareable and can help you capture the attention of busy professionals who might not have the time to read through longer documents. They’re perfect for highlighting key statistics, summarizing research findings, or providing a quick overview of a topic.

5. Webinars and Online Events

Webinars and online events are interactive ways to connect with your audience in real time. They allow you to present in-depth knowledge, demonstrate products, and engage directly with potential customers. Whether you’re hosting a webinar on industry trends, leading a product demo, or facilitating a panel discussion with experts, these events can help you build relationships and position your company as a leader in your field.

6. Videos

Videos are a versatile and highly engaging content format. They can be used for a variety of purposes, from product demos and customer testimonials to educational series and company culture videos. In the B2B world, videos help you break down complex concepts and connect with your audience on a more personal level. They’re easily shareable on social media, your website, and in email campaigns, making them a powerful tool for broadening your reach.

Goals of B2B Content Marketing

B2B content marketing aims to help create relationships between businesses and their target audience. Content can create brand awareness, help lead sales, build a network of loyal customers, and increase sales conversions.

B2B content marketing goals
A good B2B content marketing plan should help achieve three goals

The three main goals of B2B content marketing are awareness, engagement, and lead generation.

Create Awareness for your B2B Business

Awareness is the foundation of any successful content marketing strategy. By creating informative, engaging, and shareable content, brands can make a presence and become more visible in their industry. Generate brand awareness by creating content and distributing them on multiple channels.

Awareness is essential for B2B content marketing because it helps to build trust with customers and get the attention of potential customers. As the awareness of your brand and products increases, more potential customers will be able to find and connect with you.

Tricks to utilize your B2B content marketing plan to increase brand awareness:

1. Optimize for Search Engines: SEO is one of the most critical ways to increase visibility for your content in search engine results pages (SERPs). Keyword optimization, improving content quality and link building are all essential elements of an effective SEO strategy. Incorporating SEO into your content marketing efforts can increase the number of prospects who find your content.

2. Leverage Social Media: Social media has become invaluable for driving brand awareness. Make sure to create a presence on the most popular social networks (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, Pinterest, etc.) and to share engaging content that resonates with your target audience regularly.

3. Leverage Influencers: Influencers are a great way to amplify your content and help spread brand awareness. Identify relevant influencers in your industry and look for opportunities to collaborate on content and campaigns.

4. Establish a Content Hub: Creating a content hub on your website is a great way to centralize your content in one neat package. It will ensure that visitors can easily find and access your content and make it easier for search engines to index.

5. Use Paid Ads: Paid advertising effectively increases brand awareness and drives traffic to your content. To maximize your reach, incorporate a mix of ads across various networks and channels.

Increase Engagement with B2B Content Marketing

Engagement is the second goal of B2B content marketing. Engagement is connecting and engaging with customers, prospects, and influencers. Improve engagement by increasing audience interaction on multiple channels about your brand.

Engagement is vital because it helps to build relationships between businesses and their target audience. By providing engaging, relevant content, businesses can build a network of loyal customers and create a more personal relationship with their customers.

Tips for Leveraging Engagement in Your Content Marketing Plan:

1. Utilize social media platforms to increase engagement.

2. Ask questions, offer polls, and encourage user input.

3. Invite guest contributors to generate more conversation.

4. Generate content that adds value and helps solve problems.

5. Ensure your content is relevant and tailored to the target audience.

6. Create a consistent brand personality to build trust and loyalty.

7. Include visuals and create interactive content to keep users engaged.

8. Monitor feedback and measure engagement metrics such as likes, comments, and impressions.

B2B Content Marketing for Lead Generation

Lead generation is the third goal of B2B content marketing. Lead generation is the process of turning prospects into leads and leads into customers. Your content assets are a great way to capture leads and become lead magnets.

Lead generation is essential for B2B content marketing because it helps to drive sales. By providing interesting, informative, and engaging content, businesses can increase their chances of turning prospects into customers.

Tips for creating a B2B content marketing plan that generates leads at scale:

1. Create Targeted Content: Create content that speaks to a specific group of customers. Identify your target audience's pain points and interests and create content that solves their problems and speaks to their interests.

