It’s a new year, and business owners are revising their content marketing strategy. In 2021, content marketing played a huge role in a business’s success, and it’s not going away anytime soon. In fact, Hubspot reported that "82% of marketers report actively using content marketing in 2021, up 70% from last year."

Additionally, “47% of buyers view three to five pieces of content before engaging with a sales rep,” so your business should be ready to help solve their challenges with valuable content. In this article, we’ll go over what content marketing is, and how you can apply it to your new and improved marketing strategy to achieve better results.

What is Content Marketing?

Content marketing is a strategy revolving around producing and distributing valuable content to your target audience that is mapped to the buyer cycle. To understand the buyer cycle, you need to know the stages. 

Here are some examples of the types of content that can be applied at each stage of the buyers’ cycle, including:

• • Videos (short-form and long-form)
  • Blogs
  • Freebies
  • eBooks/Guides
  • Case studies
  • Social media posts
  • Whitepapers
  • Emails
  • Podcasts

The content you choose to produce should be what your buyer prefers, not what you prefer to create. The content is for the buyer. The point of creating content is to gain visibility online and increase the number of leads coming to you. So, you want to create valuable content that your target audience would (1) Want to consume and (2) On the platform, they spend the most time on.

Keep in mind that content marketing is a top-of-funnel to bottom-of-funnel strategy. You’re providing content to people who are in the awareness, consideration, and decision stage of the buying process. The goal is to show that you’re an expert in your field and worthy of working with them by providing content that answers their most pressing questions at each stage.

Benefits of a Content Marketing Strategy

Brand Awareness

I’d say the biggest benefit of applying this strategy to your B2B business is brand awareness. Social media platforms like LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube allow you to be discovered by thousands of people every single day. The more people you put at the top of your funnel, the more customers you will end up with as they move down the funnel through middle-of-funnel and bottom-of-funnel. Imagine what that can do for your business to drive net new leads and conversion.

Organic Search

Content marketing is also an organic search marketing strategy. Organic leads are the best leads because these buyers are searching for answers to their problems. No money is required (unlike paid ads). It all comes down to determining the right keywords that buyers are searching for to find answers to their problems.

How to Apply a Content Marketing Strategy

A content strategy should attract your target audience at every stage of the Buyer’s Journey, including after a purchase. Here are the seven steps to creating a content strategy framework, according to Hubspot:

1. Define your goal.
2. Conduct buyer persona research.
3. Run a content audit.
4. Choose a content management system.
5. Determine which type of content you want to create.
6. Brainstorm content ideas.
7. Publish and manage your content.

Once you have determined your content marketing strategy, I know it can be difficult to schedule time to create relevant content at each stage of the buyers’ cycle. But really, creating valuable content should be the center of your marketing strategy and deserves time set aside to do it well. I find it helpful to batch content for our clients. Our content marketing team sets aside a day a week to create a couple of pieces of content to distribute. Next, it’s our content writers turn to produce a month’s worth of blogs and social media posts to drive engagement and conversion.

Repurposing content across multiple channels

I can’t talk about content marketing without mentioning how to repurpose content across multiple channels. It can be hard enough to sit down and record a video or host a webinar. The best practice we recommend is to create a webinar and turn it into an eBook or guide, then turn the guide into a few blog posts and social posts. For example, you can use the audio from the video and post it as a podcast. You can transcribe the video and post it as a blog. Then, you can take a few key points and create a few social media posts. The possibilities are endless, and repurposing content should definitely be part of your content marketing strategy.

How to Get Started?

Rutkin Marketing is a HubSpot solutions partner and specializes in helping businesses of all sizes finetune their messaging, hone in on their marketing strategy, and grow their sales initiatives. The professional team at Rutkin Marketing can help you identify a strong selling strategy along with an execution plan and KPIs to measure your success in the platform you choose to use.