Content has become the fuel of B2B marketing. It helps generate quality leads, nurture prospects, and drive sales. 91% of B2B marketers use it to create demand and nurture TOFU (Top of The Funnel) leads. According to HubSpot, B2B organizations that blog generate 67% more leads every month than companies that don’t blog. It’s hard to beat blog posts as a solid investment for your digital marketing strategy.
But what about other types of content? Say you have your buyer persona or your key segment identified - the question now revolves around the type of content – beyond blog posts - that will result to lead generation.
In a way, I think it’s great to see this as a major challenge, as it shows that marketers are focusing on delivering quality over quantity, and are thinking more about customer centric marketing.
So, let’s dive in and look at four trending content ideas for B2B marketing that generate good ROI.
1. Video
We are visual creatures so it shouldn’t come as a surprise that video content is always welcomed. Studies show that 90% of the information transmitted to the brain is visual. Moreover, a human brain can process visual information 60,000 times faster than it can process text.
Embedding a video in your blog posts can reduce bounce rates and boost time spent on page. comScore reports that visitors who watch a video spend, on average, up to two minutes more on a page than those who don’t.
As a B2B marketing agency we’ve noticed our clients are producing more video content than ever before, with good reason. As well as on your website, consider short video in your emails. Video is also great for driving traffic from social media. While it may not produce measurable revenue results like some other content forms, it continues to be effective for transmitting information and sticking in people’s brains, in their mind’s eye.
2. Whitepapers
Whitepapers continually prove their worth and should be considered in your B2B marketing strategy. The State of Digital Marketing Report revealed that white papers are great at bringing in leads.
And it’s easy to understand why:
- Whitepapers provide valuable content that educates, not sells;
- They encourage thinking through disseminating new and thought-provoking ideas;
- Whitepapers offer a point of view on issues that are relevant to the industry;
- They are well-researched and should include your own, science-backed data.
Whitepapers are especially useful as a conversion or middle-of-the-funnel type of content. B2B marketers consistently give them a top rating as influential content.
3. Webinars
While whitepapers produce great leads, the State of Digital Marketing Report says that of the two, webinars usually generate more revenue.
Generally speaking, prospects who sit through hour-long webinars are solid leads that should be nurtured. They want to hear more about your solution and hear from influential speakers who may, or may not, be part of your company. Be sure you have described and researched your subject matter well and that the webinar is relevant and informative.
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4. Ebooks
Ebooks can share the results of an in-depth study you’ve had commissioned, or it might be a compilation of blog posts that hold relevance and information to your target audience.
While tracking the ROI of an ebook can be easily measured if it is gated content and requires a name and email in exchange for the download, sometimes these leads don’t want more than the info in your ebook.
They are leads though, and it’s up to you and your B2B marketing agency to work out the next best steps to either nurture, convert or dismiss them. Nurturing is about offering more solid, useful content in order to build trust and a deepening relationship with those leads.
Finally
There are so many types of content to choose from, it would be great to try them all, but budgets are often the major constraint.
Choose a few different forms that your buyer personas will enjoy and appreciate. Optimise your content. Then measure the effectiveness. Rinse and repeat.
Above all, always go for quality over quantity. If the content ideas for B2B above aren’t what your personas need, then here’s a list of other content forms you may want to consider:
Visual content: video podcasts, cinemagraphs, GIFs, infographics, presentations, SlideShare decks, live video streaming such as Periscope, Vines, etc.
Written content: case studies, eNewsletters, publications and magazines, templates
What have we missed? What works well for you?
