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Expert Insights: Why Is Content Marketing Still An Effective Marketing Strategy In Generating B2B Leads?

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If you are a B2B marketer, likely, you should be familiar with the term Content Marketing.Basically, it refers to a strategic approach followed by successful B2B marketers, which solely focuses on creating alluring content in order to attract the targeted audience.
Why-is-content-marketing-still-an-effective-marketing-strategy-in-generating-B2B-leads

Expert Insights: Why Is Content Marketing Still An Effective Marketing Strategy In Generating B2B Leads?

Introduction

If you are a B2B marketer, likely, you should be familiar with the term Content Marketing.

Basically, it refers to a strategic approach followed by successful B2B marketers, which solely focuses on creating alluring content in order to attract the targeted audience.

And, the chief reason for its popularity is the exceptional outcomes that content marketing yields to B2B marketers.

Why not!

Studies suggest that 89% of B2B marketers contemplate content marketing as their marketing strategy. Not only this, but 52% out of the rest 11% non-users are planning to embrace it in the following year.

Despite being effective in dispensing exceptional outcomes, content marketing is proven to be more affordable in contrast to other marketing programs. As the studies suggest, it costs 62% less than traditional marketing, while rendering 3 times more leads than traditional marketing.

Even if content marketing has proven to be the best for generating B2B leads, yet there are marketers who still struggle to execute it effectively.

Therefore, I hereby got a few eminent marketing experts who will be sharing their views over the intriguing topic as to Why is content marketing still an effective marketing strategy in generating B2B leads?

Here’s Our Expert Panel

#1 Chris Makara

Chris-Makara

When it comes to B2B lead generation, content marketing works really well in generating and nurturing leads.

Unlike most B2C consumers, B2B leads typically take more touch points and education before being able to move forward with a product or service. Not only do you need to cover the core essentials of your offering, but you need to position it in a way that the reader can be fully prepared to make a case to use your company to other stakeholders within their own.

This is especially true in larger organizations where there are multiple levels of personnel involved in the decision-making process.

And when you have content that provides this insight and resources into the problem your business solves; it helps your lead make a strong case on your behalf.

Author Bio

Since 2003, Chris Makara has developed a broad digital marketing background with a focus on SEO, Social Media, Automation and Analytics. He is the founder of Bulkly, a social media automation tool for individuals and small businesses. You can connect with him on Twitter and LinkedIn .

#2 Josh Barney

Joshua-Barney

Generating leads is not enough anymore – simply having a large email list or tons of telephone numbers to hand over to your sales staff doesn’t make for a successful business that can scale.

Generating interested, relevant and qualified leads is where it’s at – and thanks to content marketing, anybody involved in the B2B space is able to achieve this.

Every business wants to improve their performance, and within every business are decision makers.

By creating content that targets these people and provides value in the way of expert knowledge, a B2B company is able to create awareness about their problem/solution, attract interest and convert prospects into leads.

In the world of digital that means creating consistent written, video and audio content that leads prospects to a place where they trust and respect the knowledge of the B2B brand, and are prepared to take the next step by exchanging content details for high-value gated content (a lead magnet), following on social media, or making an inbound request themselves.

And let’s face it, what position would you rather be in? Generating (and receiving) regular high-quality, qualified leads, or having to fight with low conversion rates and uninterested prospects every single day?

Author Bio

Josh is an award winning content marketer and Director and Shareholder at Einstein Marketer, previously working as a content manager, freelance copywriter and marketer. He writes, edits, proofs and strategies content for Einstein Marketer’s agency and their clients, sharing the most successful tactics and strategies with his audience. You can connect with him on Twitter and LinkedIn.

#3 Shane Barker

Shane-Barker

Content marketing is still one of the most powerful lead-generation strategies for B2Bs. In fact, content marketing beats other marketing forms when it comes to attaining top-of-the-funnel KPIs. Insightful, valuable content plays a key role in educating audiences, improving customer trust, and establishing domain authority. Once brands are able to establish trust and credibility among new audiences, converting them into leads becomes fairly easy. Not only that, but great content also helps brands nurture customer relationships and convert one-time leads into repeat and loyal customers. This means content marketing is a powerful one-in-all lead generation tool for B2Bs.

Author Bio

Shane Barker is a digital marketing consultant who specializes in influencer marketing, content marketing, and SEO. He is the Co-Founder of Attrock, a digital marketing agency. He has consulted with Fortune 500 companies, influencers with digital products, and a number of A-List celebrities. You can contact him on LinkedIn or Twitter.

