By combining quality content creation and strategic distribution, you can harness the full potential of B2B content marketing to propel your business to new heights.
That’s how I concluded my first post analyzing the Content Marketing Institute’s annual study (the 2024 study). I was talking about creation and distribution. Obviously, when it comes to planning a winning content strategy, you have to stack the odds in your favor and not put all your eggs in one basket. This means creating quality content and, above all, distributing it well. And not like: “I use social networks as a priority for my online content distribution strategy”
A bad decision, especially if you create your content on platforms such as LinkedIn, Facebook or Instagram. As I wrote in this previous post, your content must be created in an environment that’s your own, preferably on a blog that constitutes your content management system or CMS.
This can be done organically via social networks, a blog or a newsletter emailed to a mailing list. But as mentioned earlier, why not use all the tools at your disposal for distribution? That means doing paid or unpaid promotion and using other, more conventional channels.
Content distribution channels
See the three charts above? According to CMI, the channels most used by companies to distribute their content in 2023 were:
- Social networking platforms (organic = 90%)
- Blogs (79%)
- E-mail newsletters (73%)
- Electronic mail (66%),
- In-person events (56%) and webinars (56%).
- Digital events (44%)
- Podcasts (30%)
- Microsites (29%)
The graph on the right shows the most popular paid advertising channels in 2023.
SEM/pay-per-click” produces good results, according to 62% of those surveyed. Half of those using paid channels say that social media and network advertising and promoted posts deliver good results, followed by influencer partnerships (49%), partner emails (36%) and digital display advertising (34%).
And it will come as no surprise to anyone that the most widely used social network was LinkedIn. When asked, B2B marketers chose LinkedIn by far (84%). It’s THE most widely used and best-performing socio-professional network. Only 29% cite Facebook, 22% YouTube and 21% Instagram. Twitter and TikTok get 8% and 3% respectively. So it makes sense that 72% say they have increased their use of LinkedIn over the past 12 months.
Which platforms are marketers abandoning? You say X? You’re right: 32% of marketers say they’ve reduced their use of X in the last year. I wonder how it is that this network still attracts businesses and professionals. Because politicians and journalists are still there? Possible.
The content and the funnel…
The digital marketing funnel you see above explains where and to whom B2B marketing content goes. It’s interesting to note that many of the channels mentioned earlier, including blogs, are aimed at visitors to a website, followers on social networks, and readers of blog content, in the first two stages of awareness and consideration, and at the end of the journey, in the loyalty and advocacy phase, where influencers and customers nest.
In conclusion, don’t forget…
Produce high-quality, relevant content that addresses the needs and interests of your potential customers. This can include blog posts, case studies, white papers, explainer videos, infographics, etc. Make sure your content adds real value and solves your potential customers’ problems.
Next, make sure you maintain a regular publication cadence to keep your audience engaged. Schedule your publications according to the times when your audience is most active on each channel.
And finally, use different promotional tactics to amplify the reach of your content. This could include promotion on social networks, search engine optimization (SEO), collaboration with influencers. But also sharing on relevant forums or newsgroups, etc.
Once again, if you combine quality content creation with strategic distribution, you can fully exploit the potential of B2B content marketing to propel your business to new heights. Talk to our experts.
