Tag Archives: B2B Content Writing

What type of content is needed for B2B marketing?

What content is needed for B2B marketing.

The efficacy of your content depends on its targeting.

When you’re targeting a B2B market you need to keep in mind what your B2B customers and clients are looking for.

91% B2B marketers use content to spread awareness about their businesses.

Broadly, businesses are of two types: business to consumers and business to business.

My content writing services, for example, are business to business.

I provide my business services to other businesses who then use my services to grow their businesses.

You may like to read: Strategy for creating effective B2B pillar pages

Content requirements for B2C and B2B are different.

When you’re selling to consumers (B2C) pretty much anyone can be your customer or client.

If you’re selling a mobile phone, right from a rickshaw puller to a luxury resort owner to a blockchain developer to a NASA scientist, can be your customer. Everybody these days buys a mobile phone.

The same goes for your food delivery service. Everyone will be using your food delivery service.

In B2B, or business to business, the audience for your content is relatively focused, although, for my content writing services, I would say that any business that intends to promote itself on the web, needs content, or needs a content writer.

Nonetheless, if one wants to narrow down, all my businesses want to create a presence on the Internet with compelling content.

All my businesses want to improve their search engine rankings.

All my businesses want to improve their conversion rate.

So, in that sense, the audience is narrower.

Here is an interesting piece of data that I came across today in the morning: 70% of the B2B customers get information right from the website of the business they intend to deal with.

What does this mean?

If a B2B customer or client wants to know more about you, he or she rather go through your website than other sources such as blogs hosted elsewhere or social media timelines.

Therefore, it is very important to have quality content on your website if you serve the B2B market.

What type of content is preferred by B2B customers and clients?

Authoritative content. Content that has lots of open data and study material.

The stakes are higher.

They are not spending money on a consumable.

They are spending money on a product or a service that is intended to contribute towards their business growth.

As a B2B client, why do you want to hire my content writing services? You want to

Improve your search engine rankings.
Establish your authority.
Educate visitors about the benefits of using your product or service.
Increase the level of engagement when people visit your website or go through your social media feeds on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram.
Increase the CTR of your email marketing campaigns.

Basically, you want to convince people and you want to convince as many people as possible by increasing your visibility.

To hire my content writing service for your B2B enterprise, in a similar fashion, you too need to be convinced.

For that, I continuously share blog posts through which I share my knowledge of content writing and online copywriting.

I explain to my B2B customers and clients the various concepts of content writing and copywriting.

I illustrate how my content writing and copywriting services can help them improve their visibility.

Basically, I’m sharing lots of knowledge.

When creating content for a B2B marketplace it is the knowledge and verifiable information that do the trick.

You can present this knowledge in the form of web pages, blog posts, infographics, white papers & case studies as well as email campaigns.

Strategy for creating effective B2B pillar pages

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Content clusters and pillar pages for B2B enterprises.

What are pillar pages?

A few years ago I wrote a blog post explaining what are pillar pages: What are topic clusters and pillar pages? And how to use them to improve your SEO.

Moz recently published a whiteboard update titled A step-by-step strategy for B2B pillar pages.

Why pillar pages for B2B?

There is greater competition in B2B. Pillar pages increase your stickiness as there a greater number of topics to explore.

Your B2B customers and clients need to process more information before they can decide to do business with you because the stakes are higher.

Pillar pages constructed with the help of topic clusters prove that you have enough knowledge about your field.

Not just pillar pages, B2B customers and clients prefer to read white papers, case studies and even e-books. The more content you can provide them, the better it is for your business.

The whiteboard from Moz update is primarily focused at helping you improve your search engine rankings to creating B2B pillar pages.

Obviously, it involves studying your keywords and creating a proper URL structure.

As I always tell my clients, when it comes to researching keywords for your business, don’t think in terms of what or how you think of your business; think in terms of how your prospective customers and clients think of your business.

Address their concerns. For that, you need to understand their language. What words do they use when you talk about your business? This becomes the basis of your keywords.

Now that I have read the script of the whiteboard, it doesn’t contain lots of good information. Anyway, I will try to cover some topics.

