How to build a B2B marketing strategy framework to boost online conversions
Do you know that 93% of B2B marketers use content marketing to attract new business, build brand loyalty, and retain clients? Or that, according to the LinkedIn Technology Marketing Community, organizations with a content strategy face fewer marketing challenges and report better results?
In this article, you’ll learn how to create a B2B marketing framework to boost the ROI from your content.
Common content marketing mistakes to avoid
Many of our clients have attempted content marketing and been disappointed by the results. Invariably, we’ve found that their B2B marketing strategy framework is floored. They have made one (and often several) of the following common content marketing mistakes. They:
- Blog without a plan
- Don’t understand their clients deeply, and so produce content that isn’t read by the right people
- Create content that is an obvious sales push
- Produce a stream of content that doesn’t align, and has no clear collective direction
- Don’t address the buyer journey
Building a marketing framework and content strategy
There are seven steps to follow when creating an unbeatable content strategy – this should be your online content B2B marketing framework:
Step #1: Focus on the customer
Relevant and meaningful content will keep visitors on your website for longer. They’ll start to explore your offers. When this happens, your website will start to convert. You must understand your customer to produce the content that matters to them.
Step #2: Focus on the buyer’s journey
Consider how your prospects travel from first discovery to making the buying decision. What is it that they want to know? Why do they want to know what they want to know? What are their motivations at every stage, and how do you lead them down the sales funnel?
Step #3: Determine your business goals
What are your business goals for your content marketing strategy? Do you want to:
- Build brand awareness?
- Create brand loyalty?
- Educate and inform customers?
- Build market authority?
- Engage customers in conversations?
Consider your business goals carefully. Notice that I haven’t included increasing web traffic as a business goal. Why? Because all the above will lead to an increase in web traffic over time. Focus on quality content that achieves the above, and your content will convert strangers into visitors, and visitors into customers.
Step #4: Create a content calendar that addresses customer needs
With a deep understanding of your customer’s persona and the buyer’s journey, you can now plan your content production. It’s imperative to:
- Commit to a regular rotation of content, covering the topic areas you’ve identified as important to your customers
- Focus the content on the buyer’s journey that you have previously identified
- Consider your upcoming events (such as seminars, workshops, and customer meetings) or product pushes
Step #5: Remember the outside world
Become a market authority by showing that you are tuned into your market place and the news and events that matter to your target customers.
Step #6: Write for your customers (back to step 1)
Return to step 1 to ensure that you are writing for your target audience, producing the content they want, in the language and style they prefer.
With this B2B marketing strategy framework in place, you will be positioned to create a content diary that targets your specific target market with the content that will:
- Boost brand awareness
- Position you as a market authority
- Increase customer loyalty
- Build brand value
- Engage customers
This will build your organic traffic over time, adding leads and improving your conversion numbers.
Step #7: Analyze and improve
Analyze your results. Consider which content type is drawing the most attention, and which keywords are generating meaningful interest. What content is engaging visitors in conversations? What calls to action are converting? Use deep analysis to iterate and improve your content, and see traffic and conversions really take off.
What does your content marketing framework look like? Has it boosted your conversion rates? Let us know in the comments.
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