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Tag: B2B Marketing

  • 5 Key Strategies to Boost Your Content Marketing | Entrepreneur

    5 Key Strategies to Boost Your Content Marketing | Entrepreneur

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    Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

    Content marketing for B2B SaaS brands is a leading source of business success. According to ProfitWell, SaaS brands that prioritize content marketing experience a higher growth rate than those that don’t.

    Utilizing content marketing for your B2B SaaS brand can be a profitable venture. But not all content marketing strategies work optimally.

    Good content marketing involves lots of planning to produce desired results for your B2B SaaS business. There are ways to boost the performance of your B2B SaaS content marketing, and you are about to find out how.

    Related: Top B2B Marketing Strategies for SaaS Businesses

    What is B2B SaaS content marketing?

    Content marketing is a brand marketing approach that involves the creation and distribution of relevant and valuable content for your target audience.

    For SaaS B2B brands, content marketing is targeted at satisfying the content needs of target users for every stage of the buyer’s journey in order to generate leads, conversions and customer retention.

    Why is content marketing important for SaaS?

    Reports show that 92% of marketers view content as an integral asset to their business. Good content marketing can generate over 448% ROI for SaaS brands. This is why lots of marketers are utilizing content marketing as a strategy to grow their business.

    Also, content marketing is a cheaper alternative to traditional marketing. Content marketing costs 62% less and generates three times more leads than traditional marketing. This makes it a more cost-effective marketing option.

    More so, content marketing is a great way to connect with your target market. Ninety-five percent of B2B buyers say that content provides a trustworthy parameter when evaluating the business. This means that your content is usually the first or most impressionable point of connection to your brand for your target users.

    The right content gives them an insight into your business and a reason to trust your brand as an industry expert with the right solutions.

    For example, a blog post on how to create beginner-friendly graphic designs by a graphics design brand like Canva can draw in users to the brand and its product services.

    Saas content marketing examples

    Adobe:

    Adobe uses an online magazine and publication site CMO.com as a social platform to engage users. Here, users can learn, share and get help from one another.

    While this content marketing strategy might seem elaborate, it has generated business success for the brand, and the publications are evergreen for specific content needs of users.

    Monday.com:

    Monday.com uses videos in its brand’s content marketing. They create instructional YouTube videos which enhance their organic traffic.

    This clever content marketing style is great for attracting users and getting the best engagements.

    Mailchimp:

    Mailchimp uses brand storytelling through short films and documentaries to deliver relevant content to its audiences. This is a great tool for brand awareness that sticks in the minds of users.

    The outcome of this high-performing content marketing is trustworthiness and brand loyalty for the B2B SaaS business.

    Related: 6 Key Tips to Level Up Your Content Marketing Strategy

    5 ways to boost your B2B SaaS content marketing

    1. Conduct proper research

    Proper research will enhance the odds of high-performing content for your SaaS B2B content marketing. It gives you an insight into your target market and the kind of content that works.

    This involves researching the target buyers, your competitors and the market behavior of your target industry. You can track the market through surveys, trends and engagements as well.

    To get the best outcome out of your research, creating a buyer persona from your research can be useful.

    2. Focus on the buyer’s journey

    The content needs of your target market for every stage of the sales funnel in their purchase journey are different. This is why your content marketing has to expand beyond a single focus.

    For example, an existing buyer will require content that keeps them engaged and loyal to your brand, whilst a prospective buyer needs more persuasive content to attract sales conversion.

    You can use blog posts, newsletters, podcasts, videos or user-generated content like reviews and testimonials for different stages of your buyer’s journey.

    However, every buyer’s journey is different, and this means the type of content that works for them in each stage differs. This is why creating a buyer persona can be handy.

    3. Utilize keywords strategy

    For users to find your content, you have to use the right keywords that are relevant to their search queries.

    For example, content with the keywords “best project management tools” will be relevant to a search query for someone looking for project management tools, and it will appear on the search engine results page (SERP).

    The important thing about utilizing keywords in your content marketing is research and placement.

    Keyword research will help you know what your target audiences are looking for, giving you an idea of what content to create. Also, you can use keyword tools to understand how your audiences want to see the keywords in your content.

    For example, if users are asking “Why is email marketing good for your business?” you may want to add that to your content to improve your chances of ranking on the SERP with related content.

    4. Build content authority

    One of the factors that contribute to your brand’s trustworthiness is the reputation attached to your brand. Content marketing is great for building a reputation as an authority in your industry.

    Whilst this can be done through the relevance and high-quality information that is contained in your content, you can really enjoy the brand authority more if you are referenced by other brands.