Making more sense of topic clusters and pillar pages

Although these days I have been repeatedly writing posts on why I prefer smaller blog posts, when it comes to improving your search engine rankings, pillar pages hefted by topic clusters definitely have an advantage over smaller, standalone blog posts and web pages.

In fact, topic clusters are exactly multiple short blog posts that are a part of a bigger pillar page.

Pillar pages are used to improve your search engine rankings for a broader topic. You choose a topic that may have 10-15 subtopics.

You cover all these 10-15 subtopics in individual blog posts – this forms your topic cluster. You can interlink these topic list of pages or blog posts.

Then you have a pillar page, or a pillar blog post that links to all these cluster links.

You can create a pillar page by writing small intros about all these 10-15 subtopics and then link to them.

What is the benefit of creating topic clusters and pillar pages?

The benefit is multifaceted. In terms of creating content, it is easier to create a topic cluster because you can publish individual blog posts and web pages on smaller topics.

Managing the flow is easier when you write and publish segmented content. It’s like writing smaller chapters of a book. Every blog post belonging to the topic cluster can be around 400-800 words, which are easier to write.

You can create the pillar page or the pillar post in the beginning and then keep updating it with new intros and your links. It can be an evolutionary exercise. Don’t rush over it. Take your time.

Pillar pages and their related topic clusters improve your search engine rankings in the long run.

How to create topic clusters and pillar pages for B2B enterprise?

Pillar pages and topic clusters are mostly related with improving search engine rankings, but they shouldn’t just be created for that. Pillar pages and topic clusters, especially when you write them for your B2B enterprise, also increase engagement and conversion.

They help you establish your authority. So, don’t just try to cram as many keywords as possible into your topic clusters and pillar pages. Have a plan to create a knowledge base. Here are a few things you can do to create effective topic clusters and pillar pages for your B2B enterprise:

Use a main pillar page topic

This could be something like “Step-by-step guide to creating a B2B content marketing strategy”.

It is obvious that this topic needs to cover a broad range of subtopics such as digital marketing, email marketing, search engine optimization, social media marketing, PPC campaigning, multiple format content publishing, quality content writing, creating a publishing calendar, and others.

The broad topic doesn’t have to be exactly the keyword you want to optimize for. In the above topic, maybe you want to optimize for “B2B content marketing services”. But, such a topic may not attract enough traffic and besides, it might be quite difficult if other businesses have already created content clusters around this topic.

You will need to be creative. A pillar page topic shouldn’t be something that you must come up with in a hurry. Spend some time. Brainstorm. Do keyword research. Then create a topic that would attract people to your content cluster.

Create smaller posts containing your keywords

Within your B2B content marketing, there are many subtopics such as B2B digital marketing, or B2B email marketing, or B2B search engine optimization, and such. Write and publish individual blog posts on these topics and then link to them from your main pillar page.

Creating a pillar page or a content cluster may be a long-term undertaking

This is going to be a comprehensive project. Don’t be in any hurry. It is like building a structure that is going to generate business for you for years to come.

Do enough research. Write quality content. Deliver maximum quality. Don’t try to exploit some sort of search engine vulnerability by creating random content on chosen keywords.

Remember that your bounce rate can affect your search engine rankings. Bounce rate depends on how people interact with your content. Keep this in mind. Writing and publishing inferior quality content will be counter-productive.

Well, I intended to write a short blog post with just an intro to the Moz whiteboard update. But then, when I started writing, I noticed that the whiteboard doesn’t have enough information and it is a simple regurgitation of often-repeated topics. Hence, I ended up writing more words than I had initially intended.

The Importance of Credibility in B2b Content Writing

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The importance of credibility in B2B content writing.

B2B content writing is all about establishing your credibility. Your business partners need information they can trust.

On your website and blog, you can write anything, and you can claim anything. Unless the information that you present is backed with evidence, it doesn’t make much of an impact.

Credibility comes with proof.

Credibility comes when you show up regularly.

One sure shot way of presenting proof is publishing lots of case studies and testimonials on your website that showcase what you have achieved for your customers and clients.

Another way is, sharing your knowledge and wisdom on an ongoing basis.

“Ongoing basis” is very important if you want to establish your credibility as a B2B entity.

What does credible content writing for B2B mean?

What does credibility mean? It means the degree of trust that people have in you.

