4 Top B2B Content Marketing Priorities to Focus on In 2020

Jan 13

By now, you probably know that you need to embrace content marketing if you want to build brand awareness, generate leads, support your sales cycle, and grow your online visibility. But by now, you probably also know that it’s difficult to decide what content marketing priorities to focus on.

With so many platforms, mediums, and tactics, it can be difficult to pinpoint what content marketing priorities are really important and will produce the best results for your business.

Let us help alleviate that confusion. Here are the top four B2B content marketing priorities you should focus on as you go into 2020.

1. Create Content That Supports The Buyer’s Journey

If you’re struggling to determine where to focus your content marketing efforts, start by looking at your brand buyer’s journey.

A buyer’s journey is the path that customers take on their way to doing business with you. It can be broken down into stages of:

Awareness where the customer knows they have a problem or need but doesn’t know how to fix or fill it.
Engagement where the customer is familiar with your brand and perhaps becomes a lead but hasn’t decided to buy from you yet.
Evaluation where the buyer researches and reviews options from multiple brands to determine which is the best option for their purchase.
Purchase where the buyer looks for a way to buy and then makes a purchase.
Post-Purchase where the buyer has completed a purchase and may or may not be deciding to buy again.

Consider how your customers go through this journey, and identify opportunities to create content to better guide them through the process. Look at the current content you have and identify gaps where you have no content to support a stage in the journey. Think about the stages where you lose the most customers. Hone in on their pain points, and focus on creating content that will be most likely to support your funnel and drive sales.

2. Share Original Data and Research

There are millions of blog posts published every day, more than 100+ million Instagram posts shared each day, and hundreds of hours of video uploaded to YouTube every minute. That is a lot of content.

With so much content being put out into the world each day, you need to focus on creating content that stands out. One way to do that is by publishing original data and research.

When you share information that can’t be found anywhere else, it becomes more interesting and valuable. It is more likely to be shared, linked to (which helps build your website’s link profile and supports good SEO), and sometimes, even covered by traditional press and media.

Creating original data and research takes time and resources, but it is worth it. Quality over quantity typically wins with content marketing. Not to mention, good data points and research make for great infographics to share on social. To come up with original data or research:

Look at what data sources you already have. Does your point-of-sale, customer database, or website analytics tell any interesting stories?
Craft a survey. Pick a demographic or group and ask them questions that your ideal customers would find interesting and compile it in a report.
Find new ways to share existing data. Use resources like data.gov or Statista to find data points that can be connected to your industry in interesting ways.

3. Promote and Distribute Content

One of the biggest problems that content marketers make is creating tons and tons of content -- but never promoting it. They publish blog posts and reports, but fail to distribute the content and help it get the attention it deserves.

With so much content being produced already every day, if you want your content to get noticed, you need it to stand out. Content promotion and distribution can help with that.

For each major piece of content you create, also develop a plan for amplifying that content. A few ways to get more eyes on your content include the following.

Lowest hanging opportunity to distribute your content is to post on your social channels and include in your email distributions -- a monthly newsletter or segmented list communication. And given how well that content could support the buyer’s journey, there’s worthy consideration to boost the post on social platforms for nominal budgets to extend reach.
Guest post on other sites that your audience regularly visits and link to content in your post or bio. One caution -- make all content original and don’t duplicate your content if you do guest post.
Work with influencers who can share the content with their existing audience.
Use public relations tactics to get attention from publishers and traditional media. Help a reporter out is an easy way to find types of content media outlets are seeking.
Repackage your content to use it across other platforms and link back to the original.

A recent study by Content Marketing Institute found that 46% of respondents said improving their content distribution and promotion was a priority in 2020. Don’t fall behind. Other brands and marketers are embracing this tactic, and you should too.

4. Measure Performance & Learn From Your Results

To find the right path for your content strategy in 2020, learn from what you’ve already done.

Look back at past analytics and data to determine which content performed well. Then, consider what made it a success. Did it have a lot of views? Receive a lot of shares or likes? Drive a lot of leads? Convert a lot of prospects? Analyze the content to see what elements made it a success -- and then recreate that.

While you can still experiment with other types of content and angles, focus your content marketing priorities on recreating your successes.

And, if you aren’t tracking performance on your content -- start.

Create goals for each piece of content you create and assign key performance indicators (KPIs) that help measure your success.
Create a schedule to regularly check on content analytics to see what is performing well on your site and social networks.
When appropriate, add forms to your blog pages to guide a reader to connect or get more information.

Focus on the Right Content Marketing Priorities in 2020

Content marketing can be overwhelming. With so many options and avenues, it can be difficult to determine where to focus your energy. But by following these tips, you can get more out of your content in 2020 and beyond.

Ready to tackle 2020 and start content marketing, but not sure how? We’re here to help. Learn more about our content marketing programs, or contact us to discuss your content needs and goals.

Amanda Sanz