How to Create a Winning B2B Content Strategy

Nowadays for most industries it is a competitive landscape. And in order to stand out, engage potential clients and ultimately drive sales a robust B2B content strategy is essential.

As a matter of fact, it is essential whether you are trying to grow your B2B product or service in manufacturing, hospitality, finance or healthcare.

Crafting a thoughtful and considered content strategy can significantly impact your bottom line.

So the question we want to answer is…

How do you develop a digital content strategy with particular focus on LinkedIn? That positions your business to attract leads and communicate your expertise?

Unveiling the Foundations of an Effective B2B Content Strategy

Firstly we would highlight the need for consistency of content for a digital strategy.

This is not a billboard or industry article, digital is a daily part of our lives. And regular content helps demonstrate relevance.

Secondly, and arguably the most important part of the strategy is creating valuable content.

And to confirm we are not wanting to see ‘happy Wednesday posts’ and especially not a bland product photo with a catalogue description.

Therefore we want to delve into your industry knowledge to impart interesting insights, unseen benefits and actionable thoughts that are relevant for your audience and industry.

With this distinct difference and focus we can start to build a profitable content strategy.

One that fundamentally benefits your audience, customers and prospects. While simultaneously signalling to the digital platforms your authority on the subject and commitment, which does support your contents distribution.

Identifying Your Target Audience: The Cornerstone of Your Strategy

However obvious this can sound initially, take a step back and think about who you are selling too.

As once clearly defined this delivers the foundation of your approach to identify your ideal customer, and who to ‘talk’ to in that company.

Undoubtedly there is more than one decision maker and especially more than one internal influencer.

Therefore position content towards different people and their mindsets.

An influential sales manager will view your product and solution differently to the finance director. And both of those will view it differently to the chief operations officer and chief executive officer.

If you want to jump to prospecting these individuals, we do have an article identifying which digital platforms speed up the process here.

What Are Your Industries?

Another key point is the industry your customers and potential clients operate in.

Your product(s) may be suitable for both luxury and value retailers or hospitality businesses.

You would probably agree that a luxury and value retailer would expect different content.

Another aspect to understand is how is your product resold and to who?

Is it resold to a corporate, trade or a retail consumer. Again these differences will create different view points and informational needs, related to the individual viewing the content.

In this regard, consider the following questions:

• What industries do they operate in?
• What are their pain points?
• What solutions are they actively seeking?

With thorough knowledge from the answers you can tailor the content.

Making it benefit the industry, the individuals and showcase your solutions.

Hopefully you can see how consistently creating content becomes simple.

Instead of millions spent on a TV advert that has to inspire action from multiple different people and mindsets.

We get to create thoughtful content for individuals and their unique perspective and requirements.

Aligning Your B2B Content Strategy with the Buyer’s Journey

Furthermore, now we understand content for your defined audience we want to consider your B2B content strategy for prospects at every stage of the buyer’s journey.

What we cannot control is when a buyer moves through the different stages of the journey.

However as people search and explore topical information, providing we have created insightful and valuable content it will build their interest.

Awareness Stage

As noted in this Hubspot article the awareness stage is when a buyer is identifying the challenge or problem they face.

For example this could relate to searching for a better performing product or service, or looking for ways to increase their profitability.

Create awareness focused content such as educational blogs, infographics and industry updates.

Then repurpose this content to make short form content to maximise on exposure.

Consideration Stage

Secondly, the consideration stage.

At this point a buyer is assessing the options to evaluate the right solution for them.

Buyers now focus on how the solution is delivered and the pros and cons of the different choices.

Create consideration focused content using case studies, webinars, and product comparisons.

These can delve into benefits, solution orientated outcomes and your product or services advantage.

Decision Stage

Lastly we have the decision stage.

The buyer has now picked a solution type and will identify the best provider based on their pros and cons list.

To create decision stage content use demonstrations to show core benefits and hidden benefits.

Offer free trials for product experiences and leverage customer testimonials.

It is important to realise this range of content helps address the needs of potentials clients to guide them through their decision making.

You want your content to build credibility and position you as a brand leader.

Leveraging LinkedIn for Strategic Success

At this point we understand content should focus on being engaging for our audience and industry. And also where they are in their buyers journey.

Now where to place the content and its actual creation.

And yes it can be placed on websites and on many platforms, however to prioritise one it would be LinkedIn.

LinkedIn has become the go-to platform for businesses and therefore B2B marketing.

Alongside the content mentioned above such as case studies and product comparisons, you can use LinkedIn for shorter tactical content.

The method is by creating new short-form pieces from longer articles. The reason, to create more content for more frequent posting and identify the ‘popular’ content.

