Why Content Marketing Is So Important
Creating content is extremely important for online brand marketing because done correctly it presents a valuable opportunity to connect with your audiences. Brands that use content marketing effectively use it to help build trust in their brand and generate extra website traffic from organic search results.
Good content marketing can also help businesses generate leads and potentially take prospective clients further down the purchase funnel.
Key Differences Between B2B & B2C Content Marketing
Different types of businesses will have different approaches to content marketing. B2B brands for example are typically harder to produce content for, compared to B2C. This is because they have different audiences, objectives, purchase values, decision makers and time frames.
Content marketing for a consumer brands makes great use of social media profiles to distribute content, within a short content cycle. B2B content in comparison takes a longer time to research, produce and distribute. B2B content marketing also concerns itself with creating link worthy content to gain reputable links from trusted sources. To positively improve online visibility in organic search engine results and by means of referral traffic.
Consumer brands have a much faster turnaround of content and typically need a stack of ideas that are easier to produce more cheaply. B2B content marketing however, targets decision makers for businesses, not decision makers who are acting as consumers. B2B content marketing therefore requires a more thorough detailed approach, to add more value and gain higher levels of trust from the audience and their superiors.
Another reason why B2B content marketing requires a robust approach is because the prospective client/key influencer receiving the content would typically need to involve another decision maker. Likely a technical departmental figure, HR or Purchasing. So B2B content has to also work on multiple department levels, otherwise the content may leave a company exposed to another department not being interested, aware or even willing to sign off.
Planning Your Content Marketing
In order to produce great content that resonates with your target audience, you will need to plan around your specific audiences personas, their cultural references, preferred social platforms and their time zones.
It is best practice to create a content calendar so you can plan ahead of major events in the year and create a rhythm of content suitable for your audiences. Regular content generally achieves greater results. It is thought that at least 4 articles a week is required to be acknowledged as a news provider and gain additional SEO benefit from major search engines.