B2B Content Creation Ideas

Content is the backbone of any quality digital marketing strategy. That is true for B2C companies, and it is just as true for B2B companies. If you hope to connect in a meaningful way online with your target audience, you are going to need to be producing some type of content on an ongoing basis.

But what type of content should you be creating? The content that is going to resonate with a B2B audience is somewhat different than what tends to work when talking directly to consumers, although there are some similarities that apply across the board. This article will take a closer look at some valuable ideas you may want to include in your B2B content strategy. Let’s get started!

Three Key Rules of Great Content

Before we dive into the content ideas that you’ll want to consider specifically for your B2B needs, we first wanted to stop and highlight three key rules that apply to all content creators. It doesn’t matter if your target audience is other businesses or consumers, or perhaps a mix of the two, the rules below will always apply.

• Quality is king. No matter what type of content you are going to produce, it needs to meet a high standard of quality. You don’t want to be putting out mediocre – or even poor – content as a representation of what your brand is all about. Anyone who might do business with your brand could come into contact with that content and start to have second thoughts about what you offer. Every single thing that your company produces is a reflection of the brand itself, and that certainly applies to content. Put a system in place to review the quality of your content and make sure it meets your standards before it goes out into the world.
• It must be relevant. Producing good content isn’t going to be worth much if it isn’t relevant to your business, what you sell, and what your customers need. Plenty of research and planning should go into the content process so you can be sure that what you’re producing for content is going to resonate with the people that you want to find it. Remember, creating content is a time-consuming and costly process, so it would be a shame to waste those resources producing assets that don’t really relate to what you want to accomplish.
• Give each piece a purpose. Speaking of not wasting your resources, another important piece of this puzzle is determining what the purpose of each piece of content will be. You should always be trying to accomplish something, as creating content without a goal can end up being a waste – even if the content quality and relevance are in place. Some possible goals for content include converting sales, driving thought leadership, growing brand awareness, and more.

You might want to turn these three points into a checklist that you use to make sure your content production machine is staying on track. As you get ready to put together some new content, and before you publish it, you can check in with these three points to make sure things are working as they should. As long as your content is of high quality, relevant to your audience, and has a specific purpose for what it should accomplish, you’ll be on the right track.

B2B Content Idea #1 – Case Studies

Case studies are one of the best types of content for B2B companies to produce. The value of a good case study comes in the ability to demonstrate the value of the products or services that are offered by your business. Rather than just presenting a checklist of what your product or service can do, you’ll be able to lay out a detailed analysis of an existing or past client and how they leveraged what you offer to produce great results.

One of the most important keys to producing good case studies is including plenty of detail. Reach out to a few of your best clients to ask about using them as the focus of a case study – most will be happy to oblige, as long as you don’t demand too much in terms of their time. By doing most of the work and just having them complete a quick interview or survey, you can minimally disrupt their day-to-day process while getting the info you need to craft a great piece of content.

You might think about incorporating multiple forms of media in a single case study to make it more compelling. For example, you could produce a written case study that lives on a page on your website, and also has an embedded video with a quick testimonial directly from the client. The combination of the detail you can include in the written portion along with the personal touch of a video testimonial will lead to a powerful page that should help you earn new business.

B2B Content Idea #2 – White Papers

Many types of content fall under the general umbrella of white papers. Generally speaking, these are pieces that aim to offer value to the reader by looking closely at a market or industry and offering some insight based on your expertise and experience. For example, you might produce a white paper that highlights the differences in your market between last year and this year, along with some analysis of why those changes took place and what you expect to see moving forward.

This is a great type of content for a business that wants to firmly establish authority in a space. You might not drive a lot of sales directly from your white papers, but you can improve brand awareness and work toward being seen as a trusted and knowledgeable expert. As an additional benefit of producing white papers regularly, you might find that you stay more in touch and connected to your industry than ever before. In doing the research needed to create a good white paper, you’ll wind up adding to your own base of knowledge and you may find that you can serve your clients more effectively as a result.

B2B Content Idea #3 – Start a Podcast

Podcasts are everywhere today, and you might want to consider getting in on the action as part of your content creation strategy. Although it can seem like a daunting task at first, starting a new podcast is actually pretty simple, as only minimal equipment and technical knowledge are required. Once you acquire the needed gear – which is rather affordable – and get familiar with the task of recording your own voice, you might find that you actually enjoy putting these episodes together.

In many ways, you can think of a podcast as an audio white paper. It’s simply another medium through which you can offer your insights and expertise on a given topic. The big advantage that podcasts have over white papers and other written content is found in how they are consumed. Rather than needing to sit down and read your thoughts, members of your audience can listen to the podcast any time they have a free moment. Whether it’s in the car, at the gym, or during a quiet moment at the office, podcasts are one of the easiest forms of content to consume quickly.

B2B Content Idea #4 – Use Your Blog for Interviews and Guest Posts

The idea of having a blog on your website to promote your products and services to other businesses is not groundbreaking. You probably already have a blog in place, even if it has been a bit neglected over the years. One good way to breathe some new life into that blog is by reaching out to others for interviews or asking for guest posts from influencers in your industry.

This is a great way to expand your reach by including new voices in your blog and making connections with others that might serve a similar audience. You can probably think of at least a few people off the top of your head who would make good contributors to your blog and even more, are likely out there if you do a bit of research. One of the biggest keys to making this strategy work for you is to always make it as easy as possible for others to contribute as possible. Streamline the process that you use for interviews or guest posts to make it easier for other people to say yes to your request.

B2B Content Idea #5 – Surveys and Survey Results

If we are being honest, there is a lot of repetitive content on the web today. That’s not to say that it is all copied from other sources – plenty of it is original in the sense that it was written from scratch and not stolen – but there tends to be a lack of creative thinking in some markets. If you search a certain question or problem in your industry, you can scan the search results and find the same ideas and solutions over and over again.

With that in mind, one thing you can do to stand out in your field and create content that gets attention is to do original research. Surveys are an ideal way to make that happen. By putting out a survey to past customers or visitors to your website, you can gather data that can then be turned into an interesting piece of content. If you take the time and effort to translate the survey results into graphics, you’ll do even better.

Make sure the survey questions you present are easy to answer and will be useful when putting together content. Also, it helps to revolve the questions around a single theme, rather than trying to cover everything in your industry all at once. Once you get the hang of this process and how to get enough survey responses to produce content, you can make it a periodic thing that leaves you with ample raw data to convert into interesting findings for your audience.

Stick With It

Creating quality B2B content takes plenty of time and effort, but the rewards can be significant. We hope that at least some of these content ideas are a good fit for your organization, and you might even want to try them all out just to see where you gain the most traction. Remember, content creation is a form of digital marketing that generally takes time to produce meaningful results, so be patient and stick with your plan in the early stages. Good luck!