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Is there really a shortcut to content marketing success?It’s an exciting time to be in B2B. Many B2B marketers are (finally!) moving away from “me-focused” marketing and developing customer-focused content. By embracing content marketing, they are achieving a number of benefits – such as increased conversions, greater brand awareness and improved SEO.  However, moving to a content marketing model is not without its challenges. The 2014 B2B Content Marketing Benchmarks, Budgets, and Trends – North America report states that the #1 B2B content marketing challenge is the lack of time to produce content. 

 

While a successful, long-term content marketing strategy does take a lot of planning and effort, you don’t need to put all of your results on hold until you develop the ideal plan.

This ebook outlines 10 things you can do this week – or even today – to improve your B2B content, attract more high-quality leads and increase your conversions. If you have more time and resources, it also suggests 10 bigger content marketing projects you can tackle for long-term results.  

Let’s get started! Rachel FosterCEOFresh Perspective Copywriting

Content Marketing Quick Fix #1

Collect Customer Testimonials

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What is the #1 thing B2B technologybuyers want from your content?According to the technology buyers on a Spiceworks panel, they want social proof that your products and services deliver results. Plus, a Hawkeye study revealed that 71% of B2B buyers in the awareness stage and 77% in the evaluation stage cited testimonials and case studies as the most influential types of content.  This means that collecting customer praise should be one of your top marketing objectives this year. However, developing testimonials and case studies is often time-consuming and involves layers of approvals.

Start by searching your existing communications – such as social media streams, blog post comments and emails – for testimonials.

These testimonials can be as simple as a line or two praising your products or customer service team.  

  

 

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Every time you find a great testimonial, ask its writer for permission to use it in your marketing. It’s usually easy to get permission, especially if the writer publically posted the testimonial on a social network.  Remember to save all of the testimonials that you receive in the future, so you can easily find them when you need more.

Enjoying this ebook? Tell your friends about it.

 

  

 

Do You Want to Blast Off Your Content Marketing Results?

Develop 3 Case Studies

Short testimonials are great, but your leads often need more convincing before they invest in your products or services. You may want to create new case studies if:  Some of your products or services are lacking social proof. You are going after new markets or verticals and need content to support

them. A customer praises working with you. 

Quick Tip  One of the biggest mistakes that I see with case studies is when sales people write them from their perspective, not the customer’s perspective. These aren’t convincing. Be sure to interview your customers and include their quotes throughout the case study.  

Content Marketing Quick Fix #2

Engage With Your Audience

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How to find out what your audience wantsOne of the biggest factors that impact the success of your marketing is how well your audience relates to your content.  

If your audience thinks you understand their needs and can help them, they will be more likely to respond to your calls to action. If your content isn’t relevant, they will tune your messages out. That’s why you should spend as much time as possible getting to know your target audience. Here are 15 things you can do right now to gain a deeper understanding of them:  

  

 

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1. Subscribe to the magazines and blogs that they read.

2. Subscribe to Google Alerts for the news topics that they follow.

3. Use a content discovery tool to find out what they are sharing on social media.

4. Register for one of the conferences that they will attend. You can also browse conference websites to find out what topics are trending with your target audience.

5. Study how your competitors are interacting with your audience.

6. Follow members of your target audience on Twitter.

7. Get active in their LinkedIn groups and check out their LinkedIn profiles.

8. Pay attention to their discussions and ‘likes’ on Facebook.

 

 

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9. Join their other social communities.

10. Review the comments on your blog.

11. Monitor your social media presence to learn what your target audience says about you and which content they share the most.

12. Check your website analytics to learn which pages are getting the most views, as this will give you an idea of the content that your target audience finds the most interesting.

13. Ask your sales team and customer service representatives about your customers’ biggest concerns.

14. Survey your customers to find out what types of content they want from you.

15. Ask for their opinions every chance you get! 

 

Do You Want to Blast Off Your Content Marketing Results?

Update Your Buyer Personas

If your buyer personas are nonexistent or haven’t been updated since Friends went off the air, you have some work ahead of you. Identify who your target customers are by role. Then determine their needs, goals, challenges and the questions they ask during every stage in the sales cycle.  

Quick Tip  Put your buyer personas in a slide presentation and give it to everyone who works on your marketing – both your internal and external teams. This knowledge will help your team do a better job and bring you greater ROI.  

Content Marketing Quick Fix #3

Change Your Tone

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Make it about them, not you.Much B2B technology content focuses on how great the product or the company is. However, your customers don’t care about this. They care about their problems, needs and wants.

