Content Marketing for B2B…Is it Important?

I wrote this post as part of a project I did recently on content marketing. And with this in mind, I want to point out that I am by no means an expert – but instead, very curious and learning. Anyhow, I hope you enjoy this post and do let me know your thoughts in the comments below!

You might think you don’t need to utilise content marketing if you’re Business-to-Business – but the truth is, by not using it, you’re missing out on leads and growth. There are effective and proven strategies out there that will help growth, and by that, I mean increased traffic, leads and sales. Sounds good, right?

Show Businesses That You Care

An important thing to remember is that the people you are trying to sell your products or services to aren’t robots or AI behind a screen – they’re humans. Demonstrating an understanding of what exactly it is that you can offer will not only lead to potential revenue but will also help to build a relationship between your business and customers. 

It may also be worth putting yourself in your potential target buyer’s shoes too. Your marketing strategy should be focused on solving the business challenges faced by your customer – that’s the reason they’re reaching out for a product or service in the first place, right? In this way, content can be used to show that your company cares about the same things as your customers.

Know Your Audience

The more you know about your customers, the more information you have to create content they will engage with. This is where looking at demographics comes in useful, so you can make data-driven decisions that are impactful and ensure you are creating content that your target customer base is much more likely to engage with. 

A great way to find out information and establish your audience is through creating a buyer persona, which is essentially a character profile. You can establish one of these through different market research techniques such as conducting interviews, surveys, and polls on social media. Looking at your site analytics will also allow you to gain insightful information such as keywords used to find you, where your visitors came from, and how long they spent on your site and on each page. 

By taking the time to do your research and create a key buyer persona for your company, you’ll be able to create winning content that reflects what your buyers are looking for and make you stand out amongst competitors. 

Your Content Has Unlimited Potential

A big draw to utilising content marketing is that it’s very cost-effective and affordable. Although it may appear at first to be more expensive than more traditional marketing methods such as paid Ads, in the long run, the price of content marketing well and truly pays off. 

And this has a lot to do with reusing and recycling your content. Content has unlimited potential once created. This means that a blog post could be turned into several social media posts, or a video for YouTube could be optimised for LinkedIn and your website. The more content is repurposed, the cheaper it costs long-term. But it is important to remember not to neglect creativity if you plan to reuse your content.

The Power of SEO

Another benefit of using content marketing is that it allows your business to build organic traffic from search engines. This is also why keeping a blog full of informative content comes in useful. Creating lots of useful blog articles that are informative and effective, and which can be found by keywords, gives search engines such as Google more to index. This means your articles will then appear in search results when potential customers search for keywords that are relevant to your product or service. Your article can be found repeatedly over time on search engines too, demonstrating another reason why content marketing is cost-effective in the long run. 

When buyers are doing online research, and they come across your website or blog multiple times, they will also be more inclined to stay on your website and find out more instead of looking at your competitors.

Choosing the Right Platform For You

The number of digital media channels is ever-increasing, meaning the number of potential avenues that can be utilised to connect with buyers is also increasing. Choosing which digital platforms to use is something that you should consider when trying to connect with potential buyers. It’s also something that you will likely need to diversify at times as trends and platforms evolve. 

The fact that there are a multitude of different platforms is something you can use to your advantage. The more potential buyers are exposed to your content and your brand name, the more they’re being surrounded by the idea of your business, and the more they are likely to trust and connect with your brand. 

The Bottom Line…

From the reading I’ve done as well as my own opinion, it seems content marketing works for B2B. It’s reliable, cost-effective and vitally important in growing your business reach, leading to increased traffic, leads and sales. Content marketing is key for B2B survival and is an effective strategy to attract other businesses to your business, converting them into long-term customers.

B2B = Business-to-Business – this is basically a transaction between two businesses, for example, this might include a wholesaler and a retailer or a manufacturer and a retailer.

Mental Health Awareness in the Digital Age

Something I would like to emphasize is that social media can be used for good. Despite it being a vice for many to spread hate, propaganda and quite rightly utter bull, a plethora of goodness is also out there.

Matt Haig; successful author of books including Reasons to Stay Alive, How to Stop Time, and several children’s books is someone who openly discusses his experience with depression and the wider scope of mental health on social media.

