B2B Content Strategy for Enhanced User Engagement

Enhanced user engagement is the real telltale sign that your marketing framework is becoming a success. That’s why it’s so important you’re on the ball when it comes to creating and implementing your well thought-out B2B content strategy. 

Attracting and retaining visitors to your business goes way beyond just blog posts and a social media message. It’s about how you share who you are as a business and what makes you unique. A B2B marketing strategy attracts new customers, but also assures existing customers that they made the correct choice going with you. It’s crucial to share what you stand for, why your business exists, and what you’re building. 

Understanding your target audience

Having a grasp of your customers’ characteristics and behaviours will give you the knowledge to help drive forward your user engagement. Creating content that engages your audience is the end goal, but establishing what they need is the first step. But you can’t do this without understanding who they are first. 

Setting up an ideal customer profile for your business is a good starting point. This includes establishing audience details like age, location, job title, challenges, and it can also include data such as company size, employee count or annual turnover. Identifying their challenges and interests will guide you through your content strategy and ensure you’re staying relevant to the people that really need your business. Having an idea of who your business is aimed at enables you to improve digital content across many platforms and will let you see the real results. 

Our blog on Identifying your B2B profile will help you put in place the right steps to knowing your audience inside out so your engagement can thrive. 

Different types of content

Content marketing can all be about finding the right balance for your customer. You want to have data-driven content, but you also want your content to remain engaging and long lasting. A thorough B2B strategy will often include several different content types that are aimed at your audience. If you want to hit those content engagement goals, you’ll have to incorporate more than just a blog post here and there. 

Infographics give your audience a different flavour of content. They are easier to digest and engage with. Infographics are a good way of portraying key information much more conveniently than written content. Try elevating your blog post or social media posts with an infographic and your audience will grasp ideas easier and become more engaged from the outset. 

Blog posts and articles often play a key role in your brand’s search engine optimisation. Many B2B marketers use blog posts to increase their brand’s visibility in search rankings, but also use them as a tool to cater to their audience. They give valuable information that other brands might not be able to. From how-to posts, product updates, expert interviews, industry trends and more, blogs are a good way to build topical authority and enhance engagement. 

Video content is on the rise. YouTube is now the second largest search engine behind Google. Video content ideas can stem from popular blog posts or customer queries. Ask yourself, have you got a blog post that stands out from the rest for engagement? Why not take advantage of that and make a video out of it? Repurposing content is a good thing, but make sure to choose content that your audience is interested in and offers them an informed experience. Videos can also be used in blogs, social media and elsewhere in digital marketing tactics. 

Remember, offer quality experiences to your audience. High-quality, well-researched, and relevant content will resonate with them a lot better, not to mention rank higher in Google.

SEO (Search engine optimisation) and Content

Who wouldn’t want to show up within the top organic search results in Google? It’s where most users will get visible links to your business. But you need to have a good SEO strategy if you want to get there. It’s also worth noting, once you’re there you still need to produce content which is rich in quality and engage readers for it to stay at the top of rankings in the long run. 

When you’re implementing different content types into your digital marketing, you must follow SEO best practices to improve your user engagement and drive more traffic to your website. Best practices include SEO-friendly content which incorporates keywords, meta descriptions and SEO-friendly content, all of which play a role in attracting organic traffic. 

Keywords are added to content to improve search rankings, these are often chosen from a combination of search volume, competition and commercial intent. In doing so, keywords can improve your website or content in search engines and attract more engagement. 

Meta descriptions should be taken into account alongside the title of your page. Ask yourself, does it include target keywords? Ideally, keywords should be sprinkled into meta descriptions, URLs, titles, etc. Also, is your meta description hitting the required length? It should inform and interest users with a short, relevant description of the page.

User-friendly readability and consistency

Overall user experience is crucial in not only attracting new engagement, but retaining users and keeping them as customers as markets and products evolve. 

Today’s version of Google is very intuitive and smart, just like your human audience. This means a few keywords here and there aren't going to propel you to the top of search engine rankings, you need to take into account and action a few more things. 

Your site needs to treat visitors with a truly enjoyable, informative experience. High-quality, helpful, readable content that goes beyond keywords and resonates with your audience will be in favour of Google. 

Make your pages clear, include headers and sub headers within your content and regularly update your website. Frequent posting is another way to connect with your audience – creating good content, but do it more than once. You should also consider making a posting schedule to keep you on track and your audience will keep coming back for more.

Engagement-boosting Techniques

There are many ways in which you can boost your user engagement and that doesn’t just have to be from changing up the type of content you use or adding SEO into your B2B marketing plan. There are other ways you can look at these elements. 

Keep your users engaged by actually engaging with them through interactive content. Encourage user participation, this could be through a social media post saying “let us know” or opening up a question inviting your audience into your world. This is a good way to gauge audience insights and also encourages them to be included.

Content personalisation is a strategy in which webpages, emails and other forms of content are personalised to the characteristics, behaviours, and preferences of individuals. These insights enable you to provide individualised and memorable experiences, leading to higher engagement. 

Storytelling plays a crucial role in customer loyalty. When audiences feel an emotional connection to a brand, they are likely to make repeat purchases. Creating a unique story for your brand can help you build on your engagement and increase your audience retention. 

Measuring Success

Once you’re familiar with your audience and have set out your B2B strategy, keeping a tab on how you’re managing your success is integral to building your business. Setting clear goals for your content will give you a good indication to be able to measure your success:

• Page views help you determine what your audience is interested in, how well your website pages are optimised and what your audience trends are. 
  
  
• Time on page can help you track onsite metrics and give you an insight into whether the content you’re providing is relevant to your audience. It also gives you an idea of which pages may need improving to cater more to your audience needs. 
  
  
• Comments/likes tell you if your content is hitting the mark and can improve your visibility on social media. Comments provide you with an audience perspective and participation which can ultimately influence your next content moves.
  
  
• SEO performance allows you to track the performance of your SEO efforts, from keywords to meta descriptions. This helps you see what is working well and what may need improving. For example, there could be certain pages on your site that aren’t receiving the engagement you hoped for, this could be down to poor SEO.

Key takeaways

A well planned content strategy is the driving force behind improving your user engagement. By implementing a strategy that is rich with high-quality relevant content to your audience, you can gain the competitive edge, and not only attract new customers, but retain the ones you already have. 

What you can expect with a B2B content strategy: 

• Earn organic search rankings. 
• Earn backlinks from reputable websites that drive traffic and send positive signals to search engines.
• Increase social media shares building on brand awareness.
• Build trust with your customers and prospects.
• Educate the market about your offering.
• Establish your brand in the industry.

Visit our website to learn more about how Code Milk can support you with your brand strategy.