If you want to engage customers, you must remove the sales hype and speak to your audience as though they are real people with real problems. You can even visualize them sitting across from you.  For this exercise, find a piece of content that you are working on or have recently published. Make one or more of the following changes to it:   

  

 

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Review your content and count how many times you say “me, I, we or your company name” versus “you”. Try to increase the “you”s and decrease the “me”s. Ideally, you should talk about yourself as little as possible.  

Make it relevant. Does the original content speak to your target audience’s pain points? If not, be sure to address those. Does it cite benefits, tips, statistics, stories or examples that are relevant to your target audience? If not, add some.  

Customize it for a different buyer. The B2B buying process is a team sport. According to TechTarget, B2B buying teams can have up to 10 members. While you may not be able to create content for 10 different roles, you should find out who your biggest influencers are and create content for them.

For example, do you want to address the CEOs who need to see that your product provides business value or the end users who will use your technology on a day-to-day basis? How must you change your content to speak to their needs?

   

  

 

Do You Want to Blast Off Your Content Marketing Results?

Fill Your Editorial Calendar

Using customer-focused language in one piece of content is a great exercise to prepare you for making over the rest of your content. Now it’s time to fill your editorial calendar with 3-6 months of content that appeals to your target audience.   

Quick Tip  Your editorial calendar doesn’t need to be complicated. A spreadsheet with the following columns will do:

Title Author Format (i.e. blog post, video, white paper) Publication date Status (i.e. in development, in review, published) What buyer persona it is for

• Notes

Content Marketing Quick Fix #4

Curate Content

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Yes, curating content can bring you leads.When your goal is to drive more targeted leads to your website and get them to opt in for your stuff, curating content from third parties seems counterintuitive. However, when done properly, curating content can help you achieve those goals.

The first thing to understand is that curating content is not simply sharing a link to someone else’s blog.

Instead, it’s hand-selecting items that would appeal to your target audience – much like a museum curator choses the pieces for a show or a DJ picks songs for a set. You must also add your opinions about the content and explain why your target audience should find it valuable.  

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For this exercise, curate a piece of content and publish it to your blog or website. Examples of curated content include: 

An infographicCollect data from analysts and new sources and compile it into a “must-see” infographic that your target audience will find valuable.

A blog post, podcast or video that highlights the latest news in your industry For example, you can highlight the results of a survey that your target audience would be interested in.

A blog post that presents advice from industry experts For example, you can publish something like, “How to Do X Better: Advice from 15 Experts”. These types of posts also help you build relationships with the people whose content you feature.  Just be sure to cite your sources and ask permission when necessary. For example, you may need to ask permission if you want to quote a statistic from a paid report or gated white paper.    

  

 

Do You Want to Blast Off Your Content Marketing Results?

Create Original Content

Curating content is appealing, as it allows you to publish more content faster. However, you’ll achieve greater thought leadership benefits if you publish original content featuring your own ideas. Be sure that your editorial calendar includes a mix of both original and curated content.

Quick Tip  Original content is especially useful if you want to get leads to opt in for your list or move further along the sales cycle. If getting more high-quality leads is one of your top goals, make sure that your original content motivates leads to take the next step in working with you.

Content Marketing Quick Fix #5

Update an Existing White Paper

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Get more mileage from your old content.Chances are, you have some old reports and white papers lying around. If you’re looking for a quick win, update one of them with the following:

Recent statistics Fresh graphics A new title New quotes Copy that speaks to your target audience’s changing

needs. For example, have their technology challenges changed since you wrote the last white paper? If so, speak to these new challenges.

Updated info about your product or service A new call to action

 

Do You Want to Blast Off Your Content Marketing Results?

Develop a New White Paper

Developing white papers, ebooks or reports take time, but when done right, they can bring you big results. Eccolo Media reported that white papers are the #2 type of content that technology buyers rely on when making purchasing decisions, behind only data sheets and brochures. Meanwhile, InformationWeek reported that 93% of IT buyers share up to half of the white papers that they download. 

Quick Tip  

You may want to develop a new white paper if you are:   Releasing a new product. Lacking content about one of your major areas of expertise. Going after a new audience or vertical.

Content Marketing Quick Fix #6

Create a LinkedIn Company Page

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LinkedIn is the top social network for B2B.The B2B Content Marketing Report 2013 Survey Results revealed that 85% of technology marketers believe LinkedIn is the most effective social network for distributing their content.* In addition, HubSpot found that LinkedIn’s visitor-to-lead conversion rate is 277% higher than Twitter’s and Facebook’s. These stats make a strong case for getting active on LinkedIn. If you don’t have a LinkedIn company page, create one now. For the basics on setting up your company page, check out these steps from LinkedIn.  When you’re creating your company page, remember to think beyond the basics. LinkedIn now offers Showcase Pages where you can highlight specific products or campaigns. You can also use them to speak to a targeted audience.  *The findings may be skewed, as many of the respondents came from a LinkedIn group.