#4 Sumeet Anand

Sumeet-Anand

Content marketing is an effective B2B lead generation strategy because it can help prospects see you as an industry expert and establish credibility.

Nowadays, B2B clients do more research and need more social proof before making a purchase decision. Sales cycles are longer and B2B buyers need more convincing than regular consumers.

Informative contents like articles, webinars, whitepapers, etc. can help establish you as an authority figure in your industry.

A B2B buyer will be more inclined to buy your product after reading a detailed product review or seeing a tutorial video showing how to use it. Similarly, an informative whitepaper or webinar can show your prospective buyers that you are an expert at what you do.

Different types of content can be used to target customers at different stages of the sales funnel, not just for lead generation. Content marketing, therefore, is and will continue to be an effective marketing tactic for B2B companies.

One additional benefit of using content marketing for B2B lead generation, is that it is a cost-effective tactic. Creating engaging content requires minimal investment and can deliver exceptional results.

So, if you are not investing in content marketing for B2B lead generation, it’s time that you start doing it.

Author Bio

Sumeet Anand is a B2B Marketing Specialist skilled in SEO and Content Marketing. He helps brands and businesses out there generate leads with his top-notch content strategies and is featured across various major media publications across the globe. You can connect with him on Twitter and LinkedIn.

#5 Shreya Pattar

Shreya-Pattar

Content marketing is your business’s engine that drives you to many things – explaining your offerings, marketing your products and services, building your brand, winning your audience’s trust, converting prospects into clients, and more. The aspect I find best about content marketing? It helps in humanizing and sharing your story with the world.

Often, when a B2B prospect approaches me for content marketing, they say, “We are a B2B company. What will you do differently for our content as compared to a B2C company?”

I reply, “B2B or B2C, I will share your story. I will establish an emotional bridge. As a B2B company, we will use facts and figures to find human interest angles.”

This can get confusing – storytelling for B2B companies? How’s that supposed to help?

Well, that’s because – people connect with people, not companies. People have faces, emotions and persona that appeal to senses. For example, we know more stories about Jeff Bezos than about Amazon because we connect to Bezos’ personal struggles & journey and find them inspiring.

Storytelling allows you to create that people-to-people connection, even as a company. It allows you to humanise your company, while creating a lasting influence, building foundational trust, and leveraging connections.

This storytelling could be:
1. Stories of your team members
2. Stories of your customers (narrative testimonials/ case studies)
3. Stories of your company (vision/ service offering/ values)

So, is content marketing still an effective strategy for B2B lead generation? Yes. We have evolved listening to stories that bind us and connect us. As long as people have emotions and connect with stories, content marketing (especially the narrative kind) will live on.

Author Bio

Shreya Pattar is a premium content writer and copywriter, frequently referred to as the ‘LinkedIn Girl.’ Through her unique, narrative LinkedIn posts, she has garnered over 60,000 followers on LinkedIn. Shreya is also a student at Trinity College Dublin, pursuing English Literature & Philosophy.

Shreya’s LinkedIn posts, webinars and Instagram LIVE sessions are much sought-after because of the knowledge, practical advice and clarity she gives to the audience. Through her write-ups and videos, Shreya helps freelancers win more clients and freelance successfully.

Shreya also recently released her first ebook ‘#Anthology‘ which is causing ripples and garnering rave reviews across social media. You can connect with her on Twitter and LinkedIn

#6 Jayson DeMers

Jayson-DeMers

 

Content marketing is a fantastic strategy for generating B2B leads because it provides a way to establish trust and authority through helping people solve an initial problem or answer an initial question. That small help goes a long way toward winning over a customer — or even making them aware that your product or service exists to help solve their problems!

Author Bio

Jayson DeMers is the founder & CEO of EmailAnalytics, a productivity tool that visualizes your email activity — or that of your employees. You can connect with him on Twitter and LinkedIn.

#7 Alex Chris

Alex-Chris

Content marketing is the most effective long-term strategy for generating B2B leads. People are tired of ads chasing them around the web, and with the rising cost of online advertising, companies have no other choice than to turn to content marketing. Through a well-design content marketing campaign, you can reach your potential customers on various channels by providing them with the information they ‘actually’ want to read. Offering solid advice through content, and helping them identify and solve their problems, positions your company as a reliable solutions provider.

