“We want to publish 5 blogs per week.” “We need a white paper.” “How about a blog highlighting the impact of oatmeal for breakfast on executive decision-making?”

Content writers hear lots of great ideas, but not all of them make sense or align with business or marketing goals.

Before investing time and money in content, make sure you have a smart content strategy in place — one that will keep your content efforts on track for achieving your company’s business and marketing goals.

Having a strategy is, of course, one thing. But it’s also important to follow your strategy until you see evidence (through analytics) that it may be time to change course. Tracking performance is key to success.

Content strategies set goals, segment and define target audiences, identify content topics and messaging that align with those goals (and target audience preferences), ensure proper SEO, and identify key performance indicators (KPIs) for measuring the success you want to achieve. Content calendars lay everything out in a nice, neat schedule — the topics, writers, formats, distribution channels, and timelines.

By following your strategy, tracking metrics, and continually refining and optimizing various elements of your strategy, you’ll be more likely to improve your content marketing results over time.

Looking for help with your content strategy? Contact me today to get started.

Looking for a framework for developing your own content strategy? Good news, I’ve created a Sample B2B Content Strategy Framework just for you! Download the pdf or scroll down.

Sample B2B Content Strategy Framework (with a few extra notes)

1. Start by identifying your goals.

• What marketing goals do you want to achieve with your content?

Defining these goals is integral to measuring success later on and to selecting the most effective type of content and distribution channels for achieving your specific goals.

Some common B2B content marketing goals (and the type of content used to achieve them) include:

Achieve brand awareness, recognition and familiarity with content that educates or entertains your target audience (blogs, social media posts, infographics).

Generate leads and motivating potential customers to provide their contact information with gated lead magnets (e-books, white papers, reports, newsletter sign-ups)

Convert leads into customers with information and resources that help prospects make informed decisions about your products or services.

Retain customers, increase loyalty, and reduce churn with informative content that helps customers get more value from your products or services (infographics, blogs).

Establish thought leadership in your industry to build trust and credibility with potential customers through content that showcases your unique expertise and insights (reports, white papers, e-books).

Improve your website’s search rankings and make it easier for potential customers to find you through organic searches online with high-quality SEO content (blogs, website content).

Increase social media engagement with shareable content or by running social media campaigns that encourage users to generate content.

Once you’ve defined your marketing goals and determined the right type of content, your strategy can focus on identifying topics to write about. Of course, the most effective topics will be those most relevant to your target audience.

2. Who is your target audience and what do they care about?

• Start by taking a step back and evaluate which industry or market segment will find your solution most valuable.

Conduct market and competitor research to understand high-level industry pain points and opportunities for differentiating your value from the competition.

• What is your company’s unique value proposition (UVP)?

• How does your solution differ from the competition?

• How does your solution solve pain points or fulfill target audience needs?

• Is your solution more valuable to a particular sector within the industry?

Decision makers and their influencers from the industries revealed above generally make for ideal target customers. Research more about them to find out their job roles, and responsibilities.

Learn more about your target audience by creating a buyer persona. These can help you drill down into learning even more about your ideal customer. Try to answer the following:

• What does your target audience care about?

• What individual pain points, challenges, and obstacles do they face in their daily work

• What are their goals and motivations (personally and professionally)

• What is their decision-making process like (do they have the authority to make purchases, or is there a purchasing committee?)?

• What are their preferred communication channels and formats (i.e., email, phone, social media, in-person meetings)?

3. Use the information you’ve learned thus far to tailor your content and develop marketing messages. Here are a few more questions to explore that might help:

• How do your products or services address industry and individual pain points?

• Why is yours the best solution for your target audience?  

• Based on what you learned about your target audience, what topics or information might spark interest or curiosity?

4. SEO: Don’t forget to optimize content for organic searches by your target audience! Here are a few “must do’s” when it comes to SEO:

Research important keywords, include them in your title, headings, and subheadings (H1 and H2 title tags) and sprinkle them strategically throughout your content

Tools like Semrush, Ahrefs, and Google Keyword Planner by Google Ads can help you find the right keywords.

Never “stuff” keywords into your content. Like packing clothes into your favorite suitcase, include only as many keywords as fit comfortably, and only where they fit in naturally.

Remember, blogs aren’t the only type of content that benefits from SEO. You’ll also want to optimize web content, case studies, white papers, reports, e-books, product descriptions, and of course the titles, descriptions, and tags attached to videos, webinars, and podcasts.

An important key to strong SEO is making sure your content is clear, concise, compelling, and that your target audience deems it valuable.

Make your content even more engaging by personalizing it and speaking directly to your target audience. Make your ideal customer the hero in every story.

5. Decide how you’ll distribute your content

•    Which channels does your target audience frequent?

B2B audiences often start with organic searches on Google

They also read email, watch webinars, and listen to podcasts and peruse social media platforms, including LinkedIn and Twitter.

Online communities and forums are another place where B2B audiences go to share information, ask questions, and connect with others in their industry. 

6. Create a content calendar to organize what content you’ll produce, who’ll write and edit it, when you’ll publish it, and which channels you’ll use to promote and distribute it.

7. Make an action plan that outlines specific tasks and responsibilities for each content team member. Of course you’ll want to meet and ensure everyone is on the same page and working toward the same marketing goals, timelines, etc.

8. Monitor the performance of each piece of content. Use analytics tools to track your progress toward meeting goals.

9. Adjust your content strategy as needed to optimize results and achieve your marketing goals. 

blog posts • bios • brochures • buyer personas • case studies • content audits • content briefs • content strategy • corporate stories • customer journeys • ebooks • email • fact sheets • Google Analytics • government and nonprofit program guides • infographics • landing pages • marketing materials • marketing plans • newsletters • PowerPoint decks • press releases • profiles • reports • requests for proposals (RFPs) • search engine optimization (SEO) • social media • video scripts • website content • white papers • and more!