7 Brilliant B2B Content Marketing Examples

Digitization is unstoppable, as we all know. But especially for B2B companies (Business-to-Business) this can become a major problem. Where one used to make contacts with customers at trade fairs or secure orders with cold calls, today competent digital marketing, is needed to keep up with the competition.

Digital marketing is of course a huge area. Where to even start?

In this article, our guest author Alexander Rus introduces an important aspect of digital B2B marketing: B2B Content Marketing. Read on and learn how to use interesting content to get customers to your website and how to make your brand known by providing content with real added value.

What is content marketing?

Content marketing, is a marketing technique where user-centered content is planned, created and promoted in a way that it represents advertising for the company.

The aim of content marketing is to acquire new customers and to retain existing customers. Content marketing is often used in conjunction with SEO or social media marketing and should be part of the digital marketing mix.

Content marketing is pull marketing (also called inbound marketing): it captures already existing demand instead of trying to artificially create demand (= push marketing).

Content marketing works for both B2C and B2B companies. The important thing is to know your target audience because the content you create here must meet a very specific need of this target group. In short, you find out what problems your target group has and then create targeted content that helps them solve these problems.

Content Marketing is particularly important for the brand awareness of your target group. By providing potential customers with free information, you establish yourself as an authority in your field and earn the trust of your target group.

B2B Content Marketing: Definition and objectives

B2B content marketing is simply content marketing in the B2B sector, i.e. for companies that sell products or services to other companies. Content marketing is even more important for B2B companies and is becoming increasingly important as attention shifts from offline to online.

The strategy of making as many cold calls as possible and hoping that someone needs your offer works, but it creates a lot of friction and can damage your own brand. Industrial trade fairs are no longer the reliable advertising medium they used to be - this was the case even before the pandemic, but 2020 has greatly accelerated this development.

So B2B marketing is increasingly moving into the digital space, and the guiding principle for all types of digital advertising is: Content Is King.

But of course a content marketing strategy for B2B has to look different from B2C. These are the central particularities of content marketing for B2B:

• In the B2B sector, there are no spontaneous purchases, no sales promotions and no viral content.
• B2B customers inform themselves thoroughly about all options before making decisions.
• B2B customers are less interested in the staging of your brand, but only in whether your product can solve their problems.
• Hard numbers, references from others (primarily from industry-known players) and personal approach are decisive.

What does this mean for your B2B content strategy?

To conduct effective B2B content marketing, you need to provide content for all stages of the buyer's journey on your website. Whether a potential customer:

• is gathering first information about possible problem solutions,
• compares different products or services,
• is ready to make a purchase, or
• has already bought the product but needs additional information on how to use it.

You need to have the right content ready on your website for all these stages. Make your website the one-stop-shop for answers and problem solutions in your specific niche, and earn the trust and loyalty of your target audience this way!

After all, if I constantly come to a certain website, whenever I search for problem solutions in a certain area of my job, I will probably also turn to this website when I decide to invest money in solving the problem.

To illustrate exactly how the B2B purchasing process works, we can take a look at the Gartner Buying Journey Report (2019). Here we see that there are six different steps on the customer journey:

1. Identify a problem
2. Search for a possible solution
3. Define your own requirements
4. Include providers in a shortlist
5. Decide on a specific solution
6. Agree on the decision

Various steps in the B2B buying process (© http://evergreenmedia.at)

What types of B2B content are there?

Depending on what goals you pursue with your content, you can decide on a mix of different content types:

Different types of content (© http://evergreenmedia.at)

In B2B content marketing, there are a few classics that have proven to be particularly effective: Whitepapers, E-Books and Case Studies. With these content formats you provide potential customers with a lot of valuable information and prove your expertise.

The classic B2B blog is also a key tool for content marketing. An alternative to chronological blogs are content hubs, like at Backlinko, where articles are sorted by topic. Video content is also very effective in B2B content marketing, especially if it doesn't just deal with the classic pain points, but also with second-order pain points.

Whitepapers and E-Books

Whitepapers are extensive and industry-specific and present a specific solution to a problem. The difference to E-Books is the length: While a downloadable white paper should be at least two pages long, E-Books are often very comprehensive and cover a wider topic in several chapters.

Because both white papers and E-Books are very labour-intensive content formats, it is worth re-purposing content here: You can therefore use individual parts of the raw material for other types of content. You can, for example, post quotes on social media channels or use parts of the content for newsletters or as videos. By linking your white paper or E-Book, you also advertise it at the same time.

Case Studies

In a case study (also often referred to in English as a case study) you present your work using a specific customer example. The great advantage of this type of content is that potential customers get an idea of what working with you would look like. And of course you also demonstrate your expertise with hard numbers and facts.

The following must be included in every case study:

• The Initial Situation: Explain the customer's problem
• The Challenge: What obstacles did you have to overcome in order to solve the problem?
• Your Solution: How did you overcome the problem? Here concrete steps should be mentioned.

It is most effective to present case studies with various problem situations. This shows your potential customers that you're the right contact person for them, regardless of the problem they have

Also, customer testimonials should always be included in case studies!

Blogs

A company blog may not be the most original form of B2B content marketing, but there is a good reason why it is still important. Blog articles are not as labor intensive as white papers or e-books and can cover much wider topics than case studies. The blog is a flexible all-rounder suitable for every company. How you can write blog posts, read in this post.

However, these days you should no longer just publish everything that comes to mind on your blog: Every blog post you write must have a place in your content strategy. Find out what interests your target group, what they search for on Google or what they click on most on social media, and write targeted articles on these topics to draw potential customers to your website.