Types of Organic LinkedIn Content to Boost Your Strategy

1. Text-only posts: Ask conversation prompting questions or provide alternative perspectives. Also give quick tips and industry insights.
2. Image posts: Make it visual, think infographics and charts to illustrate key industry statistics.
3. Video content: 15-60 second videos that capture attention, discuss an alternative perspective. These can be industry thought leadership topics.
4. Document posts: This is longer form content which I mentioned above, so share case studies, educational blogs and even slide decks that provide in-depth information.
5. Polls: Choose an engaging way to gather valuable insights by creating polls on industry trends or topics.

Crafting Compelling LinkedIn Content: A Key Component of Your Approach

As with everything the standard of what you do matters. To optimise your LinkedIn strategy, consider these best practices:

• Be consistent: Fundamentally this means commit. If you are posting once a day, do it. Doing so will grow visibility and engagement as more of your audience see your content.
• Use hashtags strategically: View hashtags as the specific location you are placing your content. You wouldn’t advertise medical equipment in a construction journal. So by using your industry hashtags you increase discoverability with people in your industry.
• Engage with your audience: Be active and contribute to discussions to build relationships. Engage like it is a trade show, you wouldn’t just stand unresponsive.
• Showcase your expertise: You do have unique insights and perspectives on industry trends and challenges. So bring them to light and demonstrate your expertise.

Measuring the Success of Your B2B Content Strategy

Unlike other media with digital content you can delve deeply into data to understand what performs.

Long gone are the days of working for months on creative and putting it out to the market.

Coupled with the significant opportunity measuring offers, it truly allows you to understand what is and what is not working in your content to enable optimisation.

In essence you are constantly testing what works, leaving behind the creative that didn’t and optimising for the successes.

In light of this, let’s examine some key metrics you should be monitoring.

Key Metrics to Monitor in Your Strategy

1. Engagement rates: Track likes, comments, and shares on your LinkedIn posts. It is also important to capture the sentiment of the comments. Again moving beyond the numbers identify who is engaging.
2. Website traffic: Monitor the number of visitors coming to your site from LinkedIn. Test what content converts social spectators to website browsers.
3. Lead generation: Measure the number of leads generated through your content efforts.
4. Conversion rates: Track how many leads convert into customers.
5. Sales impact: Analyse the correlation between your content efforts and sales results. Remembering in B2B a conversion from prospect to client can take months to years, depending on industry.

In essence we need our efforts to yield the required results.

And as I have said above, utilise a testing mindset to see what works and what doesn’t.

In fact you can even learn what changes platforms are making which will inform future content decisions.

Adapting Your B2B Content Strategy for Different Industries

It is important to realise that the fundamentals of content strategy remain consistent.

However it is important to tailor to your specific industry. This will help curate relevant and engaging content.

So let’s think about some of the key points that will influence content in your business and industry:

Regulatory

• Emphasise your expertise around compliance.
• Utilise case studies to show knowledge of working within regulations.

Innovation

• Create content that demonstrates your solutions innovation.
• Showcase the underpinning knowledge and expertise in your team to facilitate innovation.
• Share how your solutions offer improved efficiencies.

Experience

• Share your thought leadership on industry trends, challenges and opportunities.
• Emphasise what experiential environments your solution creates.

Just as you do with your products, services and solutions make sure your content is industry specific.

Even where you cater for multiple industries, creating specific content will generate better engagement and response from the relevant industry.

Conclusion: Driving Sales Through a Strategic Content Approach

In conclusion, if you lead a B2B business who wants to engage potential clients and drive sales a B2B content strategy will provide significant benefits.

By not only creating content, but curating it around specific audience member ‘types’ within your relevant industries you will generate connections.

These individuals will find your content of relevance, your business of importance with a voice and opinion that they listen to.

With a wide range of content that you can create, especially on a B2B specific platform such as LinkedIn your opportunity is down to consistently creating.

So consistently refine and develop your B2B content strategy to meet your goals.

Editorial process

Our articles are curated by experts in B2B business with expertise in AI. And are focused on the technological opportunities that exist for B2B businesses.

The reviews are constructed through the analysis of hundreds of actual experiences and condensed into our concise thumbs up or thumbs down format. 

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James Ambel

With over a decade of B2B expertise across multiple industries and a passion for integrating new technology to elevate his ROI James’ writing allows all of this to come together. His belief is many B2B businesses could maximise their time, focus and ROI to an even higher level.

Experiment with different messaging, content formats, and communication channels to determine what resonates most effectively with your target audience. Use A/B testing and data-driven insights to refine your approach and maximise results over time.