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Does B2B Content Marketing Work? (hint: it does, lets see how)
If you’ve been working at or running a company for a while now, you would likely have found yourself in both of these situations:
“Hi, I’m from SaaS Company A. I’m calling regarding software solutions that we could offer your company.”
“Huh? I’ve never heard of you. How did you get my phone number?”
And
“Hi, I’m from SaaS Company B , I’m calling regarding software solutions that we could offer your company.”
“Oh, you’re the ones that do that special type of SaaS right? I saw what you did for company ABC. My current software renewal is coming up, could you share more about how your solution can help?”
In the first situation, there wasn’t even any brand awareness of ‘Saas Company A,’ but in the second, there was brand awareness and belief in the brand’s solution. The reason for the difference? Effective Marketing.
One of B2B marketing’s key roles is keeping your brand and solution at the top of customer’s minds. B2B content marketing, on the other hand, is important because it’s often one of the primary drivers of demand creation and demand capture strategies where:
- Demand generation is creating awareness around how your company solves a problem for an audience. Demand generation mainly targets those who are not yet in the market for buying your product.
The goal is to make them aware of your brand and to think of your solution as a viable option when the need arises. Think of it as the big sign board that makes the people walking around outside interested in coming to your door. - Demand capture focuses on people who are actively looking to buy a solution to an identified problem. When demand generation is done right, demand capture brings in sales leads that have high awareness of and high intent to buy your service.
Think of this as getting people to walk in through the door after they’ve seen your sign, using a captivating offer at the entrance.
But wait. You may ask “Why do I need B2B content marketing and why does it matter? Don’t I just need lots of sales people?”
While this is true for some companies, and you probably do need sales staff regardless, there are many successful B2B companies that make use of content marketing to great effect, particularly in the tech industry:
And in B2B services:
To drive home how effectively B2B marketing, especially in the form of content marketing, can generate business results, let’s look at 2 examples.
- Hubspot’s CRM software has use cases for those in sales teams, marketing teams and service teams and they create content around all three areas. The content they produce includes articles, videos, downloadables like guides and templates, and even training courses in the form of Hubspot Academy which can be used to train new staff.
Hubspot also hosts a large-scale event for businesses called INBOUND where topics span marketing, sales and business in general.
Hubspot’s 2022 full year revenue reached $1.731 billion.
- One that is closer to Southeast Asia where we operate, Janio Asia has created a name for itself in the e-commerce logistics scene through effective use of content. Within 5 years from founding, Janio has scaled to a series B company with over 8 digits in annual revenue in a space that is dominated by large, traditional incumbents. The content they’ve produced has generated tens of thousands of views annually per article, with some posts reaching over a hundred thousand views.
So How Does Content Marketing Work?
Effective content marketing matches the customer journey impeccably. Let's start by looking at your customers' purchasing journey.
At any given point in time, a customer may be either actively looking for a solution or not looking for a solution. If they are not looking for a solution, they are out of market. If they are, they are in the market.
And if they are looking for a solution, that means they are aware of a problem that they need to solve, perhaps a specific business process, but they may or may not know what solution might fit the bill. In this case, they are problem aware, but not solution aware.
If they have an idea of what type of solution may work (e.g. a digital tool with a certain set of features) they may then start looking at specific brands with solutions that may work for them before eventually speaking to a representative from their shortlisted brands prior to selecting the one that works best. Now they have moved from solution aware to brand aware, meaning they know your brand as one that has a solution to their given problem.
At each of these stages, content marketing plays a key role in moving prospective buyers between stages towards eventually choosing your solution.
Now let's zoom in to how content works at each stage.
1. Unaware to Problem Aware
B2B purchases take time, commitment and are often expensive. There are different triggers that initiate the purchasing process. Making your company the first company buyers consider when they are ready to buy is what B2B content marketing seeks to do.
Demand generation in B2B content marketing is a lot like fishing. With the right bait set, the fish will come to the hook on their own. Demand generation often centres around educational content that helps buyers understand the challenges they are facing, the various ways to look at solving the challenge and how a company’s solution may be the most suitable.
Demand generation content includes:
- Informational blog posts
- Informational webinars
- Informational podcasts
- Educational videos
- Infographics
- Illustrations
- Website and landing pages
- Newsletter Emails
- Free Templates
- eBooks
Let’s use an example of marketing software, adopted by a head of marketing in a SaaS company. The head of marketing is an expert in their field but keeps up-to-date with developments in the fast moving world of marketing and digital marketing such as what are the latest changes to Google’s search algorithms and the latest happenings in their marketing tech stacks.