    This means you have to create content that can be a data resource for other brands’ content or participate in guest posting to get external links from other sites.

    Also, external links boost your reach because your content is exposed to new and larger audiences that are different from your own audiences.

    5. Use social media

    Social media is one of the most successful ways to reach an audience. However, it is vital to choose a platform with the right demography of users for your business.

    B2B brands generally do better with more professional social media platforms like LinkedIn. Ninety-four percent of B2B SaaS brands use LinkedIn as a distribution channel for their content.

    Related: 5 Steps to Creating a Content Marketing Strategy That Actually Works

    Platforms like Medium, Reddit, Quora and Twitter are great, too. However, you can succeed with your content marketing on social media if you create engaging content.

    For example, videos and trending topics can drive traffic to your content. Also, user-generated content like hashtag campaigns can be helpful for social media content marketing.

    The performance of your content marketing is based on your content marketing strategy. Knowing what to do and how to do it can really go a long way in producing the desired result. It also helps to evaluate your content through regular content audits. You can always update or recreate content when necessary.

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    Toby Nwazor

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  • 4 Strategies for B2B Marketers to Increase ROI During the Economic Downturn | Entrepreneur

    4 Strategies for B2B Marketers to Increase ROI During the Economic Downturn | Entrepreneur

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    Disclosure: Our goal is to feature products and services that we think you’ll find interesting and useful. If you purchase them, Entrepreneur may get a small share of the revenue from the sale from our commerce partners.

    As the economy slows, B2B marketers are being challenged with longer sales cycles, lower deal amounts and churning customers. If that isn’t enough, many companies are slashing marketing spend.

    With that being said, CMOs can see significant short-term improvements that will help them power through the forecasted downturn by focusing on these areas of their business:

    Related: 5 Mistakes To Avoid in Your Digital Marketing

    1. Optimizing campaigns for offline conversion events

    Your most important priority should be to integrate your advertising platforms with your CRM or demand-gen platform. This will allow you to optimize your ad campaigns for bottom-funnel conversion events. This is especially important when using Google since you can use Google’s algorithm to optimize your campaigns for bottom-of-funnel events. If you have a sales team that takes inbound calls, make sure to get third-party call analytics software that can track calls by channel and down to the most granular source. Having phone tracking will let you identify which marketing channel is contributing to sales and help you make budget allocation decisions.

    2. Marketing channels with short-term CAC payback periods

    Privacy changes have made marketing attribution tools less reliable in the last two years and makes finding winning campaigns more complex. To overcome this, you can ask users on form sign-ups or post-purchase surveys how they found your business. While also not 100% reliable, these self-reported attribution workflows can help you see which channel is driving the most sales. Based on what customers are telling you and what your other attribution tools show, you can then allocate budget by channel based on their relative performance and pause what’s not working.

    3. Your best customer cohorts

    When sales performance starts to drop, investigate your data to see which customer cohorts are underperforming or churning, and exclude them from your ad targeting. This could be unprofitable business verticals, job titles, geographic regions, age or other demographic cohorts. If you have a revenue intelligence platform to listen to and/or transcribe call recordings, analyze the calls that resulted in demos and sales.

    For example, if calls show a spike in Fintech startups that are purchasing your product, test new ad creative with what they say they like about your product and test landing pages with matching messaging. On the media buying front, see if you can improve targeting for this cohort and get more ads to serve it.

    It’s also important to keep track of buyer personas. You can figure out which persona to focus on by running a report on all your customers and their respective job title, and then focus your marketing on the personas with the highest lead count. Make sure to arm your prospects with the metrics they look for — that is, you’ll need to show that the service or solution is an investment, not a cost.

    Related: Digital Marketing 101 for Entrepreneurs

    4. Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO)

    Focus on the segments that are driving the most revenue for your business — such as landing pages, product pages and pricing pages. Use a qualitative analytics tool that can view what users are clicking on as they interact with your site. If you are running paid advertising campaigns, it’s important to not run the tests on all your campaigns. Carve out at least 80% of your budget for the campaigns that are carrying your quota and the rest for testing out new ideas.

    Next on your list is improving page loading speed. For every additional second it takes the page to load, conversion rates drop by up to 20%. A good benchmark is a loading time below three seconds. Another time-sensitive indicator to optimize for is lead response times. Ideally, you should attempt to phone, text or email a prospective lead within five minutes. Just doing this will help increase conversion rates by double digits.

    Of course, it takes resources to do these things. But making these changes during a downturn, if done right, will help you improve performance and build a data-driven and winning business.

