B2B content marketing

 Buying behavior has changed radically. Buyers research online before they buy. Google demonstrated this very impressively in 2011 with the Zero Moment of Truth study.

In the B2B sector, buyers only spend around 17 percent of their time talking to potential suppliers. They research most of the information they need to make a purchase decision independently and discuss it with their " buying centers ," the decision-makers and stakeholders in the company. They therefore go through the buyer's journey largely alone - and this "buyer's journey" now takes place primarily on digital platforms.

The most efficient way for all companies to stay ahead of this changing purchasing behavior is to answer customers' questions on their own website with useful content and to offer good lead magnets .

Google and other search engines reward good content by sending lots of visitors to your website.

Companies that have not recognized this lose attention and visibility and thus also their competitiveness. These companies often have to invest a lot of money in online advertising in order to be heard in the digital world. 

In this blog post, you will learn how B2B companies in particular can use content or content marketing.

We also regularly talk about the topic of content and the use of content marketing in B2B companies with exciting guests in our podcast " No leads, no fun ".

Content Marketing Definition

"Content marketing is a marketing method that involves creating and strategically distributing useful content. The aim is to attract, retain and ultimately convince a clearly defined target group."

This is how content marketing is defined by the Content Marketing Institute . We took the liberty of translating and adapting the definition from English.

Let’s take a closer look at the individual terms:

Marketing method: Content marketing certainly does not replace all marketing methods. However, in this scenario of changing purchasing behavior, content marketing fits into every company as a supplement or as the main marketing method.

Useful content: This is the core of content marketing. When buyers research online before making a purchase, they are not looking for advertising, but for useful information.

Create and distribute strategically:  The biggest challenge in content marketing is creating really good content . The best way to distribute content strategically is to find it via search engines. Of course, you can also distribute content with paid ads, but that can quickly cost a lot of money. 

Attract, retain and convince customers: Good content attracts customers, creates trust and sells because it offers them the added value they need to make a safe and informed decision.

Content Marketing in the B2B Sector

B2B companies often have the best conditions for content marketing. The products often require a lot of explanation and the high value of the products and services means that trust plays an even greater role than with consumer goods.

You can find out whether content marketing could be an issue for your B2B company by answering these questions:

Do you want to increase traffic to your website to generate more leads?

Do you want to be perceived as an expert in your subject area?

Do you want to sustainably increase attention and lead generation with organic traffic instead of advertising?

Do you want to use content along the entire customer journey to ultimately win more customers?

Are you ready to answer all your customers’ questions transparently and honestly on your website?

Many B2B companies see content marketing as just a means of gaining more attention in the short term. Lead generation and lead nurturing are ignored and content is actually only used to generate traffic. 

If the main goal is to reach leads and subsequently new customers through content marketing, then we also speak of inbound marketing .

In inbound marketing, the clear goal is to generate inbound leads and, in close cooperation with sales, to increase the customer closing rate. 

We also talk about an example of B2B content marketing in this episode of our podcast " No leads, no fun ":