The Importance of Content Marketing for B2B Businesses
“If you’re not putting out relevant content in relevant places, you don’t exist.”– Gary Vaynerchuk
You already know the way businesses market and sell to other businesses has changed drastically over the years. Thanks to the internet, organizations and consumers are free to do their own research on products and services — no longer having to rely on outdated sales tactics to help steer them towards a purchasing decision.
You also know most of your prospects are online. So how can you really spread the digital word that you have the right products and services for the job?
By implementing a super stellar content marketing strategy that grabs attention, drives traffic to your site and keeps visitors coming back for more.
What is Content Marketing Anyway?
Content Marketing is more than just pumping out blogs or posting on social media. It’s a vital part of inbound marketing — a growth-based marketing approach that allows businesses to attract prospects to their brand, generate leads, close sales, drive revenue and increase brand awareness.
According to marketing software giant HubSpot, content marking can be defined as “a strategic marketing and business process focused on creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and retain a clearly defined audience, and ultimately, to drive profitable customer action”.
How Does It Work?
As we mentioned, content marketing is a direct subset of inbound marketing – it’s the fuel that feeds your inbound marketing machine. Think of it as a flywheel. The content you produce helps set the wheel in motion and it begins to Attract prospects. In order to keep prospects in the flywheel, you must continually provide relevant content that continues to Engage and Delight.
Content marketing is part of a bigger, long term growth marketing strategy (inbound) that, over time, sees more qualified leads, a more efficient sales process and steady revenue growth. The more you fuel your flywheel with quality content, the better it works!
Yes, But How Does Content Turn Into Leads?
By providing content that’s relevant to where your prospects are in their buyer’s journey, you establish a sense of trust. They need answers to their questions, and you can establish yourself as an authority in your field by giving those answers — and not just a sales pitch.
And it doesn’t just have to be blog posts, either! There are a variety of content formats you can utilize to help you reach your targeted audience:
- Ebooks
- Newsletters
- White papers
- Blog posts
- Infographics
- Videos
- And much more!
While a prospect may not buy from you after the first blog they read or video they watch, continually nurturing them with content encourages them to become a contact in your CRM through an exchange of info (i.e. they can download a free, informative eBook in exchange for their email address). From here, you can continue to engage your leads until they’re ready to speak to your sales team.
Content Marketing is Growth Marketing
In short, content marketing is part of a larger, inbound strategy that that’s guaranteed to see long term revenue growth as you continue to Attract, Engage and Delight your prospects. It helps to:
- Generate qualified website traffic
- Give authority to your brand
- Generate conversions
- Create new channels/platforms for conversation
- Decrease overall marketing costs
Lastly, it’s important to remember that your competitors are already engaging in content marketing — this means it not just a good idea, but a necessity for the long-term revenue growth of your business.
So, what are you waiting for?
Get started with Hubspot’s How to Develop a Content Strategy: A Start-to-Finish Guide or get in touch with us to learn more about how Flawless Inbound can help you unlock your revenue growth potential and help your business thrive. We've helped more than 70 companies across Canada and the US apply content marketing to amazing success. Find out more about our full marketing enablement strategy here.