[Feature] B2B content: powerful leverage to stand out and boost your performance!

L'article

In 2024, the vast majority (80%) of French B2B marketing departments will focus on content creation to generate leads (68%) and enhance their brand awareness (66%), according to a study by Infopro Digital.

The near-universal adoption of content marketing is due to its ability to help companies achieve a variety of sub-objectives that contribute to their overall performance.

• Demonstrate know-how and expertise to increasingly demanding audiences;
• Reinforce brand identity and associate it with positive sentiment
• Deploy inspiring storytelling;
• Provide social proof to reassure the target;
• Anchor the brand in the minds of potential customers, whether or not they are in the buying phase.

To equip B2B marketing departments, help them differentiate themselves, and leverage this tool for their performance, we have decided to dedicate a comprehensive feature to content. On the agenda:

• The analyses and practical advice from our experts in three episodes;
• The interview with Manuelle Tilly, Editorial Director of Infopro Digital Stories;
• Our infographic on the role of AI in content;
• Our video on the 5 misconceptions about Brand Content.

1.  Why implement a content strategy in B2B?

Content is not an end in itself. The idea is not to dive into creating content in all directions just to mimic the competition.

This is especially true in B2B, as content that achieves its goals of lead generation or brand awareness (to put it simply) is rigorous, precise, sometimes entertaining, and therefore relatively costly and time-consuming.

Content creation efforts must be structured within a 360° strategy that ensures consistency of actions, synergy between formats and channels, and regularity of publications.

Companies that commit to their ambitions at this level will see the tangible contribution of content to their business objectives on multiple levels:

• Generate interest, demand, and leads;
• Embed the brand in the minds of its entire addressable market, whether it’s the 5% in the purchasing phase or the 95% who will be in the short or medium term (see the theory of 95-5); (see the 95-5 theory) ;
• Improve brand visibility through natural referencing (SEO);
• Fuel nurturing campaigns to accelerate pipeline velocity;
• Strengthen brand awareness to build trust with the target audience, differentiate in increasingly saturated markets, and create social proof.

💡​Episode 1
In the first episode of this series, we revisit the broad definition of content, its main trends in B2B, and the five reasons to implement a content strategy.

2.   B2B Content: The challenges faced by companies and how to overcome them

However, in practice, they struggle to produce assets that genuinely contribute to achieving business objectives, hindered by:

• Lack of specialized in-house resources, leading to difficulty in reflecting the company’s expertise and skills in useful and engaging content;
• Difficulty in offering original content to stand out in the era of information overload;
• Lack of consistency and continuity in the distributed content, resulting in erratic communication, disconnected pieces, and contradictory or repetitive messages;
• Challenges in leveraging the right channels to disseminate B2B content, which limits its impact and reduces marketing ROI;
• Misconceptions that prevent them from fully exploiting the potential of this lever. Marion Cousin, Director of Infopro Digital Stories, talks about this in this video clip ;
• Struggles to harness the power of video format to engage a B2B audience that is, nonetheless, very receptive. We interviewed Manuelle Tilly, Editorial Director of Infopro Digital Stories, on this topic.

💡Épisode 2
In the second episode, we review the obstacles that prevent B2B marketing departments from producing content that contributes to business performance. We also propose solutions to overcome these challenges.

3.   Where does AI fit into B2B marketing content?

Since the end of 2022, marketers have been able to rely on the new generation of generative AI chatbots (genAI) for their creative tasks. While the enthusiasm is evident, so are the challenges, as highlighted by our infographic on the state of AI in content marketing.

For AI to fully play its role as a facilitator in content creation, B2B marketing departments must understand its scope of action and remain vigilant about its limitations. This is not necessarily an easy task, as the technology is still in full development.

Overall, AI is a good co-pilot that helps save time on certain time-consuming tasks (with caution), but it is a poor pilot that cannot lead a content creation project from A to Z.

What AI Can Do	What AI Cannot Do
Summarize articles and studies   Limitation: Tendency to only analyze the first few pages and invent the rest.	Create original content that stands out from the competition, as any “creation” is essentially a rephrasing of existing material.
Analyze a database to extract insights Limitation: Calculation errors, even with simple additions	Write in natural and idiomatic French, as AI is trained mostly on English-language documents.
Answer questions to understand a theory, concept, or technique…Limitation: AI is adept at generating disconnected yet seemingly convincing responses.	Infuse content with emotional components. In this exercise, AI typically adopts a caricatured, overly promotional tone.
Translate content for documentation Limitation: Tendency to translate literally, or even word-for-word.	Integrate viewpoints or professional anecdotes.
Add appropriate emojis to social media posts Limitation: It is necessary to filter out emojis that are interpreted too literally (e.g., a baguette to illustrate “having a lot on one’s plate”).

💡Episode 3
In the third episode, our experts provide you with the keys to judiciously integrate generative Artificial Intelligence into your B2B content creation processes.