Are you making these 4 B2B content marketing mistakes?

​Content marketing is all about selling your value NOT your products or services. It’s about creating and sharing relevant content that supports your ideal customers through their decision-making process.

In B2B businesses, this can sometimes be tricky as you may have quite a long buyer journey. A B2B buyer journey often involves more than one person in the decision-making process and the implications for your buyer if they make the wrong decision could be big. Depending on the purchase, a B2B buyer may be concerned the wrong choice could affect their relationship with their boss, their promotion prospects or even put their job at risk.

If you’re finding your B2B marketing isn’t as effective as it could be, check you aren’t making any of these 4 mistakes…

1. Is your target audience too vague?

​I talk about this a lot but can’t over-stress how valuable it is to have a detailed ideal customer persona in small B2B businesses. A deep understanding of your audience means you can tailor your marketing to attract customers who will get the most value from your product.

The temptation is to try and get your message out to anyone and everyone who could ever buy from you for fear of missing a potential customer. This ‘scatter-gun’ approach works well for big companies like Apple or Google who have a huge budget and market presence. But for small businesses with a limited budget and market share, this approach can be a waste of time and money.

If you don’t currently know who your ideal customer is, check out the mini masterclass in my Facebook group on “End Scattergun Marketing Forever”.

2. Are your customers supported at every stage of their buyer journey?

​Your buyer journey is how your customers go from being completely unaware of you to being loyal raving fans who keep buying from you and tell all their friends. 

In some B2B businesses, it can take customers weeks, months or sometimes even years to make their first purchase. Because of this, you need to be sure that your marketing supports them at all stages of their journey. By mapping out your current path to purchase, you will see where your customers feel most supported and where the gaps in your strategy are. If your marketing fails to support your buyers at a stage in their buyer journey, they may walk away and you’ll lose the sale. 

3. ​Are you holding the good stuff back? 

When your customer is reading your content, they will always be asking themselves ‘how will this benefit me?’

I meet lots of small businesses owners who are afraid to show potential customers the full extent of what they do for fear of copycats or reduced sales. But consider this... If you’re holding back your best content because it’s what makes your business unique, then how will your customers know the true value in buying from you? This is a great video by Gary Vaynerchuk about this question.
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Your audience is asking themselves why they should choose you over your competitors. This means you can’t hold your most valuable information back. By creating content that demonstrates your expertise and shows what you are like to work with, you can generate more sales from the people you want to work with.

4. ​Is your marketing content proposing marriage on the first date? 

Sales and marketing is all about building a relationship with your customer. So put yourself in your customer’s shoes. What value will you bring to their business? What is your area of expertise? Do your company values match theirs? 

Your content marketing aims to build a relationship with your customers to show them your value - NOT your product! 

If you ask them to make a big commitment too early on in the relationship, they will panic and switch off from you. 

Your content marketing should;
✔ Offer content that builds relationships with your customers and encourages lead generation
✔ Show your expertise and credibility through valuable content
✔ Guide customers to a low-risk next stage in the buyer journey. This can be a blog, newsletter or free resource where you can show them the value in buying from you. 

But, be careful not to propose marriage on the first date by asking your customers to commit to something before they know, like and trust you. 

Do any of these apply to your current content marketing strategy? 
If they do, and you’re not sure how to start correcting them, book a free clarity call today so we can get to work on your strategy.