Why is Content Marketing Important for B2B Companies?

If you’re thinking about how to get more leads for your B2B company, you may be considering content marketing as a way to potentially do that.

With most B2B marketers surveyed saying that they are, in fact, doing content marketing right now, you may be looking at that and thinking, “Well, hey, I don’t want to fall behind.”

Today we’re going to talk about why all these companies are doing content marketing and we’re also going to talk about why it’s such an important thing to be doing in the current business environment.

First,  What is Content Marketing?

In my last video, we talked about what content marketing actually is.

IIf you’re still unsure about that, I suggest you go back and take a look at it, here. But, in essence, what it boils down to is that content marketing is about attraction.

It’s about attracting an audience to your website by using content like blogs or infographics or videos or other types of content. That’s in contrast to traditional marketing which is about interruption.

So, you’re watching a YouTube video and then you’re interrupted by an ad. Or you’re listening to the radio and you’re interrupted by a radio commercial.

So, what it really boils down to is attraction versus interruption.

5 Reasons Why Content Marketing is Important

Why is content marketing important? Let’s talk about five key reasons.

Reason #1: Your potential customers are doing research online before they ever talk to your sales team.

According to Accenture, 94% of B2B buyers report that they do some form of online research before purchasing a business product. I mean, in 2019 that’s kind of common sense.

Now, what that means for you is that if you can provide informational resources informational content on your website then they can do part of their research there rather than doing their research on a competitor’s website.

Reason #2: Creating content helps build organic traffic from search engines.

When your potential customers are searching for things online, they go to Google. And Google likes content.

So, that means that if you’re creating lots of content that is useful and informative, and you’re doing it on a regular basis, then you’re giving Google more things to index and to show to people who are searching for things related to your industry.

Creating that content can help to benefit your SEO (Search Engine Optimization).

Reason #3: Content marketing is more effective than traditional marketing.

According to Demand Metric, content marketing costs 62% less than traditional marketing. At the same time, it generates three times as many leads.

And part of the reason for that might be because of the SEO benefits of creating content. So, if you’ve got a good piece of evergreen content on your website then people can find it in Google day after day week after week month after month.

Google is just going to be sending people to your website on a regular basis. Whereas, if you’re running some sort of ad then you have to pay every time someone clicks on it or every for every impression or for every eyeball on your ad or content.

The effectiveness of content marketing is reason number three.

Reason #4: Content marketing helps build brand awareness and trust.

When it comes to brand awareness think about it like this… If B2B buyers are doing research about your industry and every time they do a search query as a part of their research, one of the pages that shows up is from your website.

They are consuming content from your website as they do their research and every time that you’re you know they see a post on social media from you they become more aware of your brand.

When it comes to trust 65% of consumers say that they feel more positive or they feel a brand is more trustworthy immediately after consuming a piece of educational content from that brand. And that is key.

So, remember that content marketing helps build brand awareness and it helps build trust.

Reason #5: It brings more people into your funnel.

What that means is as you get more traffic to your website you can offer free downloads for people in exchange for their email address.

Then you can communicate with them on an ongoing basis and as you do that.

Maybe at the beginning they’re not quite ready to buy but as you keep communicating with them then what happens is eventually they get to the point where they actually are and at that point that’s when you figure into their shortlist.

Summary

So, there you have it… Five reasons why content marketing is important for B2B companies. Hopefully by now you understand what it is and why it’s so important.