What is the best way to create a B2B content strategy for financial services ABM campaigns?

Buyer journey is never linear. They have multiple touchpoints from stage of awareness to deciding to make that buy. So to create a smooth path for them, you have to ensure they're given the right content at the right stage. This should be ensured through creating Buyer personas. For instance if your buyer is at the consideration stage, then there is no point of talking about basic information about the industry or product. Instead, talk about why or what you are doing through your product. How can they access your product. Give them unique tips and tricks that can be easily applied while using your product. And for buyers in the decision stage, Give freebies and demos for them to have a real look before making the decision.

Add a gamification element like badging and get people to contribute content you can monetize on your platform for free, but make sure it’s powered by AI so that you don’t actually have to do anything but sell the ad space.

As someone who handles social media, the target account is the main thing you need to know before deciding what kind of content you want to create. To interact with the audience, I agree that you must know what they need. The first tip that you can do is categorize what DMs/comments are frequently asked, rank them. Second, you can create a small survey with several questions through polls/this or that/reaction about the background of your followers. Third, you can analyze what kind of content they like every week. Those steps will help you to determine what kind of content to create, what kind of communication, so that the content can be delivered according to the needed.

Networking works the same way in B2B content. Forget going solo, team up with industry experts and influencers. Their insights illuminate your content, adding a fresh perspective and expanding your reach. Think of it like merging your detective agency with another – double the resources, double the impact. Collaborate with FinTech startups, respected financial bloggers, or even your own sales team. Each partner brings unique expertise, helping you tailor content to specific client needs. This creates a more compelling narrative, drawing your target accounts in like a captivating mystery novel. Don't be a lone wolf – embrace the power of collaboration. You might just stumble upon the perfect partnership, unlocking the key to content success.

I think it’s also critical to define exactly what’s being measured, especially now that Google analytics 4 is proving to be cumbersome and inaccurate. Every single creative element should have a dedicated UTM code assigned to it. Furthermore, AB testing should be baked into each campaign and creative assets. Should be refreshed every 4 to 6 weeks. As we approach the new year, there will be new challenges and opportunities for analytics to play an ever evolving role in defining what KPI’s should be tracked, and most importantly, when a campaign needs to pivot .

This is something called the low hanging fruits. The best way to audit existing content is: 1. Look out for it's past 12month click impression data 2. Shortlist the search queries for which you are getting impressions but no clicks (mostly because the page isn't ranking well in top pages). 3. Revamp the content to naturally fit in those keywords or use that keyword as anchor text in other new content (and interlink the existing page) Now sitback, relax and keep a track to see the upward trend in keyword rankings.

Shortlist the search queries for which you are getting impressions but no clicks (mostly because the page isn't ranking well in top pages). . Revamp the content to naturally fit in those keywords or use that keyword as anchor text in other new content (and interlink the existing page) Now sitback, relax and keep a track to see the upward trend in keyword rankings.

Content pieces are puzzle pieces. A single piece of content can serve multiple purposes depending on the trigger and purpose it's paired to--be it to inform, educate, inspire, challenge or solve. When doing an audit, it's absolutely crucial to do it with an eye to ascertaining what triggers each content piece's topic matter makes it compatible with--both in terms of channel, but also in terms of actual talking points. Doing so provides a more nuanced understanding of content gaps, and provides a more purposeful and tailored content creation. You're not just creating content that addresses certain topics, but also ensuring that the parts of that content will make it compatible with the messaging and triggers that actually drive engagement.

Personalized Messaging: Develop content that speaks directly to the specific needs and pain points of each account. Personalization is key in ABM. Value Proposition: Highlight how your financial services uniquely solve their specific problems or improve their situation. Educational and Informative: Focus on creating content that educates your audience about financial trends, regulatory changes, or ways to optimize their financial operations.

Post-audit, optimize your B2B financial services ABM content by updating, repurposing, or deleting based on relevance and performance. Utilize sales and customer success feedback for refinement, create a content calendar aligned with your ABM strategy, personalize using data insights, and regularly review and refresh content to stay relevant and effective. This systematic approach ensures your content evolves with market and client needs, enhancing your marketing efforts.

Diverse Content Formats: Utilize a mix of content formats like whitepapers, case studies, blogs, videos, and infographics. This caters to different preferences within your target accounts. Leverage Social Media: Use LinkedIn and other relevant platforms for distributing content and engaging with key stakeholders in your target accounts.

Remember that your content should be native to the distribution channel, meaning that people are consuming it on this particular platform. Note that different social media//digital channels have different formats and plan accordingly.

Understand the pain points that prospective customers may be facing with their existing vendors. Provide content highlighting how these pain points can be alleviated with your product(s) in a variety of formats to choose from so prospects can process the information in the way that works best for them.

Find out which content format best suits your target audience. Also, contextualize the content for the respective platform you want to market on.

In creating a B2B content strategy for financial services ABM campaigns, plan a diverse content mix (blogs, whitepapers, videos) and establish a regular publishing schedule. Organize content production using calendars, guidelines, and templates. Choose effective channels like LinkedIn, email campaigns, and financial forums for distribution. Utilize content hubs and tailored landing pages for centralized access and enhanced user experience. Engage audiences through personalized email campaigns and active social media interactions, ensuring consistent brand presence and effective target account engagement.

When you’re moving fast, it can be tempting to ask the design department to just crank out content. That’s a mistake. Build creative briefs and align the full team to your audience, concept, and goals. You’ll need to refresh your content every 2-3 weeks, so put in time at the beginning. It will allow you to build from a foundation instead of starting from scratch with every refresh. A few helpful tips: 1. Remember that you can see every ad your competitor runs. Go to their company page, posts, and navigate to ads. Use this to understand what’s being said and where there’s messaging “green field.” 2. Your audience is highly specialized. Run all content through a subject matter expert who can ensure your message hits home.

