Content is King: How B2B content marketing is emerging as the game-changer for start-ups!
In the crowded space of B2B marketing, setting yourself apart and creating a distinct brand identity is a tricky business. When it comes to startups, this challenge is even more daunting. This is why a traditional promotional strategy that talks repeatedly about the ‘goodness’ of your product and service is not sufficient anymore. B2B marketers today require a diverse set of strategies to attract potential consumers, convert those leads into sales and establish a lasting relationship with them. This is where content marketing is making a major difference!
Content marketing broadly refers to a strategy of creating engaging but ‘non-promotional’ content and distributing it among a wide array of the potential audience through multiple social and digital media channels. This strategy may include engaging blogs, thought leadership articles, and interesting visual content that offers informational or emotional value to the reader/viewer. The more compelling the content, the larger and deeper its impact is likely to be on your target audience.
For startups looking to make a splash in a busy market space, content marketing emerges as a very useful strategy to set themselves apart. The emergence of a fledgling content to commerce model in recent years proves the power of content in creating a ready market for a new product or service.
Here is why content marketing is emerging as a game changer for B2B startups:
It is key to engaging and attracting an audience
What engages or attracts an audience to a particular content – be it verbal or visual? Certainly, not a story that blatantly promotes your product. That would rather be spam! Content marketers do not create promotional content that directly shoves their products on to the readers. An intelligent content marketing strategy finds unique ways to talk about its industry, its challenges, and bright spots. It talks about subjects people in that industry would like to read.
To cite an instance, a Neutraceutical product manufacturer or distributor must create content on the power of using ‘food as medicine’. Informative, engaging, and value-driven content not only helps attract an audience, but it is also shared widely on social media and generates a larger discussion on the subject. Make no mistake, this also draws a large number of potential consumers to your homepage and also converts those leads into buyers. In fact, content marketing brings in considerable traffic through organic searches.
Building a reliable brand through thought leadership
A distinct content marketing strategy works in a systematic way to establish your brand as a thought leader in the industry. By inducing a strong network of contributors, bloggers, and experts, B2B marketers are further diversifying their content strategies today. Adequately amplifying and repurposing content is an inclusive part of this content marketing strategy.
Good digital content is not only readily consumable but is also easily shareable. Organizing webinars on pertinent industry-related challenges, involving other industry experts in panels, and creating engaging video stories has emerged as a viable peer-to-peer marketing tactic. Over time, this strategy elevates your brand to the position of a thought leader. A cohesive and vibrant content strategy helps startups, as well as mid-level players, develop into an industry voice that is looked up to by consumers as well as peers.
Building loyalty and establishing a lasting relationship
The role of content marketing is not limited to attracting a new audience to your brand, it also plays a significant role in nurturing an existing consumer base. In a difficult business terrain where even a minor hiccup can push away a consumer to another waiting brand, building a lasting relationship of trust and loyalty requires multidimensional engagement efforts. Come to think of it.
What are the ways in which an organization interacts regularly with its existing customers?
While customer handling service is the first interface, an effective content marketing outreach is another one!
Offering a unique customer experience today includes not just delivering a quality product or service but ensuring that you are attentive and responsive to the needs or questions of the customer. Undeniably, quality content marketing activities help augment the customer experience.
Content marketing specialists today dedicate an entire array of content activities to engage existing brand customers including the deployment of what is often termed as custom content. This ‘custom content’ delivers a series of informative and research-based inputs such as white papers, surveys, email newsletters, industry reports, etc. to ensure organizations are communicating constantly with their consumers. Apart from reinforcing the brand image and values, this approach helps build a strong affinity and endear the consumer to the brand.
Conclusion
In a digital age when an overwhelming majority of people turn to the Internet to seek answers and solutions, quality content marketing is an inalienable part of an overall digital marketing strategy for B2B organizations.
For startups looking to create a niche for themselves in a crowded market, quality content creation accompanied by an intelligent content distribution strategy is emerging as the main differentiator. Content marketing works because it does much more than just attract a buyer to a product. It helps your brand communicate one on one with the consumer, addresses their questions and needs, and engages them in a wider discussion about the industry or society. However, consistency and quality are the essential elements of a successful content marketing strategy.
About the author:
Mohammad Tareeq, CEO, Valasys Media