Avoid these common B2B content marketing mistakes

January 25, 2021

3 minutes read

To generate leads and those all-important sales, an effective B2B content marketing strategy requires more than content production. Yes, creating blogs, whitepapers, emails and more is great but if you are falling short of your lead targets, chances are you are committing common B2B content marketing mistakes. Today we’ll talk you through how you can avoid these common B2B content marketing mistakes and get you serving content that is not just any content but the right content.

Why content marketing matters in B2B

First, let’s quickly recap why all this matters. Here are just a few reasons why investing in content marketing is so important:

Content marketing costs 62% less than traditional marketing and generates about 3 times as many leads. [DemandMetric]
82% of marketers who blog see positive ROI from their inbound marketing.
Content marketing is used for lead generation by 83% of B2B marketers. [Content Marketing Institute]
70% of B2B marketers claim that videos are more effective than other content when it comes to converting users to qualified leads. [Vidyard]

To summarise, content marketing is a powerful tool that drives real results and real revenue. Crucial to lead generation, lead nurture and sales enablement, content is key to accelerating the pipeline all the way to sales won.

B2B content marketing mistakes to avoid

But with great power, also comes great responsibility. Marketers should be aware of these five common content marketing mistakes:

1) No research

Creating content with no audience in mind is a big no-no. In fact, it’s a recipe for disaster – the messaging will not resonate with your visitors leading to high bounces at best and confused prospects at worst.

Follow our tips to get your content strategy right.

2) Ignoring important channels

Website blog, email, direct mail, video, social media – content marketing channels offer real variety in which to target, retarget and nurture your leads across. Don’t narrow your focus by neglecting a key content marketing channel. Just take this one statistic: 59% of B2B marketers say email is their most effective channel in terms of revenue generation [wordstream]. Can you afford to miss those sales?

3) Wrong message, right audience

This is the B2B content marketing cardinal sin: targeting the right audience with the wrong message. In truth, this all falls down to marketing strategy and how well you know your customers, their pain points and motivations.

Need help identifying your buyer personas? Find out how we can help you craft a content marketing strategy that delivers value aligned to your wider business goals and funnel.

4) Not maximising touchpoints or nurturing your leads

Your carefully composed content may drive traffic but if you fail to maximise your touchpoints the charge really is criminal. Add data capture to blog posts; webinar sign up to emails or a promotion across social to really drive engagement. That’s right, the name of the game is not traffic but engagement.

However, a caveat – engagement should not come at the cost of user experience. Mass blasting your email database is never a good look (and will most likely lead to unsubscribes, can you say, bye bye prospects).

Similarly, failing to invest in high quality content (written, graphic or otherwise) to nurture b2b prospects is a short cut to content marketing jail. Those who excel at lead nurturing are said to generate 50% more sales ready leads at a 33% lower cost. Find out how we can help you score, prioritise and nurture the prospects that matter with clever lead management techniques.

5) Unrealistic expectations

Let’s be clear, content marketing takes time and B2B sales cycles are not getting any smaller. Marketers need to execute patience; account based marketing (ABM) is a long haul; martech including intent-based marketing takes effort and search engine optimisation (SEO) is a marathon rather than a sprint. Have the correct metrics, measures and KPIs in place to accurately track progress – just don’t throw the towel in early.

Effective B2B content marketing management

With the average B2B team said to use some 13 content marketing tactics, managing your content effectively and steering clear of the above pitfalls is far from easy. In a time when marketing departments are under pressure to generate more leads, the need for content marketing management is acute.

Think Beyond is an established marketing consultancy that helps businesses to take control of their content strategy and content marketing. Our Chartered Marketers can support persona development, identify USPs, your value proposition and implement an inbound content marketing plan to attract, engage and convert prospects into loyal customers. In short, we offer a complete B2B content marketing solution.