B2B content critics
In the article, we will discuss content that is made for B2B. In our opinion, there are some problems with it. Let’s begin without long introductions.
Typical expert article
Most likely the majority of articles or any other type of content in B2B has the following structure:
- Introduction – definition of the topic.
- Some proofs for confirmation of the relevance of the topic.
- A little history of the issue.
- Current state of issue.
- Types of the issue and their features. – Search engines like lists, don’t they?
- Some tips and advice for a reader to make the content useful.
- Links to a couple of authoritative sources.
- Some images that are meaningful only for search engines because of their presence.
- Explanation of complexity of the issue.
- A recommendation to contact the professionals who will do all this for you.
Surely, such articles really meet the requirements of search engines. There is a whole content production industry that generates traffic to websites through content. There is constant work on production and reproduction of content – thanks to the army of copywriters who make unique articles on non-unique topics.
Misconception about the target audience
We make content at Code Inspiration, and also do our best to see what other relevant B2B companies publish. We outsourced some SEO services earlier and created content following our competitors. This way, we wrote and published such “default” articles as an introduction to Angular, basics of Node.js and so on about development technologies. Funny fact, the first version of the article about Angular was 13% unique – should have thought about it. Still, this was published, like dozens of other articles on topics that our competitors have already covered. Almost all the articles of that period were deleted then because of their low impact.
Fortunately, we quickly realized that this strategy was wrong and changed it.
What’s the point? – Well, our target audience are business owners and executives who are interested in software development outsourcing. Let’s imagine some person shortlists software development companies, including us. Checks our content and notices an article about Angular. Most likely he will simply skip it, because he is interested in solutions for his issues, and not about the details of using a particular framework.
So, case studies describing aspects of past projects similar to the potential client’s one, might be a better choice of content in the given case.
Content for B2B lead generation
Well, simple types of content itself will most likely not bring any potential clients. Though it works so in B2C.
B2B marketing, including content production, requires more effort than just writing or rewriting articles. These efforts require more skills, time and resources. Probably, the most efficient B2B lead generation strategy today is so-called account-based marketing, where content is a great and significant part of the work. In a couple words, ABM means identifying key potential clients in the given niche and focusing marketing activities exactly on them.
And in case a business has no resource for comprehensive account-based marketing, and it is expensive enough, performance marketing should be considered. The idea is to unite all the marketing activities in a single system of interconnected elements. Here, content should also be an integral part.
So what
Probably, it’s time to produce and publish truly useful content. For example, not only articles, but also content that is more relevant to B2B: market research, reviews and comparisons, analytics, case studies.
There might also be a good step to refuse to impose your services on every piece of content, because it just doesn’t work in B2B.
