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Conveying the brand’s values, associating it with a positive sentiment, developing its universe and narrative… all while providing value and utility to readers. In one sentence, this is the objective of brand content in B2B.
In the first episode of this dossier, we propose to explore the importance of implementing a content strategy to work on your company’s image and optimize its business performance.
What is Brand Content?
Brand Content refers to the content created by a company (or under its direction) to strengthen its brand identity, engage its audience, and support its business objectives. Unlike advertising, which aims to promote products or services directly, B2B Brand Content provides value to the company’s target audience through informative and engaging content, while also reflecting the brand’s values.
What are the trends in B2B brand content?
Our expertise in Brand Content and daily interaction with the field, particularly through our media brands, allow us to identify several trends.
1. Return to more “subjective” content
Content is becoming less cold, less corporate, and less consensus-driven. Therefore, “subjective” formats such as expert opinions, case studies, and personal interviews are of interest to decision-makers
It’s no longer about stringing together general truths to avoid offending one’s readership. Content that delivers viewpoints inevitably sparks debate, generates engagement, and serves the brand’s visibility.
2. Creating something new rather than reformulating what already exists
In the face of information overload, exacerbated by the democratization of generative AI, B2B audiences no longer value content that merely regurgitates existing materials.
They seek exclusive or first-hand information. This explains the enthusiasm for market studies which have become full-fledged forms of Brand Content, alongside their importance in understanding the market in which the company operates.
💡Read also
The interview with Virginie Mollet-Bauer, Client Director of Studies at Infopro Digital Media.
3. High-audience media for content distribution
The substance and style of content are not the only factors. The media and channels through which it is distributed play a crucial role and determine its visibility among the target audience.
According to a study[i], companies that distribute their content through prominent media outlets see a 50% increase in their brand awareness metrics (including brand lift) compared to content published solely on their websites.
4. Original content
According to a study by the B2B LinkedIn Institute, 87% of B2B buyers believe that content can be both intellectually rigorous and easy to consume in its format.
The success of entertaining content (videos, storytelling, bold posts) can be attributed in part to a significant demographic factor: 64 % of B2B buyers are millennials or Generation Z.
They have grown up with digital technology and expect a certain level of entertainment in the content they consume daily, without compromising on the value and usefulness it provides.
5 reasons to implement a brand content strategy in B2B
A well-designed and deployed Brand Content strategy will enable you to activate multiple performance levers in the short term (lead generation) and the long term (brand awareness and SEO).
1. Anchoring your brand in the minds of your target market
The 95 – 5 theory, validated by empirical observations from the LinkedIn B2B Institute and Ehrenberg Bass Institute, states that only 5% of your potential customers are actively searching for an immediate purchase at any given moment “M”.
In essence, even if they meet all the criteria of your ideal customer profile, they likely won’t need your products until some time in the future (several months to years).
Transactional marketing speaks to the 5% who are in the buying phase… but Content Marketing targets the other 95%. The idea is to anchor your brand in their minds so that they remember you and thus commit them to a purchase.
2. Stimulate lead generation
No lead generation strategy can perform without high-value content. Faced with the abundance of content on the web, B2B audiences have raised their expectations and will only provide their contact information when they encounter:
- If the content they have just consumed meets their expectations and they want to delve deeper into the topic or discuss it with you;
- If they want access to premium content available through a form, such as an ebook, a webinar (live or replay), a checklist, etc.
According to this study from the Content Marketing Institute (CMI), two out of three B2B marketers claim that their content generates inquiries and leads.
3. Improving visibility through search engine optimization (SEO)
High-quality content inspired by the interests and concerns of your audience serves as a visibility tool for your website on two levels.
When published on your blog, these contents will notably allow you to:
- To optimize your website for strategic keywords;
- To extend the time visitors spend on your site, a positive indicator for search engines that your content is high quality;
- To improve your site structure through internal linking;
- To keep your site alive with fresh and up-to-date content is an indicator that seems to enhance SEO according to a recent study by SEMrush.[iii].
When your marketing content is distributed externally, for example on high-traffic specialized media, it will allow you to:
- Create high-quality backlinks, which search engines interpret as a form of “recommendation” for your site;
- Redirect a portion of qualified traffic from the media in question to your website.
4. Nurture lead campaigns
Nurturing involves maintaining a regular relationship with prospects who are not yet ready to make a purchase but show varying levels of promise.
In B2B, where sales cycles are typically long and complex, nurturing is crucial for pipeline velocity (the speed at which qualified prospects move through the pipeline).
Your content strategy will enable you to fuel nurturing on two levels:
- Repurposing existing content to personalize it according to the prospect or segment of prospects you are targeting;
- Creating original and highly personalized content for a prospect or segment of prospects with high potential.
5. Strengthen brand awareness
Brand awareness is a real business accelerator, since it generates trust, promotes differentiation in increasingly uniform markets and creates “social proof” for your brand.
Content contributes to brand awareness in several ways:
- It demonstrates your expertise and know-how in your core business, particularly through in-depth blog articles, webinars, white papers and case studies;
- It boosts your organic visibility through SEO;
- It generates engagement on social networks;
- New content, such as market research and surveys, increases your chances of being quoted in the media spontaneously, with backlinks to your website;
- Summary content, such as infographics and checklists, is widely shared on LinkedIn. They convey your image and raise your profile.
French decision-makers are well aware of the importance of content for business. However, they are still hampered by several obstacles, which will be the subject of the second instalment of this feature.
[i] https://www.pressboardmedia.com/magazine/best-branded-content-stats
[ii] https://marketingscience.info/the-955-rule-is-the-new-6040-rule/
[iii] https://www.semrush.com/goodcontent/state-of-content-marketing/