As a result of the current pandemic, most B2B marketers have had to adjust their content marketing strategies. They have optimized their strategies for better audience targeting, personalized messaging, and powerful distribution of content.
But why?
Because they want to attract, acquire, and retain customers while boosting their B2B content marketing ROI (Return on Investment).
The question is:
Did marketers achieve success after optimizing their strategies?
In a study conducted in 2020, 31% of B2B marketers said they were significantly successful with content marketing. The majority, 54%, considered themselves moderately successful.
Image via Content Marketing Institute
What is preventing marketers from generating better results?
In the study mentioned above, marketers stated that content creation and distribution challenges, strategy issues, and challenges with measuring ROI have been the major drawbacks.
If you don’t know which factors to track and measure, you will not be able to identify areas that need optimization to improve results.
That’s why the first step towards boosting your B2B content marketing ROI involves tracking the performance of your current strategies and content.
Let’s take a look at a few ways to optimize your B2B content marketing ROI.
1. Analyze the Performance of Your Existing Content
You should make it a habit to monitor how your content is performing after publishing. You can use analytics tools to figure out whether or not your content delivers the expected results.
Which metrics should you track to figure this out?
You can track:
- The amount of traffic driven by your content
- Time users spend on your page
- Bounce rate of your website
- Engagement rate
- Lead attribution
- Navigational behavior of users
You should use these insights to gauge how your B2B content marketing efforts affect your target audience. Do they like and interact with your content? Does a certain content format attract them better than others?
Analyzing this can help you create content that has greater potential to drive engagement and conversions.
But what if you have just started your B2B business?
Then, you may not have enough content and user data to analyze what works best for your audience. You need to first focus on publishing high-quality content and promoting it through multiple channels.
Once you’ve got enough data, you can analyze the impact of your marketing strategy and improve it.
2. Document Your B2B Content Marketing Strategy
One of the top challenges marketers face is failing to create content that generates leads, attracts more traffic, and resonates with their audiences.
Image via SEMrush
How can you overcome these challenges?
The easiest way to overcome them is to document your content marketing strategy and process to boost efficiency. You should create a plan that offers you a 360-degree view of your B2B marketing tasks, activities, and deliverables.
You can use a chatbot to get good traffic on your blog posts. Chatbots are great options for your content marketing strategy because they can connect 24*7 with your customers and provide quick replies, thus gathering leads and generating sales.
It should include details about:
- The goals and metrics you will use to track the performance of your content.
- Your audience, what they need, and how you can solve their problems.
- The channels your audience uses and how they search for information.
- The type of content to create, formats to use, topics to cover, and keywords to include.
- The tools you will use during each stage of your B2B content marketing process.
You should then create a content calendar that outlines when and how to create, publish, promote, and track the performance of each post.
But why is it important to document your plan?
Documenting your plan can help you visualize your strategy. You can get a complete picture of where it’s headed and which areas need improvement. It also allows you to map out deadlines, keep your tasks organized, and identify opportunities for meaningful collaborations.
3. Don’t Skimp on Research
Successful B2B content marketing requires that you understand who your target audience is and what they need. You can’t just rely on guesswork or write on topics that you find interesting.
You need to research your competitors and target audience.
Conducting audience research enables you to understand who your audience is, their needs, problems, and what motivates them to buy.
It helps you identify phrases that your audience uses to look for information, brands, and products and understand their search intent. You can then include these phrases in your content to attract and nurture leads.
Conducting competitor research, on the other hand, can give you insights into the strategies other marketers are leveraging. You can find ways to run your marketing campaigns differently.
While conducting competitor research, you should check:
- Their domain authority
- Their backlink sources
- Their posting frequency on various channels
- Promotional strategies
- Keywords they rank for
With this information, you can discover areas to focus on and new ways to boost your ROI.
4. Optimize Your Content for Better Performance
As a B2B marketer, your goal is to create content that offers value while keeping your audience engaged. You need to ensure that it helps you attract qualified leads, drive conversions, and boost your campaign ROI.
But how can you get there?
The answer lies in leveraging the right content tactics to boost your marketing ROI.
These include:
- Repurposing content: Find ways to use each piece of content in various ways.
For example, you can republish an article as a podcast episode or video. You can also compile multiple blog posts that talk about a broader topic into a resourceful ebook.
- Updating old content: You should update old posts by adding the latest strategies, statistics, and examples to it. This will help you keep all your posts fresh and relevant.
- Promoting content: Promote your newly-published and updated posts on channels that your audience visits frequently to increase its reach.
For example, you can share links on social media, cold pitch to your blog subscribers or republish your posts on article syndication websites.
- Personalizing messaging: You should personalize your brand’s messaging and offer custom solutions to different audience segments.
Here example, you can send personalized email copy and offers to prospects, depending on what stage of the buying funnel they are at.
- Leveraging influencers: You can find influencers in your niche who can promote your brand. You can turn them into your brand ambassadors or have them review your products and ask them for referrals for your products and services.
Using these tactics can help boost your content marketing ROI over time.
You can use them to improve your search rankings and become a go-to resource for people who are looking for similar information. Great content can translate into increased traffic, reduced bounce rates, higher engagement, more conversions, and better marketing ROI.
Ready to Boost Your B2B Content Marketing ROI?
These are just some of the ways you can use to boost your B2B content marketing ROI.
You need to create valuable content, use it strategically to attract potential buyers, monitor how your audience responds to it, and offer them more value.
Do you have any questions about the strategies mentioned above? Share them in the comments below. I’ll be happy to help!
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