2. Leverage Social Media: Use social media to share your content and connect with potential customers. Utilize each social media ad to reach a wider audience and create ads that lead to content.

3. Utilize Landing Pages: Create landing pages with forms to capture the contact information of prospects interested in your content.

4. Run Lead Nurturing Campaigns: Send automated emails with relevant content and offers to nurture leads.

5. Use Calls-to-Action: Add calls-to-action in your content to encourage readers to take action, such as signing up for a newsletter or attending a webinar.

6. Leverage SEO: Utilize SEO to position your content in search engine result pages and drive more organic traffic.

7. Analyze and Optimize: Analyze the performance of your content and optimize it to maximize lead generation.

Use this Marketing Strategy blueprint to create your B2B Content Marketing Strategy.

B2B Content Marketing Best Practices

B2B content marketing best practices are essential for developing effective content strategies that make an impact and drive results. Some of the best methods to keep in mind include

Crafting an Engaging Narrative

B2B companies should craft an engaging narrative to sell their products or services because it allows these companies to create a connection with their customers, build loyalty, trust, and credibility and establish a robust and lasting bond.

An engaging narrative helps to express the value of the product or service and makes it easier for customers to understand complex concepts and problems.

When crafting an engaging narrative, it’s important to consider the type of content you’re creating and how it will resonate with your target audience. Create content in a conversational style that speaks directly to your audience and addresses their pain points and challenges. Using a storytelling approach can assist your content marketing efforts.

Storytelling in B2B is using powerful stories to engage, educate and inspire customers with more technical or data-driven goals.

By using engaging stories, companies can foster relationships and create a connection with customers, making them more likely to purchase their products or services.

Utilize Data to Guide Content Marketing Plan

Every website has tons of data that, when organized correctly, can help unlock growth opportunities. Here are some data sources that B2B companies should analyze regularly.

1. Website analytics: Website analytics tools like Google Analytics offer valuable data that can help guide B2B companies in their content marketing plans. It can provide data on how much time visitors spend on the website, what pages they visit, the number of visitors, and the lead page source.

Analytics data can help identify the best content and adjust the content strategy. Metrics to track include page views, time on site, bounce rate, and goal completions.

2. Social Media Analytics: Social media analytics can help understand engagement trends across your brand's content. It can track the number of followers, reach, clicks, and other metrics like likes, shares, and comments.

By tracking this data, businesses can understand what content resonates best with their audiences, who engage with the content, and the best traffic sources. Metrics to track include engagement rate, shares, and website clicks.

3. Customer Feedback: Customer feedback is a great way to understand how people view a business' content. By looking at reviews, ratings, and customer surveys, companies can gain valuable insights into the effectiveness of their content and how they can improve it. Metrics to track include customer ratings and reviews.

4. Competitor Analysis: Competitor analysis tools can help compare the performance of their competitors and gain insights into what is working for them. Competitor analysis can help businesses understand what content generates the most leads, traffic, and engagement. Metrics to track include lead generation and website traffic.

5. A/B Testing: A/B testing allows businesses to test different pieces of content and determine which performs better. By testing different content variations, companies can better understand what resonates with their audiences, what works best, and what needs to be changed. Metrics to track include engagement rate, click-through rate, and conversion rate.

B2B SEO & Content Marketing

In B2B content marketing, SEO is crucial in helping businesses reach their target audience. SEO helps boost your B2B strategy in many ways:

1. SEO helps optimize content to make it more easily discoverable on SERP, which allows businesses to create a solid online presence.

2. SEO techniques such as keyword optimization and backlinking can help businesses improve their content's ranking on search engine results pages.

3. SEO helps increase content visibility, allowing businesses to maximize engagement on their content.

4. It also helps companies track their content's performance in terms of reach and engagement. SEO allows companies to understand which content is performing well and which needs improvement.

To ensure your B2B content is as effective as possible, use this B2B SEO checklist:

1. On-Page SEO involves optimizing individual pages to rank higher and drive more organic traffic. On-page SEO includes optimizing page titles and meta descriptions, creating content targeting specific keyword clusters, and optimizing images and videos.