Providing value before asking something in return is the best way to generate leads in the B2B world. If you can prove that you understand their problems and know how to solve them, then creating leads it’s easier than trying to sell yourself through ads.

For example, in our blog, we share digital marketing strategies for online business. Although all the steps and techniques are explained in detail, we still get leads from companies that need assistance with their online marketing. In fact, this is how we get all our leads in the last 20 years.

Unlike ads, content marketing takes time to work. It requires a considerable investment (especially at the beginning) but, in the long-term, is the most efficient way to generate high-quality leads for your business.

Author Bio

Alex is the Founder and Digital Marketing Manager of Reliablesoft, a digital marketing agency offering SEO and digital marketing services since 2002. He is also the author of the Digital Marketing Full Course. You can connect with him on Twitter and LinkedIn.

#8 Nikola Baldikv

Nikola-Baldikov

When thinking about why content marketing is still an effective strategy for generating leads, I tend to focus on two areas: establishing your reputation and providing value to potential customers. In terms of reputation, content marketing allows you to demonstrate your business’s expertise in certain areas. This is important because people tend to do their research when choosing which business to become customers of. Having a deeper understanding of subject matter related to your business sector speaks to your credibility and makes it all the more likely that customers will reach out to connect. When it comes to providing value to customers, content marketing is a great way to demonstrate exactly how your product/services can best help customers, while at the same time keeping them abreast of the latest trends. This is highly appealing as it can help you not only reach, but engage with, a wider audience. When it comes to lead generation, this engagement is key.

Author Bio

Nikola Baldikov is a Digital Marketing Manager at Brosix, specializing in SAAS marketing, SEO, and outreach strategies. Besides his passion for digital marketing, he is an avid fan of football and loves to dance. You can connect with him on LinkedIn and Twitter.

#9 Jimmy Rodriguez

Jimmy-Rodriguez

The decision-making process for businesses follows a longer cycle than retail, and in most cases, this starts with research to get an additional understanding on the issues the business is experiencing, or to determine potential solutions to be evaluated.

With content marketing, you’re able to produce content that helps businesses during this stage. As they conduct their online research, they’ll run into articles with relevant and targeted information, and if your content marketing efforts are answering these questions, then you’ll be able to capture them as leads.

Consider these pieces of content as lead magnets, where you list potential issues the business might be experiencing or the reasons why the situation could be happening. The next step in your conversion funnel should be to present additional content with a potential solution, in the form of an ebook or white paper, that requires them to provide contact information to access it, and allows you to start an email nurturing campaign.

Author Bio

COO & Co-founder of 3dcart. focused on helping internet retailers succeed online by developing strategies, actionable plans and customer experiences that grow and improve performance. You can connect with him on Twitter and LinkedIn.

#10 Tina Donati

Tina-Donoti

The reality of B2B content marketing is that you’re working to nurture leads at all stages of the buyer’s journey, and the B2B marketing funnel is a lot bigger than the B2C one. This means there’s more content work involved to move potential customers along their journey to make a decision to buy into your business or use your services. Despite the long journey, a good content marketing strategy will effectively do this job, which is why there’s so much potential for content marketing with B2B businesses.

I’ve seen it over and over again where consistent strategizing and content creation significantly increases your website visitors and leads more people into the funnel with them sharing email addresses for gated content and newsletter signups. The advice I have is to always be researching what other top businesses are doing with their content marketing, replicate their working strategies into one that fits your brand, do keyword research and incorporate those keywords into your blogs, and always be reusing and recycling previous content in other ways (such as publishing a guide, a case study, social media posts, etc).

Always be publishing.

Author Bio

Tina Donati is a content marketing specialist at Octane AI. Trusted by over 1,000 Shopify and Shopify Plus brands, Octane AI powers ecommerce businesses to target and retain customers through personalized Facebook Messenger and SMS marketing automation.

Aside from sharing daily tips for ecommerce brands to grow, Tina spends her time perusing Linkedin and Twitter, online shopping, reading about content marketing best practices, or walking her dogs. You can connect with her on Twitter and LinkedIn .

#11 Jessica Pereira

Jessica-Pereira

A B2B content marketing strategy demonstrates credibility, knowledge, and brand awareness. Lead generation, specifically, attracts prospects to your B2B funnel and increases their likelihood of purchasing your product. Content marketing is a big step further to shortening your sales cycle and retaining long-lasting customers. It’s a marathon, but it’s worth it.

