B2B Content Marketing for Brand Building Secrets [Video]

B2B content marketing (https://www.ericschwartzman.com/why-b2b-content-marketing-is-important/) , the cornerstone of a brand’s online presence, encompasses creating, earning, sharing, and spreading your brand messaging.

More than just being a vehicle for sharing your brand’s messaging, though, content marketing can be — and is — an effective way to meet your organization’s bottom-line goals.

With great content, you can attract new investors and customers, nurture cold leads and convert warm ones. 

Without it, your organization will become a ghost — something that’s there, but not seen.

I recently talked about the difference between B2B and B2C content marketing, how to create content that effectively generates leads and how to develop content marketing skills with Christopher Null (https://www.ericschwartzman.com/what-is-b2b-content-marketing/) of Null Media.

Coming from a journalism background, Christopher is a 20-year veteran of magazine and internet trade, working with big names like Yahoo!, Intuit, McGraw Hill and other large companies in publishing and news media.

But while reporting is more about looking for the truth and sharing facts, content marketing requires you to have a clearly detailed end destination and objective in mind and work towards that. 

The differences between a B2C and B2B content strategy

The answer to “what is content marketing?” can often be defined by the industry, the product being marketed, and the audience you are speaking to. 

In other words, it’s defined by the organization itself.

That being said, both B2C and B2B content creative needs to create a robust strategy with well-defined goals.

Your content marketing strategy also needs to address every part of the content marketing funnel. (https://www.ericschwartzman.com/content-marketing-funnel-andy-crestodina/#.X7T1O8ZKjek) Top funnel content is typically more introductory in nature, while bottom funnel content is toplines information that drives conversions.

A good content marketing agency (https://www.ericschwartzman.com/content-marketing-agency/) executes on your content marketing strategy, bringing a pitch or outline to life and connecting you with your ideal audience. 

On the other hand, a digital marketing consultant (https://www.ericschwartzman.com/) like me works closely with decision makers and brand stakeholders to build strategies for owned, shared, and earned media outreach – as well as a methodology for how to measure the ROI of your content marketing program. 

Owned Media

While they do have clear differences, B2C and B2B content marketing begins when you learn owned media marketing (/owned-media-bootcamp-digital-marketing/) . Owned media is media you own, and it’s comprised of content marketing materials like blog posts, technical guides, white papers, checklists, and product reviews that live on your own website. Hence the term, owned media.

Consumer-facing organizations tend to produce more superficial content, but it still needs to be vibrantly written and come off the page to capture the attention of readers.

B2B content marketing is usually more research-focused, but it still needs to be compelling. Even though it’s written for a niche audience, B2B content should be nothing less than dead-on accurate with useful information  detailed specs. Targeting the right topics starts with researching the B2B keywords (/b2b-vs-b2c-seo/) people search when they are looking for answers to problems you can solve.

Some brands overlook the importance of their owned content marketing channel. But I’ve seen multiple companies rapidly expand using smart growth marketing strategies (https://www.ericschwartzman.com/the-difference-between-b2b-marketing-and-b2b-growth-marketing/) and by leveraging SEO content. 

Earned Media

Earned media is the union of content marketing and digital PR. You can learn earned media marketing anytime, but you’re not ready to implement earned media outreach until your owned media strategy is in place. Earned media is media coverage you earn on someone else’s website, which link back to your website.

Earned media marketing is what PR firms (https://www.ericschwartzman.com/public-relations-agency/) do. Media relations pros know how to get press for startups (/get-press-coverage/) and other unproven companies by finding a news hook. For B2B organizations, there will again be a lot of research needed to understand what you want to get across and who your audience is. 

“It may be so narrow that you create content that’s only intended for 100 people — or less. But a company with aspirations to become a household name will want to show up anywhere and everywhere, no matter what,” says Christopher.

Having a well-planned content brief and success metrics will be a determining factor in the effectiveness of your content marketing or public relations consultant.

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