The majority of business-to-business (B2B) technology companies now invest in content creation, search optimization, social media engagement and digital communications.
According to the Content Marketing Institute, 72 percent of those surveyed report a heavy focus on content creation as part of their overall mix of communications activities. Marketing vendor Kapost recently found that two thirds of B2B companies distribute content across multiple channels, including events, social and demand generation activities.
Yet, many of the B2B marketing and sales professionals I speak with struggle with how to derive measurable value from this ongoing spend. Like a myriad of things in the marketers’ world, ROI remains painfully elusive.
Here are four best practices a company can employ to ratchet up the impact of their investment:
- Develop a company-wide strategy and editorial structure that is informed by overarching industry trends. For many, content, search, social and digital is treated like a bag of tactics. Get strategic and integrate.
- Accelerate content creation to at least four to six new pieces of thought leadership content per month. This seems to be the necessary cadence to maximize readership and interest.
- Consider an additional investment in a content distribution service, such as Outbrain or Taboola. This has proven to be a sure-fire way to bring new readers to your content…quickly.
- Monetize through an alignment with lead generation and account based marketing programs, as well as the incorporation of partners, industry groups and complimentary vendors into the program.
Admittedly, this is the most challenging aspect of any program. At Strategic Communications Group, this is the “2Sales” part of our Web2Sales methodology.