Author Bio

Jessica Pereira is a digital marketing writer. She aims to help businesses increase their online presence with B2B content, blog posts, and web copy. You can connect with her on Twitter and LinkedIn.

#12 Klaudija Nikolova

Klaudija-Nikolova

Content marketing is and always will be an effective marketing strategy for generating B2B leads. This is because behind every business there’s a team of humans. And humans, as we know, love being told stories.

Although managers at the top of the ladder often disregard content marketing as a successful tool for B2B, the marketing team should know better. Yes, it can be less effective compared to generating B2C leads, but still works like magic if you know how to leverage it.

By producing and distributing quality content your leads are able to get a notion of your expertise. Whether it’s a podcast, vlog, infographics, white papers or something else.

As a B2B business ourselves, we often peak at the blogs of the companies trying to convert us. If the content they publish gives no real value, and speaks about their field of expertise in an incomprehensible way – we’ll pass. Like Einstein said, “If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough.”

For example, we’ve had marketing agencies trying to sell us their services. One look at their social media content and you understand that it’s them who need the marketing help.

Author Bio

Klaudija Nikolova is a Growth & Engagement Officer at Enterprise League, taking care of content marketing and PR. You can connect with her on LinkedIn and Twitter .

#13 Matthew Speiser

Matthew-Speiser

For B2B brands, content marketing can grow brand awareness, build trust, and foster brand affinity, all of which in turn can drive high value actions. By creating content that distills complex subjects in layman’s terms, you create more knowledgeable prospects, which will then be able to better understand the value proposition of your product or service. Furthermore, great content can rank highly in Google search engine results pages, which is still the #1 place people go to find information. By being the top search result, you can funnel hundreds of potential prospects to your website.

Author Bio

Matthew Speiser is a content specialist at Knotch, focusing on all things content marketing. He previously contributed to content marketing efforts at Google and Fundera. You can connect with him on LinkedIn and Twitter .

#14 Abdulaziz Mohamed Ali

Abdulaziz-Ali

Content marketing is a long-term game. Like the movie we all love “Endgame”. There are plenty of businesses that are offering the services or products similar to yours. So how do you distinguish yourself? By offering them value. The value can be information or entertaining them. The goal is to establish a trust-based relationship. Once your customers trust you, sales happen.

Author Bio

Abdulaziz Mohamed is a Content Strategist & Content Creator at  Digital Growth Boost. You can connect with him on LinkedIn.

#15 Taru Bhargava

Taru-Bhargava

There’s been a constant debate on whether or not Content Marketing is a tactic that B2B businesses should invest in. As a content marketer for a B2B company, my answer is big YES! At Genbook we knew early on that content is the best way to communicate with our customers, answer their big questions, solve their key problems, and set them on a path of growth and success.

In fact, according to Demand Metric, Content marketing costs 62% less than traditional marketing and generates about 3 times as many leads and they can’t be more right. With our core focus on small business entrepreneurs in grooming & wellness, content marketing serves as the top channel for generating organic traffic, first touch leads and signups— month on month.

It’s 2020 and if you aren’t investing in content marketing, you’re definitely leaving money on the table.

Author Bio

Taru is the Content Marketing Specialist at Genbook. She has a keen interest in B2B SaaS businesses as once made to the list of 100 amazing marketers to follow on Twitter by Search Engine Journal. She enjoys good food, tea, and slapstick humor. You can connect with her on Twitter and LinkedIn.

#16 Dave Grendzynski

Dave-Grendzynski

Content marketing will always be an effective marketing strategy for generating B2B leads because you’re providing valuable, relevant information to your customers. You’re not just “selling them stuff”, you’re proving your worth by solving their problems. There will always be a need for that.

What makes it so effective is that when it’s done right, your customers will come to rely on you for the information you’re providing. They’ll start looking for it. And they will view you as an expert in the industry.

They’re looking for answers, help, and advice and they don’t want to be sold to. So, by educating your customers, demonstrating that you get what they’re going through and you can help them resolve their challenges, you can quickly build trust. And trust is the foundation for any relationship.

Author Bio

Dave uses the skills that won him three Emmy Awards as a television news producer to create compelling content for his clients at Kuno Creative. You can connect with him on Twitter and LinkedIn.

#17 John Doherty

John-Doherty

Content marketing is still the most effective strategy in generating B2B leads because it allows you to most easily target prospects across the conversion funnel at a lower cost than paid ads. Content isn’t for everyone, and it’s not just SEO, but when you have the right people creating it and are answering your prospect’s questions content can be an amazing channel for B2B lead growth.

