By 2020, your customers will manage 85% of their relationships without ACTUALLY talking to a human. This means that your assets, including your website, social media, online reviews and your blog will be your customers’ first impression of you. An easy way for companies to interact with their customers in this more indirect way is through a blog. With a B2B (business-to-business) blog, companies can create the content that they most want their customers and prospects to see, putting them in a position to win as a thought leader in their “space.”
Okay we hear you – you think that sounds great but you aren’t sure who or how to create the content to support a B2B blog. Allow us to offer five content creation tips that we’ve come to know through the management of our clients’ blogs and of course, our own!
5 Content Creation Tips for B2B Blogs
1. Determine your audience
Before writing content, make sure you are clear on who your audience is and who you are wanting to reach with your blog. Do your research and consider what they may be searching for online regarding your products and services. Use Google Analytics to check out which keywords are driving traffic to your website and create content around these topics.
2. Create an editorial content calendar
When it comes to blog writing, you can’t just wing it (trust us!). It will be obvious in your writing (and evident in your results) that you weren’t taking the time to think your blog content through in advance. Taking the time to plan out future posts, even if it’s only a month out. This will help keep you focused and allow you to strategically relate your content back to key talking points, sales periods or product seasons.
3. Use current events to your advantage
The content on your customer blog doesn’t always have to be about a specific product or service you offer. Create more interesting content by playing off of current events that can be related back to your business. This will make your content relatable and help engage your audience. Start by keeping a pulse on what is trending within your industry trade publications that affects you and your customers.
4. Create research-driven posts
Want to attract the decision makers in your industry? Publishing data (statistics, graphs, pie charts, etc.) on your blog not only shows you know what you are talking about, but will attract all the right people in the industry you need to reach to grow your business. Which leads me to…
5. Be an expert in your industry
Create a blog that your audience goes to when they want to know trends in the industry, answers and information on a hot topic in the industry or what products and services you offer that can improve their own company. Own it and put time into creating content you are proud of. It will pay off.
We started The Core in 2009, so we’ve picked up on quite a few tips, tricks and our fair share of “misses” when it comes to blogging! Our commitment to this blog has helped to grow our business consistently and successfully over the past 8 years since its inception, and we’re here to help you discover the same results. We worked on 9 blogs in the last 12 months and have plans to help with even more in 2017. If you’re thinking of starting a blog in 2017 and know you will need help getting it off the ground, we can help.
Have something to add? Leave us a comment below or reach out to us on Twitter @TheCoreBlog!