    Related: How to Adjust Your Marketing to Survive a Recession

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    Tal Shlosberg

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  • How to Create a Winning B2B SEO Campaign | Entrepreneur

    How to Create a Winning B2B SEO Campaign | Entrepreneur

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    Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

    Every business that operates online needs a comprehensive and effective SEO strategy to boost organic traffic and visibility. People generally think of SEO in terms of ranking high for popular keyword searches, but for business-to-business (B2B) companies, the strategy moves from a broad audience to a specific one.

    The consumer in a B2B exchange is the end user of a product or service, not a general consumer looking for a regular product. The marketing content with B2B needs to appeal to not one person, but a whole group of decision-makers, including managers, directors, C-suite executives and shareholders.

    Appealing to this group and selling effectively requires a nuanced understanding of how approval and buy-in happens across each decision-maker and channel. The sales cycle for B2B is typically longer, more involved and much deeper than a B2C campaign, so the SEO strategy has to adjust to that.

    What’s the difference? A general consumer tends to make decisions on their own and buy whatever they find that solves their problem. While some purchases may be higher involvement and may need buy-in from others, many consumer products and services require less research and fewer decision-makers than any B2B product or service.

    The campaign has to be adjusted to this understanding to get the payoff in the end. Here’s how to go about it.

    Related: The Secret to Super Successful SEO

    Why is B2B SEO unique?

    Knowing the differences between B2C and B2B SEO is just one part of the equation. Understanding how to manage these differences in planning and execution is key.

    B2B keyword strategies:

    B2B keyword strategies are very different from B2C keyword strategies. With B2B, you’re aiming to target not just the end user, but the collective decision-makers. The line-level employee who may mention the idea to management to improve the organization and processes is helpful, but they’re not the ones making the decision in the end.

    Ultimately, it will be an owner, founder, director or executive who’s searching for a solution that solves a pain point for the company, not someone looking to make work more streamlined at entry level. Their approach will be more precise and focused, which may include low-volume keywords and phrases.

    Understanding the industry language that these decision-makers will use will help you discover the best keywords for your SEO strategy. If they’re lower in search volume, that’s actually better for a B2B strategy. You’ll have less competition and create a place for your brand to stand out and capture attention.

    Bigger effort for conversions:

    Selling to a consumer is often simple and straightforward. A lot of purchases rely on impulsivity, so all you have to do is catch their attention at the right time. They’re scrolling, shopping and buying regularly, so being the one who comes up in their search or feed is not as challenging.

    And in return for that ease, most B2C companies may sell to one-time purchasers, but they make it up in high volumes.

    In contrast, B2B customers typically buy once or once every few years. The purchases are usually much bigger, both in cost and potential impact, so there’s a lot more for them to consider in saying “yes.” These relationships are meant to be long-term, so no one is jumping in impulsively.

    What does this mean for you? You will have to invest more work and research into the content and marketing channels to nurture and earn the trust of a B2B consumer. It’s essential that you communicate your EAT: Expertise, Authority and Trustworthiness.

    • Expertise: Expertise is your knowledge of the industry and product on a deep, practical and relatable level. You have to establish yourself as an expert and show that you can do it better, faster and more easily than others.

    • Authority: Authority is your credibility — your position as a respected source of information in the industry. You not only need to know what you’re talking about but how your products and services impact the industry in its entirety. It’s about knowing what you do and how it affects what your customers do in context.

    • Trustworthiness: A B2B customer has to believe that you can deliver what you say you will. They’re ending their long research process and sales meetings by choosing a brand and shelling out a lot of money for a business investment in hopes that it will pay off and solve their problems. They have to trust you for that to happen, and it’s up to you to make your company and your offerings seem as trustworthy and reliable as possible.

    Focus is shifted to B2B content:

    Authority and trust are paramount to closing the sale in a B2B market. Your website and off-page content should be designed to prove that you’re an authority in the niche and that your company, products and teams are trusted by others to deliver solutions no one else can.

    According to a Demand Gen Report survey of over 200 senior-level B2B marketers, 41% of respondents report consuming between three and five pieces of content before making a connection with a sales representative. That’s a lot of upfront effort for the lead payoff.

    Those same industry experts also said that 68% of them want to see B2B content organized by the pain point or problem it can solve, and they want in-depth, specific content like case studies.

    Leveraging case studies isn’t directly promotional, but they can make your company stand out. You’re showing off some of the process to make them feel at ease with your approach and how you performed with other business customers.

    You can also use customer testimonials, which go a long way toward showing potential customers how you run your business. Choose testimonials that demonstrate real results, such as a customer who had an X% increase in productivity after implementing your software solution.