It is difficult to establish trust unless you actually work with someone but then, there is always the first time – the first time you need to work with someone. How do you establish trust if you haven’t yet worked with someone?

For a few months I have been charging full advance from my clients. This happened when, in the aftermath of the Covid-19 outbreak, many clients simply vanished. I had spent weeks working on their assignments and then suddenly, they dropped their projects and expressed their helplessness when I asked for even partial payments.

Since then, I’ve been asking a full advance. It’s the presence of my website and my blog that reassures them. It’s the credibility my persistent content publishing has been able to establish that makes them agree to this precondition.

As I have already mentioned above, one way is, publishing lots of case studies (in which you explain how you have actually solved problems of your customers and clients) and testimonials.

There may be some compulsions when you cannot share testimonials. For example, when I write for some clients, they want me to keep it secret that I’m writing for them because they publish the content on their name, especially when they’re publishing the content on niche websites and blogs to establish their own credibility.

I mostly serve B2B industries. I write content for websites and blogs and that in turn, generates more business for people. I’m always writing for businesses. Even when I write for individuals, they intend to use my content writing and copywriting services to get more business.

I get lots of business because of the content that I’m constantly publishing on my website and Credible Content Blog. Regularly publishing content related to content writing, copywriting and content marketing helps me maintain higher search engine rankings and this in turn makes it easier for my prospective clients to find me and hire me.

How do establish my own credibility?

In many cases, just the fact that my clients can find my website on search engines (something that they want to achieve for their own websites and blogs) reassures them that I can achieve the similar feat for their websites.

Another thing is, they can check that I have been publishing content for years. It tells them, I have a serious business. I maintain my visibility. I’m constantly sharing my knowledge and experience through my blog. I publish a newsletter. There are no negative reviews about my services on the Internet.

What else can be done to establish your credibility as a B2B entity? TopRank Marketing has recently published a blog post that shares some useful tips on establishing your credibility as a B2B enterprise. Here they are:

Always be truthful when you are presenting information on your website

Many people will tell you that what’s true, is subjective. When my clients give me information and then I use that information to present their case convincingly, I assume that the information that they are giving me, is truthful. I assume that they don’t want to publish lies on their website.

Consequently, I always have a problem when they ask me to write testimonials. On multiple occasions I have turned up with their requests for writing testimonials. I can be creative with truth, sometimes they tell me.

Although I cannot question my clients on the information that they provide me, I draw a line when they ask me to write testimonials from scratch.

It is fine to be truthful even if you have not yet done lots of work for your clients. Really, clients will appreciate this.

Associate with people who have already established their credibility

I’m not suggesting you latch onto them and neither does the above-mentioned blog post. What it means is, people who have already established their credibility, will only allow you proximity if they find you credible.

When your prospective customers and clients see you regularly interacting with people who have already established their credibility through hard work and ingenuity, 2 things happen: they easily discover you because people who have already established their credibility have a greater reach, and, some of their credibility rubs off to you.

How do you associate with people who are already authority figures in your industry?

Leave comments on their blogs. Share their content on your own blog with your own, original take. Share their content on your social media timeline. Participate in discussions.

Again, regularity is very important.

Make sure that your prospective customers and clients can find your content on right places

If most of your clients are on LinkedIn, it doesn’t make sense to focus on Instagram or Facebook. Similarly, if most of your audience spends its time on Facebook, you shouldn’t expend much energy on LinkedIn.

For B2B enterprises, it is primarily LinkedIn because it is a professional network where people are already looking for business partnerships.

Highlight the purpose of your brand

The concept of branding in itself is a purpose. People recognize your brand not because of your logo, but the purpose and the attitude that it carries. The brand purpose is the reason for your business to exist beyond making money.

As a content writer, I aspire to help you grow your business and spread your ideas when you hire me. Writing is a tool. Just like a sculptor uses chisel and hammer to carve out shapes out of rocks, I use words to create compelling messages for your business. That’s my branding message for Credible Content.

Having a very clear brand message can help you establish your credibility and trustworthiness.

