#B2Bchat: What’s Your B2B Content Strategy? [Recap]

Content Strategy has been getting a lot of attention lately…we’ve all heard, “Content Is King.” However, truth be told, the reality is that it is treated like a second class citizen, not getting the much needed attention it deserves.

In this #B2Bchat, the community tackled B2B content strategy, why it necessary and how to be successful. Below are the questions and the edited responses.

What is a content strategy in the first place?

• Create content for every stage of the buying process — untroubled, problem, solution, consideration, etc.
• For me content strategy covers Creation (how and who), Delivery (where and when), and Maintenance (updating, retiring etc) .
• For me it involves everything and everyone from concept to execution. Internally and externally.
• Our content strategy is to build a position as a wireless thought leader through unique content, such as our custom published magazine.

Why should you have a content strategy in the first place?

• To direct the creation of meaningful, useful content that produces a positive experience.
• Because 95% of buyers today look for content.
• You need a content strategy to frame conversations that add value to relationships throughout the life of them.
• B2B businesses need a content strategy as the older forms of push marketing are getting less & less effective.

We mentioned Buyer Personas, what are additional best practices to developing a content strategy?

• First ask whom you are creating the content.
• Audit your existing content and determine methods to repurpose.
• Vertical focus emphasis very helpful in determining how to prioritize time/effort.
• Most B2B marketers don’t have any idea, who they are talking to. Jumping the gun without defining buyers persona is not wise.
• In addition to buyer personas, you need buying processes. Map to grid.

How do you know your content strategy is working?

• Analytics for one.
• Lead nurturing (marketing) automation tools are effective in this case. To measure which content is working.
• Monitoring organic search results, where do you come up vs competitions for important keywords.
• Content is great when prospective buyers say it’s great.
• When they view you as an industry expert / thought leader…
• For me it has been when I put out a blog post (pull it into Social networking sites) be active there & they call me!
• By measuring file downloads, inbound calls, sales leads, revenue, etc. Cost per lead (efficiency) is another great metric.
• It’s not only about your content, success depends on how well you can engage with prospects at THEIR watering holes.

Do you give it away or require a registration? /via @fearlesscomp

• A mix of free content & content behind registration wall [this content had better be worth it].
• It’s dependent on stage of the buying process — untroubled, problem, solution, consideration.
• We require registrations for white papers – is this considered ‘old school’? or stick to it?
• Give away small stuff (e.g eBooks) and require minimal registrations for big stuff.
• We require registrations for our white papers as well. We keep the forms short, use progressive profiling.
• Progressive elaboration in case of registration process worked for us. Long registration forms always fail.
• The best approach is have the data collection process during multiple visits – Name/email for some content.

As you can tell it was a vibrant conversation and an excellent opportunity to learn from each other. The four of us as moderators (@KseniaCoffman, @AndrewSpoeth, @KentHuffman, @JeremyVictor ) are committed to continuing the B2B marketing dialogue. We hope you are too and join us every Thursday night at 8:00 PM EST.

Author: Jeremy Victor | Website | Twitter

Jeremy's the founder of Make Good Media and Editor In Chief of B2Bbloggers.com. B2Bbloggers.com is a B2B Marketing online magazine discussing the evolution of B2B marketing. Topics include content marketing, B2B social media, demand generation, marketing automation, and more. Sign up. Get all the articles via email.