    Content like this uses hard facts and real-world customers to give your prospects confidence, which is the key to getting them to reach out to a sales representative. Educate your target customers to help them see your value, and more importantly, offer value to them.

    B2B SEO numbers:

    A survey in 2019 with SEO professionals from across the globe revealed that the number one most important element of search engine results page rankings was on-page elements like meta titles and descriptions. The next priority is the depth and accuracy of the content in the results.

    Furthermore, a consumer insights article by Google indicated that:

    • 89% of B2B researchers find information online

    • The majority of decision-makers are C-suite executives, but almost a quarter of the decision-makers are not executives

    • 49% of B2B product research is conducted on a mobile device while at work

    Related: 5 Content-Marketing Tactics for B2B Ecommerce

    B2B SEO campaign strategies

    There are three basic elements to any SEO strategy, and here’s how they apply to B2B brands:

    1. On-page SEO:

    On-page SEO encompasses the actual words and phrases you use on the website and how they correlate with your target keywords. This includes your blog posts, articles, page content, FAQ page and other on-page content.

    Think of this as your first opportunity to leverage your creativity to include keywords in your website content. This not only helps when visitors browse your page, but it shows the search engine site crawlers what your website is and what you do, which impacts the ranking and relevance of your content in the search results pages.

    It’s not enough to just plug in keywords, however. You have to provide high-quality content and accurate information that has value for the customer, which keeps them reading and looking for more information.

    Here’s an outline to optimize your content for rankings:

    • Keyword research: Do your own research based on rankings and low competition. Determine what your B2B customers are searching for and how you can use those keywords to direct them to your website.

    • Competitor research: Look for search terms that aren’t sponsored, then plug them into your search engine. Check out the top few results for those search terms and see what makes them better or more unique, earning that high ranking. Let that guide your strategy.

    • Create better content: You saw what competitors have to offer, and you know what keywords are most important, so now it’s time to put it into action. Create content that’s better than your competitors — offer more value, use keyword variations, include engaging graphics, and refine until you get it right.

    2. Off-page SEO:

    Off-page SEO is where you boost your credibility and authority. Take advantage of your industry connections to build links, collaborate on groundbreaking content, establish thought leadership and promote your content.

    Backlinks tell the search engine algorithm that other authoritative sources find your content reliable and accurate. The AI bots are more likely to rank your content and website higher if you have approval from another website that they already view as credible.

    Your networking skills can also build strong relationships with other brands to enhance your authority. Consider it a mutually beneficial relationship that serves both of you, not a chance to boost your own company.

    Consider opportunities to guest post on each other’s sites, collaborate on research, start a podcast together, build an online community, or host a virtual summit. These are all powerful off-page SEO boosters.

    3. Technical SEO:

    Technical SEO may seem boring because it’s the code-driven, behind-the-scenes, introverted part of SEO — but it’s essential to your success. Think of technical SEO as facilitating the communication between your content and the search engines, giving the bots all the information they need to put your content in front of relevant searchers.

    Google and other search engines want to provide high-quality results to searchers with a seamless process. For that to apply to your site, you need to get it functioning beautifully and ensure that the content is as good as it can be.

    If you have site issues that impact the experience, such as slow page load times, broken links, excessive or obstructive pop-ups, or a non-mobile-friendly interface, you will lose some of your ranking. The best content in the world can’t make up for a poor website and vice versa.

    Here are a few precautions you can take:

    • Audit page load times: Long page load times make visitors click away. It should only take a few seconds for a page to fully load — otherwise, you’re losing a potential customer.

    • Optimize for mobile: Many B2B customers are searching for business solutions on their mobile devices. Make sure your site is not only fast but optimized to be easy to use on mobile phones and tablets.

    • Test navigation: Is it easy to move around your site and find what you need? If not, consider how you can fix it to make the experience seamless for your visitors.

    • Create a schema or site map: A schema is for the bots and helps them map out your page to learn what you do, what you have to offer and what relevance you have for searchers.

    • Check all links: Check every link on your site, both internal and external, to make sure everything is functioning as it should. If links are broken or changed, replace or remove them.

    This guide gives you everything you need to get started with B2B SEO campaigns. Get started to create a winning B2B campaign that gets you tons of valuable organic traffic.

    Related: Top B2B Marketing Strategies for SaaS Businesses

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    Jason Khoo

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  • 3 Strategies to Respond to the Changes in the B2B Buying Journey

    3 Strategies to Respond to the Changes in the B2B Buying Journey

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    Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

    Tumultuous times have a way of altering our approach to many things — especially the decision-making process. Organizations with decades of internal processes built around how to make critical decisions were challenged to change radically during the global health crisis, as the norm has seemed to change nearly every month. And if those decisions involve purchases, it just complicates matters further.

