YOUR CRASH COURSE

IN B2B CONTENT MARKETING

We’ve heard it time and
time again, “Content is
King.” You read about
Fortune 500 consumer
brands with million dollar
ad budgets creating
innovative, awe-inspiring
content, and think that
smaller B2B brands
cannot keep up with the
pace and quality.

Content
We’re here to tell you it’s B2B’s time to take
on content—no excuses. No more saying, “My
industry is too boring,” “It doesn’t tie to sales”
or “I don’t have enough money and staff.” is
KING
In this guide, we’ll outline content marketing
from strategy to measurement—in addition
to some modern day tactics appropriate for
marketing budgets large and small.

Your Crash Course in B2B Content Marketing // 619.330.0730 // www.bopdesign.com

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First, What Is Content Marketing?
Content marketing encapsulates so much of
today’s Internet marketing strategies and can
be difficult to explain succinctly. The Content
Marketing Institute defines it as a marketing
technique of creating and distributing valuable,
relevant and consistent content to attract and
acquire a clearly defined audience—with the
objective of driving profitable customer action.
This only scratches the surface of possible tactics
that encompass content marketing, which include:
• Blogging • SEO
• Social media • Video
• Email marketing • Podcasts
• Brand journalism • Webinars
• Native advertising • Public relations

How to Devise a Strategy

Before you roll your eyes, we don’t mean a
strategy that you’ll work weeks on only to never
look at it again. Create actionable guidelines on
how your content will be created and distributed.
First and most importantly are the actual
logistics of creating content. Here are some
questions you should address immediately:
• Are you able to easily update your
firm’s website with blog content?
• Is your firm’s website design appealing
to your target audience?
• Who will be writing the content? One person,
an internal team or outside agency?
• Who is responsible for editing?
• Who will schedule, post and
distribute the content?
• Where should content be distributed?
• What content platforms will
your ideal client be on?
• How frequently should you post?
Establishing Content Personas
• How far in advance should writing begin to
We’ve all heard about buyer personas—profiling ideal clients
accommodate the steps in quality control?
to better understand their motivations and pain points. Take a
• What is the tone of your content?• similar approach to creating audience personas for your content.
Who are you writing for and why? Determine their current job position, industry, business objectives
• What type of content is your and job responsibilities. Also determine what type of content and
ideal client interested in? platform is appropriate for each stage in your firm’s sales cycle.

• Do we have an editorial calendar outlining

content topics for each month?

Your Crash Course in B2B Content Marketing // 619.330.0730 // www.bopdesign.com

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Outlining a Holistic Content Process
Content team? Check. Strategy? Check. Editorial
calendar? Check. But producing content is more
than just pressing “Publish” on a regular basis.
An effective strategy values distribution as well.
The most difficult task is creating the content; you
might as well maximize its exposure. Distribution
Corporate Blogging Do’s and Don’ts
spreads content across multiple platforms—which • DO research what is important for your clients.
helps build brand awareness, drive ideal client • DO cross-link to other posts and pages on your site.
personas to your website and convert into leads.
• DO be conversational.
An example of a robust content distribution • DON’T get too personal.
plan is illustrated in the diagram below.
• DON’T get political.
• DON’T get too salesy.
The Blog as the Nucleus
For most B2B marketers, the content marketing
implementation starts with the blog. A continuously
updated blog is the most effective method to
improve on-page SEO, increase web traffic and
convert visitors. From the blog, blog entries can
be repurposed and combined for a variety of
different marketing and conversion platforms. .
Not every blog post has to be molded for all SOCIAL
distribution channels. Easy-to-manage channels WEBINARS SPONSORED
UPDATES
such as social media, article distribution and
email newsletters can make up your firm’s SOCIAL
inner circle. Following that first stage, look to MEDIA
other tactics that take longer to execute but are CONTENT
worth it for your audience (e.g. infographics,
webinars, sponsored social updates). OPTIMIZE
EMAIL
NEWSLETTER CONTENT
SEO

