B2B content marketers work to generate unique, helpful assets, but the process comes with challenges. It’s a time-consuming job, and since it’s a long-term marketing strategy, you might not see the results you’re looking for immediately.
New research from InsiderIntelligence shows additional challenges that marketers are working to overcome. To help markets thrive, we’ll explore these challenges and offer solutions.
Top 3 challenges and solutions for B2B marketers
When asked by Insider Intelligence, B2B content marketers said they’re struggling with the following:
- Creating the right content for the audience
- Creating content consistently
- Differentiating the content
Challenge 1: Creating the right content for the audience
If marketers feel as though they’re not creating the right content for their target, it likely means the brand hasn’t successfully defined its audience. You need to know who your audience is, down to small details like their hobbies and home life, and understand the path customers take to make a purchase. All of which require data.
Solutions
If your branded content is missing its mark, consider this three-pronged solution:
- Bolster the collection and analysis of audience data
- Create a detailed customer persona
- Understand the customer journey
Get started by examining the audience data that you have. Ideally, you’ll have access to both audience demographics and behavioral data. You want the ability to define our target audience and identify subcategories of buyers, too. You might consider using a customer relationship management platform, or CRM, to gather and track data and supplement it with website analytics, social metrics, and surveys.
With strong data, you can build a customer persona. Find a customer persona template online to kickstart this project. HubSpot, for example, has a template, but there are many others to choose from. This template allows you to fill in detailed audience information, like a customer’s average age, income, location, gender, buying frequency, and product interests.
Now, review your sales funnel. How do customers convert? Look at your sales data to define their path or journey.
With a data-based customer persona and a clear customer journey, you can brainstorm topics that cater to your audience wherever they are in their buying journey.
Challenge 2: Creating content consistently
Many marketers struggle with creating a steady stream of content. The problem stems from a lack of resources. Marketing teams are being asked to do more with less. Whether you’re dealing with a constricting budget or a shrinking team, investing the time and resources to feed the content machine is tough.
Solutions
If your brand is struggling with content consistency, consider these solutions:
- Lean on AI to ease the workload
- Outsource content creation
AI made a splashy entrance into the marketing scene, but it’s more than a marketing buzzword. While there are valid concerns about AI, it can help B2B marketers. How? Letting AI platforms tackle some of your routine tasks gives you more time to manage and publish content.
Consider using AI to:
- Brainstorm content ideas
- Identify keywords for content
- Craft promotional content, like social media posts
- Produce images for your content
- Automate content
With AI picking up some slack, you’ll have more time to write and publish content regularly.
If you don’t have time to write content, consider outsourcing it. You can work with a freelancer and use project management software like Trello or Monday to manage content, or you can turn to ContentMarketing.com to take over the production of all or some of your content marketing.
Challenge 3: Differentiating content
It’s fairly easy to fall into a content rut. Pretty soon, you feel like you’re writing the same thing repeatedly. To break out of this cycle, you need to differentiate your content. But how? It’s time to embrace new types of content and shake things up a bit.
Solutions
To differentiate your content, try these ideas:
- Produce a different type of content
- Partner with influencers
If your brand leans on blog articles, try videos and vice versa. Consider trying something different, like an interactive quiz or a giveaway. You don’t need to abandon your content marketing strategy. Don’t change things that aren’t broken, but there’s always space for innovation. To differentiate your content, you’ll likely need to try something new.
One of the easiest ways to create unique content is to work with a team of influencers. Find creators in your niche and ask them if they want to collaborate. With influencers promoting your product, you get fresh content that doesn’t strain your internal team. While you’ll need a budget to pay influencers, your long-term relationship with a creator can help you reach a new audience, generate brand awareness, and drive sales.
B2B content marketers do have challenges, but there are viable solutions to explore. While putting a solution into action will take some time, in the long run, you should see improvements in our workflow and content.
