How to build an effective B2B content strategy (the complete guide for 2024)

Hey there 👋 Tanguy here from Customer Impact.

I publish daily on LinkedIn and weekly on this blog!

And today I’m sharing a valuable guide on how to do content marketing in 2024. 👇

So let’s go!

At every stage of business, content enables you to:

• Provide information about the problem you solve
• Create awareness for your brand
• Position yourself as an authority in the industry
• Create demand for your solution
• Guide buyers through the buying journey
• Close deals by overcoming objections

In other words, content is powerful.

The question now is: how do you create content that does this?

First, what you definitely should not do:

• Study competitors and creators and then “imitate” them
• Brainstorm content ideas internally
• Hire an intern to “post on social media”
• Ask ChatGPT to create content for you

Sounds logical, right?

And yet, tons of companies use these 4 techniques.

But know that if you do this, here’s what you get:

• Low impressions and engagement
• Poor awareness and authority
• Poor long-term business

In the worst case, you burn your brand because:

• Using AI-generated content → reduces authority
• Spamming content → reduces likability and rarity
• Using strange jargon → reduces clarity
• Always selling → reduces reciprocity

Now that you know what you definitely should not do, I can finally answer the question!

Do the math yourself: work out whether your content pays off with our free content ROI calculator.

How do you create a B2B content strategy?

For this, you’ll learn 4 key steps:

• The importance of “know your customer”
• 3 sources of insights to generate content ideas
• The 4 ingredients to create excellent content
• Content distribution across 5 levels of engagement

Ready?

Research your ideal customer: why and how do they buy?

Your content is here to support marketing and sales efforts.

These two departments work together to generate revenue. They create demand, capture demand and convert it into revenue.

The reality is that every buyer goes through a unique buying journey. You can analyze the customer journey and map it out.

You can list the actions of each stage.

‍But you cannot control the buying journey.

That’s because the B2B customer journey is not linear.

Remember this Gartner illustration?

So the only thing you can do is:

• Understand why and how they buy
• Multiply your brand touchpoints
• Always use top-quality content

Because every touchpoint is a chance to win or lose a deal.

Make sure your brand is present at every stage of the journey:

• Wanting to know more about a problem → Educational video
• Wanting to know more about a solution → Case study
• Wanting to know more about risks → Comprehensive guide
• Wanting to know more about the price → Pricing grid
• Wanting to know more about features → Feature overview
• Wanting to know more about the next steps → Action plan

Companies that have the best content often win more deals.

Even if they are more expensive.

This is because they cover every touchpoint and answer exactly what prospects want to know.

Good examples of B2B content are companies like Hubspot or Aikido.dev.

They help companies make important decisions.

So they know they need to scale up customer support with content.

They have answers for everything in their content.

Study these two companies carefully.

To go further with B2B audience research, you’d best save this cheatsheet.

Once you know exactly:

• Who your audience is
• Why they buy
• How they buy

You can start “digging” for content insights!

3 sources of insights to generate content ideas

First, here is the worst advice I recently saw on social media:

• “Use AI and hook templates to hack the algorithm”
• “Find content creators and imitate their work”
• “Turn YouTube videos into text and create it”

Why it’s wrong to imitate your competitors

If you want to generate revenue with a strong brand, you need strong positioning.

Being different (not better) will increase your chances of winning deals.

And if you want to build strong positioning, you need to form a unique point of view.

If you sound like everyone else, how can you build unique positioning? If you copy everyone, how can you form a unique point of view?

Where do you find valuable insights?

Finding valuable insights is the first milestone of your content.

These insights form the basis for your content strategy and help you create content that is relevant to your audience and that helps you reach your goals.

Here are three sources of insights you can use to generate content ideas:

• Experimentation: run your business activities, analyze the results and share the findings based on rigorous analysis.
• Conversations: talk to people who matter to your business (customers, partners, industry peers, influencers) and report the findings.
• Desk research: analyze publicly available online and offline information to mine interesting facts.

The 4 ingredients to create excellent content

To turn insights into content, you need four ingredients:

1. Strategy: define your content objectives by answering questions.
2. Analyze insights: choose data and interpret it.
3. Copywriting: write clearly about the information.
4. Formatting: make the information digestible and appealing.

Strategy

Before you write your content, you need to know exactly what it will be used for. Otherwise you might write blindly and without a specific goal.

To guide you through this process, here is a list of seven strategic questions to answer:

• Who is the audience?
• What is the main message?
• What action should the reader take?
• Where will this content be distributed?
• Where in the buying funnel is it used?
• Which format am I going to use?
• How will I measure the success of the content?

This list of questions helps you cover the mandatory checklist.

Junior content creators may want to print this checklist and follow it every time.

Senior creators can follow it instinctively thanks to experience.

Analyze insights

Once you know the goal of this piece of content, you need to turn insights into content. Go back to your list of insights (or mine new ones) and select the right match.

