8 Ways to Avoid Ineffective B2B Content Marketing

In 2015, brands’ content output increased 35% from its lowest point to its highest point, but engagement with that output fell by an average of 17%.

What do these data show? Why do we always hear everyone advocating “content is king”, but only a few companies have achieved good results with content?

Such a situation may not be what you expect, such as: discontinuity in content production, inability to measure content quality, excessive content, simplistic and naive strategy of "consumers will come back if we make good content", etc.

These reasons do make B2B content marketing ineffective, but there are other more important reasons. Here are 8 ways you can try or try to avoid them.

1. Is the buyer's purchase behavior to avoid pain or to gain gain?

Both of the above psychological factors will motivate buyers to buy, but can we say which one is better? Dan Kennedy, a legendary copywriter , anticipates buyers taking action more often to avoid pain points.

Dan Kennedy has a "PAS" (Problem-Analysis-Solution) copywriting formula, which he wrote in his book "The Final Letter to Sales: Attract New Customers and Increase Sales": When you understand that people will take purchasing actions to avoid pain points, you will understand how important the above formula is. This formula is perhaps the most reliable sales formula ever created.

2. Don’t worry about putting commercial interests first in marketing

As a B2B marketer, you know there are many buyers who love to hear how your product or service can bring them business benefits. If you say that, it will put you in the spotlight.

But be careful not to blow your own trumpet. Many B2B purchasing personnel value "personal value" twice as much as "business value."

3. Don’t waste your time trying to be a “thought leader”

When discussing the prospects of content marketing, nearly every B2B company wants to be a “thought leader,” but thought leadership has little impact on whether or not B2B decision makers buy from you (source: CEB Global, a study published in Harvard Business Review).

To influence buyers’ decisions, you need to offer something new and relevant to their business, while at the same time providing an irresistible reason to change their usual buying behavior.

You can set your sights on becoming a “thought leader,” but you have to adjust what that means.

4. Master the scale of gatekeepers

There's a lot of debate around whether or not to gate, and I think you need to do light gatekeeping because there's so much content to choose from.

Don’t gatekeeper to begin with: According to research from LinkedIn, 75% of tech buyers say they are unlikely to consider a vendor that gates all content.

In a recent webinar discussing the latest changes in B2B buying behavior, John Dering, director of marketing initiatives at Demand Gen Report, said gatekeeping is like a funnel. Gatekeeping is very effective for content at the bottom, such as case studies, but not so effective for content near the top, such as white papers.

5. Show content to buyers at critical times

Most B2B companies are good at delivering quality content to buyers before they decide to buy. While this is important, it doesn’t take into account the 80% of B2B buyers who value ongoing content after they’ve made a purchase as important or very important, according to Eccolo Media’s 2015 B2B Technology Content Survey.

What do buyers need after purchasing?

• Guiding leadership content (36%)
• Technology support/updates (30%)
• Information about new products (25%)
• Customer cases served (9%)

6. How Personalized Is Your B2B Content?

A study published in Harvard Business Review by CEB Global found an inverse relationship between B2B content personalization and sales: “The greater the content personalization desired by each member of the buying group, the lower the likelihood of ‘sales quality’ because of the need to reach consensus.”

If you think about it this way, you’ll find that he’s right - customized content will make your buyers pay more attention to what’s in the content that benefits them, while ignoring the meaning of the content to other groups of people. Therefore, it is more difficult to reach a consensus.

7. How much do you know about the buyer’s purchasing process?

According to IDG Connect, B2B buyers do not feel the content they receive is relevant or aligned to their organizational goals or buying process (66% of buyers surveyed).

Successful B2B content marketers map out each step of the buying process and then list the questions buyers have at that specific step (so they can think of solutions in advance).

8. What content formats do B2B buyers prefer?

Today, you’ll hear all sorts of noise about videos, webinars, and podcasts, but do B2B buyers really want this type of content?

No, according to research by The Economist: 85% of executives surveyed actually prefer plain text to audio and video, so there’s no need to be so fancy and just give buyers the information they want.

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