ToB content operation: comprehensive review of production and channels

The company I work for is an industry information technology and solution service provider and a leading enterprise in its vertical field. After more than three months in the company, I conducted a comprehensive review of the company's content operations and formed a basic team work plan - a content production and distribution plan for nearly one and a half years.

Now, I have been working for more than 9 months. The content planning has undergone two refinements and improvements, and some phased results have been produced. I happened to have some free time recently, so I would like to use this article to review my work and summarize my experience.

People in the industry complain: "ToB content operations are just doing chores for sales." Some purely sales-driven companies do have this characteristic. However, the content operation discussed in this article is based on the company level. It provides support for sales, customer service and other business teams, but it focuses more on the overall operation of the company, involving SEO, PR, brand, strategy, customers, etc.

1. Content Distribution Channels

From the perspective of operational objectives, ToB enterprise content operations can be divided into four dimensions: product marketing, user services, brand promotion, and business support.

• Product marketing content is mainly used to attract customers and is mainly distributed through various online channels;
• User services are to serve existing users, solve user problems, and increase customer repurchase rates. Both offline service teams and customers’ commonly used online channels should provide content;
• Brand promotion, online brand image establishment and maintenance, and offline company promotional material content provision;
• Business support, providing sales, customer service and other departments with the content and materials needed by the company.

Online content mainly comes in three forms: pictures, videos, and audio. The distribution channels are very complex. Here we only simply sort out common open platforms with low maintenance costs, as well as private domain traffic platforms.

2. Content Production Methods

When producing content, we must avoid being greedy and seeking everything. The so-called "saying everything is saying nothing". Content production should be divided into multiple articles with different targets (the four dimensions mentioned above: product marketing, user service, brand promotion, and business support). Different contents should bear different responsibilities. Each article should focus on writing the target content and match the corresponding writing style and title.

Specifically, ToB content production mainly includes the following 9 categories:

1. Product Introduction

Coordinate various departments such as products and businesses, analyze the advantages and disadvantages of products and their functions, decide which ones to focus on promoting, which ones to weaken or hide, and form an official and standard introduction of the products to the outside world. This is the foundation of ToB content operations, the positioning of the company's products and various functions and services, and a reference for the production of other types of content.

This type of copy can be used as product introduction copy on the company's official website by extracting the key points. It can be made into work materials for sales, customer service and other teams to match business needs. It can also be disseminated to all employees in the form of internal training and work manuals.

2. Solution

The customer perspective, official rhetoric, and content production focus on macro-level, holistic, and conciseness, in order to grasp the customer pain points. Provide sales materials to business departments, publish them on official websites, public account menu bars, etc., and incubate traffic customers.

3. Customer Cases

It is usually published on official websites, official public accounts, etc., and serves as a credit endorsement for the product. It is also possible to make in-depth creations in various styles for use in product promotion, marketing, etc.

4. Product Tutorial

A simple, straightforward, and pure product operating manual should preferably combine text and pictures (pictures, less embellishment) and have a clear catalog, so that users can easily understand how to operate the product. It is usually published on the company's official website, Baidu Experience, the "Help" column within the product, etc. Sales, customer service and other business personnel should inform customers where to obtain product tutorials.

5. Product Q&A

The business department reports on frequently asked questions, difficult questions, industry hot questions on search engines, product-related questions, etc. The content should be mainly in the form of short questions and answers, while popular and complex questions can be written in long articles. It is usually published on the company's official website, question-and-answer platform, Baidu Experience, relevant columns within the product, etc. It is the best content form for online user services and can also be used for SEO.

6. Marketing articles

In-depth industry articles, event soft articles, industry-related hot articles, industry information, user work service content, etc. are published on various content platforms to attract customers and expose brands. Article reading volume/customer conversion rate is the core standard for judging the quality of such content.

7. SEO Optimized Articles

Keywords must be used in the title, and keywords and long-tail words should be used more often in the abstract and text. Attracting traffic is its core value. The article does not need to be too long, and there is no need to spend too much effort on depth. It just needs to be valuable to readers and can be produced in a modular manner. But please note that the old practice of piling up keywords is no longer applicable. This type of junk article will cause search engines to lower the weight of your website.

Webmaster Home, 5118, Baidu Search Academy, etc. can analyze keywords and learn related knowledge. The main search engines are Baidu, Sogou, 360, and Shenma (Shenma is mainly for mobile devices). Personally, I believe that search optimization should take into account the two major trends of mobile isolation and platformization, attach importance to the search layout of Toutiao and WeChat, and pay attention to the self-media and UGC strategies of each platform.

If SEO is important to your company, it is recommended to find a professional SEO optimizer.

8. PR copywriting

Place media for brand promotion. Articles of corresponding styles should be produced for media with different attributes. If it is a news release, it must be comprehensive so that reporters and editors can screen and use it.

The credit endorsement of mainstream institutional media is needed by most companies. A small amount of advertising can be used as a tool to gain the trust of customers, official promotional materials, and encyclopedia entry production. PR is a key task that is only needed by a few ToB companies such as those involved in investment and financing, business expansion, online operations, and industry leadership. (PR here refers to media placement in a narrow sense. In a broad sense, everything is PR.)

9. Industry White Paper

Based on user research and industry observations, an industry white paper is produced every year or every six months. Industry white papers should have exquisite paper versions and be distributed to customers as event gifts, sales materials, etc. At the same time, media reports should be widely invited to actively disseminate the electronic version of the white paper to achieve the triple value of brand promotion, business support and customer service.

That’s all I have to say. Content operation is a very complicated matter. This article is just my personal work summary and it is difficult to cover everything. It is for reference only.

The cost of content production is very high, and it is difficult to take all of it into account during operational execution. You only need to advance it in a focused manner based on your company's needs and team's capabilities. It is mostly difficult to quantify the effects of ToB content operations, which requires the person in charge to have a high level of content sensitivity and rich experience, and to be able to grasp the content direction and details. It will take time for the value of content operations to show up, which requires the company to support the content team. Best wishes to you all...

Author: Wild Operation

Source: Wild Operations