PODCASTS
INFOGRAPHICS

PREMIUM
BLOG
CONTENT PRESS
OFFER RELEASES

PREMIUM ARTICLE AD
LINK DISTRIBUTION RETARGETING VIDEO
BUILDING

GUEST
BLOGGING

Your Crash Course in B2B Content Marketing // 619.330.0730 // www.bopdesign.com

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What About These Newfangled Tactics?
Infographics
We’re glad you asked! Since the introduction of content
marketing, a lot of marketing speak has gone from trendy You risk boring your clients with charts, spreadsheets and
buzzwords to entrenched, must-know tactics. Unsure where PowerPoints filled with written statistics. Unfortunately no
they fit within your firm’s marketing plan? Let’s breakdown one reads as much anymore! An infographic can convey an
some of those “buzzy” terms into actionable ideas: idea or process in a more attractive and user friendly way.
Think of a theme that ties together multiple blog posts and
supplement that idea with supporting industry statistics.
Native Advertising
Infographics also work for B2B because the illustrative
Native advertising seems like the new trendy marketing
capabilities are endless. With the flexibility to transform and
tactic, but many of the ideas have been in a marketer’s
demonstrate ideas, here are just some ideas infographics
wheelhouse for years. Heck, a TV infomercial is really native
can communicate effectively:
advertising! Essentially it’s paying for placement, but instead
of a traditional ad, branded content such as articles, product • Unique value proposition and client benefits
promotions and guides are pushed to the reader. • New trends and shifts in your industry
Utilizing your existing editorial calendar, determine a series • Demographics or buyer personas and their impacts on
of blog posts that can be combined to make up a “Premium your business
Content Offer.” This ranges from eBooks to tip sheets to
• “Top 10” lists
guides—whatever format works best for the audience and
• Explaining a success story or other noteworthy
the content. With this piece of premium content, native
advertising could include a variety of marketing avenues: industry event
• Workflows and service delivery explanations
• Paid social media promotion
• Historical timeline about an industry
• Brand journalism
• Hierarchical information
• App integration
• In-feed advertising
Guest Blogging and Public Relations
• Paid search marketing
While guest blogging is a sensitive subject for some
• Ad retargeting
marketers, think of it instead as traditional PR revamped
for the content marketing world. The strategy of influencer
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) targeting, monitoring, engaging and ultimately building a
SEO isn’t necessarily a one-off tactic, it’s an ongoing process long-term relationship has been in PR’s expertise for years.
of content exposure and distribution to ensure your firm’s Now that marketers see the value in informative, educational
website is prominent for targeted keyword searches on and helpful content—content that traditional PR originally
Google.. Yet so many marketers voraciously churn out blog pioneered—promoting your firm’s thought leadership on
posts without any thought as to how it can help their search other complementary sites supports marketing goals as well.
engine rankings. While we don’t recommend keyword stuffing To name a few, guest blogging can help achieve:
and sounding like a robot, writing with SEO in mind ensures
that your content audience will be maximized. • Brand recognition
• Off-page search engine optimization
When conducting keyword research for blog posts,
think of long tail keywords. These are phrases that fit • Website traffic
a conversational search query of your ideal customer. • Relationships with strategic partners
For example, instead of trying to match for “financial • Social media engagement
brokerage,” consider “financial advisor for business owner” • Exposure to new audiences
or “accounting for construction firms in Portland.” Using
• Thought leadership recognition
tools such as Google Keyword Planner helps search for new
• Lead generation
keywords and phrases based on existing ideas. Build your
topics around these ideas but—most importantly—ensure
your content solves that search query.

Your Crash Course in B2B Content Marketing // 619.330.0730 // www.bopdesign.com

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Nothing Matters If You Don’t Measure
You can put in the hours each week, but content
marketing is nothing without regular measurement
and strategy refreshing based on data. Since
content marketing is all encompassing, it’s difficult
to manage the metrics under one umbrella. Here
are some metrics you should be examining across
all platforms to create a holistic picture:

Referrals & Engagement

Where are website visitors, sales leads and clients
coming from? What is driving the most quality
engagements? Here is some actionable data to
optimize your content marketing strategy:

• Paid advertising click through rates

• Clicks and web referral traffic
• Pages per visit based on referral source
• Conversions per referral source
• Social shares by influencers
• Social engagement (e.g. “@” replies, comments,
conversations)

Blog: Activity on Website

This is it, the hard part of getting ideal clients to your
website is over. But are they staying on the page
after reading? A blog’s goal is to transform your
website into a living resource center—educating
a client on industry issues, best practices, your
business solutions and incite them to contact your
firm (or at least create a lasting memory for when
the need arises). With that, the blog metrics to
measure include:

• Popular blog posts based on sessions

• Average page duration
• Pages per visit
• Average time on website

There you have it—B2B content marketing in less time than it takes
to finish your lunch. If you’re hungry for more, visit our Bop Blog for
more insights and trends specific to B2B marketers.
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Your Crash Course in B2B Content Marketing // 619.330.0730 // www.bopdesign.com

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