Here are some recent examples of his tweets that I  would like to share;

On developing a stronger understanding: “Mental health is not a niche subject for a few depressed people. Mental health is everyone. Mental health is what we all have. It is our minds. And understanding what impacts our mental health would lead to happier lives and societies. There is nothing more important.”– 24/05/18

On taking care of your mental health in the digital age:

“Got called ‘fragile’ for deleting a tweet. Yeah, I am. Men can be. People can be. It’s okay to use social media the way you need to use it. Delete tweets, press mute, unfollow, edit, block, step away, leave, whatever you have to do for your mental health.” – 27/05/18

On the severity of stress:

“A third of people have felt suicidal in the last year due to stress. It’s time we took stress as seriously as diet and exercise.” -14/05/18

To read more on this go to https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/may/14/three-in-four-britons-felt-overwhelmed-by-stress-survey-reveals?CMP=share_btn_tw 

On mental health as a valid excuse: “The common idea people ‘use’ their mental health as an excuse for things is a bad one. There are far more times you see someone acting ‘normal’ and silently struggling to do so than you hear the inner context for a behaviour. Listen without prejudice, as George Michael said.” – 28/05/18

On it getting better: “Last time I was in the Balearics I nearly threw myself off a cliff. This time I go running along them. This time is better.”  – 28/05/18

On living with anxiety: “Anxiety isn’t weakness. Living with anxiety, turning up and doing stuff with anxiety, takes a strength most will never know. A trip to the supermarket can mean you defeat more monsters than in The Odyssey. It’s not WHAT you do. It’s what you OVERCOME to do it.” – 26/05/18

It is people like Matt Haig that I think we should be thankful for in what can at times feel like a neverending cacophony of pings, updates and notifications. It can be easy to lose focus and direction amongst the sheer amount of digital traffic. How do we ensure we only see content that we can identify with, seek enjoyment out of and find comfort in? And furthermore, content that can help contribute to a better-informed society about issues such as mental health? We need to be mindful of what we allow ourselves to see on social media. Which I digress, unwanted posts at times are often unavoidable, but when action can be taken to filter out toxicity and filter in positivity; action should be taken.

For more from Matt Haig, check out the following links;

‘ Happy’ – Fearne Cotton’s podcast episode featuring Matt Haig (available on Spotify)

Follow Matt Haig on Twitter

‘Books Save Lives with Matt Haig’ – Waterstones Article

‘Notes on a Nervous Planet’ – Haig’s new book on mental health in the digital age (available for pre-order)

I also can’t recommend enough his books; Reasons to Stay Alive and How to Stop Time

Thank you for reading!

Is Technology Changing The Way We Think?

Our relationships with technology in the information age is something extraordinary. It is something which would have been incomprehensible in the minds of human beings 50 years ago. We are essentially walking around with supercomputers in our pockets. But these tiny devices that can give us information from all over the world are so much more than coding and hardware. As astonishing and advanced as I’m sure the physical making of smartphones are, it is much more the content that is flowing through our devices that is interesting to think about. They are an outlet through which we perceive anything and everything, from our best friends birthday party we unfortunately couldn’t attend via pictures on social media, to the biography of some wise old prodigy from the 16th century, or how to bake the perfect cheesecake, to name a few examples. We can get the information to anything at the click of a button and time and space limitations are superseded by the immediacy of it all.  With all this, it can be questioned as to whether our increased access to information in the digital age is making us as a population smarter, or lazier? Think about it, we are having to use less energy and effort to go about finding things. Public libraries were often the only way to find resources and you’d have to travel at least some distance to get that information. It’s actually quite hard to imagine as someone who’s practically grown up with the internet. Moreover, has our ability to comprehend and navigate through information become more efficient? Flicking through social media feeds and search engines is something we do every day. Wading through reams of content which is either done with intent or often mindlessly. But the significant thing is that we’re at both the receiving and the giving end of an abundance of information all the time. With this in mind, are we overwhelming our brains with content? Or as a consequence, are our brains adapting to suit the demand of living in a ubiquitous technological environment?

Is it my phone and me, or me and my phone?

 

We swim around in this fish bowl like we’re in control and we’re not. The simple fact that we think we’re autonomous is just a further example of how we’re all under a false consciousness. These items, these commodities that we hold so much value in have welded far too much power. You’d think the things we own wouldn’t be able to hold such an immense amount of control over us, that it should be us who obtain the control not the other way around. But sadly, this isn’t necessarily the case. For centuries, chosen or not, select groups have ruled over the rest of the given population, it’s a tale told repeatedly throughout history. We’re used to power structures in some way or another. But now technology has added another dimension to this structure. These are man-made objects, created by individuals much like you reading this. They started with us, and now the evolution of technology has become so advanced, we’ve lost control, we can no longer understand the ever growing, polysemic nature of these devices, the constant overflow of information is overbearing. And it is unfathomable how much more advanced it will become in the future.