 

Do You Want to Blast Off Your Content Marketing Results?

Optimize Your LinkedIn Page

Now that you have your LinkedIn company page, it’s time to optimize it to grow your audience and bring more targeted leads to your website. I interviewed Laura Wallis, an online marketing consultant, on how to optimize your LinkedIn company profile to grow your audience and drive more leads to your website. She recommended the following steps:   Share relevant content in your status updates. LinkedIn recommends

that you post status updates in the morning or midday if you want to engage business followers. LinkedIn also recommends that you “post at least 20 status updates per month to maximize your reach to approximately 60% or more of your unique audience each month.”

Add a LinkedIn badge to your website and blog to encourage your audience to connect with you on LinkedIn.

Encourage your employees to get active on LinkedIn. They should complete their profiles, share your content and comment on your posts and discussions.

Ask for recommendations. According to Wallis, many people don’t realize that you can ask any of your contacts for recommendations. Make it a point to get more recommendations as social proof that your products or services deliver results.

Check your analytics regularly. This will let you know what content is performing the best and who is engaging with you.

Quick Tip  You should also consider LinkedIn’s targeted advertising, as it puts your content in front of your ideal audience.

Content Marketing Quick Fix #7

Claim Google Authorship

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Improve your SEO and get more clicks.Although Google started allowing writers to claim authorship last year, I still don’t see many brands taking advantage of this feature.  When Google recognizes you as the author, they will include your photo in the search results, as in the example below. We all know that images lead to more clicks!   

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By the way, I searched for “B2B copywriter”, and my listing came up in Google’s top organic spot. The writers in the #2 and #3 spots also had claimed authorship. This shows that taking a few minutes to claim authorship can improve your rankings. Be sure to have all of your company’s writers claim authorship to help improve the SEO for your blog posts, about page, company bios and anywhere else you want a face associated with your content. Click here for instructions on how to claim Google authorship.

 

Enjoying this ebook? Tell a friend about it.  

  

 

Do You Want to Blast Off Your Content Marketing Results?

Get Active on Google+

When Google+ first came out, most marketers weren’t sure if it would become an important social network or die as fast as Google Wave. However, Google+ has proven to be vital for marketing. According to Forbes.com, Google+ ranks second after Facebook when it comes to the number of monthly users (343 million). The biggest benefit of getting active on Google+ is that it can improve your SEO.

Studies have shown that the more +1s a post receives, the higher it ranks on Google. In addition, Google quickly indexes Google+ posts, which can also improve your SEO.  Another cool Google+ feature is that it lets you directly email your social contacts – for free. When you’re posting a status update, you’ll see the option to share it to Google+ or “Also send email” to your circles. This allows you to segment which posts go to which circles, so you can send your audience very targeted updates.  

Quick Tip  If you’re not currently active on Google+, start by creating a company page, sharing content and inviting people to connect with you. If you’re already active, you can create a Google+ community or hold your next webcast as a Google+ Hangout.

Content Marketing Quick Fix #8

Repurpose a Blog Post

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Get your content in front of a wider audience.B2B marketers often publish a post to their blog and promote it on social media for a day or two. When a new post is published, the last one is forgotten. However, you can get more life out of your posts by repurposing them in different formats. For example, turn a blog post into a slide presentation and publish it to SlideShare. You can use a post as a basis for a YouTube video or iTunes podcast.

Repurposing your blog posts for different channels can widen your audience and bring more targeted leads to your content.  

Do You Want to Blast Off Your Content Marketing Results?

Write a Post for Another Blog

If you’d like to widen your audience, consider writing a guest post for another blog in your industry. Blog editors are always looking for high-quality content to share with their readers and are open to posts that aren’t promotional.  When selecting potential blogs to write for, look for ones your customers read. It’s also a plus if these blogs have high readership and plenty of social activity.  

Quick Tip  If you’d like to be featured on a blog, don’t send the editor a press release. The editor will delete your email and potentially mark you as spam. Instead, read the contributor guidelines and email the editor a relevant topic idea.

Content Marketing Quick Fix #9

Publish a New Blog Post

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More high-quality posts = more customersIs your blog getting stale? Is your last post a few months old? If so, it’s time to get some new content on your blog. A study by V2 Marketing Communications stated:

“92% of businesses that blog multiple times a day have acquired a customer from it. But 78% of businesses that blog on a daily basis have also acquired a customer from it. That differential isn’t too big. And if we bring down the volume just a tad to 2-3 times per week, 70% of businesses acquire a customer from their blog – still a relevant conversion rate.” However, don’t sacrifice quality for quantity.

