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Developing ideas for your content marketing strategy can be a difficult task, it is important to set goals, and consider how your content will benefit your audience. Use yourself as an example, is your goal to generate more leads? Maybe, you’d like to be positioned as a thought leader. Still need some help getting started? We’ve taken the time to share these three steps you can take to build shape your content marketing efforts.
Research how your competitors are developing their b2b content
Competition plays a big role in stimulating marketing development, and allows businesses to seek creative ways to reach their audience. Research what works for other businesses in your industry. Are they using gated content to attract qualified leads? Do they frequently use social media to share their content?
Pay attention to how your competitors’ audience reacts to specific content. If available, read reviews and view statistics in the industry to see what content is most popular. Originality is key; if you just mimic your competitors, it won’t help your content stand out.
If your content isn’t offering value, it’s time to rethink your marketing strategy
Value helps drive potential leads to your website, because it offers a promise of quality, beneficial content that meets a need. Having a large quantity of content doesn’t show value; the time and effort you put into writing quality content helps. Your content should educate your audience and give answers to questions in the industry.
You can build value in your content with these strategies:
- Research common b2b questions to address
- Offer incentives to content subscriptions
- Keep the costs for gated content and services fair
Set specific, realistic goals for your content marketing
Writing b2b content without a goal in mind can lead to mixed messages for your audience. You don’t want to try and answer too many questions in a single piece of content, because the abundance of information can be overwhelming.
It’s also important to stay realistic and set goals that aren’t uncommon for your business. For example, it might make more sense to try generating 20 leads in a two month span, rather than 15 in one month.
Not all goals can be solved without outside resources. If your business is struggling to meet its b2b content marketing goals, try using different content marketing tools. Some content marketing tools to try include:
- Google Analytics and Alexa for website analytics
- Mail chimp for email marketing
- Slideshare for content distribution
Your content marketing strategy will prove to your audience that your content can provide meaningful information and value. However, creating quality content doesn’t just stop at the writing and message; it also needs to be properly optimized for search engines. To learn about some optimization tips, and the SEO myths to leave behind, download thinkdm2’s latest ebook.