    As economic and societal uncertainty continues to loom, some businesses are asking realistically, how much money could be allocated to any investment at this time. Is any investment a wise appropriation of funds? Small businesses can certainly attest to this fear, with an UpCity survey finding that 57% cut their spending during the global health and economic crisis. Those that left their spending intact opted for budget reallocation, choosing to devote more funds to salary increases (34%), marketing (28%) or operations management (27%).

    In the past, businesses set approval thresholds to authorize spending up to certain dollar amounts. The decision for larger capital expenditures would naturally be reserved for higher levels in the organization. Certainly, leadership would gather feedback to provide more context on the purchase, but the ultimate decision would be left in the C-suite’s hands.

    However, there has been a shift. It is no longer possible to gather input in the same ways, as remote and hybrid work has become common. A meeting for larger expenditures would need to be scheduled, though doing so can add months to the process. These roadblocks have led some companies to abandon processes that were set in stone for years.

    Related: 6 Fatal B2B Sales Mistakes You Must Avoid

    The changing face of B2B customer engagement

    Firms working with these businesses have been quick to respond, evolving to meet the new many-to-many relationship that has surfaced. An increasing number of people within the supplier have found themselves communicating simultaneously with an increasing number of people at the customer — often across multiple locations and mediums. In many cases, this only adds to the strain on the firm’s internal operations. It takes more time and energy to synchronize with a customer to ensure the quality and consistency of messages, especially because B2B buyers are now going in different directions.

    With the evolution of the multistep decision process, suppliers have had to be prepared to support asynchronous communication. This method of contact has created a new B2B customer experience trend, with buyers requesting information but not consistently. It is up to suppliers to meet them where they are with up-to-date information. All of this is driving significant change to suppliers’ internal operations.

    Internal systems have had to change to address this new style of remote decision-making as well. Video calling, video chat systems and so on are instrumental in getting internal teams on the same page to facilitate consistent communication with buyers. Process-based decision tools are also being rapidly adopted. Slack’s acquisition by Salesforce and Workfront’s acquisition by Adobe illustrate how critical communication and decision-making across distributed individuals has become central to maintaining B2B customer engagement across the B2B buying journey.

    Related: 5 Tips for Developing Your B2B Sales

    Instituting new B2B customer engagement strategies

    B2B customer engagement strategies have changed. There’s no denying that fact. However, you must still resolve B2B pain points to maintain customer relationships and remain in the good graces of your customer base. There are aspects of operations that might require a tweak or two to keep pace with what’s ahead. Here’s what you can do to be prepared:

    1. Get everyone on the same page

    If you’re not on the same page with your team, you won’t be able to provide relevant strategies for customers. Getting everyone on the same page sounds simple enough, but Salesforce found that 86% of business executives believe ineffective collaboration and communication are the two major causes of failure in business.

    Don’t just focus on the tools and systems that facilitate collaboration and communication. Those should already be there. Look at the processes involved. Like B2B pain points, are there obstacles to more effective communication? If there are, now is the time to find ways to internally streamline them.

    2. Evaluate the sequence of communications

    The sequencing of communications with your customers shouldn’t be something you take for granted. Just ask the 82% of decision-makers who believe sales reps are unprepared for meetings, according to SiriusDecisions. A Forrester survey backs up this sentiment, with 78% of executives reporting that sales reps lack essential information. Another 77% believe these reps don’t understand their company issues or the purpose of the product.

    To mitigate these shortcomings, ensure your team members understand where customers are in their B2B buying journey. If a customer is still in the design phase and has yet to establish the requirements, pushing the company to make a decision only sours the relationship. Capture accurate data and clarify your B2B buyer insights to ensure you’re consistently meeting customers where they are.

    Related: Sharing Winning B2B Customer Stories: How to Showcase an Effective Case Study

    3. Embrace the new norm

    By now, you no doubt know that many change efforts fail due to internal resistance and a lack of managerial support. As such, you need to strengthen your internal competency around change management to ensure you can constantly adjust to customer demands and an ever-evolving marketplace.

    The B2B buying journey has forever changed, and it will likely change again in the very near future. Social and economic turmoil has accelerated the adoption of digital solutions and ushered in continual improvements in the way businesses connect. Getting specific aspects of the B2B buying journey right can ensure your team is better positioned to handle whatever the future holds.

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    Scott Webb

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