Content marketing is an essential way for businesses of any size to enter into broader conversations with current and potential B2B clients. There are two major benefits you can hope to gain from these efforts:

1)   Get to know potential targets so that you can reach out to them for business opportunities.

2)   Establish your business brand and credibility so that relevant people can recall you when they need your services or products.

Content marketing can be effective if planned with due understanding of customer needs and psychology and by deploying the right tools and media to deliver the content. With so many content marketing tools and media available, the critical question that organizations face is how to make a selection among these tools and media and decide on the most relevant content for the target audience.

An effective content strategy would make an optimum use of the various content tools and delivery media so that the efforts translate into high quality leads which converts into business. Below are some tips that would serve as a useful guide for you in planning your content market strategy.

Define your target audience and design the content accordingly

The most important step is perhaps defining your target audience. There are broadly three ways to look at your target audience – in terms of the organization size, job function and seniority level of the people in the organization.

For instance, if you are an investment banker, your target audience would be business development people, Chief Financial Officers and other senior people including the CEO and Chairman. After you have decided on your target audience, you must create content that these people are most likely to be interested in.

What is the most appropriate content for the target audience?

You need to ensure that the content you design attracts the attention of the relevant audience. Besides, it should also convey to the audience your strength and capabilities. You should try to tailor the content to address their specific needs.

The content that you publish is going to represent your organization to your potential customers, and hence to retain or establish credibility ensure that the same is well drafted and flawless. The content should not only be designed for consumption, but should also provoke thoughts, which creates an opportunity for you to work together. It is best to target a niche when designing your content. A niche is important, because you need to position yourself so that customers get the confidence in your capabilities.

After drafting the message of the content, you also need to decide the most effective delivery mode. Think whether you should publish it as visual content / video / presentation or as a text article. In this modern age, remember that the content you publish gets stale in a short period of time, so you need to publish new content continually. It is best to have a dedicated resource to handle the task.

Choose the right media and tools to deliver your content to the target audience

You need to think about the variety of media to deliver content to your target audience. The media to be used would depend on the type of content that you are looking to publish and the audience for your content. If you are looking to reach senior management, you can think of a newsletter, online presentation or research reports.

If your target is the middle management in a particular vertical (say manufacturing of chemicals), you may leverage LinkedIn, which is the most popular among all social media for B2B content marketing. Creating groups on LinkedIn network and publishing relevant posts as updates on the group can help you connect with people who would be interested in your content. Besides, you can also publish articles on third party sites of repute to help you build mass awareness and a brand.

By sharing targeted and high quality content on industry blogs and social media groups, you can grab the eyeballs of the most relevant customers. By providing a link to your company blog or a landing page on your website, you can drive the visitors to the top or middle of your funnel and create opportunities for lead generation.  

About the Author – Rajveer works with SEO First Page, a leading digital marketing agency in India. If you are looking for ethical and effective online marketing services in India, SEO First Page is a good choice. Rajveer is passionate about Internet marketing, and he loves to share his ideas and opinions by blogging. Connect with Rajveer on @hearthackersss and Facebook.