What is the business purpose of your B2B content? No one is putting fingers to keyboard for fun, but how do you angle your content so that it delivers on your goals while still engaging the audience?
Business goal: Raise visibility and become an authoritative voice
Through your content, whether that is on LinkedIn, your website or a newsletter, you need to demonstrate a good understanding of the sector/industry you work in. Obviously.
It’s important to have ideas or a fresh take. Talk about the problems that no one else is talking about, or if it’s ground that has already been well discussed, can you add a unique take?
Lots of people talk about well-known problems and challenges, but few are offering a way of navigating issues.
Can you highlight alternative approaches and a means of delivering a positive change? Is there a different way of doing things that isn’t really talked about? Can you move the conversation on in some way?
Could you spearhead a campaign behind which you can rally industry peers to make a material difference to your sector?
Building a reputation as an authoritative voice takes time and consistency, but it opens a lot of different doors:
There is a lot happening that influences B2B content marketing. Legacy social media channels aren’t what they once were, and the media, particularly trade media, is struggling in certain quarters. (Property industry bible Estates Gazette has recently been rescued from closure, for example.)
But there are new areas and channels to explore, and you don’t have to run yourself ragged to get your content in front of and viewed by the right people.
In our first LinkedIn livestream of the year, Ayo Abbas and I looked at three areas to focus on with your content marketing for 2025.
Stacey: There is so much more content being published now, and AI is making it easier to produce content, but that doesn’t mean it is all good. In fact, there is an increasing amount of AI slop. (If you are using AI, use it wisely.)
Rather than churn out new content, create fewer bits of quality ‘hero’ content and do more with it.
Hero content could be a report, white paper or a carefully researched and written thought leader series. It could be a content-led event such as a panel or round table, a live stream, podcast or video series.
With the right planning, you can repurpose it into many pieces of content and redistribute across different channels.
For example, create blog posts and articles from videos, podcasts, or events, create short clips from a longer video, and film events (or do a live stream) to create video content.
Making the most of what you are creating means you don’t have to constantly come up with new content ideas and create from scratch.
Ayo: There is a lot of really bad content being created using AI, but that means good content stands out. Make sure what you put out is the best you can make it.
Four months into the new UK government and more detail on its agenda is emerging, but how can you use B2B content to engage with that agenda?
Speaking ahead of the budget, I went live on LinkedIn with co-host Ayo Abbas of Abbas Marketing and special guest Shirin Iqbal of Shirin Iqbal Consulting to talk about how to get involved, align your content strategy, boost visibility and position yourself as a sector expert.
We all work with built environment clients, so our examples come from that sector, but the overarching strategies apply to any industry.
Here are the edited highlights of our conversation and you can watch the replay which includes our budget predicitons here.
What channels are available for built environment firms who want to share their knowledge and expertise?
Ayo: You have to understand which areas you care about and where you can add to the conversation – which parts of the story you want to focus on.
Then, look at who is talking about these issues and championing causes. For example, in the past few years, Architects Journal has talked about retrofitting rather than knocking down buildings.
Then there are associations and campaigning groups like the London Society and non-government groups like Business First.
The government also puts together expert panels such as the New Homes Accelerator. Who’s on those panels, and how can you join that conversation? Plus, there are consultations where they ask what the industry thinks.
It’s all an opportunity for you to join the conversation.
Shirin: There are also thought leadership articles, trade press, panels, conferences and podcasts.
Add your voice, not just to add to the noise, but to add value to the conversation and really showcase your expertise.
For the September episode of the B2B Comms Breakdown, built environment marketing expert Ayo Abbas and I went live online to discuss how you can use paid, earned, shared and owned media channels effectively.
Here are the edited highlights of that discussion and you can watch the full chat here on Ayo’s YouTube channel.
The graphic below gives much more detail, but a very short and simple explanation is paid = advertising etc, earned = media coverage etc, shared = content distribution via things like social media, and owned = blogs and newsletters etc.
Our conversation focused on three main questions starting with:
Have magazines had their day (earned media)?
STACEY: Ad revenue has fallen through the floor and most publications have got slimmer or even disappeared. Obviously, there’s still an online presence, but are they worth trying to get into?
I would say yes; I think there is still great value in having that third-party endorsement from these publications.
It can help in building trust if you are quoted or your comment piece is published.
A lot of publications are under-resourced at the moment; they need good content, so there’s an opportunity if you are producing good quotes and pitching in really good, pithy, punchy comments.
Quality is the key, it’s got to be good, and you do need to put your head above the parapet a little bit, particularly with opinion pieces.
AYO: When I started out in PR in 2000, industry publications were a lot chunkier; they were full of ads. And now, when you look at the print editions, they are flimsy.
But there is newer media, like Substack, where you can pay £150 for a year and get the content you want from particular writers. There are some amazing writers, and you’re happy to pay for that.
So, there is still a market for quality writing, but the format of how we get content is different.
Have magazines had their day? Yes and no.
STACEY: There are also other earned media avenues to explore. A lot of publications also have podcasts and host panel events and conferences.
Those are opportunities to pitch for and an opportunity for third party endorsement.
What other avenues are open for getting more traction for your content (paid and shared)?
AYO With social media, you can be your own publisher. If you look at LinkedIn, you could go to town if you use it to full effect.
There’s a reliance on just posting once and thinking it’s done. But instead think: ‘How can I get more bang for my buck from wherever I’m pushing this piece of content?’
B2B content marketing is a learning curve and there maybe things you are doing that damage your content’s reach and engagement without realising it.
Here are 3 mistakes to avoid with your B2B content.
1. Not making B2B content about the audience
The hard truth is that people don’t have time for all the content out there, including yours.
They are discerning about where they choose to invest their time (just as you are). This means your content has to work hard to make the time investment worthwhile: What’s in it for them?
Making a B2B audience care about your content means it needs to be helpful, interesting (to them), relevant, relatable…entertaining even.
There is always a place for news and business updates, but shoe-horning in referencing to the business and services at every opportunity is salesy and won’t serve.
The same goes for content that always starts from the perspective of the business, regardless of the topic.
Smart content marketing starts from the audience’s perspective, delivering something relevant and worthwhile.
It focuses on what the audience wants to know, not what the business wants to tell them.
Smart and effective content is clever with its messaging; it builds a positive reputation and respect.
Being known for being helpful, interesting, relatable and knowledgeable is more powerful than being a business that is just self-promoting or selling.
