B2B marketing content is undergoing an enormous change in how it is crafted and how it attracts and retains viewers as a result. Although many sites continue to focus providing news, analysis or case studies that business visitors can use to learn more about how to enhance their own offerings and services, a shift is taking place toward a paradigm called “decision-based content” according to Forbes.
No longer can content’s value be measured by how many visitors and site views it generates. Instead, businesses have to look deeper into their visitors and seek to measure the impact of the content upon them, specifically the successes a visitor may experience based on the content they consume.
Forbes notes that Thomas CEO Tony Uphoff said in a recent keynote speech that “all the content we create we think of as actionable content.” That means content has to go far and beyond information that is educational and instead land at a standard of viewers being able to take the information and nearly immediately use it to achieve a business objective.
This shift in B2B marketing content is difficult for content editors to embrace. This is primarily because editors identify with the content news cycle and breaking information as it is hot and new and can be the first to land in front of valuable readers.
Even though an editor may now work in the world of B2B marketing, they likely have a long history in other content types where news and analysis reign and the sole objective is education. To embrace the new age of B2B marketing, these editors must embrace a total shift in how they develop, assign and edit content before it is published to their company website.
New B2B marketing paradigms should be tool-based. Using the information that is shared in the content, editors must determine what tools should be highlighted or developed for readers to be able to employ right away to their company’s advantage.
Data-driven Blue Mail Media recommends the use of email campaigns, which they describe as “both an art and a science,” to connect with prospects and share tool-based solutions. Healthcare marketing leader MedicoReach concurs: the right content combined with carefully crafted emails lists changes the game for making strategic B2B connections and “driving more traffic…and generating increased revenue.”
Carefully crafted campaigns plus the shift to tool-based B2B content can result in valuable client acquisition and retention.