Tip: The chronological order of blogs is suboptimal in terms of SEO and user experience. It is therefore advisable to replace the blog concept with one or more content hubs.

Videos

Videos are not yet used very intensively for B2B content marketing in the German-speaking world. But videos are perfect for familiarising customers who might have too little time or simply don't feel like reading a blog article, with your offer. Anyone who makes webinars, demo or social videos offers their customers something they rarely get, and thus stands out from the crowd.

In addition to having your own YouTube channel, it is also a good idea to include videos on your own website in blog articles or guides. This not only helps to achieve better rankings in search engines, but also particularly loosens up long articles.

The statistics on video marketing speak for themselves. Here are some exciting numbers:

• According to a study by Unbounce the integration of a video on your landing page can increase the conversion rate by up to 80%.
• According to Google 81% of video views receive all or most of the attention.
• 90% of customers discover new companies or products using YouTube.
• According to wyzowl 94% of people watch explanatory videos to better understand a product, service, brand or company.

B2B content strategy: step by step

The content marketing process can be divided into five steps:

1. Analysis: You set your goals, define your target group, and find the right topics.
2. Concept: You develop ideas and a design concept, then prioritize your ideas in an editorial plan.
3. Production: Create your content and set up tracking.
4. Distribution: Publish the new content and then actively promote it.
5. Evaluation: Track the development of your content for subsequent analysis: What do you need to do better in future? How can you expand your content?

The content marketing process from analysis to evaluation (© http://evergreenmedia.at)

And once this process is complete, it starts all over again: After all, content marketing is not just a task that you complete once and done. Content marketing is a marketing strategy, that you must continually drive forward to actually benefit from it. Content also needs to be updated and improved regularly to stay competitive. If you want to know how to get to a content marketing strategy in 6 steps, you'll find it here.

B2B content marketing: examples

Theory is all well and good, but to really understand what great B2B content marketing looks like, let's take a look at a few examples. The companies presented here have invested massively in their content marketing and know exactly what their target group needs.

1. Atlassian

Atlassian is a provider of software solutions for project management and software development. The company operates content marketing like no other: In addition to the Work Life blog, which not only offers articles, but also white papers, podcasts and quizzes, Atlassian is mainly distinguished by the Atlassian University.

This page offers trainings and certifications, and while many of these offers are paid, there is also a large catalog of detailed free learning resources.

From a content marketing perspective, the point For Teams in the navigation bar is also interesting: Here customers can learn about the advantages of Atlassian products with specific reference to the size of their company or the

function of their teams. On each of these pages, readers get not only information about the software applications themselves, but are also referred to

further resources

Personio, like here on the page for marketing teams:2. Personio offers an

All-In-One HR solution for small and medium-sized businesses. Accordingly, the blog that the company runs is strongly oriented towards the HR topic, offering everything from tips to best practices to HR news and explanations of changes in labor law.But that's not all. Under

Downloads & Inspiration

the company offers Yousigntemplates for contracts, webinars, white papers, studies and courses. All of this is easily searchable by topic and format. And anyone coming to the site with a very specific problem will certainly find the solution in Personio's extremely extensive HR dictionary

.3. YouSignE-signature provider

scores in terms of content marketing with an extensive collection of guides for different application scenarios. In each of these guides, further guides are linked that

go deeper into the application of the product, like here on the subpage for insurance:In addition, at the end of each of these guides, there are further links to

three different customer reports, that fit into this area. Readers are guided perfectly through the site.4. Evergreen Media®

Evergreen Media® is an SEO and content marketing agency that operates B2B content marketing on various channels. On the company's own website, there is a free SEO course for beginners in the subject, but also a content hub with in-depth guides. These guides are sorted by topic, such as SEO basics, Content Marketing or Keyword Guides, which makes the site particularly clear.

In addition, Evergreen Media® presents visitors with a series of case studies, all built on the same principle, but covering a wide range of different problems faced by customers in different sectors.

In addition to the website itself, Evergreen Media® also runs a

YouTube channel, where the managing director Alexander Rus explains concepts from the SEO and content marketing world

, gives practical tips or shows concrete examples from everyday agency life to solve common problems.

These videos are also integrated into the

guides on the site, to provide more value to site readers.5. Hubspot

Thanks to its CRM platform, Hubspot is one of the most important players in the digital marketing sector. This position is not least due to its content marketing: Hubspot offers an entire library full of detailed e-books, white papers and research reports that have become absolute must-reads in various areas of digital marketing.

In addition to this downloadable content, Hubspot also offers the

Hubspot Academy: Here, free courses and certifications in various categories are offered, some lasting twenty minutes, others up to eight hours. And in addition to all these content offers, there are podcasts, webinars, a detailed glossary and over 60 case studies.6. SAP

SAP is a provider of software for controlling business processes. Unlike other examples in this article, SAP does not offer free further education - however, the company provides visitors to the website with extremely comprehensive information on the landing pages themselves.Depending on the topic of the page, visitors will find further links to white papers, blog articles, recordings of presentations and other video content, customer reports and other relevant documents. By doing so, SAP gives potential customers exactly the content that is most likely to interest them, and actively supports them in their search for solutions. 7. SearchPilotSearchPilot offers A/B testing for SEO. Their software allows site operators to play out two different versions of a page to users to test which version gets more clicks, converts better and leads to fewer site bounces. What makes SearchPilot's content marketing so special is their case studies

. The format of these case studies is always the same: At the beginning there is a hypothesis

, then the company surveys its social media followers in a

weekly poll (#SPQuiz). The answer options are always the same: Does a measure have a positive effect, a negative effect, or will it have no measurable effects? Subsequently, the process

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