Author Bio

John Doherty is the founder & CEO of Credo, where they help companies connect quickly with the best pre-vetted digital marketing firms. You can connect with him on Twitter and LinkedIn.

#18 Killian Kelly

Killian-Kelly

I’d go as far as to say it’s more effective than ever. Considering the importance of building trust and relationships in today’s digital world where people are wary of misleading information, and dislike being flat-out sold to. A solid content marketing strategy gives you the opportunity to position yourself as a source of trustworthy and valuable information within your area.

It’s a strategy that offers value first-and-foremost without asking them to reach for their wallet straight off the bat. This is crucial in building relationships and trust with your audience, and ultimately create great quality leads. Great quality leads require great quality content that resonates with your audience – be it blogs, podcasts, videos, or even social updates. Once you’ve established yourself as a legitimate player in the game through your content, ask them to subscribe to that podcast, newsletter, blog, or download your value-packed e-book for their contact info.

Post-lead generation, keep that value and content coming, and refine your content to focus on the specific interest or issue that lead has. Personalise your communication with that lead and your content marketing strategy should simultaneously build relationships, generate leads, and position yourself as a solution to all their problems (or at least some of them!)

When the time is right, offer your main product or service. At this point they may be willing to take the next step up. You’d be surprised about the power of reciprocity! You’ve given them tons of value for not much in return. If your product or service is a good fit for their business, and the price is right, they may see the value and be willing to return the favour.

Author Bio

Killian Kelly is a content marketing and SEO specialist at Design Wizard – an easy-to-use online graphic design software. He is also co-founder of Celtic Roots Apparel – an apparel company making sustainable hemp-made baseball caps for Irish-American’s celebrating their Irish heritage.You can connect with him on LinkedIn.

#19 AbdulGaniy Shehu

AbdulGaniy-Shehu

Content marketing remains one of the few marketing strategies that a lot of B2B businesses still trust and use based on recent research from the Content Marketing Institute.

This is because, with content marketing, you’re able to educate your customers and prospects about your products and services.

And when you educate your prospects about what you do, it becomes much easier to nurture and eventually convert them into leads.

Not only that, when done right, content marketing stands the test of time, compared to other forms of marketing.

For instance, you can rank on the first page of Google for relevant keywords in your industry, which will continue to generate B2B leads for your company for many years.

Author Bio

AbdulGaniy Shehu is a Content Marketer & Consultant for B2B and SaaS brands. He’s currently the Lead Content Strategist at Winsome Writer. You can connect with him on Twitter and LinkedIn.

#20 Tariehk Geter

Tariehk-Geter

Internet marketing, and in particular, content marketing offers the distinct advantage of a targeted audience they can cater to. Most of the online ads are placed on specific websites where interested users are bound to click on the link and eventually may buy the stated product or service offered. By catering to the audience, the product is meant to, it will have a higher chance of being bought.

Content marketing tries to place a focus on the interests of the public rather than placing the product or service on a higher note. Usually, the ads will portray in a more specific way how the consumer can benefit from using or taking such a product or service.

Online and content ads are immediate and real-time, which means one gets to inform their audience of the halt to the promotion. Considering that the World Wide Web is global and has a 24-hour timetable, it means people have this opportunity to get the latest details on the products. Websites for content marketing are generally free as anyone can build up a web page from scratch. On the other hand, for those companies that want the aid of expert marketers, the charges will definitely be cheaper than the conventional marketing schemes.

As a whole, the strategic platform offered by content marketing nowadays has a global reach. Hence, if one intends to reach millions of targeted buyers, it would be wise to use this medium as it encompasses a vast audience in a worldwide market.

Author Bio

Tariehk Geter is a seasoned business owner and co-founder of OSI Affiliate Software which gives businesses the opportunity to set up and manage their own affiliate and customer referral programs.

With over 20 years of experience managing and running various aspects of the company, Tariehk has a wealth of information that he can share. His current responsibilities involve leading product development activities for the company as well as managing all marketing and search engine optimization. You can connect with him on Twitter and LinkedIn.

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About Author

Sumeet Anand is a B2B Marketing Expert skilled in SEO, Social Media Marketing, and Content Marketing. He helps brands and businesses out there generate leads with his top-notch content strategies and is featured on various major media publications across the globe. You can connect with him on Twitter and LinkedIn.
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