B2B Content Marketing Myths: Busted

Content Marketing is still the most powerful tactic for positioning your brand and attracting your ideal customers, but there are some myths you need to bust to succeed in 2023.

We embrace content marketing over a decade ago and these truths come from our most successful clients, from solopreneurs to multi-nationals.

Biggest Myths

• you need a huge audience to attract new business
• LinkedIn is for job hunting / Twitter is for sounding off
• the best content will naturally rise to the top
• your product or service is basically for everyone
• good marketing software can overcome poor content
• your target clients are 'suspect', 'prospects' and 'leads'

People buy from people, not bots

Before you start creating any content, build your online network on the social media platform your customers use in their professional lives.

We specialise in business-to-business marketing for #healthcare, #renewables and #environmental clients, so LinkedIn and Twitter are the easiest platforms to achieve this on.

LinkedIn has a powerful Boolean search function to help you find anyone, anywhere; Twitter helps identify topics, trends and sentiment analysis in your niche.

Create content your connections will respond to

Your connections see your activity on social media, whether you created it or curated it. If you @mention a contact, they see it – it’s the one thing people monitor consistently. If you message them or DM them with that content, they see it. If it's useful, they may share your content with their network.

Second-degree connections are where hidden opportunities lie.

Remember ‘dark social’ – content that's shared off the platform, via DM, email, or WhatsApp. You can’t see it and neither can Google, but we all do it.

“Look for a high number of opens on your newsletter software or returning visitors to your web page to see this in action.” Joanne Dolezal

Small is beautiful

It's good to regularly expand and edit your social network and your mailing list. Algorithms on all digital platforms reward you for higher opens, clicks, shares, comments, and dwell time on your web pages so why waste time and money on people who are not interested?

Identify your niche?

Identify the things you do better than competitors and show how you dominate that niche. Don’t worry if you offer similar products or services to competitors: you are unique in some way. Attract them with your niche product, service, or value proposition, then slowly educate them on the full range.

“A client who specialises in competitive market analysis to #biotech clients is unique in offering bespoke training on the leading software and techniques. After training, many clients have seen the value of working with specialists in the team, regularly.”

?Show you care about them and their enterprise

If you are highly relevant, informative, and helpful, your network will respond to your content (often indirectly) and share it with colleagues and connections.

You need to understand their goals and create content about the things they want to achieve. If you don’t know their goals, challenges, or frustrations – ask them. Past and current clients will know so ask them, but offer something in return.

“One of our #environmental clients recently blogged on LinkedIn about a #sustainable solution to comply with EPC regulations. A regular client contacted them about this service, even though they haven’t discussed it before.”

Be more human

Brands that show their human side, shared values and customer empathy consistently perform well and build loyalty, a.k.a. ‘brand transparency’. Avoid giving them any reason to doubt your brand and reputation. Control any colleagues who ‘go rogue’. Manage negative reviews and comments.?

???“…I think a primary strategy would be for a small company to focus on emotional engagement that leads to loyalty instead of content volume and lead generation.” Mark Schaeffer

Tech gizmos are for them*, not you

Digital marketing tech is subject to Moore’s Law so don’t get distracted by ‘bright shiny objects’. Many of the apps, tools and add-ons are best left to agencies who need to help clients who don’t have a niche, don’t share customer insight with them or aren’t closely involved in content creation. *

You simply don’t have time to master them alongside everything else you need to do, if you're not in a dedicated marketing role.

Speak their language

Your customers may be #clinicians, academics, researchers, #engineers, or #scientists so cut the waffle and get to the point. They’re busy, time-poor and smart. They want to work with partners and suppliers who speak their language and address their challenges.

Use and understand the technical terms they use, and help them to understand how the technology or solution you offer will help them to succeed.

If you have been affected by any of the myths we busted in this blog and would like to fix your B2B content marketing, send us a connection request on LinkedIn or a message via InMail.

Thank you for reading.

Joanne Dolezal

*Agencies are an essential part of the marketing ecosystem and will have technical specialists for marketing and communications. These specialists will have the skills, time and focus to learn how to apply these tools as part of their job. However, they will struggle if clients don’t dedicate enough time to brief them, contribute regularly and support closely the important work they do.