2. Link Building involves creating backlinks from other websites to yours, significantly increasing website authority. When building backlinks, it’s essential to focus on quality over quantity and consider the relevance of the website you’re linking.

3. Technical SEO and Page Performance are integral to any B2B SEO checklist. It includes optimizing your website's structure and code, ensuring your pages are indexed correctly, and ensuring your website is secure. Track and optimize page load time, and implement page speed optimization techniques to ensure pages render quickly and efficiently.

4. Regular Updates and Optimization: It’s important to remember that B2B SEO is an ever-evolving process. You must constantly monitor and update your SEO efforts to stay ahead of the competition. You must keep looking at the latest SEO trends and make changes accordingly.

Measure Content Marketing ROI

Content marketing ROI measures how successful marketing efforts are in revenue generation, customer acquisition, and customer retention. Companies often track key performance indicators (KPIs) such as clicks, leads, sales, and revenue to measure ROI.

Measuring ROI regularly helps B2B companies make informed decisions about their content strategy. 

By measuring the ROI of their content, they can determine which content is most effective, identify gaps in their content strategy, and invest in content that is most likely to bring a return. Additionally, measuring the ROI of content allows them to evaluate the success of their campaigns, optimize their content for maximum potential, and adjust their tactics to increase ROI.

Follow these steps to measure content marketing ROI:

1. Define the KPIs: First, define key performance indicators (KPIs) that align with your overall marketing goals. Examples of KPIs include website visits, leads generated, sales made, and revenue generated.

2. Track your results: Track the KPIs for each piece of content marketed. Track KPIs manually or with software services such as Google Analytics.

3. Calculate the ROI: Calculate the ROI by taking the total revenue generated from a piece of content and dividing it by the total campaign cost.

4. Optimize the content: Analyze the data to identify the content performing well and optimize it for maximum potential.

5. Adjust the tactics: Identify any underperforming content and adjust tactics to increase ROI.

6. Measure the impact: Measure the effect of the changes made to gauge the content strategy's effectiveness.

Scale Your B2B Content Marketing Efforts with Quattr

A good B2B content marketing strategy involves measuring your performance and making changes per the requirements. To check your marketing performance, you need real-time data insights from your SEO and SEM efforts in a consolidated view. But viewing these data together is only possible using an Enterprise SEO platform like Quattr.

With Quattr, you can compare your SEO and SEM performance in a single view to compare performance. Quattr will also suggest changes to optimize organic and paid traffic. With Quattr's in-built features, you can maximize your marketing efforts which help you stand out from your competitors.

Ultimately, a robust content marketing plan can be an excellent way for B2B businesses to build trust & improve ROI.

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B2B Content Marketing FAQs

What is B2B Content Marketing?

B2B content marketing is creating and distributing content such as blog articles, whitepapers, case studies, and infographics that help businesses build relationships with their audiences and reach potential customers. Through B2B content marketing, companies can create education and engagement to nurture leads and convert them into paying customers.

How Can B2B Content Marketing be Used to Generate Leads?

B2B content marketing is a powerful way to generate leads because it allows businesses to target buyers by providing valuable information. Companies can cultivate relationships and establish themselves as trusted resources by delivering content that meets specific customer needs. All this, in turn, can lead to more sales opportunities.

What is the Best Way to Measure the Success of B2B Content Marketing?

One of the most critical steps when measuring the success of B2B content marketing is to track engagement and measure conversions. It means following the number of visits, leads generated, and sales made from each piece of content. Additionally, businesses should track any changes in customer satisfaction, brand awareness, and website traffic due to their content marketing efforts.

About The Author

Sanjoli Arora

Sanjoli Arora is the Marketing Manager at Quattr and helps our customers create intent-driven content that ranks on search engines. She writes about content marketing, digital marketing, conversion rate optimization, user experience and SEO technology.

About Quattr

Quattr is an innovative and fast-growing venture-backed company based in Palo Alto, California USA. We are a Delaware corporation that has raised over $7M in venture capital. Quattr's AI-first platform evaluates like search engines to find opportunities across content, experience, and discoverability. A team of growth concierge analyze your data and recommends the top improvements to make for faster organic traffic growth. Growth-driven brands trust Quattr and are seeing sustained traffic growth.

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