During their efforts to stay up to date, they’ve come across Hubspot’s content and events around marketing, sales and customer service. They also attend some of the webinars and events hosted by Hubspot about various marketing topics.
They have also heard that some of their marketing management peers sometimes send some of their newer team members to train themselves using Hubspot Academy, Hubspot’s courses for users of varying skill levels. Another thing they’ve done is subscribed to Hubspot’s newsletter to keep an eye out for other webinars or marketing industry updates:
Despite not being aware of their looming CRM software problem yet, they are aware of Hubspot’s expertise in the marketing industry.
The marketing manager has a contract renewal for their customer relationship management (CRM) software taking place in December. Earlier in the year, they won’t need any replacement software and won’t be in the market.
Later that year, they get an update from their CRM provider that there are new features being worked on, and it’s not something that their company needs at the moment.
In September, they receive a notification that their contract renewal is coming up. The new contract with their existing CRM provider automatically includes the new features they don’t need which increases the cost. They now have a choice between continuing with that CRM software and paying more for features they don’t need or trying a new CRM.
They also realise that their company’s existing customer relationship management (CRM) software is not able to adequately track the user’s interactions with the various marketing channels that the company uses. That makes it difficult to know which types of marketing and content are contributing to their marketing efforts and which ones need attention.
The marketing manager is now problem aware and has moved into the market. But by this point, they are already thinking about Hubspot and their CRM offering.
2. Problem Aware
In the problem awareness stage, potential buyers then look online for more details of what problems are plaguing them. This is where educational content like blog posts, infographics, videos, webinars and the like come in. This needs to be content that your target audience is interested in that is relevant to your business.
Back to our marketing manager. They now realise that they have a problem with their existing CRM software. Their CRM software is not able to adequately track the user’s interactions with the various marketing channels that the company uses. That makes it difficult to know which types of marketing and content are contributing to their marketing efforts and which ones need attention, in other words their existing software isn’t helpful when it comes to marketing attribution.
In the case of marketers who use a lot of inbound marketing, Hubspot’s software aims to assist with marketing attribution while also providing other services like their email marketing suite and their hub for paid digital advertising.
Our marketing manager now dives into Google searches about marketing attribution and comes across Hubspot’s articles and content around this topic.
This approach helps to position companies like Hubspot as someone in-tune with their problems and someone they can trust even before the potential buyers have begun looking for a solution.
They also associate the brand with potential solutions when they’re in the market. This is the goal of a demand generation strategy.
The effectiveness of the demand generation content is measured in a few ways:
- Search rankings of chosen informational keywords
- Web traffic of blog posts or videos
- Time on site
- Video engagement (time on video)
- Social shares
- Newsletter and download sign ups
Demand Capture and Sales Enablement
Now that demand has been generated and the marketing manager is shopping for a solution, we move to the demand capture portion of B2B content marketing.
Demand capture focuses on people who are actively looking to buy a solution to an identified problem, like our current marketing manager looking for new CRM software.
Think of this using marketing tactics to encourage people to walk in through the door on their own, using a captivating offer at the entrance.
1. Generating and Nurturing Lists of Warm Leads
Gated content such as downloadable pdfs, infographics, templates or webinars that your target market must sign up for are a great filtration tool.
In this case, those who have signed up for Hubspot’s sales, marketing and service webinars, reports, and templates also have a high likelihood to influence the CRM purchase decision in their companies.
For those who are not ready to buy yet, regular newsletter content to keep them interested in your offer and to keep your brand top of mind via emails comes in.
Periodically, offers can be sent to the email list to gauge the target list’s interest and eventually move them down the buyer’s funnel to the decision stage where we’re one step closer to closing a sale where they’ll be known as marketing qualified leads.
2. Solution Aware
The head designer now wants to look for solutions to their problem, where they’ll move from the problem aware phase to a solution aware phase.
At this point, your content needs to identify with the problem and show the readers that this solution helps to solve all their pain points so that your solution stands out. The key question your content needs to answer here is “What does it do?”
Content that caters to solution aware and product aware buyers includes:
- Product web pages
- Pricing web pages
- Product feature blog posts
- Downloadables (Templates, eBooks, White Papers)
Hubspot makes sure to include tie-ins to what their software and services can do for their target audience in their content. In the same article on marketing attribution, they mention what their software can do in terms of marketing reporting. It also hyperlinks to their marketing reporting service web page.