Get involved with the community

Active participation in your community also enhances your credibility. Are you here just to make money or do you also want to make a positive contribution where it matters? I’m not suggesting that from a businessperson you turn into an activist, but whenever it’s possible, get involved in causes and campaigns that affect your customers and clients. Take a stand. Help people wherever you can.

Be consistent with your marketing message

Content marketing is a persistent activity. Not just because it helps you maintain your visibility, it’s also because your competitors are constantly trying to outdo you in terms of promoting themselves and publishing fresh content.

Even if you enjoy brand loyalty if you don’t maintain your visibility through fresh content, people begin to spend time consuming content from other brands. No matter how much emotional attachment you enjoy with your customers and clients, if your marketing message is not persistent, you’re going to lose the attention of your target audience and consequently, it negatively impacts your credibility.

Building credibility for your B2B enterprise is same as building your personal reputation. How do you build your personal reputation? By your conduct. By your values. By the services that you deliver. By the experience people have when they associate with you. The same applies to your business.

How to boost your B2B business with content writing

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First, some statistics: (these represent North America but the analogy is applicable to anywhere in the world) according to this research by Content Marketing Institute, MarketingProfs and Brightcove combined, 93% B2B marketers use content marketing one way or another. 42% of them say they are quite effective at it, this means they have a clue of what they are doing and they are getting positive results. $ 16.6 billion are being invested annually by B2B companies creating and publishing content. That’s a lot of money.

Content is needed everywhere, whether you get it written, videod, drawn or photographed. This is what people see, acknowledge, grasp and then base their decisions upon. It is the experience that they have on your website or blog. They wouldn’t bother checking out your online presence unless something draws them to it and what draws them to your website? Right, your content. You may think that it’s your product or service that is drawing them, but exactly what represents your product or service. If you’re selling mobile phones, you can’t put mobile phones on your website, can you? You need to put photographs. You need to publish their descriptions. If possible you also need to submit reviews. Then there are specifications, model details, et cetera. Whatever you put on your website, it’s content.

Why do B2B customers look for content, especially written content?

Take the mobile phones example. If you’re just a normal customer (and not a B2B customer) not much is at stake. At the most you may buy one or two mobile phones.

But what about the bulk buyer? He or she is your B2B customer. Maybe he or she is buying in bulk in order to sell the phones on his or her e-commerce website or even a normal retail store. Not only is he or she spending lots of money buying from you, he or she is also making a critical business decision. Wouldn’t he or she like to know more about your mobile phones? Wooden he or she like to know more about you as a reliable supplier of the product that he or she intends to sell? What are the prospects of selling these mobile phones? Primarily for what features would people buy these mobile phones? How many people are already buying these phones? If more people are buying these phones, why? What do the existing users have to say about these phones? Your B2B customer would like to know as much as possible about the product before investing so much money.

B2B customers do lots of research, and study. Otherwise they may end up losing lots of money. This is why they consume as much content as possible before making a decision in your favor.

Boosting your B2B business with content writing

So how does content writing help your B2B business (actually it sounds strange, “B2B business” means “business to business business)?

You need to convince your B2B customers that you are giving them a profitable deal. Profitable deal doesn’t just entail selling your product or service as cheap as possible, the more important thing is, you are reliable, trustworthy and above all, you have full knowledge of your field. If you are selling mobile phones of a particular brand at a particular time, you know the inside out of that mobile phone. You not only know the technical specifications, you also know exactly why people are buying that particular model and why your B2B customers should buy this phone in order to do further business. How can you achieve that? How can you instil such confidence among your B2B customers?

By constantly engaging them with your content. You need to satiate their desire to know more and more. Remember that when they come to your website they already have a plethora of apprehensions, and naturally. After all they are going to make a business investment. They’re going to spend lots of money on you. So they need to know more about your business, about you, and the product that they are about to purchase, in bulk, by paying you lots of money. They need to feel confident. They need to feel at ease. The best way to instil confidence in them is to make them familiar to you, your presence and your product as much as possible. This can be done by writing content regularly. Useful content. Content that helps them make a decision.

Now, the decision doesn’t necessarily have to be in your favor – your primary motive for publishing content is helping people make a better decision for themselves (even if they don’t buy from you, the others will). Of course you have to draw a line. It’s no use publishing “helpful content” if all you are achieving is sending customers to your competitors.