You have several angles for interpreting and explaining data:

• Storytelling: share a story that illustrates the insight
• Rigorous analysis: explain the insight carefully
• Education: give a clear explanation of the how
• Inspiration: explain the why behind an insight or a fact
• Opinion: share the fact and then explain what you think of it
• Entertainment: spice up your content strategy with humorous shares

For example:

The insight: “I got a 70% conversion rate on a landing page thanks to targeting warm audiences”

An insight can be explained in many different ways. You can, for example:

• Share a story about how you discovered the insight.
• Provide a guide on how to apply the insight.
• Publish an opinion on the importance of the insight.

Tips for snack content

For snack content, such as a LinkedIn post or TikTok video, it’s important to cover only one insight. If you cover too many insights, the reader or viewer can quickly get bored.

Tips for longer forms

For longer forms, such as a guide or newsletter, you can choose one main topic and add several insights to it.

Copywriting

I don’t have enough room to write a complete copywriting guide, but I’ll share a selection of 15 rules to make your copy stand out.

Copywriting is the art of writing text that prompts people to take action. To make your copy stand out, you can follow these tips:

• Use strong action words, such as “buy now”, “sign up” or “get in touch”.
• Write in a clear and concise style.
• Use humor or emotion to grab your audience’s attention.

Formatting

Formatting is the way you present your content.

It’s important to use the right format to convey your ideas.

Here are a few tips for formatting your content:

• Use different content formats across the consumer buying journey.
• Adjust the length and complexity of the format to the stage of the buying journey.
• Start with a masterpiece and then turn it into smaller bites.
• Keep a consistent visual identity across all content.
• Invest in good design and video editing.
• Use visualization or video explanations if the information is complex.

With a combination of strategy, analysis, copywriting and formatting, you build unique pieces of content to dominate your industry.

Fancy using content marketing within a thought leadership model?

Then you should definitely download the following cheatsheet.

Content distribution across 5 levels of engagement

Your audience can’t consume all your content at once. They start with content that requires little engagement (60-second videos, LinkedIn posts, short blog posts) and move on to longer versions as their interest grows.

→ If you understand this principle, you understand the framework.

On average, a B2B sales cycle lasts 4-5 months, and for some products/services this can run up to 12 months.

As explained in the introduction, content must roll out along this journey to represent your brand.

Analyze the customer buying journey → Map out the required brand touchpoints → Develop at least one piece of content for each touchpoint.

Now let’s look at how to organize the touchpoints:

• Use Snacks 🔵 to attract your audience
• Drive intent with Short 🟢 Long Form 🟡
• Make your Intent-Based 🟠 Content available
• Personalize 🔴 in-depth content for “warm leads”

“Content depth”: the level of detail, complexity and richness present in a piece of content.

“Level of engagement”: the degree of engagement a prospect has with your brand.

1. Using snacks to attract your audience 🔵

Snacks refer to short and easily digestible pieces that quickly grab the audience’s attention. This includes:

• LinkedIn posts
• YouTube shorts
• TikToks
• Tweets
• Instagram reels

For this type of content, use a soft CTA to invite your audience to learn more about your brand.

You can also offer a free resource in exchange for an email or nothing.

Snacks act as the initial touchpoint in the customer journey, spark curiosity and encourage the audience to seek out more information.

2. Driving intent with short content 🟢

As prospects progress in their buyer journey, their level of engagement increases. This includes:

• Newsletters and Substack
• Short blog content
• Short YouTube videos
• Website About Us page

These pieces should offer valuable insights, address pain points and provide solutions in a concise and engaging format.

3. Going further with long-form content 🟡

Long content comes into play as prospects get closer to a decision.

• Comprehensive guides
• Infographics
• Whitepapers
• In-depth articles
• Generic case studies

This content should offer in-depth knowledge and demonstrate expertise. It’s essential to balance the level of detail, complexity and richness to appeal to different segments of your audience.

4. Making your Intent-Based 🟠 content available

Intent-based content refers to material that directly addresses the needs and interests of potential customers. By understanding their pain points and preferences, you can tailor your content strategy accordingly. This includes:

• High-intent blog
• Service comparison
• More technical case studies
• Long videos
• Company presentations
• Pricing pages

This content should turn potential buyers into a revenue pipeline as they get closer to the buying decision.

5. Personalized 🔴 in-depth content for “warm leads”

Once a prospect shows high levels of interest and engagement, they become “warm leads”. And that gets us really excited!

Above all, know that at this stage it’s crucial to tailor content specifically to their needs:

• On-demand case study (for high tickets)
• Custom-made presentation
• A data room with relevant content
• One-on-one consultations
• A custom-made action plan
• Dedicated event / online presentation

This level of customization is essential for high-value deals in the final phase.

Let’s close with 2 mistakes I often see:

• Confusing the messaging strategy and the content strategy. You need to build your messaging first as part of your marketing strategy. This will feed your content strategy.
• Creating micro-strategies for each channel. You need to adapt your formatting and distribution to each channel. But you need to have a cross-channel plan to execute smoothly.

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Customer Impact is a team of marketing experts focused on generating revenue.

We use a sprint methodology to test channels and increase revenue.

For more information, check out our website or get in touch with us.

Further reading

• What does copywriting mean? Meaning, purpose and examples
• How do you write a B2B whitepaper that generates leads?
• What is a content creator? Meaning, tasks and role in B2B
• How do you write a B2B case study that sells? (step by step)