Content marketing for B2B - how to effectively communicate to a professional audience?

Everyone wants to build strategies based on content marketing - we are all aware of the power of content, but do we know how to create it to reach the intended target?

Precisely speaking - what do we mean by "professional audience"? We are talking about highly specialized managers and specialists of various levels, very often with engineering backgrounds, to whom communicating via smooth marketing language may simply not be convincing. And what is more - not be considered reliable at all.

In the era of widely available knowledge and the possibility of its verification, we have very aware, well-educated targets. Especially those from high-tech sectors, who are by nature up to date with innovations and passionate about modern technologies, participate in seminars and training and monitor the market. So, the professional industry is well equipped with knowledge and expectations - engineers and management teams look for an argumentative and reliable partner who will provide an effective solution. Also, the data-gathering and decision-making process regarding the solution and supplier may take several months to over a year (depending on the specifics of the industry).?

All of this puts marketing more on the educational and advising role than strictly selling. At this stage content marketing gains special significance by performing an accompanying role during the customer's journey:

• builds the image of the company as a reliable, substantive partner,
• educate in terms of the problem (causes, effects) and provide solutions,
• creates a relationship - email marketing, guides, newsletters, case studies, white-papers, ect. - if all of this is high-quality content, we have a great opportunity to attract the audience's attention and strengthen the bond for - they will be waiting for a new portion of materials,
• and at the end: supports SEO, by providing organic website traffic and significantly reducing marketing costs in the long perspective.

While paid campaigns and other advertising activities can be outsourced to the external agency, content creation ideally should be created “in-house”, by the internal departments of the company (marketing, communication or PR).? That’s the ideal solution if we really want to create "tailor-made" content for a sophisticated professional audience. However, I do not deny the benefits and principles of cooperation with agencies in this field but this topic we will discuss another time.

Can your own marketing department effectively communicate complex engineering content?

Yes, but certainly not alone, remaining apart from other departments. Nevertheless, the situation in which companies have the ability to create in-house content based on their own resources is probably the most comfortable situation. Nobody probably knows better the specifics of the company, product or service, than employees of the company, which gives an advantage to the content created inside the company, over the one prepared by the best copywriter from outside.

The problem of companies from high-tech industry is primarily the lack (or really a very small number) of agencies conducting substantive communication for their clients. Tech or engineering companies are "more difficult" clients due to their specificity and issues. Agencies simply need to put more effort into the preparation of substantive content for their client, and they do not always have the desire, or resources to take such projects on the agenda. The high turnover of agency employees, often their young age, and thus less experience also does not help in this situation.

However, keep in mind that creating in-house content through your own communications or marketing department also involves several challenges and limitations.

• Knowing a product or service from the inside is a lot to start with. But it is worth reversing the perspective - are the advantages of our solution/product that we communicate as a company also a value for customers? Does the customer look at our product the same way? Seems to be obvious, but often blinded by company narration or engineering jargon, we tend to use the same language in communication with clients.
• Are the problems that (in our belief), our product/service solves, real customer struggles? Does the customer define them in the same way?

A very refreshing experience for marketing is the participation from time to time in meetings with clients, local visions, UX tests, or contact with R&D departments or Customer Service. Inviting the marketing department to product or technical training will also be helpful.

• Cooperation and communication between R&D departments and marketing is very important. In order to create substantive content, the marketing department must put a lot of effort into research: product specification, characteristics, data and charts. Rarely, does a marketer or PR person have technical education, and thus may have a problem using the potential of all data gathered.?
• It is worth involving an engineer in the content creation process, who will not only check the substantive aspect of the content but will give a finishing touch to the whole, adding appropriate phrases or industry expressions.

Creating content within a company through its own communication departments has the advantage that the communication path is much shorter, and the data collection and verification process is also more efficient and effective. We know the resources of our company best, and we know who can provide us with the information we need, easier and faster to verify doubts or questions.

What else can help while creating content?

• Language sensitivity and language awareness are beneficial. How to improve and expand it?:
• It is worth reading industry magazines from the sector to which we communicate.
• Browse forums and portals for the industry.
• Being present at industry meetings, seminars, and conferences, where we have the chance to hear the "real" language used by specialists in the particular industry.
• Be aware of repetitive phrases and wording, sometimes even colloquial phrases.
• Take notes, voice recording during the meetings (if allowed), or simply – prepare somewhere on the disk kind of “library” containing a list of industry words and phrases and updating this list on every occasion.
• It's good to have a relationship with one of the clients, open enough to give us a feedback on an article we created in-house.

All this gives a massive advantage to in-house content. An external agency may not be involved so deeply and may not devote so much time to preparing your content.

But marketers in a company can also fall into the trap, especially if our company belongs to a global organization.

Common mistakes made when preparing content:

• Thoughtless translation of content from other markets/business units. Blindly implementing content from the headquarter.
• The language that is often used in this kind of publication is inadequate to the local customers. I would rather suggest a loose translation, keeping the structure and the substance of the original content, but written in the local language, with all local industry phrases and expressions.
• In this particular moment, individual BUs in an organization may have different market needs, different priorities and a completely different focus on certain targets and customers. Content from headquarters may be good and may be useful, but not necessarily exactly at the same moment.
• Basing mainly on foreign case studies (from headquarters) will be simply unreliable to the local market and customers. Especially if we have been freshly introducing a product or technology to the local market. Your local customers want to see this specific application on the local market. Keep in mind that technology industries are often niche businesses, and engineers or industry specialists simply know each other.
• Routine, job seniority, and organizational culture might influence on our mindset, so we lose the fresh eye and ability to stand on the client's side.?
• Quality, not quantity. It is better to have one piece of a good quality longer article, that we can divide and split into several shorter pieces. Unfortunately, it’s impossible to act the other way around -? we will not make a good, substantive article out of a few poor-quality pieces. Apart from that, by creating weak content, we put the audience in a kind of cognitive dissonance situation - how anyone could believe there might be a valuable product behind the poor message?!

To sum up: content marketing is a long-term strategy, a fantastic tool not only for creating the company image but also for building relationships between the company and its audience. The more sophisticated audience, niche industry and complex technology, the more quality content is required. In the constant informational noise good, valuable content can also be a sign of respect for your audience.

——————————————————————————————————

Do you want to be updated with marketing for B2B/Tech, start-ups? Follow me!

markeTH!NK

? Marketing for B2B

? Marketing strategies for TECH & start-ups

? Leads generation

? Sales support

? LinkedIn trainings & consulting

#TECHmarketing #industrialmarketing #marketingB2B #startup #LeadGeneration #SocialSelling #LinkedIn