Another example is their gated content, such as this Hubspot Academy lesson on how to make the most of Hubspot’s marketing attribution reports which the above article also links to:
All this content serves to cement Hubspot’s place in the mind of the marketing manager that they indeed have the features and benefits that can solve their marketing attribution problems and that it’s a CRM software worth shortlisting.
3. Brand Solution Aware
When potential buyers become more aware of your product offers and how it differs from your competitors, they become brand solution aware. This phase is also referred to as product aware. The key question to answer at this stage is “How is your offer better than the other options?”
By this point, the designer is familiar that Hubspot provides all the existing benefits of their original CRM software while also answering the attribution problem. However, they need to know about all the other features, costs and set up time compared to the other shortlisted CRM software they have.
Content around Hubspot’s product features, such as the pricing plans help to plug this gap. This is where their product and pricing web pages, brochures, and other sales- related content come in.
There are also plenty of case studies and testimonials which can help customers see social proof that Hubspot's solution works for other marketing teams:
- Case studies and testimonials
- Competitive analysis
- Brochures
For both solution and brand solution aware stages, demand creation and demand capture progress can be measured in a few ways, not limited to:
- Rankings for selected keywords
- First touch visits for articles and web pages (this is also viewable on Google Analytics 4)
- Webinar signups
- Download signups
- Newsletter signups
4. Closing the Sale
At the final phase, our marketing manager is already convinced that Hubspot is the way to go and wants to purchase a software package that works for them. They sign up for a Hubspot demonstration and get in touch with Hubspot’s sales team.
In a B2B context, the marketing team’s responsibility usually ends once the marketing qualified lead is passed to the sales team, but content is still able to help sales teams close the sale.
Content helps at this stage by tailoring sales collateral to the client’s identified needs and also highlighting the benefits of the particular package to them. Content also helps the sales process by anticipating and answering buyer objections while playing up the positives of the solution.
All this can be captured in sales collateral such as:
- Website pricing page
- Curated demos
- Business cases
- Comparison sheets
- Competitive analysis
- Pitch decks
- Proposals
In our case, our marketing manager’s interest in marketing attribution is tracked in Hubspot’s own CRM software which can then be used to customise the sales collateral towards marketing reporting features.
Content teams thrive when working closely with sales teams. Collaterals that the sales team uses like business cases and curated demos are a chance to speak directly to the customer’s pain points. Comparison sheets and price lists can help you play up your value if you are offering a more expensive option or demonstrate how much cheaper your solution is compared to the competition.
Your sales staff also need to be experts in your industry and speak the same language. Sales teams can also use the articles and downloadables your team has created to build rapport with their cold leads by giving them valuable content based on any pain points the salesman has uncovered.
At this final stage, the value that content marketing brings can be measured by:
- Email engagement
- Contact us form submissions
- Marketing qualified Leads lists
- Feedback from sales regarding marketing qualified leads
Extra Value - Ecosystem Partnerships and Internal Training Material
The content that your team creates can generate value among ecosystem partners and your company's staff.
Content can form the heart of your partnerships with other companies higher or lower in your industry's value chain as well as being shared by your industry's influencers and brand ambassadors.
You can share your content with other ecosystem players. For example, e-commerce shop builders like Shopify or Shopline can share content with delivery tracking software companies like Parcel Monitor to reach online sellers.
These can eventually result in better partnerships such as events, webinars, or seminars using all partners' lead lists or even collaborative content that is good enough to be published by mainstream media, such as Google's SEA reports with Bain and Co.
Your high quality content is also usable by your staff as training and onboarding material.
Educational content around industry terminology, concepts and features can all be used to onboard and your new staff and get them up to speed.
In conclusion:
When content marketing is planned and executed well, content can shape the buyer's journey from beginning to end.
Demand generation is done via educational content, demand capture is done via content that people need to sign up for and offers can be sent to move warm leads into the sales team's crosshairs.
Beyond leads and profit, your staff can be trained using the content your marketing team creates and you can use content to deepen industry partnerships.
All of these things including the content marketing that Hubspot has done to reach where they are today can be done by your company too.
Agencies like Nila Studios are there to help you strategise and produce content that hits all the spots every step of the way.
Reach out to us today for a free consultation: https://www.nilastudios.com/contact-us
Disclaimer: We are not affiliated nor work with Figma in anyway. We’re only using them as an example of how content marketing works.
