B2B Content Marketing: 8 Content Types Your B2B Business Should Be Using

A good B2B marketing agency will provide a business with a solid marketing strategy that uses multiple types of content to reach and engage with its audience.

The more content types available, the more opportunities to address different audience needs and learning preferences. This allows you to create content for each stage of the customer journey to nurture leads using a comprehensive B2B or B2B SaaS content marketing strategy.

Although there are plenty of different types of content marketing available, there are 8 types of content creation that are particularly effective in strengthening a SaaS or B2B content marketing funnel and improving its ROI.

1. Blog Posts

Having a good, regularly updated blog leads to 67% more leads month on month, highlighting the value of inbound marketing. Your business is offering far more opportunities for leads to find you through organic search, and more opportunities to position itself as a thought leader in the field.

Of course, to achieve this, however, SEO needs to be an important part of your content and blog strategy.

How to Improve Blog Posts with SEO

Completing keyword research using a platform like SEMrush and Ahrefs allows you to see what your competitors are ranking for, and opportunities to beat them at it. The first 3 search results get 54.4% of all clicks, so improving visibility and ranking is paramount to bringing more eyes, and clicks, to your site.

Using keyword research, a business can identify longtail keywords they have a strong likelihood of ranking for which are less competitive but highly relevant to specific user queries. This is a particularly good tactic when targeting a specific buyer persona need or pain point.

With strategic, well-mastered integration of keywords into blog posts, you can attract more traffic and improve visibility, both of which are instrumental in developing brand awareness.

A good SEO content strategy includes:

• A strong headline: Important for reader and SEO. Incorporating the keyword into the headline tells search engines that this is the primary focus of this article and increases clickthroughs; which in turn, increases ranking.
• Meta descriptions: Include the keyword and a persuasive call-to-action in the meta description to encourage clickthroughs
• Well structured with images and H2s every few paragraphs to break up information into easy, bite-size chunks and improve readability
• Internal links: These create a web to other content on your site, strengthening SEO by showcasing further authority on the topic.
• External links: Linking to legitimate sites helps improve your own site’s legitimacy. Search engines are more likely to increase the ranking of sites that link to other high-quality sites as they recognise the value of your own content.

Different Types of Blog Posts:

A good blog strategy stands on multiple content pillars and has articles for each stage of the user journey. These include:

• Industry knowledge: Create content around the pillars of the industry to demonstrate in-depth knowledge and awareness
• How-to guides: These step-by-step guides or listicles help readers with common problems they face and provide active solutions that improve the user’s knowledge or approach.
• Reactive pieces to address shifting patterns and trends: These highlight a company’s knowledge and reactivity. Being the first out of the gate to highlight new issues or changes, with helpful information and advice, makes your site a reader’s first port of call.
• Product updates: An easy way to cover changes and evolutions in your B2B or B2B SaaS product or service, in a snappy, engaging way readers can easily absorb

You can tailor these blog types to each stage of the B2B content marketing funnel and the various buyer personas market research has identified. Companies like Thomas International do this by creating content that directly resonates with the specific needs of its audience, resulting in an organic reach increase of 89%.

2. Whitepapers and eBooks

These are usually more in-depth than blog posts, offering deep dives into industry topics and shifting trends. They’re particularly effective during the consideration stage of the B2B content marketing funnel, allowing customers a deeper dive into your expertise, and building trust and credibility.

They’re also a good opportunity to increase B2B lead generation and develop the relationship. By offering whitepapers and eBooks as gated content, those most interested (and therefore most likely to convert) will offer their email address in exchange for the download.

These are then placed in the lead funnel for further personalised marketing and targeted content creation.

How to Write a Whitepaper or eBook

When choosing a topic for a deep dive, remember the content should be:

• Engaging: Just because it’s in-depth doesn’t mean it can’t also be easily readable, in accessible language.
• Specific: Make sure the focus addresses the specific challenges the target audience faces. This emphasises the value of the solutions provided
• Action-based: Insights should be actionable and practical, so that readers go away with a game plan, and the feeling that your content was extremely useful.
• Supported: If you want to make a point, use data to back it up. Statistics and studies show the depth of research and attention the content was given, building legitimacy.

3. Case Studies

Case studies are one of the best opportunities to show how a B2B product or service works in the real world. If you have evidence that your service solved a problem, or improved results, then showcase that with a case study to highlight its value.

For example, Common Ground highlighted our work with Elmtec in a way that clearly lays out its impact and success:

The problem: Highlight the problem you were trying to solve and for whom.
Example: Elmtec had to compete against a major seller of the same software.

The goal: What the business wanted to achieve and any KPIs they laid out.
Example: Improve organic conversions and sessions year-on-year.

The solution: What your company did to achieve the business goal.
Example: Common Ground used its expert knowledge to devise a mixture of content creation, on-page improvements and link acquisition strategies.

The result: Provide indicators of success, including any statistics that indicate you achieved the desired KPIs.
Example: The top 3 targeted keywords moved to page one of Google, conversion targets were beaten by 11.92% and there was an overall

8.39% increase in organic sessions.

By emphasising these real, tangible results, you are showcasing the efficacy of your B2B content marketing efforts.

