The BIG PROJECT To Get Your B2B Content Marketing Strategy Going In A BIG Way

November 4th, 2013 by Search Influence Alumni

Don’t worry. Unless you’re selling whaling vessels, you don’t need to write like Melville.

Are you an expert in your field? Do you want potential customers to know that? Give them proof by literally writing the book. Now, don’t go anywhere just yet. Yes, I did just say that you should write a book, but we’re not talking about the next Great American Novel or even the next Mildly Interesting American Novel. We’re talking about writing an ebook.

Here’s what you need to do: write 20-50 pages. Actually, write however much you can. Only got 15 pages in you? Fine. Want to crank out 100? Go for it. As long as it’s high quality, relevant information with supported claims and research aimed at providing readers with solutions, you’re good. One of the easiest ways to do this is to start with your FAQs and expand from there because: 1) You know all these answers. 2) You know that your customers are asking these questions.

Alternatively, you could start by publishing a series of blog posts that you then put together in a collection with an introduction to pull it all together. Boom! You’ve got an ebook. Have you written articles for industry insiders? Bam! Ebook!

Here’s why you need to do this: people like to get information before they spend money. It’s that simple.

1) Give the People What They Want to Establish Your Company as a Leader

Decision makers want all the information they can get from the best, most credible source it can come from. Make that source is you. Before you can start selling your products or services, you need to sell your brand and your business as a leader in the industry—and not just as a leader in terms of size or profit. You need your potential customers to view you as a thought leader in your industry, an authority, an innovator. You’ll look like you know what you’re doing, and that builds confidence in your customers.

2) Get Many Miles Out of the Info

One of the greatest benefits of writing an ebook is that once it’s done, you’ve got all the research and content that you’ll need to power your content marketing for months. You’ll publish your ebook, release a mobile version, get a few blogs out of it, stick it on SlideShare, put it on YouTube, publish a press release about it, post about it on all the social media sites, promote those posts, turn it into an infographic (bonus points for a series of infographics), do some guest blogging on the topic, and on and on forever and ever… or at least until your audience has already consumed it in those various forms. Except isn’t your audience always growing and changing (if you are doing it right)? Update everything in a year or two and do it all again. Repurpose that content so that your audience is getting relevant information in just about any form they want it and you are getting backlinks, social signals, and other valuable SEO stuff.

3) Get There Before Your Competitors

The Content Marketing Institute and MarketingProfs found that 16% of B2B marketers used ebooks as part of their content marketing strategies in 2012, up from 9% in 2011. Utilizing this tactic while it is still relatively rare will make you stand out among your competitors and establish yourself as an authority in the field (see number 1 above).