Now more than ever, online content is the key to attracting and engaging qualified prospects online. According to a study done in August of 2011 B2B marketers, 60% plan to increase content spend in 2012 (compared to 51% in 2011) and 62% plan to outsource content creation (it was 55% in 2011).
But, the biggest challenge B2B Marketers have with content is figuring out what kind engages prospects.
There are new forms of content emerging constantly, and many B2B marketers are new to online content creation. Here are some ideas for how to identify what content you should create.
- Use a website analytics to track downloads and visits. This give you clues as to what media visitors to your site prefer and what topics are most popular.
- Leverage the most popular page topics on your site. If an article you wrote gets tons of visitors, build on that – create a video or a more in-depth eBook on the same or similar topic.
- Re-purpose great content into multiple media formats and track the results. Sometimes you just have to resort to trial and error. Put a bunch of content formats on your site about the same topic and see which is most popular. Learn from the results and build on your successes.
- Better yet, survey or interview your customers. What media do they like the most? Do they want a smart phone app from you because they’re so mobile? Video, because it’s engaging? Audio, because they’re so busy they want to listen while they drive or exercise?
- Research your customers. Find published studies that detail the demographics and psychographics of your customers – online publications will track this information for advertisers. Combined with some interviews this information will help you develop marketing personas about them (see my previous post on marketing personas – Why B2B Marketing Personas Rule) that include their content media preference.
- Ask your sales and customer service people to track common questions and issues. Then, answer the questions or address the issues in your online content.
- Watch and listen on social media. What are your prospects and customers engaging in with others? How can it be applied to what you offer?
These are just some ways to answer the question, “What Kind of Content Should We Create?” How do you answer this?
