These days, content has become one of the most powerful weapons in a B2B marketer’s arsenal. The common practice used to be creating content only when a company had something specific to say but this intermittent view has most certainly become a thing of the past. In the modern era of business lead generation, content marketing has turned into an activity that requires a constant stream of media production, distribution, and optimization in order to drive traffic into the sales funnel.
These content marketing goals can be accomplished in the form of blog articles, social media posts, industry whitepapers, case studies and pretty much every other type of media that is capable of disseminating useful information to prospective customers. Content marketing greatly enhances a company’s inbound marketing capabilities, which as opposed to traditional outbound marketing, helps prospects find the brand without the intrusive nature of advertising that consumers have come to loathe.
Those who fail to plan, plan to fail. Every successful content marketing strategy has to start with a comprehensive plan that defines the target audience, the proposed content, and which distribution activities to focus on in order to reach that particular audience. Developing this plan can be a complex task as it requires strong insight, comprehensive research and the collaboration of a potentially large number of stakeholders.
Here are some useful tips on how you can plan for and start to develop better content today:
- Assemble your content team from all relevant departments
- Write a content mission statement
- Craft your message.
- Sift through your existing content
- Plot your content roadmap
- Establish content style guidelines
- Develop an editorial calendar
Follow these simple steps and you can be sure that your next content marketing campaign will produce far better results. You can expect to foster stronger relationships with your prospective customers and build trust with your brand as an industry thought-leader and innovator. You can also expect to improve the quality of your lead generation efforts, as your audience will be more targeted and of a higher quality.
If you would like to learn more about how you can enhance your B2B content marketing activities, download our whitepaper full of useful tips and elaborate advice on how to become a content marketing powerhouse!
