One truth of good marketing is that you have to tailor your strategy to your audience. While there are some principles and methods that may be effective regardless of whom you target, understanding your audience’s needs and preferences can ensure you’re spending your time and resources in the best way.
For B2B marketers, their audience is other businesses. This means tailoring their strategy to what their particular customers need will require a different type of thinking from B2C marketing—especially when it comes to their content strategy. Below, 14 members of Forbes Communications Council discuss some of the challenges B2B marketers are facing when it comes to content marketing today, as well as how they recommend overcoming those obstacles.
1. Standing Out Among The Competition
Standing out in a crowded market is a challenge for many marketers. Focus on creating high-quality, valuable content that addresses the pain points and challenges of your target audience. This can help you differentiate yourself from the crowd and become established as a thought leader. – Alexi Lambert Leimbach, Xcellimark
2. Keeping Up With The Sheer Amount Of Content Out There
There’s an overwhelming amount of content available. The traditional marketing “Rule of 7” says people need to see a message seven times before they’ll take action. That number likely is exponentially higher given the amount of content available. Marketers need to focus on creating the right content that will be valuable and interesting to their audience. – Lyndsi Stevens, Celerium
3. Defining Their Target Market
The main challenge B2B marketers face is defining their target market. With B2C marketing, you can use traditional audience analysis to define your customer’s demographics and pain points. When it comes to B2B, the customer is a business itself, and you must study how different businesses work together, what they can offer each other and how to create a mutually beneficial relationship. – Yael Klass, Similarweb Ltd.
4. Creating Content That Guides Prospects Through The Sales Funnel
A challenge for B2B marketers is creating engaging content that guides prospects through the sales funnel and demonstrates thought leadership. Brands today need to understand audience pain points and preferences to tailor content that provides valuable solutions as well as fosters engagement, conversions and brand loyalty while nudging prospects along their customer journey. – Alison Bringé, Launchmetrics
5. Coming Up With The Right Repurposing Strategy
Give internal content and data a second life. Repurpose an employee story as a spotlight on social media, transform employee surveys into award nominations or convert demographic data into employer brand infographics. This extends your content’s value and provides an opportunity to redeploy time and resources on continuing to understand key audiences. – Marija Zivanovic-Smith, IEX
6. Leaning In To Emotion
B2B marketers are generally challenged with creating an emotional aspect in their content because they are trying to appeal to rational buyers. That said, these buyers are still human. Therefore, leaning into emotional and social needs can build stronger desire for your products or services. – Roshni Wijayasinha, Prosh Marketing
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7. Getting Lost In The Social Media Feed
The social media space is becoming more crowded every day, and B2B messaging can potentially get lost in this sea of endless content (or audience fatigue). Make sure your marketing takes a multi-platform approach, utilizing other avenues outside of social—email, print and digital ads—to expand your reach in a productive and meaningful way. – Melissa Kandel, little word studio
8. Connecting With Their Audience Amid Varying Preferences
Content consumption is so varied with personal and generational preferences, making it a challenge to connect with your audience. To combat this fragmentation, tailor your message and delivery channels toward your target demographic. Knowing your ideal customer profile and their intent is critical to being successful, especially if you are working from a limited budget. Invest in good data tools to give you an edge. – Clay Tuten, KeyMark Inc.
9. Finding Subject Matter Experts For Interviews And Reviews
An obstacle we continually face is finding subject matter experts to interview or review content. Working in the construction industry means you have to be very flexible with schedules because things often come up. I recommend making meeting with your experts as easy as possible, making it a phone call instead of an in-person or virtual meeting, and recording the audio so you can go back and listen. – Sarah Lero, A.L. Huber
10. Navigating Low-Quality Spam And Content Clutter
AI is raising the bar, making it easier than ever for basic content to be produced. The irony is that this means more low-quality spam is circulating the internet, creating noise and clutter. Therefore, marketers need to invest energy, time and resources in creating content that is truly unique and unable to be replicated by AI. Subject matter experts should be a B2B marketer’s best friend! – Patrick Ward, Formula.Monks
11. Covering All The Topics They Want To Cover
In B2B marketing, it can be easy for brands to become overwhelmed by the breadth of content they feel compelled to cover, leading to diluted messaging. To overcome this, establish a clear, repeatable and scalable content strategy. By setting editorial pillars and guardrails, brands can create a decision-making system that streamlines content development while boosting output performance. – Alyssa Kopelman, Healthline Media
12. Lacking Centralized Content Creation Processes
The greatest challenges facing B2B content marketing are often internal. In most organizations, content creation is not centralized, which has pros and cons. A major con is the lack of alignment, prioritization of content themes or a centralized editorial calendar. One way to solve these is to create a global cross-functional content council that sets quarterly themes and manages the calendar. – Rekha Thomas, Path Forward Marketing LLC
13. Finding The Right Frequency And Depth
A key challenge B2B marketers face in content marketing is finding the right frequency and depth of content to share. I recommend that you be frugal in pushing your content, but pack it with insights when you do. Serving content less frequently but making it impactful when served is a significant credibility builder. – Humsa Dhir, Sony Pictures Networks India
14. Creating Diverse And Inclusive Content
A notable content marketing challenge for B2B marketers is creating diverse and inclusive content. To overcome this, prioritize diversity in your content creation team, leverage diverse perspectives and conduct regular inclusivity audits. By representing various voices and experiences, your content becomes more relatable and resonant, fostering broader connections in the business landscape. – Maria Alonso, Fortune 206