B2B Marketing Strategy Archives | Cosmic Development

How to Use Content Marketing in your B2B Lead Generation Strategy

Viktorija Nikoloska — Thu, 28 May 2020 10:58:30 +0000

Content marketing is a highly effective, scalable, and affordable way to generate strong leads for your B2B marketing strategy consistently. Today, more than ever, during this COVID-19 situation, your clients and your leads want to feel that you care about them and that you are willing to provide additional value to their business. The impact of social isolation and the increase of many ongoing news and distractions in today’s everyday life make the attention span even lower. It makes this period to be even more challenging. The pressure is real, and the success of your company’s content depends on how much value that content will provide.

Producing content that is engaging is a constant challenge. Content marketing is not as simple as it might seem, and there are many challenges that B2B marketers face. Some of the key challenges are:

Producing engaging content
Producing consistent content
Measuring content effectiveness
Producing content from experts
Lack of Budget
Having Skilled Content Marketing Professionals
Lack of Marketing Integration

When we say content marketing, we suggest creating and sharing content in various formats that provide value to your target market and get your clients to act or schedule a free consultancy to get more insights. The most used B2B content marketing tactics are social media content articles, eNewsletters, articles on your website, blogs, case studies, videos, illustrations, photos, white papers, infographics, research reports, microsites, e-books, mobile apps, in-person events, online presentations, webinars/webcasts, conferences, podcasts, games and gamification.

There are many options for using suitable tactic depending on what your business does, but here is a list we think is a must-have content variety you need to offer your potential leads:

Blogs
eBooks
Research
Videos
Case Studies
Reports
CTA

Blogs

The first step of the content marketing strategy is to have valuable articles on your blog. If your company already has a vast range of blogs that trigger curiosity and solve problems for your clients, you need to make analysis in your social media pages and within your company’s Google Analytics account. To have result-driven content, you need to analyze your buyer personas – your targeted audience profiles and, more specifically, their pain points and challenges. You need to know what they’re struggling with and write your blog content around while experimenting with the content proven to be popular and trendy.

The first step in creating relevant B2B blog posts for your audience is to target the posts with the client’s main points and offer solutions on how to solve their challenges. If you seek a faster and easier way to do this, the only way is with outsourcing expertise. There are many reasons why outsourcing content writing is the right solution. To discuss further the benefits of outsourcing content creators, schedule a free consultation with us today.

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eBooks

B2B eBooks are one of the most cost-effective content marketing strategies because they are jam-packed with information, valuable to the audience, and able to collect or convert potential customer information if you decide to use them as a lead magnet. In many cases, buyers are willing to register and share information about themselves in return for eBooks. In other words, this means that your company could get a leg-up on lead generation with eBooks, and that’s why you need to include them into your editorial calendar content list.

Research

If you are striving to create B2B content marketing that gets backlinks and improves overall SEO (Search Engine Optimization), original research is another must-have in your editorial calendar content list. This is because people–writers want to back up their content with statistics. By collecting your statistics and running a survey or analyzing the results you’ve brought to your clients, you will result in tons of industry authority and backlinks–a key ranking factor in the search algorithms.

Videos

The B2B video content marketing needs to be precisely what your audience wants to watch. In the beginning, you need to follow your Google Analytics reports and get to know what kind of blog content brings you the most traffic, whether it turns your traffic into leads and if not seize the data and use it as action steps accordingly. A good idea for this is to promote your current blog content with solutions in a visual and more appealing way.

Our Rumble video content creators at the Bitola office

Case Studies

Most of the B2B tech buyers search for peer reviews and testimonials before purchasing. We advise and suggest to you, in the beginning, to create a few case studies on the growth of your biggest clients, starting with what kind of problem your clients had, what did they ask you to do, what kind of solution did your company suggest, and the results your company delivered. Actionable case studies will prove to your potential clients that your service works. You would be giving them data to show it in real-life while you tie in a success story from your existing clients.

Reports

One other way to bring value is with free downloadable research included in a report file. Reports are part of content marketing but are time-consuming which is valuable as it serves the clients with up-to-date research data on the topics that they find useful for their business. For the current clients, it is great to send this in an email Newsletter, and for the potential clients, it can be a great lead generation source on your website. Research and reports as content writing build trust, as it educates your clients and provides valuable insights.

CTA (Call to Action)

If you already have valuable content, our next step is to include a call to action or CTA. A good content marketing needs to level up your lead generation. The call to action should be:

Action-oriented
Used in first-person
Contain strong visuals
Have a sense of urgency
Eliminate friction objectives
Stand out and be easy to find

For every call to action to generate leads, you also need to remember your buyer’s journey. If the call to action you add does not fulfill the need of your potential client at the specific point in their journey they will be encountering it, it is not going to resonate with them, and they are not likely to move forward. There are many varieties of designs you can use when altering your Calls To Action with (and not limited to): color, button shape and size, size, style, position (both on the web page and the website), and animations.

When creating your call to action, you need to make sure that the CTA is important enough to attract potential clients. This can be created by utilizing a contrasting color from your website, a bright and robust font, specific placement, and actionable content.

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We know this list is overwhelming, but it’s crucial for every business willing to generate B2B leads. If you have new ideas for other pandemic-related business growth ways to help, please feel free to suggest them during our meeting, and if you need more insights, schedule a free consultation here.

Learn more about content marketing and its contributions to growing your business from an expert. Schedule a time to talk with a Cosmic Development expert for free to learn more about how you can create great content for your blog.

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The post How to Use Content Marketing in your B2B Lead Generation Strategy appeared first on Cosmic Development.