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Don’t know what to blog about? Here are 10 ideas:

Share customer case studies Answer your customers’ biggest questions Comment on the latest news or trends in your industry Share highlights from an industry event that you attended Rant (if you think your audience enjoys these types of posts) Post “how-to” tips Discuss a problem in your industry Repurpose a slide presentation into a blog post Write a blog post that’s on the same topic as one of your white

papers or ebooks Turn one of your social media conversations into a blog post  

  

 

Do You Want to Blast Off Your Content Marketing Results?

Create a Series of Posts

Writing a stand-alone blog post is okay and could bring you some traffic. However, relating each post to one of your larger marketing goals can lead to big results.  For example, you might have a webinar that you want leads to register for. Write a series of blog posts that cover the same topic as the webinar and ask readers to register for it in the call to action.  

Quick Tip  You can even run banner ads for the webinar on the same pages as these blog posts to further catch readers’ eyes. Doing this should increase your opt-ins and bring more qualified leads to your premium content.

Content Marketing Quick Fix #10

Rewrite Your Headlines

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How to write strong headlinesIf your content is not performing well, you might want to test your headlines.  According to “The Father of Advertising”, David Ogilvy, “On average, five times as many people read the headlines as read the body copy. It follows that unless your headline sells your product, you have wasted 90 percent of your money.”  Here are some tips on writing headlines: 

Put your audience first. Think about what matters the most to your audience and talk about it in your headline. For example, this headline mentions some big e-commerce pains: “How to Reduce Global Shipping Costs: 7 Ways to Get Lower Rates Without Delaying Deliveries”. You can even mention your audience directly in your headline, such as, “The IT Manager’s Guide to Enterprise Cloud Security”.   

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Cite the biggest benefit that your audience will gain from reading your content. Your readers want to know what’s in it for them, so including benefits in your headline is always a win. Here’s an example that would appeal to marketers who need to increase their conversion rates: “How to Optimize Your Landing Pages: 10 Easy Changes for Greater Conversions”. 

Start with the words “How to”. Look at any blog’s most popular posts, and you’ll see a lot of “how to” titles. That’s because “how to” titles promise readers that they will learn something practical.  

Use the words “quick” or “easy”. People are always looking to make their lives easier and do things faster. Just don’t use these terms if your solution is complex and difficult to implement. You’d be surprised by how often marketers make this mistake.    

  

 

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Use a numeral. Eye tracking studies have revealed that the eye is drawn to numbers. While your high school English teacher would tell you to write, “Five Ways Hackers Are Exploiting Your Network”, you’ll get more eyes on your content if you write “5 Ways Hackers Are Exploiting Your Network”. After you rewrite a few headlines, run A/B tests to determine which ones perform the best.

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Do You Want to Blast Off Your Content Marketing Results?

Rewrite Your Website

If all of your messaging is out of date or focuses on your company and not your customers, it might be time for a major rewrite.

Quick Tip  If you’d like to outsource your writing to a freelance copywriter, look for one who has experience in your industry and a proven process for completing projects successfully. This process can include asking you the right questions, providing you with a creative brief, submitting outlines, handling revisions and keeping in touch throughout the project.

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The #1 rule of content marketingAs you can see, there are many things you can do right now to improve your content and get better results from your B2B marketing. However, there is no quick fix when it comes to a long-term, successful content marketing strategy.  

Whether you are updating a blog post or building a content marketing strategy from scratch, the most important thing is to focus on your target audience.

Always speak to their needs, wants and challenges. Use language that resonates with them and the content formats they prefer (i.e. videos, white papers, webcasts, etc.). Get active on their preferred channels and social networks. When you do this, other aspects of your marketing should fall into place.

Check Out More B2B Marketing Resources

 

No More Boring White Papers!This FREE e-course takes you step by step through my process of planning and writing a white paper. You’ll learn how to avoid the biggest white paper mistakes, as well as how to promote your white paper to reach a wider audience.  

The B2B Call to Action Cheat SheetLearn which calls to action will move leads further along your sales funnel and turn them into customers. Download this FREE chart now.

The Fresh Marketing BlogSubscribe to the Fresh Marketing Blog to receive weekly B2B marketing tips, trends and best practices.

About the AuthorRachel Foster is the CEO of Fresh Perspective Copywriting, where she helps B2B marketers improve their response rates, clearly communicate complex messages and generate leads. Rachel has shared her insights on B2B marketing in presentations for the Content Marketing Institute, Business 2 Community, MarketingProfs and the Online Marketing Institute.

Contact Rachel today if you need content that raises your brand awareness, attracts high-quality leads and increases your conversions. She offers a FREE 30-minute telephone or Skype consultation, where you can discuss your content goals and ask her any questions that you have about her services. To schedule, simply call 647-342-4921 or email rachel@freshperspectivewriting.com.