Three content programs essential for every B2B marketer
The adage “content is king” is still relevant today. Why? People love to consume content. It is an integral part of business-to-business buying behavior.
There’s a generational shift that’s happening in B2B buying. Forrester’s survey found that Millennials and Gen Z are the majority, making up 71% of B2B buyers most recently. Unsurprisingly, this demographic has different preferences in how they want to make purchasing decisions. They want self-service interactions.
6sence found that B2B buyers are not engaging with a sales rep until the buying process is 70% complete. This is supported by Forrester’s survey results, which notes that close to 50% of B2B purchases are self-service. Providing the right information to guide and validate buying decisions at each touchpoint is key.
Take a programmatic approach to content creation
Meaningful content and value-driven communications are essential to educate and support buyers, from early investigation to late-stage decisions.
To build that trust effectively, it’s necessary to be strategic and consistent with your content efforts. And that may mean taking a more programmatic approach, providing a structured, repeatable method that supports operational efficiency and content effectiveness.
In this blog post, we’ll share three content programs that incorporate:
- An effective strategy to support the B2B buying process and implement a comprehensive tactical roadmap
- Defined processes to ensure consistency and efficiency
- Templates to standardize assets, maintain brand consistency, and streamline the creation process
- Iterative improvements to regularly review performance and adjust tactics based on market feedback
Content program 1: Ongoing education for buyers
Education-focused content is a powerful tool to build credibility, engage your audience, and differentiate through valuable insights and actionable knowledge. The early decision-making stage is all about supporting the buyer’s independent research and education. It’s key to ensure relevant content is accessible at need.
A well-rounded approach can include a variety of content types, as long as the buyer’s needs, challenges, and questions remain at the forefront. A good mix of blog posts, social media, and regular emails can position your company as a trusted and knowledgeable expert.
The content strategy and tactical roadmap:
Content strategy must-haves
The up front work to any content program is the strategy, ideally aligned to your long-term marketing objectives. It’s critical to have:
- A deep understanding your target audience: their needs, challenges, aspirations, and industry
- A well-defined, unique value communicating your expert position
- An audience- and outcome-focused approach
Once you have captured and defined these essentials, you can confidently educate buyers with content that delivers value.
Easily repeatable educational content
An education-focused content program needs easily repeatable content types that will allow you to share valuable, deep insights through channels that engage your audience.
To start with, a simple content mix might include:
Blog posts: to showcase in-depth expertise and leadership on topics relevant to your audience and your unique value. An ideal educational blog post will answer buyer questions and provide information they’re already searching for. It’s an opportunity to flesh out thought leadership perspectives while optimizing for SEO and overall website experience.
Social posts: to reinforce expertise and leadership on the social platforms. Choose channels where your audience get their information. A good bet: LinkedIn, the #1 B2B platform. On LinkedIn, you can incorporate in-depth knowledge-sharing, industry insights, product/service highlights, and customer stories to showcase your expert position. You can play with single-image posts, text-only, video, documents, and external links to improve reach.
Emails: to keep a regular touchpoint with prospects/customers who have already opted to receive communications. This can be in the form of a newsletter that shares insights and knowledge directly to their inboxes. A good approach is to present this newsletter as coming from a company leader to deepen personal connections and build trust.
How many of each asset type should you create? That depends on you, your team’s availability, and what you can reasonably commit to. Prioritize quality over quantity.
That may mean starting with one blog post and email each month, plus two LinkedIn posts per week. The goal is to find a cadence that is achievable, repeatable, and consistent.
Additional program tips:
- Use a content calendar to keep track and assign owners.
- Consider relevant themes and messages to translate across the assets each month to streamline creation.
- Incorporate interviews with subject matter experts to get deeper insights on topics in your process.
- Define templates for the asset types that streamlined creation and deployment.
- Leverage GenAI tools for first drafts or outlines.
- Reuse and reshape the expert perspective within each asset.
- Build in reporting mechanisms to track audience engagement and modify content or delivery as needed.
Content program 2: Elevate your people to amplify your message
People buy from people. By tapping into your leaders’ expertise and empowering employees to act as brand advocates, you can humanize your brand and build credibility with buyers in a way that a company brand can’t. There is where executive and employee communications programs come in.
A digital leadership strategy on LinkedIn is an ideal way to connect your leaders and employees with buyers. But like all things in content marketing, it takes consistent and dedicated effort to equip individuals with relevant content.
The content strategy and tactical roadmap:
LinkedIn playbooks for people
Just like an education-focused content program, it’s critical to begin by building a content strategy that will clearly articulate your message to your target buyers.
