Living Stone blog 3

 

 

All Posts

How to create a B2B content marketing plan?

Remember mass marketing? If you do, you’re probably familiar with rotary dial phones, and maybe you even owned a Walkman. Mass marketing – which for a long time ruled the sales process – is vanishing into history, along with floppy disks and fax machines. Now, thanks to the internet, content marketing is king, and it completely changed the way companies sell their products and solutions.

Today, prospects actively search online for information on the products they’re interested in. And if you want your prospect to choose your solution, you have to have the right content available, in the right channels and formats. If your content doesn’t offer all the information prospects are seeking, or doesn’t sufficiently underscore your expertise or credibility, you’re going to lose out – on sales and business reputation.

So how do you ensure that your content is up to the job?

First, you need a digital marketing content strategy. If you don’t have a clear strategy, you’ll end up with content, but it won’t necessarily be the content you need to drive sales, or even contain the information your prospects are seeking. A good B2B content marketing plan ensures that you’re sending a clear message to a well-defined target group, using the right tone and positioning, and includes all the information that your prospects are interested in.

To get started and create a content plan for your organization, consider these steps:

  1. Focus the message

Your content strategy needs to align with a lot of other elements - your company’s vision and objectives, your overall communications plan, and your marketing strategy.

  1. Define your buyer personas

Who are your customers? By creating personas for your key customer ‘types,’ you can better understand the types of content they need.

  1. Chart your buyer’s journey

Chart out the steps that your customers go through in buying from your organization, through the stages of awareness, consideration and decision.

  1. Decide what content is relevant for each stage of the buyer’s journey

Map out the content and channels that you need to support your buyers at every step of the way.

  1. Make a content calendar

Once you have a master list of content and channels, create a content calendar to keep production on track.

  1. Produce the content

In-house or partner with an agency? Choose the option that will best support the goals and deadlines you’ve outlined in your content plan.

  1. Measure the results

The advantage of online content marketing is that everything can be measured. Number of visitors, social shares, search engine traffic, conversion ratios – every single interaction provides you with feedback on how well your content is performing.

Want to learn more about creating a content strategy and plan?
Subscribe for our event (Infusinar) at June 1 and find out how to create a winning B2B content marketing plan.

Register for Infusinararrow.png

                             

Anne-Mie Vansteelant
Anne-Mie Vansteelant
COO | Managing Partner at Living Stone

Related Posts

World rare diseases day

As a B2B marketing agency that focuses on healthcare marketing alongside engineering and IT, we put a lot of effort into content marketing. Strong storytelling and credible content creation are two powerful tools to inform and engage patients, doctors or other stakeholders.

Should you add an influencer to your B2B marketing mix?

Do you need an influencer to promote your B2B product or service? If you’re thinking of celebrity influencers like Lewis Hamilton or one of the Kardashians, the answer is probably no. But if you’re thinking of an influential person in your industry, or a top subject-matter expert, it’s something to consider, as it can add value and new dimensions to your marketing programs.

The future looks good for (AI) chatbots

If you visited a website recently, you likely interacted with a chatbot. Whether they’re ‘smart’ (powered by generative AI), ‘simple’ (rule-based), or a mix of both, chatbots are now ubiquitous across all types of websites. And this popularity is going to grow – according to market intelligence company Mordor, the chatbot market will reach $102 billion USD by 2026. And according to research firm Gartner, by 2027 chatbots will be the main customer service channel for approximately 25% of companies. In a press released issued by Gartner, Uma Challa, Sr. Director Analyst at Gartner, commented: “Chatbots and virtual customer assistants (VCAs) have evolved over the past decade to become a critical technology component of a service organization’s strategy. When designed correctly, chatbots can improve customer experience and drive positive customer emotion at a lower cost than live interactions.”