Smartphones have become so intertwined into our daily lives, it seems some of us would rather lose an arm than lose our phone. We’ve also equated saying our phone has ran out of battery to our phones “dying”. We’ve essentially anthropomorphised them as a device, attributing human like qualities to them. It can be questioned as to whether this simultaneously induces an empathetic connection with our devices. Do some of us value them as highly as we do human beings? Whether this is true or not, perhaps the attributing of human like qualities to our phones exemplifies the level of prominence we’ve allowed these devices to have in our lives.

Have we established a connection with these devices as deep as real-life relationships we have with other people? Think about it though, with the colossal amount of time we give to them, it can be as much as the time we spend with the people we love the most. More than often it’s the first thing we check when we wake up and often the last thing we look at before we fall asleep. We look at them when someone’s talking to us, (and I high five the people in this world who don’t do that and go out of their way to ensure they are giving the other person their full attention). It can be like talking to a brick wall, or someone who’s there in physical form but not in spirit. If we’re not careful face to face genuine conversation will become obsolete. There’s going to come a day when no one talks to each other, and oral methods of communication which have been utilized since the dawn of man will no longer be the primary human communication, but the second or perhaps even the third. Because why use verbal communication when we could just interact solely through our phones? So many aspects of our lives have been incorporated into these devices for supposable ease, so why stop there and not just incorporate our whole lives into them? The physical world will just become meaningless and anytime spent not looking at screens but at the world around us will become burdening to our overpowering need to do everything through our smartphones. This isn’t some science fiction novel we’re talking about, but if we’re not careful, the foreseeable future. I know, sounds scary, doesn’t it?

Advancing on the potential death of verbal communication. I want to touch on the strain of interaction that I think the instantaneous nature of smartphones has created. The instant nature of messaging is tiring. Constant communication is draining. The cacophony of notifications can be overwhelming. I personally don’t want to be constantly on my phone, expected to be readily available to answer a message within a matter of minutes. There’s also not necessarily a need to apologise for replying ‘late’ to a message, why are we saying sorry for doing something else with our time, besides being on our phones? It’s more than likely not going to be urgent, so just reply in your own time. You don’t need to feel obligated to answer every voice coming from your device immediately, slow down a little, do things in your own time.

Yes, the way technology has developed has allowed messaging to be instantaneous and highly accessible, but I think as a repercussion we are taking advantage of these mediums and in turn feel like we have to overly communicate. Whatever happened to genuine face to face conversation? If we are constantly messaging each other everything we know, with every update and minor detail, what is going to be left for when we see each other face to face? There’s going to be nothing left to talk about, it’s just going to be this repeated pattern of white noise that we’ve already heard, (or should I say read on a screen). I think we now more than ever before live in a society where we feel like because the opportunity is there to keep in constant contact with each other, we’re too anxious to pass it up. We put unnecessary strain on ourselves to seek constant gratification, which can be fulfilled instantly through receiving likes on a selfie or whatever other monotonous content we create and upload.

So, how are we going to work our way around this? Smartphones aren’t just going to disappear overnight. And I’m not saying we should stop using them, I use mine myself on a regular basis as a way of communication and a quickly accessible source of information. But the main point I’m trying to emphasise is that more effort should be placed on reaching a compromise regarding the amount of time and influence we allow smartphones to have on our lives. Smartphones shouldn’t be the driving force of our lives, they should be acknowledged for what they are, but kept secondary to the things that really matter.

Tips for what I like to do when my phone becomes overwhelming (or I just simply need some time to think)

Take the time to breathe and engage in the environment around you. Try some meditation, sort through some of your old clothes, go for a walk in your local surroundings. Try and go a day without using your phone. Challenge yourself to see how long you can go without using it, experience the world solely through your own eyes, with no screens and no unnecessary interruptions. Check out http://thequietplaceproject.com/thequietplace for some guided mindfulness. Listen to some music that makes you feel calm (I listen to folk music for this reason). Or perhaps read a book and submerse yourself in another universe. I promise that these tips can really help to lighten the often-unspoken weight that technology can have on our minds and even gain you some valuable perspective.

*Here are two quotes from Matt Haig’s masterpiece ‘Reasons To Stay Alive’ (a personal favourite of mine, which I highly recommend ) to end on;

“Do not go on social media aimlessly. Always be aware of what you are doing… unchecked distractions will lead you to distraction.”

“Happiness isn’t about abandoning the world of stuff, but in appreciating it for what it is. We cannot save ourselves from suffering by buying an iPhone. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t buy one, it just means we should know such things are not ends in themselves.”

 

Thank you for reading! I am more than happy to chat to you in the comment section below. What are your thoughts on the topic of phones and social media?