How much revenue does your B2B blog content generate? Don’t worry; you’re not the only one who doesn’t feel comfortable when this question pops up. Many companies either don’t see the results they expect from blogging or know there’s room for improvement.
But that doesn’t mean there’s no ROI coming from it. 52% of B2B marketers rely on blogging as their top content marketing tactic.
Unfortunately, knowing your blog could do better and knowing how to make it better are two different things. Moreover, you can’t expect to transform your blog or your ROI overnight. You need a blog content strategy to maximize the return on your content creation efforts, and that takes time and some resources.
Here’s the thing. A blog content strategy is less about how much you post, and more about what you publish and how you do it. So, you may need to shift to a different mindset and change the way you use your blog to generate business opportunities.
Great Content vs. Strategy
Some marketers still believe that content alone can move the mountains. So, they keep writing and publishing and writing and publishing. While high-quality content is always the key element to a business’ blog success, there’s a lot more going on beneath the surface.
You can’t get too far when you don’t know where you’re going with your content. It gets even harder when you’re B2B-focused and deal with hard-to-please decision-makers. So, regardless of how great your blog posts can be, they can’t compensate for the absence of a cohesive blog content strategy.
Content will perform well when you focus on multiple elements that have nothing to do with the number of articles you publish. First of all, the content should be relevant and follow the pattern of your buyer’s journey. Second, every piece should have the right call to action to generate engagement. Last, but not least, you need to promote that content through multiple channels to make sure it reaches your target audience.
5 Blog Content Strategy Tips for B2B Businesses
A blog content strategy doesn’t end when you hit the Publish button. In fact, you’re not even halfway toward the destination when your blog post goes live. It’s a long road that doesn’t lack challenges. So, here are five blog content strategy tips for B2B businesses to help you see better ROI from your business blog.
1. Target the Right Audience with Relevant Keywords
Keyword selection forms the base of your blog content strategy for two reasons — one, because keywords help determine the topics to discuss and, two, because they enable you to target the right audiences.
When you optimize your blogs for specific keywords, you vastly improve their visibility in search engine results. This blog content strategy will help attract people who are interested in your products and services (and are likely to engage with your content).
When you perform keyword research, try to identify the intent behind each query. That way, you’ll be able to segment keywords by the purpose they serve. This information is crucial when creating your blog content strategy because it enables you to develop specific blogs around keywords for every step of the buyer’s journey.
For example, keywords that raise awareness are suitable for top-of-the-funnel posts. Also, keywords that can be associated with a buying intention are most appropriate for bottom-of-the-funnel content when prospects are likely to make a purchase.
2. Publish Content that Helps Your Readers Take Action
B2B content should be relevant. Decision-makers don’t have time to waste on blog posts that miss the point. If they don’t gain anything from your content, you don’t stand a chance to see engagement.
This tip exemplifies why strategy is so essential to the success of your business blog. When you create your content calendar, don’t focus on reaching a certain number of blogs per month. Instead, think of what you wish to obtain with each post.
As you can see, it’s not a numbers game. With all the information available online, people look for substance and consistency. It doesn’t matter how much you publish, but what you post, how it serves your audience, and how you correlate it with your business goals.
Let’s say your B2B business needs to raise awareness for a new service. Publishing a blog post per day related to the launch itself isn’t going to cut through the noise.
What you can do is identify the pain points where your new service is useful. That’s because people are far more likely to search for a solution to their problem than news about a product launch. Then, research the long-tail keywords relevant in this specific situation and craft on-point blog posts around these terms.
Educated decisions will drive relevant traffic to your B2B business blog, which means higher conversion rates and better return on your investment.
3. Use Appropriate Calls to Action
Calls to action generate the engagement that boosts ROI. Without them, people will come, read your content, and move on. As much as 90 percent of your website visitors are more likely to leave and never return to your blog. That’s because there’s nothing there to guide them toward the next step of the journey.
Now, you can’t just fill your pages with “Buy Now” buttons without scaring people off. You need to come up with appropriate CTA buttons for each type of blog post that you write.
That being said, a blog that serves for building awareness should end with an invitation to subscribe or download an eBook, for example, or other actions that can open a conversation and allow you to get to know your public by name and email address.
The CTA should make sense within the context of the page and be related to the topic so people don’t feel tricked into something they weren’t looking for.
4. Promote Content Regularly
One of the most lucrative rules in a blog content strategy is to treat your blog as a product. So, when you create your content calendar, make sure you take the time to plan promotion as well. This includes social networks, events, newsletters, and any other form of communication that your business uses to keep in touch with partners and clients.
You’ll see better ROI from your blog when you spread the word about your articles. Use any promotion methods at your fingertips to push your blog in front of large audiences. From social messages to syndication to influencers, any channel that can help you connect with your target audience will do the trick.
Remember to adapt your message to every channel to get noticed. Write as your public speaks and keep it short when necessary—especially in places like Twitter or Facebook.
5. Measure the Performance of Your Blog
When your business blog doesn’t deliver the expected results, it may only be because you’re not tracking the right metrics. The fact is, key performance indicators can often be tricky and irrelevant for your business goals.
Before deciding that your blog doesn’t generate revenue, look in the right places. Make sure you correctly measure how many people land on your articles, what they do once on the page, and where they go after visiting your blog.
Use automation to track your blog readers and how they interact with your brand across channels. That way, you get a clear picture of the role your B2B business blog plays in your overall marketing strategy.
Final Thoughts
A successful blog content strategy doesn’t rely exclusively on content, but rather how that content fits into a broader, more meaningful context.
So, don’t create blogs just for the sake of it. Instead, draw a path to what you want to obtain with your blog and fill in the steps one at a time:
- Research (for pain points, keywords, possible target audiences)
- Creation (based on keywords)
- Implementation of the right CTA (correlated with the purpose of the blog)
- Promotion (through relevant channels)
Successful B2B business blogs aren’t unexpected things that happen just because someone publishes content regularly. The sooner you start working on a blog content strategy, the more likely you are to grow your business with blogging.
Teodora Pirciu
Teodora is a former journalist who traded adventure for the comfort of freelance writing. She writes articles, blogs, ebooks, and other copy for fellow freelancers, entrepreneurs, and B2B companies. From 2018, she collaborates with Impressa Solutions, a team of word wizards, strategy sorcerers, and the bee’s knees of B2B. A traveler at heart, Teodora moved to Italy, where she lives the freelancing dream while enjoying good food and excellent wine. She’s passionate about content marketing and language learning.
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