For executive or employee communication programs, you need to apply that strategy at the individual level. Effective digital leadership requires leaders and employees to share their personal perspectives—not just that of a corporate spokesperson. Authentic communications are key.
Ultimately, playbooks need to define how people will appear, what perspectives they want to share, and how to apply LinkedIn best practices. Check out this blog post where we lay out the steps for creating personalized LinkedIn playbooks.
Option 1: Executive communications
An executive communications program for LinkedIn needs to deliver high-value perspectives and insights from your chosen leader(s) at a regular cadence. It must also apply LinkedIn algorithm best practices to extend reach and engagement.
For a leader’s tactical roadmap:
- Build a content calendar aligned to the playbook’s content themes and the expert perspective to be communicated.
- Aim for two original posts per week that experiment with post formats, prioritizing those that encourage personal interaction from LinkedIn users.
- Incorporate weekly community management to engage and respond to the audience after content has been published.
- Review and analyze performance quarterly, at a minimum, and adjust to the best performing post format types and LinkedIn algorithm changes.
Option 2: Employee swipe copy
Just like a leader’s communication program, the employee communication program for LinkedIn should deliver personalized, high-value content. To deploy at scale, swipe copy is a good alternative to writing custom posts for each person.
For example, you could write the first draft of a post that a group of sellers can then individually personalize and self-publish. This way you present the appropriate message and follow LinkedIn best practices, but rely on individuals to add their own flair.
For an employee swipe copy tactical roadmap:
- Build a content calendar aligned to the playbook’s content themes and the expert perspective to be communicated.
- Aim to provide two topics per week that share the expert perspective and experiment with post formats. (Make sure posts sound like they’re coming from a person!)
- Provide thorough instructions on how to personalize posts so employees can adapt and make changes. This could include how to use GenAI tools to help.
- Seek regular qualitative and quantitative feedback where post metrics may be out of your control.
Additional program tips:
- You need buy-in to be successful because content is published on personal profiles. Use the playbook to articulate program value and find meaningful ways to include leaders/employees in the process that don’t feel like more work.
- Create and maintain a tight weekly schedule, especially if you anticipate ad hoc posts rather than pre-planned topics.
- Regularly synchronize with leaders and employees. Pursue in-depth, personal insights to shape post messages and ensure relevancy to the audience and corporate plans.
Content program 3: Capture customer success
Stories of customer success are THE BEST content type in the buyer’s journey. Sharing real-world successes provides social proof, showing buyers how your solutions work in action and allowing them to envision themselves in your customer’s successful shoes.
Understandably, customer stories are also one of THE HARDEST content types to get published because of complex customer approvals, legal reviews, etc.
For that reason, implementing an internal customer success program has strategic value. Internal success stories can build awareness across the organization, support the selling process, develop new use cases, and provide better customer understanding to refine in-market messages.
The content strategy and tactical roadmap:
Know your message, your buyers, and your existing customers
Like all other programs, it’s important to build a comprehensive content strategy up front. In a customer success program, you must also understand both your past and present customers.
Build an internal repertoire of customer successes
A customer success program should aim to capture all the details of a customer engagement. Types of content should include:
A win wire repository: Each customer engagement should have a win wire that demonstrates the customer’s story of transformation. It should include internally relevant details (detail size, sales rep, technology, etc.) and quantitative ROI. It’s important to really understand the customer story from the perspective of the hero’s journey.
Read this blog post for details on how to create your book of wins.
Case studies: Set a target of how many you want to create and work closely with sales to capture win wire information and identify customers who might be interested in a public case study. When the opportunity presents, jump on it and build it into your plan.
Testimonials: Snippets of social proof in a customer’s words are high value and can be used in other marketing materials. During the win wire process, pre-write testimonials based on the story and what you’d think the customer would say. Ask for customer input and approval before using these pre-written quotes.
Additional program tips:
- You’ll need support from sales to capture details and maintain a dialogue with the customer. The easier the process and the more meaningful it is for sales, the more they will buy in.
- Use a template to ensure you’re capturing the same information each time.
- Repurpose content in creative ways that will allow you to use the story in other marketing materials while keeping it anonymous.
Guarantee consistency where you need it most
Delivering the right high-value content consistently takes time, effort, and resources. To guarantee consistency, a managed content service is a valuable option for B2B marketers.
The three content programs discussed—educational content, executive or employee communications, and customer success—are core strategies we implement for our clients. With thought leadership becoming more important than ever, using a managed service gives you the flexibility to create a targeted mix of assets that resonate with your audience and meet your business objectives.