To create B2B content that connects, you ironically need to think in a not-so-B2B way. The cues and elements that appeal to a B2C customer, also appeal to a B2B reader. A senior executive doesn't magically lose interest in bright, engaging writing and visuals, and become fascinated by dry, colourless and unremittingly textual reading just because he's doing it for work. Design, tone, manner, voice, entertainment, the details of the execution matter every bit as psychological micro-nudges as the broad storytelling you're doing. ...And you DO have a broader story you're telling, aren't you?

Show, don't tell: Even if your audience is more analytically inclined, consider visualizing data points to convey a clear and concise message. Always keep the respective social media platform in mind. Each platform is like a world of its own, with unique content formats in demand.

Creating effective B2B content for financial services ABM campaigns involves understanding your audience's needs and challenges, then leveraging content creation and collaboration tools to produce high-quality, relevant, and engaging materials. Consistency in messaging is key to building brand recognition. Utilizing content optimization tools enhances SEO and readability, while content personalization software tailors your content for specific target segments. Finally, employing content syndication tools ensures wider distribution and visibility, crucial for reaching and engaging your target accounts effectively in the financial services sector.

Design is key to storytelling, which is what all content must do. If your layouts aren't attractive to your audience, if images aren't quite the right fit or if the words don't strike a chord with your audience, the content will fail. I agree with others who mentioned creative briefs in their response to this question, but I'm going to throw a caveat at you: Creative briefs are only as good as the people who write them, and whether or not the final product aligns with the creative brief relates directly to the creative abilities of all involved in the creation of the content. For example, here on LI the other day, I saw a 15-second video. They used a 30-second template and left 15 seconds of black at the end. It looked totally amateur.

Return on Objectives (ROO) can be just as significant/important then your Return on Investment (ROI) KPI’s. Have a full understanding of what your goals are before you can measure the success of them.

Measure the results, but DO NOT let the data determine the content. I had an SEO once tell me they didn't want to write an article on a particular topic because no one had ever searched for it on the client's website. Of course, the client had never published any content about the topic to begin with. I ignored the SEO and wrote the article on the topic anyway. The following month, it was the second-most read page on the entire website, second only to the front page. I wrote another article on the same topic the following month, and it was also in the top 3 of most-read pages. The moral? Content should always come first, data should never drive content. The data is there to tell you how well the content performed.

By focusing on these elements, your B2B content strategy for financial services ABM campaigns can effectively engage key accounts, address their unique needs, and drive meaningful business results. Remember, ABM is about quality and relevance, not just quantity.

To measure the impact of B2B content in financial services ABM campaigns, establish clear KPIs aligned with ABM goals, such as engagement and conversion rates. Utilize content analytics to track audience interaction and identify resonating topics. Employ content attribution tools to understand content's contribution to lead conversion and calculate ROI. Gather and implement audience feedback for content refinement. Regularly test and optimize content formats and messages based on data and feedback. Continuously adapt your strategy based on these insights to ensure your content remains effective and aligned with audience needs, thereby enhancing the overall efficiency of your ABM campaigns.

Check the stats on your content as it flows down the funnel. Where are big drop-off points? Create new content to check whether that improves the flow heading to your goal.

In my opinion, Marketing and specially Social Media Marketing should always align with the Sales’ team. After all, the marketing’s duties are to beautify the reality to sell it customers. In B2B, it’s a bit more crucial as the target audience is companies and not customers. The way marketing should strategize is to be always aligned with Sales and make use of trends at the same time to reach maximum potentials.

KPIs and Metrics: Define clear KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) to measure the success of your content strategy. This could include engagement rates, website visits, lead quality, and conversion rates. Continuous Improvement: Regularly review your strategy’s performance and be ready to adapt based on what the data tells you.

Content production teams need to remind themselves that they are not making stuff for the heck of it. They're doing it because they're trying to convince customers that the brand they work for exists, that they're trustworthy, and that they should buy from them. This isn't easy, but a straightforward way of making this happen is to align content production with sales objectives. How do you do this? Here the best way to get going: Set up a weekly interdepartmental knowledge sharing call between sales and marketing where sales share insight into their leads (pain points, key language used, etc. This is the start of a feedback loop, and it can be an extremely powerful way of marketing being able to create ideas that benefit sales.

Sales is often after enablement content meaning, battle cards, sales script, elevator pitches, etc. However, for the success of ABM campaigns, it is imperative for account based marketers and sales folks to understand ongoing campaigns, account engagements, sales challenges, and things that make them all a success individually and then plan content that can be used by all the three teams; accounts, marketing, and sales.

There is no one-size-fits-all content strategy even for organisations in the same business. Therefore, the content strategy for B2B financial services companies will differ from one another. It is dependent on several factors including the vision and purpose, the size and maturity, and the diversity of the company. Personas, user journeys and everything else comes after this important consideration.

When doing B2B ABM content for financial services, it can be easy to get excessively focused on bombarding the CFOs email box. But you don't want to make yourself a pest. That smells like desperation. Eagerness won't work with C-suite audiences. So you also need to mix in other tactics that reach the CFO, like getting your content published in financial publications that they read, and speaking at events they attend. That means that even if you are using ABM, you can't confine yourselves to it. You may also need to involve your media relations team and other stakeholders. The goal is to win, not for one silo to take all the credit.

CRM and ABM Tools: Utilize Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and ABM tools to track interactions, personalize content, and automate parts of your campaign.

Competitor's strategy is also an important aspect to consider. You need not follow the same, but keeping an eye will help you consider and eliminate the mistakes they might have made. On the other hand, you can also underline some of their master strokes; All the Best!