How to Build a Strong B2B Marketing Strategy

Viktorija Nikoloska — Thu, 09 Jan 2020 13:20:45 +0000

Creating a strong B2B marketing strategy for start-up companies is a crucial step that business owners need to complete before launching their companies on the market. When setting up the start-up, its owners need to find out the best way to place the company in the B2B market. Regardless of whether the start-up is selling some kind of products, or offers IT services such as software development or digital marketing, the managers must first build a healthy and successful B2B marketing strategy for start-up companies.
Business owners who want to launch a start-up company must have in mind the fact that the world in which we live today is getting more and more competitive with every passing moment. To get in the lead, start-ups need to implement modern technologies and trends. Furthermore, they need to create B2B marketing strategies and optimize and review them according to the current situation. We often see how different companies develop different B2B marketing strategies. To learn how to build a strong B2B marketing strategy, continue reading the article below. Go through the following seven simple steps for creating a marketing strategy for B2B start-ups, which are slowly showing up on the B2B market.

Establish a Verbal Communication with Existing Connections

When building a strong B2B marketing strategy, the owners of start-up companies may begin with managing and utilizing the numerous connections they already have. The best way is through creating a list of all the people they know, regardless of whether they are friends or business associates. To save both their time and trouble of creating a connections list, it is a great idea to have a database of all acquaintances. That way, they will be able to organize a meeting over coffee or lunch or to send an email about their new business. The start-up owners will then be able to connect with the associates of their acquaintances and get the help they need for their business to become known. Verbal communication is crucial in this step because it has a personal touch, and it may add value to the start-up from its beginning.
Create a Website and Start Writing Blog Posts

After creating a start-up company, business owners need to develop a modern website that is up-to-date with the latest trends. But most importantly, owners need to ensure that their website has a blog section. Writing a blog is a crucial step in the company’s B2B marketing strategy. Blogging not only helps in improving the company’s online visibility and presence but also builds its reputation in a digital format. Start-up owners who want their company to be visible in the social media need to have written blog articles on their companies’ websites that will make them experts in significant areas. Maintaining a blog will help owners to create an organic marketing funnel as part of the B2B marketing strategy. Furthermore, it will enable the website to increase its target audience and will generate leads.

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Make an Analysis of the Competition

When building a strong B2B marketing strategy for a start-up company, it is a crucial step to analyze the company’s competition. Trying to penetrate the B2B market without analyzing the competitors may backfire for the start-up. Therefore, business owners need to ensure that they know in advance everything about the competition in the B2B market. Moreover, they need to analyze all the companies that offer the same products or services. The best way to make such an analysis is to go through the competition’s reviews, complaints, user’s comments, feedback, client stories, etc. By doing so, the start-up owners will be able to avoid the mistakes their competitors made and improve them. Moreover, business owners can try to find online articles written about the experience with the competition. By doing all of this, start-ups will be ready with better solutions than their competitors when potential clients or customers reach out.
Increase the Company’s Online Presence

One of the steps of creating a strong B2B marketing strategy for a start-up is to know how to increase the company’s online presence. Nowadays, companies can stay active and present online with the help of numerous communities. Moreover, there are several social media platforms where a company can become visible to others and virtually present. Business owners may begin using social media, just like we did with the following platforms: LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. LinkedIn helps with the promotion of products or services, and it strengthens relationships with essential connections. Twitter increases business engagement and helps the company to get noticed online through the correct usage of trending hashtags. Facebook is an excellent platform for the promotion of the website and blog. And finally, Instagram is a social media platform that helps B2B start-ups to expose their human side. Using these social media is the first step for increasing the company’s online presence.

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Write Cold Emails

Start-up companies who want to create a successful B2B marketing strategy must continue using emails as part of the marketing plan. In other words, business owners need to send out cold emails to other companies and business associates. To do so, they will first have to research a list of companies that they want to collaborate with. Moreover, once they discover the companies they like to get into business with, then they can get in touch via email with the right person from each company on their list. When writing cold emails to potential business associates, start-up owners should make the emails personalized for each person individually. Furthermore, they have to find a way to explain plainly how their offered solution may solve the other company’s problems. Note that bulk emails are bad, and no one reads them, so before sending an email, make proper research on the recipient’s interests.
Attend Networking Events

When creating a B2B marketing strategy for a start-up company, owners and managers need to be aware of their surroundings. They must become aware of the fact that their company will be successful as much as their connections are successful. Attending networking events is a strategy that will help a start-up become more known in the B2B market. Moreover, business owners will be able to not only nurture their current acquaintances but also create new ones. Going to such events, exhibitions, and programs will help start-ups to expand their network connections and get remembered by more prominent corporations. The best way to increase the contacts is by exchanging cards with all acquaintances from the event. After the networking event is over, business owners can send them personalized emails, thus ensuring a possibility to convert them into future potential associates.

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Join Local Incubators

In addition to the networking events, start-up owners may consider the option of joining local incubators as a way to make new connections. When start-ups are at an early stage of developing a B2B marketing strategy, they can begin exploring the local incubators. These places are a perfect opportunity to meet with similar individuals and business owners. Moreover, joining local incubators not only increases the number of connections but also allows like-minded individuals to share their expertise and personal experience. Besides, these incubators enable business owners to get familiar with other start-up companies and get their first clients or customers. The local incubators offer start-ups the opportunity to learn from other similar start-up companies. It also gives them the chance to interact with other mentors who have more experience in the same field. Moreover, they may guide them in the right direction and help them with the creation of a successful B2B marketing strategy.

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