Case studies can be used across marketing campaigns in multiple ways including:

• On the blog
•  In email newsletters
•  In social media marketing
•  Across the website
•  On product pages
•  Part of overall sales collateral

4. Webinars and Podcasts

Webinars and podcasts offer something for more visual or auditory learners. They provide a different way to engage with your audience and build relationships directly – particularly if the content is live.

They also work as another form of gated content, asking potential leads for an email address and name to sign up for the event.

How to Plan a Webinar/Podcast

To maximise the impact of a webinar or podcast, B2B companies should focus on relevant topics and provide insights on how to tackle them. Having a well-known industry professional as a guest can also be a huge boon as it increases legitimacy and your own site’s authoritativeness.

When planning a webinar or podcast make sure to:

• Advertise it across multiple channels including social media, email marketing, company website, etc. A B2B digital marketing agency can help with distribution here.
• Have a consistent schedule: Keep your webinars at the same time and same regularity so leads know when to tune in
• Keep production quality high: No one will listen or watch long if it’s a grainy video with bad sound issues. Having a dedicated place to create, with good equipment will make all the difference in whether people switch on or not.

Learn how content can drive higher volumes of organic traffic and attract quality new prospects by checking out our free webinar: Become
a B2B SEO Content Powerhouse: Your Roadmap to Driving Traffic & Leads

5. Infographics and Visual Content

Just like webinars and podcasts, infographics and visual content give users another way to engage. They can be particularly helpful in expressing complicated information in a visual, aesthetically pleasing way, making it more accessible.
Say, for example, your company has a lot of information on stats and trends to share. An infographic breakdown can be a really good way of giving a lot of number-based information quickly. Visual content is also highly shareable, increasing reach on social media and engagement.

A quick tip: Always use your brand colours. It increases brand awareness and makes your content uniquely recognisable.

B2B Infographic Examples

There are different ways you can repurpose content into an infographic:

• Statistics Infographics: Industry stats, survey results, or data-driven results from your product. Statistics infographics showcase a lot of numerical information in an easier format.
• Process Infographics: A step-by-step visual workflow of a process or how-to helps simplify procedures and showcase certain product benefits.
• Comparison Infographics: A side-by-side comparison of yourself and your competitors. With you coming out on top, of course.
• Features Infographics: A visual way to highlight a key feature in your product or service. They can showcase unique tools or options.

6. Email Newsletters

One of the most effective ways to nurture a B2B lead is through marketing automation and email drip campaigns. Once you have their details, a lead can be placed in an email funnel so they’re spoon-fed industry insights, information and relevant product benefits at the right moment.

It allows you to keep in constant contact with your audience, improving not only the initial success rate but increasing retention and upsells too. 59% of b2b marketers claim it’s their top channel for revenue generation.

By building out strong email campaigns, you’re naturally increasing the chances of leads converting. However, it’s a timely process and the best strategies have multiple automations, segmentations, and different email campaigns to support different parts of the user journey. Making this all cohesive and keeping it running like clockwork can be a challenge.

That’s why a lot of B2B companies choose to outsource this part of their marketing process to an expert content marketing agency that is highly experienced in creating impactful email campaigns.

How to Write an Email Newsletter

Any email newsletter should be:

• Personalised and targeted to the buyer persona
•  Include a catchy subject line that increases open rates
•  Provide a mixture of content including knowledge, promotions and product highlights
•  Consistently sent out, in line with user behaviour and open rates
•  Optimised for mobile (that’s where most people will view it from)

7. Videos

Like webinars, videos are a helpful way to engage audiences differently. They can be used at multiple stages across the buyer journey, and with good SEO, increase rankings and visibility. A bonus is that they increase the length of time a user stays on the page, highlighting to search engines that the content there is highly valuable.

Different Types of Video Content for B2B Marketing:

• Explainer videos: Break down industry topics
• How-to guides: Step-by-step visual guides
• Interviews: Collaborate with other industry professionals to further both brand’s reach (a good b2b agency will be able to get you in touch with like-minded business owners).
• Testimonials: Onscreen, visual and auditory proof your product works so well, that someone was happy to take the time to make a video to express that fact.
• Demo videos: Insights into product features and ways it can improve ROI

Much like webinars and podcasts, video content needs to be targeted, made with good production quality and include a clear call-to-action. As one of the more time-consuming pieces of content creation, getting support from an agency means they can take it off your hands and handle everything from scripting to editing and distribution.

8. Interactive Tools and Calculators

Lastly, particularly in the B2B sphere, showing personalised insights to prospective leads is instrumental. Giving them access to just one of the tools offered on your platform lets leads see its value relative to their product or solution.

Interactivity also encourages memorability and engagement, making leads more likely to remember you in the future.

Types of Interactive Tools for B2B Businesses

• ROI calculators
•  Cost estimators
•  Risk assessors
•  Quizzes
•  Decision Trees

These calculators allow customers to see the exact benefits of using your product or service, increasing their likelihood of converting.

Maximising the Impact of Your B2B Content Marketing

B2B content marketing strategies have multiple layers and the better you can fill out each content type, the more places potential leads have to find and interact with you. However, it’s extremely difficult for one business to regularly create all this content while focussing on other marketing efforts.

That’s why they often outsource the bulk of content marketing to professional B2B content marketing services who can produce quality content for them, quickly.

Get in touch with Common Ground and learn how we develop a business’s B2B content strategy and increase customer engagement.