In 2019, HubSpot released a study highlighting that marketers/companies with a strong digital marketing strategy in place were 13x more likely to achieve a positive ROI, stating that focusing energy on content and blogging can be very rewarding. Creating quality content will aid in generating leads and build trust amongst your audience.
You may be asking, “What is B2B Content Marketing?”
Simply put, it’s “Business-to-Business” marketing, where you’re producing content for another company or brand as your audience, instead of the traditional business-to-consumer marketing model. The issue is, a lot of B2B brands overlook the power of content marketing or make mistakes that can be avoided.
Here are 8 of the most common mistakes that are made in B2B Marketing and easy ways to fix them.
1. Content Has Too Many Fillers
Knowing your audience is key, especially in terms of writing style. In a B2B setting, you’re going to want to keep it concise. It’s better to write shorter articles that are good quality and get the point across, rather than worrying about word count and including content just for the sake of it.
2. Irrelevant Content
A lot of the time, articles get stuffed with fillers and anecdotes that distract the reader. If it’s not clear to your audience what the main message is then they’ll likely get confused and abandon the article.
Make sure your content is optimized to make it easy for your audience to follow. This means having a strong opening, writing helpful headings and subheadings, and including the most relevant content at the beginning of each paragraph (this is important if people are quickly skimming the article for info).
3. Having No Target
This ties into the previous point about knowing your audience. Without having a target in mind, your content is going to be all over the place and likely won’t land where you intended it to. Brands that do content well, know their audience well.
Some B2B marketing examples include industry blogs such as Sprout Social, or Moz - they produce articles for specific digital marketing audiences with focused interests. This has proven to be a success, as they are considered thought leaders and industry experts within the community. Focus on your target and make sure to personalize the message as much as possible.
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4. Being Overly Promotional
Of course, as a business, you’re going to want to promote your products and services. However, if you do this too often it can actually do more harm than good. When writing an article or blog post, some common mistakes are including a CTA too early and pushing your products onto your audience at any chance you get.
B2B consumers are going to see right through the promotional tactics. Focus on shifting the narrative to how the product or service will directly benefit them, instead of using language such as “Buy now” or “Don’t miss out on this great deal!”.
5. Having No CTA
On the other hand, if you have no CTA at all in your content, this can slow down your progress a great deal. Having a call to action is what will prompt them to take the next steps. It will help guide them through the funnel and push them from the awareness phase to a conversion.
Two easy ways to integrate this into your content would be to include a hyperlink and offer a free consultation or service. This will drive traffic to your website and solidify them as a lead. It’s best practice to place this towards the end of the article, so it’s fresh in your readers’ minds.
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6. Neglecting SEO
SEO and content marketing go hand in hand, making it an important strategy that can help you remain competitive in the B2B content world. Search engines are constantly crawling the web and picking up on keywords and search queries that are being used, and in turn, the content that includes these magical words and phrases is rewarded with higher spots on the SERP.
Orbit Media conducted their 7th annual blogging survey and found that keyphrase-targeting was directly correlated with success for bloggers who “always” researched keywords and those who reported “strong results.”.
There are many tools available out here to help you in your research, such as Ahrefs or Ubersuggest. It’s important to note that search engines such as Google will penalize your content for keyword stuffing, so keep that in mind as you write.
7. Failure to Interlink
Similar to SEO, failing to Interlink your content can impact its exposure. This simply means gathering information from other sources who may be experts on the topic and embedding the links within your article. Not only will this help reduce your bounce rate, but it will also establish trust within your audience.
This could lead to further opportunities for collaboration with other brands or companies down the road, where they may link your content in their articles. It will help establish your authority and credibility as a business.
Source: Shutterstock
8. Not Including Images
Even if your content is highly engaging and well-written, it’s best if you incorporate images, graphs, or videos throughout to break up the text. This is helpful for individuals who are visual learners, making your content more inclusive for those reading it. It also optimizes it for sharing to social media platforms, as it makes the content more vibrant and attention-grabbing. Make sure the images or videos included are relevant to the text and sourced properly.
Wrapping Up
So there you have it. We’ve highlighted the 8 most common B2B content marketing mistakes, and provided easy solutions on how to fix or avoid them altogether. We’re confident that these tactics will have a positive impact on your website ranking, traffic, and sales when implemented properly. Not only that, but your consumers will see you as thoughtful and educational, positioning you as a thought leader.
TechWyse offers Content Marketing services that include: blogs, content for websites, SEO Content, Infographics, and more. Our team of content experts is passionate about producing high-quality content that drives conversions. Stay on top of the competition with your personal content strategy, click here to request a consultation.
