Inbound marketing has risen to the forefront as the core component of any successful digital marketing or communications campaign. As the storytelling mechanism for various businesses, inbound marketing offers a wide variety of opportunities for organizations to enhance their brand image and share interesting content about themselves to consumers and stakeholders.
One of the most popular recipes of a B2B inbound marketing content strategy is to use ‘on-domain’ platforms (like company blogs and micro-sites) as the hub of inbound marketing activities, and then to amplify this content with vibrant social presences on social media sites like LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and YouTube.
In this way, B2B marketers can cultivate strong audiences in the “third party” social media space, and pull eyeballs onto their own domain. Once the reader is on the company blog, website or micro-site, they may well continue their journey within the domain – learning more about the organization, clicking on the ‘contact us’ or ‘about us’ pages or immediately buying products (depending on the nature of the business).
We’ll look at four principles of B2B inbound marketing content creation:
1. Engage With Your Audience
Social platforms such as Twitter and LinkedIn allow marketers to engage with their audience on a personal level, creating solid relationships with that demographic. For instance, General Electric’s LinkedIn page is full of inspiring quotes, engaging questions and updates on interesting company news.
2. Be an Expert or Specialist
Become famous for a particular topic, industry or trend. By focusing your messaging on a specific area, your organization will develop a close association with that topic. By leveraging tools like company blogs, Slide-share or Paper-share, organizations can demonstrate their specific expertise. Take a look at KPCB’s use of Slide-share for a great example of this.
3. Visuals Are More Than a Thousand Words
Content has definitely evolved over the years; it has moved from predominantly text-based, to now incorporate visuals, info-graphics, animations and video content. Platforms such as YouTube, Instagram and Google+ can be utilized for visual inbound marketing, and sometimes stories are better told through videos and pictures. We live in a digital era with information overload, so creating content that is different helps companies stand out from the clutter. Deloitte Canada is a good illustration to support this.
4. Go Mobile
More and more B2B buyers are using mobile devices to access business-related content. Organizations need to tailor their content for smartphones and tablets, as mobile-friendly websites are an important ingredient in the new media marketing mix.
Great content is the heart of any successful inbound marketing strategy. By crafting unique stories that represent your company’s value-proposition, disseminated by the clever use of social media channels, one can grow a captive audience and drive readers to website, blog sites or micro sites.
